On his search for an entrance to his new building, Severin was now standing right behind it, away from the camps.

Luckily, this seemed to muffle the sound enough to not wake anyone up, this time. Or, at the very least, no one seemed to react to his ruckus. Sighing a breath of relief, he circled back to the front and checked out his further purchase options. As it turned out the System wasn’t that blackhearted after all. Buildings and rooms came with doors. To offer the host the option to place them at their own discretion, instead of just adding them automatically, Severin was required to choose the location manually. An option he clearly overlooked. Instead, he flew into one of his fits. It seemed every time it came to the System, he lost most parts of his rationality.

Of course, that wasn’t the way he saw it himself when he was cursing under his breath while choosing an appropriate spot for the new entrance.

‘I swear, it’s just doing it to taunt me. Like it’s getting some sick pleasure out of this shit. Maybe that’s what keeps it…’

Between two blinks, where just stood a wooden wall in front of him, now was a door. He had already expected something like this to happen. Still.

Severin shuddered.

It was just a door; Nothing compared to a whole building appearing out of nowhere, like before, but this time it happened right in front of him. People questioned their sanity over less.

After only a surprisingly short moment of hesitation, he opened the door and stepped inside the room. The completely empty room.

“As expected. Disappointing nonetheless.” He wasn’t even angry this time.

“The light is the same as in the shop. Seems like I could install a window as well, but I guess I’ll let the future inhabitant decide for themselves. Let’s just focus on the mandatory stuff. Lemme see.

“A table. Two chairs. Why two? I didn’t get two either…A small chest or something like that to provide some storage space...for whatever reason. Who needs something like that once one has access to dedicated inventory space? Well…What else?” A few other things like a bedside table and a carpet to make the room look at least somewhat habitable and comfy were also on the list, but nothing that would break Severin’s budget.

One had to give Severin a bit of credit. Without much complaining, he bought most of the items the System required for the new room to be registered as an employee’s housing space. Paid from his own balance, as the items in question were only available in that section of the System’s inbuild shopping menu. And while he did only buy the minimum number of items necessary, he at least didn’t skimp on the quality. Not that the quality of any item out of the System’s store would be subpar. But the chairs, for example, were a grade above Severin’s own. More like actual chairs and less like stools. He also didn’t just pick the smallest, roughest, and cheapest of the rugs available. In fact, the flokati he ended up buying may have been a more comfortable alternative to what certain people were supposed to sleep on, he concluded.

The possibility for every future employee to check the prices in the shop themselves only played a negligible role in his decision-making process.

One after the other, green check marks appeared on his interface, with only the bullet point ‘bed’ still marked with a red cross next to it.

Since the expansion of the store, or rather, since the appearance of the combinator, Severin kept his own so-called bed in the inventory during the daytime. It wouldn’t do if people using the machine, which was situated next to his counter, were able to look right behind it and could see his sorry excuse of a bed. He didn’t think anyone would believe him if he claimed to prefer living a more ascetic life. Not that anyone would actually be so rude as to bring it up. Except for Xander, maybe.

Therefore, at this moment he was able to summon the straw mattress into this room and place it into one of the corners without having to go and grab it first. Just for test purposes, of course.

“How come it’s still not checked? What am I to make of this? This somehow doesn’t count as a bed?” The venom in his voice was palatable. “This surely couldn’t be right, my dear System.”

Kaching

After paying a total of one thousand five hundred gold for everything, leaving him slightly less than fifty gold for himself, the System would finally allow him to register the room for its intended purpose. Severin decided to further postpone this, though. There was no need to do so when there was no one to actually move in, anyway. Most importantly, once everyone was finally gone and he was allowed to catch up on sleep, he would try if he couldn’t occupy the room himself. And if this didn’t work, he would at least try to temporarily claim the bed itself. Again, he felt it was rather unlikely for the System to allow this kind of arrangement, but it would still be worth a try.

All in all, Severin was rather pleased with how the new living space turned out. But now it was time to face his customers, and if possible, make them leave as soon as possible. A bunch of dots moving around informed him that his customers were already up and that he apparently spent more time decorating the room than he had originally thought. After a last longing look towards the bed, he left the room.

…

The next few hours went by faster than expected. After the initial shock of having a new building appear seemingly out of nowhere, a thing Samuel was just as astounded by this time as he was last time around and explaining that this was not in preparation for any new services he planned to offer, the people soon lost their interest in the matter and instead focused on their upcoming mission. Once again, Andreas’s presence ensured that everyone behaved while they divided the wares which Severin had spent the night crafting, among themselves only requiring Severin to receive the money. For the activation of the combinator, he wasn’t needed whatsoever, allowing him to chat with the officer.

“We’ll be leaving sooner than expected. Figured it wouldn’t hurt so show some presence. There will be more than enough for us to do anyway.” Severin was confident that this was only part of the reason.

‘I’m pretty sure it’s because I look like shit, and you feel guilty about it. Appreciate the gesture, though.’ He knew that Andreas originally wanted to further introduce some of the guild members to him. Especially Harold, who turned out to be an officer himself, despite his rather young age. Severin naturally didn’t call him out on that. Instead, this time, he remembered to make a bit of advertisement.

“Just take care of yourselves. Once you’re back, I’m sure I’ll have something new for you guys, so you better return in one piece. Just don’t forget to bring me any unidentified loot you find out there.”

“Ha! Will do. And next time we’ll hopefully not be this time restrained. Won’t have to overwork yourself like this again. Sorry about that.”

Severin waved him off. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind.” He did mind. But he knew it wouldn’t be appropriate to admit this.

“Reminds me. If the idiot shows up again, just tell him to head towards Meridia Outpost. He should already know this, but with him, you can never be sure.” No matter how annoyed Andreas was at Xander, he couldn’t really blame him. He had only said they’d leave around afternoon, not that they can’t leave till then. But why would anyone suddenly want to leave anyway?

“Sure thing. Might want to ask the other three as well though.”

“Ah, you don’t know yet.” Not being focused on his minimap, Severin had missed Samuel’s appearance. “The Lion’s Head guild was gracious enough to allow Miriam and Timothy to join them on their subjugation efforts. It should prove to be a great learning experience for them. There is only so much I can show and teach them on my own. It’s time for them to have a glimpse of what real adventuring looks like. As for me, I’ll have some business to attend to back in the capital.” Before anyone could respond to that, a small commotion broke out outside.

“What’s going on out there?!”

“This…I’m not…Xander, he is…”

“What about him? Has he finally decided to grace…” The next words got stuck in his mouth.

A clearly struggling flying artifact was closing the distance towards them. The self-satisfied look on the face of the person controlling it was apparent for all to see.

Nothing extraordinary. Nothing they hadn’t seen dozens of times already. Hundreds of times even, if one were to ask Lynn.

So, what was different?

Besides Xander, inside the basket-like structure, was another passenger. A small child, by the looks of it. The most skinny and filthy-looking thing one could imagine. It wasn’t possible to say if the figure was a boy or a girl. The muddy, grimy shoulder-length hair, which was covering most of the child’s face, on one hand, and the bony, almost skeleton-like body covered only by dirty rags, on the other hand, made it impossible to judge. What about the age? ‘Small’ certainly described the size, but the actual age? With the apparent levels of malnourishment, no one would be able to tell with certainty.

“Xander…What have you done this time?”