With the slaver ring on his finger, Zalstrahvi walked home with a new family member—the slave Lilia. The sight of a man holding a thin, sickly woman on a leash might be distressing and disturbing if it happened in the modern age, yet no one seemed to care in this cruel world.

  This megapolis was indeed very expansive. His miscalculation on the distance and travel time on foot forced him to spent three hours from the city center to his new home. His irritation grew each passing minutes, scorning his own stupidity not to rent a cart.

  Soon, a familiar two-story house was in view. It was flanked by a lawn, far more expansive than he had seen in the painting, stretching at least a kilometer wide. There was more than ample space to accommodate raising livestock, grow a variety of crops and vegetables, or even plant rows of fruit trees to create a small orchard.

  However, the property was in a worrying state. The house's exterior was in desperate need of maintenance; the wooden panels were weathered and riddled with patches of mold, the ground was covered in debris, and the expansive lawn was overgrown with bushes and wild grasses.

  [Wow, that woman really scammed the heck out of you, Host.]

  “Silence.”

  Zalstrahvi took a good, long look at his new home and let out a sigh.

  …it might take weeks or even months to repair and clear all of this without magic.

  He already felt intimidated just by thinking about it, making him all the more disinterested and apathetic to this world.

  Reluctantly he touched the dirty door handle that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in ages, covered in a layer of dust and grime. As he turned the handle and pushed the door open, it creaked ominously, revealing a surprisingly spacious interior.

  Reddish sunset light streamed through the dirty windows, illuminating the vast expanse within even if furniture were to be added inside. The house contained several rooms on the first floor and the second floor that awaited to be explored and used. Unfortunately, the interior had fallen into a similar condition to the exterior, decrepit and abandoned.

  With a flick of his wrist, the interior was restored to its former glory—clean, beautiful, and inviting. Debris on the ground disappeared, the windows were no longer dirty with grime, and the wooden walls were free from mold and disrepair. Thanks to the cleaning and repair spells, the interior now looked inhabitable.

  In the heart of his archenemy's domain, beneath the shadow of the grand temple of Luthernia, he took careful measures to shield himself from prying eyes. As he casted a permanent illusion area spell on his property, a giant, intricate magic rune of a high level formed on the ground, its surface glowing with an intense, radiant energy. The air around it buzzed with an electric charge as the spell was invoked, illuminating the surroundings with a mesmerizing light that hinted at the formidable power being unleashed.

  As long as he was inside his owned property, no matter what form he took, he would always appear as a harmless, middle-aged man.

  Sensing the magic of an unknown level, Lilia fell on her butt with her mouth agape as if she wanted to scream for help, forgetting the fact that she was unable to do anything with her condition as of now.

  Now returned to his true form, Zalstrahvi exhaled with a euphoric sigh, as if he had just escaped the suffocating confines of a human shell. His elongated, monstrous wingarms unfurled majestically, stretching toward the sky. He reveled in the sensation of lightness coursing through him, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  His red eyes looked behind his shoulder to his newly acquired slave.

  “Come, slave. We need to inspect the upper floor.”

  Lilia flinched at the sudden change of voice, yet nodded demurely and stood. Her keen ears, trained from the day she lost her eyes, observed every sound her master made and she followed suit, trailing behind him like an obedient dog.

  They ascended to the second floor. To the left of the stair was an open space, wide enough for a second sitting area with three ceiling-high windows overlooking the front door and beyond. Although it was not as spacious as the first floor, it was enough to wow first-time visitors. Past the open space was a corridor with three more rooms, each with ample space to move around.

  He walked toward the corridor, examining the rooms one by one before entering the last room at the end of the corridor. It was bigger than the rest of the rooms, seemingly designed to be the master bedroom.

  “…it is indeed empty,” he muttered to himself, staring into the barren interior of his new home. The walls were bare, the floor unadorned, and the lack of furniture made the space feel even more desolate.

  “Buying furniture might take a while.”

  The urge to spend all of his gold coins earned from the system was quite tempting, but would that not break the immersion of living as a commoner? Not to mention attracting suspicion, his neighbors would accuse him of dealing in illegal activities.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  A bluish window appeared beside him.

  [What about furnishing the house with basic furniture and buying the rest once needed?]

  “Good idea,” he replied, ignoring his slave’s bewildered expression behind him.

  “Open system shop.”

  [Right away, Host!] the system responded with enthusiasm.

  A long window with a drop-down menu appeared in front of him with a total of five options. From the first to the last, they read: Equipment, Consumables, Literature, Other, and Exchange.

  “Where is the furniture?” he asked. This was a new experience for him. He always sought out equipment or consumables, but not furniture.

  [It’s in Other section. But, Host, isn’t it better to use the plundered items in your subspace? You have tons of them and most are even enchanted!]

  “…if the furniture in question is suitable for commoners, then yes, I will use it. Unfortunately, it is not.”

