It took the poor dwarf ghost a long time for him to finally give in and ask for a mug of the beer. And it took even longer for his wife to allow him to even come close of the barrel that she had drained to half already. Satisfied with the result of my plans, I pulled out a tasty snack from my pockets and started munching on a piece of ore.

QUEST COMPLETE:

Haunted Manor

After a successful negotiation with the two ghosts (Or as successful as convincing one and letting her intimidate her husband into accepting your deal is…) haunting the Mansion, you have managed to convince them to work under you, and thus, allow for the repairs of the house, as well as you becoming the official ownership of the area.

No, seriously, how did you even get this idea of hiring the ghosts? You come up with some weird ideas, you know?

Go talk to Lord Wich to make the situation official.

Rewards:

Ownership of the Manor

Thalia and Rognar will now work under you, protecting and maintaining the Manor.

A LOT of cleaning for your cute personal maid to do. Did you SEE the state of this thing?

A frown formed on my face as I read the quest completion message. I’m not entirely sure, but it kind of feels like the text on this one is a bit strange. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly is different though.

Jiii~~

“What?” Crys asked when she noticed me staring her. “Not like it’s affecting gameplay experience, is it?” She shrugged. “And that’s the best place to point out all the strange things you do, you know?”

“Fair enough.”

“It’s not over yet, by the way.” She added.

Huh?

Congratulations, you are the first player to acquire personal housing. Would you like to disclose your name for other players? (Yes/no)

Oooh. Fancy THAT!

“Wait, I’m the first?” I asked confused as something came to mind. “But didn’t Supplies already have a shop since a long time ago?”

“That was a commercial plot.” She corrected me. ”There’s a difference between buildings bought for personal use and professional use. And since the rest of the players either didn’t bother with getting a house, or didn’t have the money for it, you ended up being the first one.”

“That’s still a bit difficult to be…”

For being the first player ever to acquire personal housing, you have earned the title:

Settler

Since you have a title equipped, you will need to go to a cathedral to change your title

Settler: Housing bonuses are improved as long as this title is equipped.

Thanks, invasive window, but I’m in the middle of a conversation. Dismissing the window away, I stopped to wonder how the hell this never seem to happen when you are reading fics. The windows only seem to appear when nothing is happening.

“Anyway, I still find that a bit hard to believe.” I said.

“Well, at this moment, the landscape of players is roughly split into the frontliners and the leisure players.” She told me. “The frontliners are those who are already fighting the more powerful monsters, and thus have the funds to actually buy a house. However, since most of the housing benefits doesn’t improve combat directly and instantly, they would rather spend their money on better upgrades. On the other hand, the leisure players which would be the most likely to want a house don’t have enough money as of now to buy them. Lastly, there are the players focused on commerce, but they usually just use their own commercial point as a base of operations, so they don’t really feel the need for a housing in specific.”

“I see.” I nodded amused. “So, this means that I was the first to bridge the gap between the leisure players and frontliners?”

“Not exactly…” As she said that, a window appeared in front of me, revealing three circles that overlapped slightly. Venn Diagram, isn’t that how it’s called? “These are the frontliners.” As she said that, the leftmost circle tinted itself red. “These are the casuals.” The rightmost circle became blue, and the overlap became tinted in purple. “And these are the vendors.” The lower circle became yellow, and the colors meshed together again. “If I had to say, you are somewhere around here in this graph.”

I stared at the graph, looking for something, and after a few moments of searching, I finally found a small blinking dot. I blankly stared back to the floating pink maid.

“Isn’t there something wrong with where I am?” I asked.

“Not really? Seems pretty precise to me. I mean, you didn’t really expect to be inside the graph, right?” She asked me with a taunting smile.

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t really. But couldn’t you at least have left me in the same window as the diagram?” I asked while pointing at the second window that had nothing but a single point blinking.

“But… That wouldn’t be accurate!” She complained back.

“So you are saying I’m not even in the same dimension as the other players?”

“What? No. I would never imply that.” She shook her head. “The very fact that you are in a dimension would make you share similarities to the other players that you lack. You see, it may not look like it, but these two windows have entirely different coding pattern-Ow!”

Taking a deep breath after throwing the two graphs back into the maid in the ever convenient shape of a windowball, I decided that the completion of a quest and the acquisition of a new title deserved me a snack, so I fished something from my inventory.

