“Sooo uhmmmm…..what do you want to do?” Rufus asked Yosef.

“Wow….you really are bad at this slave-owning thing,” Yosef said back.

“Well yeah, I think we cleared that earlier. Like do you want to be free? I really feel uncomfortable to own a person.”

“Well I do want to be free, but what then. What do I do then? Being an Eichi is not a privilege, more of a burden. Being of a race that doesn’t have a god or even a world is kinda hard. If you throw me aside I have no way to keep myself alive, pay for food or get a roof on top of my head. As a slave I would at least get that,” Yosef explained.

“But how about your family? How about you go back to them?”

Yosef didn't feel like answering.

“Just give me something to do. Make me for example clean the palace or something,” Yosef asked.

Rufus felt pressured by Yosef and he finally caved in.

~ ~

Later that day Yosef was mopping the floors of the palace. He didn't look happy or pleased. Just a neutral expression on his face.

“You think this is fine?” Amala asked looking at Yosef mopping.

“What can I do. He refuses to leave and just wants to mop the floors just so he gets a roof over his head and two warm meals a day,” Rufus explained.

“But why does he want to mop the floors. Surely he could do something else more useful and enjoyable?” Amala asked.

“He said he wanted to work the most menial job with the least bit responsibility.”

“Well mopping the floors is truly menial, but how long can he really do this before he gets tired of it?”

~ ~

[Five minutes later]

“Wow……this is really boring,” Yosef said who got enough of mopping.

He went into the janitor's closet and looked around the stuff and saw two extra mops made from wood. He smiled and looked like he had an idea.

He started to tinker with the mops, buckets and other tools he found in the closet. He formed a couple of ugly puppets made from mops, buckets, trash timber and other things he found in the closet. The legs and hands were mops with the heads being buckets. He then created a marionette controller from two small boards

Yosef formed and summoned extremely thin almost invisible strings from his finger that were created thanks to his divinity. He connected the strings to the hands and legs of the dolls and the other side to the marionette controller.

He then tested his creations a bit with the dolls starting to move like a clumsy human. Yosef then started to control the puppets and made them glide around the hallways cleaning everything.

Yosef just sat down and moved the marionette controller a bit and made the puppets move like humans cleaning the floor for him as he just relaxed.

~ ~

Meanwhile in the throne room.

A man rushed in and gave a small piece of paper to Doreen. She read it and then sighed.

“We have a problem. It seems that queen Sasha has hired an assassin to assassinate Rufus,” Doreen explained.

“How did you get this information?” Haley asked.

“We got news from informants that the queen had sent word to a group of mercenaries located in the city-state of Vatigaad. Apparently, this group of assassins are from the world of Zoroaster and are extremely dangerous. They are moving to the capital as we speak or are already here, who knows. But whatever is the case, we have to get ready,” Doreen explained.

“We should get ready. At least Rufus has his Gherseng guards with him,” Edward said.

“Uhmmm……” Haley said and pointed behind them.

The Ghersengs were all there, but no one had any idea where Rufus was.

~ ~

Rufus was hiding on the roof to have some alone time. He was laying on the roof tiles and enjoying the cool breeze. Weirdly he was a pushover, but he couldn’t be pushed to do his job of being a king.

“Wow…. you really are a peculiar king?” Yosef said who also was at the rooftop playing hooky.

“And you are a peculiar cleaner. Do cleaners clean rooftops usually?”

Yosef walked next to Rufus.

“Just so you know I am cleaning. I am just…uhmmm….cleaning in a different way than your average janitor would.”

“You do realize I just gave you that job to you because you asked.”

Yosef smiled. He went and laid down next to Rufus to also bathe in the sun.

“Why did you become a king? You don’t seem too excited about being a king,” Yosef asked while looking at the clouds.

“Hah. Why do people keep asking about that? Well, I never wanted to be a king in the first place. Look at me. I clearly am unfit to lead but people wanted me to do it and just couldn’t refuse them,” Rufus said and looked at the city.

Yosef thought that Rufus was not telling the truth, but his innocent smile proved also that he didn't lie.

“Now tell me something about yourself. Something that is actually real,” Rufus asked.

Yosef looked at the city.

“You know it is unwise to let a slave reminisce about their past. Makes them want to rebel and start fighting to get back what they have lost. That is why the dokkaebi prefer slaves that were born into slavery since they don’t have a past other than slavery,” Yosef explained.

“So you do have a past other than slavery?”

“Fine, I was born in the world of Phoenicia to the house of Cainan of the clan of Cainan. As I explained we eichi do not have a homeworld and we live wherever we are allowed by the real inhabitants of the world. We work as merchants and traders in these worlds and we are always considered second-class citizens.

Still, I was born into a good family. Good family with good parents. I had seven older siblings whom I loved. Life was good. But one day as my siblings were taking me out to the town I suddenly passed out. When I regained my consciousness I realized I had been chained and I was being dragged onto a dokkaebi gravity ship.

“I saw my siblings and I cried for help, but then I saw a dokkaebi dropping a bag of gold in front of my siblings. That was when I realized. My own siblings had sold me. My own brothers and sisters. Their own blood. So to answer that question you asked a while back. I have a family, but in practice, I don't,”

Rufus was listening to Yosef telling about how he had become a slave. It seemed it didn’t matter whether you were born in the world of Aesis or some other world. The universe was cruel to many people in a nondiscriminatory way.

“I really am not interested in revenge. I could not see my mother and father knowing what their children did. I truly couldn’t do it to them. So rather vanish from the face of the world. Let them be happy.”

“So that is what you want? To disappear,” Rufus asked Yosef.

“Why not. Don’t you also. Or why are you here on the roof?” Yosef asked and got Rufus pondering.

Three knives flew from the sky trying to hit Rufus. He was able to destroy them with a divine sphere before they were able to hit them.