  He pressed the button for ‘Other’. The drop-down menu shifted to the side to allow another window to emerge. It displayed an array of thumbnails—mostly random stuff that did not fall into previous groups. His fingers danced across the screen as he swiftly applied a filter to display only furniture options. In a mere second, the hundreds of thumbnails diminished into a single category: bed.

  As he gazed at the filtered results, worry crossed his mind. He did not expect to see a big hurdle awaited him. It turned out that commoners slept on a hard bed consisting of a wooden bedframe with several wide fabrics strewn about, acting like a mattress. The cheapest option available caught his eye after a bit of browsing and pondering: an unadorned burlap sack filled with an unknown material—a questionable substitute for a pillow—paired with a worn wool blanket draped across a basic bedframe.

  He blinked in surprise at the price: only 80 copper coins. It was affordable, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of how cheap it was compared to the luxurious comforts he was accustomed to.

  No, this is... I can't... Not for me. This is perfect for the slave.

  He purchased it and the poor commoner’s bed was placed in his system inventory, not his subspace. He browsed for another bed that was reasonably suitable for him as a commoner and the owner of a house. It took him quite a long time to consider each model—some were too gaudy, some were unsuitable for his status, and some were too lavish.

  Finally, he settled on a simple bed with cotton-filled mattress and similar cotton-filled pillow. The look had to come first and he was ready to fully commit himself to live as a commoner. Just in case he had someone coming over, they would not question or doubt his status.

  Another bed was placed in the inventory.

  He dragged his bed’s thumbnail from the inventory outside. The moment the thumbnail touched the end of the inventory window, a bed similar to the one in the inventory materialized in front of him. He rotated it clockwise and suddenly the entire bed turned red, signaling that it could not be placed due to the bed head went through the adjacent wall. He turned and positioned it against the wall so that the foot of the bed was close to the casement window.

  “…perfect,” he murmured out loud, liking the fact that the bed’s placement meant the sun would not slap him in the face in the morning.

  Hmm, this calls for curtains… but I suppose they can be set aside since they are not urgent.

  Once again, his slave stood quietly behind him, confused and not entirely sure what just happened. Her ears perked when she heard the master went past her. She followed him just like any obedient slave would.

  This time they went back to the first floor, entering a small room at the northwest edge of the building.

  “This is going to be your room, slave.”

  ===

  Probably another storage room for me to sleep in.

  She nodded demurely, expecting nothing. As a slave, she had been living in a state worse than poverty, ever dependent on the mood and grace of her owner to be able to afford some semblance of comfort. Sometimes she slept inside a barn with other livestock, other times she slept inside a dirty storage room.

  The worst of it all was sleeping on a cold, hard floor.

  Of course, blanket was but luxury.

  With her mind occupied with her past, she did not realize a hand reached out to her. Once it touched her face she finally woke up from her daydream. The hand was surprisingly huge, cold, and calloused. From the hard surface of his hand, she could easily conclude that he was indeed a commoner, probably a laborer.

  “!!”

  She let out a gasp when she felt a huge amount of foul curse on her eyes begin moving violently in a certain direction, as if something was actively sucking them. First, a small amount of curse was sucked, then gradually increased until half of it disappeared.

  When he retracted his hand, she finally felt what it was like to be able to see.

  In front of her was a middle-aged man, who was surprisingly unremarkable. He truly embodied what she had envisioned before—dressed very modestly one would expect of commoners. His stocky build suggested years of hard labor, and he stood shorter than her, likely a result of a meager diet and wealth. His black hair was cut short to keep cool during labor and his eyes were warm brown of earth--of soil, of life.

  Tears fell on to her cheeks at the newfound freedom to see. How nostalgic it was to be able to capture the world once again with her eyes. She was afraid of him treating her like a punching bag. She did not stop praying for a better owner.

  To be honest, she was skeptical of him at first, yet she was determined to stay alive by gaining favor. Knowing well of her inability to see and speak, she was thinking of using her body to please him. She had the experience; she knew how to do it. It was not easy considering the experience she had gone through, but she had to do what she had to do. She wanted to live.

  She wanted to live.

  The freedom to see made her so elated that she opened her mouth to say thank you…

  …but there was no sound escaping her lips.

  Staring at her master, she tilted her head in confusion as to why he only lifted half of her curse. A part of her was deeply disappointed, yet the other part of her understood the reason behind his action.

  Her master shook his head, merely saying, “No, you will not be able to speak—for now. Until you can be trusted, you will have to bear being mute for a while. I hope you can understand my decision.”

  Just as she had expected.

  She would have bombarded him with questions if he had fully cured her. How was he—a mere human—able to dispel such a powerful curse that even she could not do?

  However, questions aside, she did expect him to say such a thing. Seeing that this was their first meeting, a certain degree of boundary needed to be made clear and trust needed to be earned before they could progress to a higher level of relationship. For her own survival, she did not mind waiting for several years or even decades.

  As long as it was him, she was certain that he would guarantee her safety and wellbeing.