However, as I enjoyed the strange taste of the scale-iron ore in my mouth, I heard a sigh coming from behind me, followed by the sound of weapons being sheathed and footsteps. I turned around to see as Rival walked away towards the entrance. Curious about her actions, I checked to see if the ghosts and Yuu were still distracted in a talk with each other and decided that it shouldn’t be much of an issue if I were to leave for a moment.

“…Why are you following me?” Ashley asked me as he opened the door.

“I wanted to annoy yo*cough*check if everything was alright.” I said. Geez, my true intention almost appeared there.

“You let your true intention slip back there.”

“You weren’t supposed to notice that.” I stated coldly.

“How the hell am I not supposed to notice that?” She asked angrily. “Anyway, yeah, I’m fine. You can go back to doing whatever the hell you do all your time.” As he said that, she sat down at the stairway before the doorway with a loud thud.

“That doesn’t sound like the words of someone who’s alright.” I said a bit more curious while following him. “What did I do to make you angry this time?”

“So you are already assuming you are the one to blame, huh?”

“It helps a lot with dealing with this kind of situation when you are already expecting to be in the wrong. That, and I just find it a funny sentence for some reason.” I said with a shrug.

“Well, you are the one to blame, so at least you got that right.”

“Wait, I am?”

“Don’t go acting surprised now.” She said while staring a pair of holes in my head. “Do you have any idea how much you are throwing my life into disarray?”

“Not really?”

“Thanks to you, the gang I was in not only was completely disbanded, but we were humiliated twice by you. Once in Eldor and another at the forest with your damned trick bomb. Then you start coming up with this Rival nonsense, so I decided to gather some money and get the hell away from you, only to find out that you had embarked on the same ship as I did and started the whole third gender annoyance.”

“I did say that I was sorry about that, didn’t I?” I said while looking away awkwardly.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Oh…”

“Then, when I started thinking that there wasn’t many more ways you could screw up my daily life, I decided to accept this job of yours since I’d be able to get something good out of it, but now…” He sighed. “Now you are even managing to make me doubt my own common sense.” She grasped her own head with his hands and grumbled angrily. “Who the hell ever heard of striking a deal with a ghost using beer? Not to mention… You hunted a goddamned impaler alone, got yourself a freezing tail that follows you wherever you go, somehow you are raising a baby wyvern, have a damned cat that caused a snow-ball civil war in the village… There’s only so much I can take in, for Cygnas sake!”

“Erm… I don’t think that I should mention the fact that I left the god of chaos surprised and scolded the god of war too, right?” I said while still looking away, but caught the sheer expression of horror from her face with the corner of my eyes. “Well, in my defense, doubting one’s own common sense isn’t that bad.”

“Haah?” Rival looked at me confused.

“I mean, what’s common sense for one person doesn’t necessarily means it’s common sense for someone else, right?” I asked, which only made her look at me confused. “For example, get a blacksmith and a jeweler. For a blacksmith, it’s common sense to never use gold in their creation since it’s soft and heavy. On the other hand, it’s the opposite for someone creating jewelry, since gold means money and power, besides having a beautiful color.”

“That… Why did you use gold as an example anyway?”

“Because I’m a crafter and that felt fitting.” I shrugged.

“So you didn’t have a better example.” Pretty much. Nodding in agreement, I watched as he shook her head in disbelief. “Cygnas help me, now you just convinced me that it’s common sense to not stick to common sense.”

“Oh, I like the sound of that. Sounds paradoxical.”

“And that’s what you focus on, huh?” he shook his head. “Well, now that you managed to make my day worse, are you done?”

“Done with what? Messing with you?”

“…So you do it knowingly.” He said coldly.

“…Whoops, I shouldn’t have said that.” I said while regretting my choice of words. “Well, minor details aside, I only annoy people I like, so you don’t have much luck there.”

“Now I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that you just left clear that you have no intention of stopping, or the fact that you just said that you like me.”

“Just to be clear, it’s a platonic meaning of like.” I cleared any possible misunderstanding.

“Platonic? What does that even mean?” The elemental asked confused.

“Ah, right. Plato never existed in here. Well, basically it means Iike you in a non-romantic way.” I said a bit more serious than normal. “Which usually wouldn’t really need explaining if you were a guy, but since you are… Well, I felt that some explaining was needed.”

“Ugh. Thanks for bringing it up.” She complained while looking away. “And if you are like this with people you like, I pity the ones you don’t.”

“Nah, they receive a completely different treatment from me.” I explained while waving it off. “With those I don’t know much or I don’t like I am the politest person in the face of earth.” As I said that proudly, a look of sheer horror started appearing in his face. “I speak with polite words, am always giving a business smile, and even if they are the most unsupportable person in the face of earth, I’ll just nod and laugh together with him.”

“Cygnas spare me, but the mere thought of you being like that is downright terrifying.” She said while slowly crawling away.

“Aww, come on, it can’t be that bad!” I complained.

“That’s as bad as water climbing a waterfall or a candle that emits shadows.” The elemental said while shivering slightly.

“Or the sun raising on the west. Or a planet orbiting around the moon. Or a sun that appears in the night sky. Or a dragon that does backflips. Or…”

“Yeah, yeah. I got your point.” I said while turning back to Crys who had suddenly joined in on the conversation. “Also, the dragon one isn’t that unnatural now.”

“Just because you convinced a dragon to do it doesn’t make it any less unnatural, you know?” I was about to rebuke to the maid, but a loud slapping sound echoed from behind me as Ashley facepalmed herself.

“You know what? I’m going back.” He said while standing up and walking down the stairway. I smiled a bit awkwardly before recalling something.

“Oh, wait a second.” I said. “Can’t forget your payment.” I said while opening up my inventory. Hmm, I might have to remake some of these after paying him, but well, can’t go around not paying my employees. “Here you go.” I said while handing her a bunch of elemental knifes all at once.

“Do you really expect me to carry all that back?” She asked me with a frown.

“…Fair point. Let me see If I can fix a makeshift pack real quick then.” I checked up on my inventory and then followed up with giving a quick look at my ever so forgotten recipe list. “Hmm… So many new recipes I never knew I had.” I said amused while reading through the leatherworking recipes that popped up since the last time I checked the list. “There we go.”

I used the system to make a simple, medium sized leather bag. Just big enough to be able to put all the knifes inside.

“Here you go.” I said while throwing her the bag. Ashley held onto it for some time with a complex expression before finally sighing and throwing the leather stripe over his shoulder.

“Thanks, I guess.” The elemental said while walking away.

“Oh well. There he goes again on his own.” I said while shrugging. “Anyway, what brings you here?” I asked the maid who I am almost sure I had left inside the mansion.

“Ah yeah. I almost forgot. I thought that you’d be interested in knowing that the ghosts are…” As she said that, she suddenly started trailing off while staring into wonder. “Is that Rio?” She asked while looking into the distance.

“Huh? Where?” I asked while eyeing the horizon on the direction we came. After a brief moment I finally caught sight of a small metallic spec coming in our direction. “Ah… It is.”

“HELLO STONE MISTER!” Rio shouted from afar as she folded her wings and made a straight dive towards me. I took a step back in surprise and worry as the sign of a fully-armored wyvern, even if only a small one, was still pretty scary. However, she spread open her wings at the last moment, making an abrupt stop right in front of me, where she started hovering. “Hi!” She said happily before eyeing the mansion. “That’s a big house! Did you get it?” She asked me curiously.

“Well, yeah. Now it is.”

“Heeeh…” She said surprised.

“Te-te-tek. Te-te-tek.” I heard a scared, but fairly familiar sound coming from close by.

“AH!” Rio suddenly said before lifting herself up and showing Mr. Pebblesworth being carried by her claws. “Stone-scorpion wanted to see you.” She said.

“While I won’t ask how you understood his words, did you need to do that final dive? The poor pebble is scared to death here, you know?” I said while picking up the sprite from her, only to notice that the pebble was carrying something in its front claws. “Hmm? What’s this?”

“Tek!” Pebble suddenly jumped as it recalled something, and before I had the chance to recognize the object, it crawled up to my shoulders and stretched the strange object around my neck. “Tek tek…” It said while sounding a bit annoyed.

Huuuh. This is strange, I said while staring at the small critter who was now collecting back the strange thing it had put around my neck. Only then did I notice that the strange thingy was a long piece of cloth that was half a palm thick, made of a strange material that felt like a cloth, but reflected the light in a peculiar way that looked oddly misplaced for a thread.

Strange. I could have sworn that Yuu didn’t have any kind of string like this. And the only monster that creates strings that I recall fighting made some really dangerous red string of explody doom, so it can’t be that one.

“Anyway, what are you doing?”

“Te-tek tek.”

“Huh? Size’s wrong? What size?”

“Te-kiki!”

“Aaah, I see.” I nodded in agreement.

“Tek-tetek.” He replied with a sad tone.

“Well, it is your first one, so don’t worry about it. Everyone have to start somewhere.” I shrugged while gently tapping his head.

“Tek-te?” He asked surprised.

“Well, yeah. I know it’s hard to believe, but I wasn’t born a natural crafting genius, you know?”

“Te-te-te.”

“You know master. Sometimes you leave me speechless.” Chrys said while approaching us with an amazed expression.

“Huh? How so?” I asked confused.

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Ah, right. I was telling you about what was happening in there.” Chrys added with a worried tone.

“Ah, that’s right.” I nodded while looking confused. “What exactly were you going to say anyway?”

“Well, You see, your new tenant slash guard slash housekeepers decided to celebrate the refurbishing of the house with a round of drinks.” She said.

“Oh. I guess they are waiting for me then.” I said with a nod.

“Not exactly. In fact, they already started.” Crys said that while looking away guiltily.

“…What do you mea…” I started asking suspiciously, but as my brain started processing the previous available information, I paled as much as it was possible for a non-organic being to pale as it finally dawned on me.

“Stone-mister?”

“Tek teeeee-”

Both Rio and Mr. Pebblesworth called to me worriedly, but I ignored the two as I darted away towards the door of the mansion, and with Pebble still in my shoulder, I stormed open the gateway and entered at high speed. As the scene before me was burned into my eyes, I pulled out a random throwing knife hanging on the bandolier around my chest and threw it towards the target before me.

The knife dug deep into wooden surface while the liquid was spilled everywhere. After that, I was left with two ghosts and two foxes looking at me shocked and confused.

However, I was far too relieved after watching the beer mug being offered to Yuu bouncing on the ground harmlessly to worry about their surprised gazes.

“Just… Just in time.” I said relieved while approaching the two ghosts. Grumpy McGrump frowned, staring at me annoyed, while his wife looked at me confused. “Forgot to warn you two, but… It’s really not good for me if you guys give alcohol to Yuu.”

“Hmm? Is it really that bad?” She asked me confused.

“Yes, it’s very, very bad for my already lacking mental health.” I said. “That, and she’s not really used to drinking, so her limits are still a bit unknown.”

“Now you are making me curious.” Thalia said before finally shrugging. “Well, it’s your call. And I guess that only one mug shouldn’t be that much of a problem.”

“Wait. She already drank?” I asked worried. “Well, I guess that only one…” My voice trailed off when I heard the pitter-patter of footsteps and suddenly a pair of arms circled around me.

“Hug!” I heard a very familiar and disturbingly close voice echoing from behind me. “Hehehe. I hugged Shishou.”

“…Seriously?” I asked shocked while looking back, seeing that Yuu’s cheek had a light red tint to them. “Are you drunk already?”

“Hmm? Am I?” Yuu asked confused, tilting her head cutely.

“D-Didn’t you only have one mug?” I asked worried as I noticed that she was also coiling her tails around my waist.

“Hn!” She nodded.

“Waaah… A-Anyway, why didn’t you refuse? Don’t you recall what happened last time?”

“But… It would be impolite to refuse.” She pouted before shaking her head and moving around to be in front of me and putting her head against my chest and flattening her ears against her head. “Shishou! Pet me!”

So sudden! Still not used to this bolder Yuu, I was taken aback by the situation. The fact that the two ghosts were watching everything with curiosity wasn’t exactly helping.

“Tek?” Pebble, still in my shoulder watched the scene confused and curious, and just as I began to ask what it was going to do, it spread it’s claws around and hugged my head from the side.

“What are you doing?” I heard a childish voice call as Rio caught up to us, much to the ghost’s surprise.

“Huggins Shishou.” Yuu said happily before I could even form words.

“Looks fun!” Rio said cheerfully.

“No! Wait…” I tried calling out to her, but she had already landed on Yuu’s shoulder and spread her wings around the two of us.

What’s this? How did it become a group hug all of a sudden? As I tried finding out where exactly things went weird in this situation, I caught with the corner of my eyes a lonely looking Aura who was watching everything from distance. A sigh escaped me as I finally gave in and made a motion for her to come closer with one of my hands.

Feeling the blue fox leaning against my leg, I rested my hand on her head and started petting her gently, using my other hand to pet Yuu who was starting to look up to me questioningly.

“Aah. Isn’t that adorable?” Thalia said with a motherly tone.

“For an annoying jerk, you sure are well liked, huh?” Rognar said with annoyance.

“I’m taking a print of that to use it against you later.” Crys said cheerfully.

“I’m going to…” I started preparing to threaten her back, but, as expected, Yuu got me first.

“Use the skill now!” Yuu said while giving me the upturned looks.

Wazzat? Oi oi oi. Yuu, isn’t that a bit too much to be asking right here? No, rather, why did you even ask for that? And Aura, I did feel you flinching just now… And why are the two of you now looking at me like that? D-Don’t do a d-double puppy eyes! M-My resistance isn’t high enough for that.

“Hmm? What skill?” Rio asked curious.

“It’s a skill Shishou have. It makes petting feel really nice, you know?” She replied to the young dragon’s question.

“Really? I want to see it.” Rio said while looking at me starry eyed.

“Tek tek!” Et tu, Pebbles?

Ugh… This is seriously…

“A skill… For petting?” Rognar asked in shock, before finally holding his stomach and burst out into a loud laughter while doubling over. “A-Are you serious?”

“It’s a long story okay?” I complained embarrassed.

“Why would you even get such a damned useless skill?” He asked while still laughing. “Are you an idiot or something?”

No, I’m a genius. It’s obvious. I was thinking that, but before I had the chance to say anything, I felt the room drop a couple of degrees in temperature and dark aura emanate from the girl before me.

By the time we were aware of it, Yuu had already extended her arm towards the dwarf’s face and stuck one of the charms she had made on his forehead.

“Do not mock Shishou.” She stated coldly while activating the charm.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” A loud scream of pain and agony echoed as Rognar started rolling around the ground while the charm burned away in his face.

“Wah? Yuu!” I turned to her angrily. “You can’t do that!” I scolded her.

“But… But he was mean to Shishou!” She said while looking downcast.

Must… Resist… Desire… To… Forgive…

“No. Yuu, you can’t just go attacking others just because they said one or two bad things about me!” I said in the best angry tone I could muster. “What if it had been someone important? Then we would be in serious trouble, you know?”

“W-WHO’S N-N-NOT I-I-IMPOR-T-T-TANT?” Rognar said angrily.

“Man up, will you, dear? It’s just a small charm.” Thalia said annoyed while scooping up even more beer. “And you deserved it anyway.”

“Muu… Sorry Shishou. I won’t do it again.” She said downcast as her ears flattened again.

“Well… As long as you learnt your lesson…” I said with a sigh. “Sorry about that.” I turned to Thalia. “She gets a bit… Rough when she’s drunk.” I smiled awkwardly while recalling the last time she got drunk.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s not like it’s going to kill him anyway.” She waved it off. “He may not look like it, but he was quite the fighter back when we were alive. Something like this isn’t enough to do him in.”

“BUT IT STILL HUUUUUR—” Rognar started shouting, only to stop suddenly, his cry changed for a muffled voice. Confused, I turned towards the ghost only to see him rolling on the ground with the still burning talisman on his forehead and a piece of ice freezing his mouth shut.

I turned to Yuu, preparing to give her a disapproving glance, but I shook off the idea that it was her once I noticed that she was still a bit depressed from having been scolded. Blinking surprised, I decided that it hadn’t been the kitsune who did that, but then who…

I looked downwards and noticed Aura looking away suspiciously as she emanated an aura of slight annoyance.

Okay, culprit found. Now…

“…Can I still get petting?” Yuu suddenly asked me, and the aura of annoyance around… Well, Aura, dissipated and she turned back to me with an expectant gaze.

Goddamit. I was hoping to sneak away from having to do this.

In the end, I gave in to my four captors who were pleading me with puppy eyes.

Well, not like I’m one to complain about a petting session, right?