A warm mist hit their faces instantly the moment Lewis opened the door to the bathroom. As the steam slowly fazed from their faces, Luz finally got his first glimpses of what awaited them inside and was overwhelmed by it, even though it wasn't comparable to your average roman bath. Almost everything inside the room was out of white marble, and as Luz strolled through the bathroom barefoot, he felt the slight cracks covering the floor.

Fascinated, Luz gently touched the walls and the ground while muttering: "Never thought that I would see rooms made of marble."

Unfortunally, the room was pretty sparsely as outside of a few stoves and marble cubes with soft edges big enough to lie on, there was nothing else there. Well, there were still some buckets, but they don't count as decorations.

His partner Lewis ignored Luz's eccentric behavior and walked straight to one of the marble cubes while undressing himself on the way there. "Ayo, take off your clothes and let's get it done quickly. I want to continue sleeping." "Yawn."

Hesitantly, Luz slowly took off his torn armor and linen shirt. "Are there any curtains here?"

A chuckle came from Lewis before Luz got a frank: "No," as an answer. But the former immediately added, in amusement: "Well, I'm not gonna take a peek, that's for sure. You are neither the pinnacle of the masculine physique nor the feminine physique. Your body is simply below average, to say the least.."

Before Lewis could finish, Luz cut him short, shouting: "BOIII, DON'T CALL ME OUT LIKE THAT. I'm still in my mass phase."

"Yeah, but you've been bulking up since the day you were born," Lewis nonchalantly commented while poking at Luz's non-existent abs.

Embarrassed, Luz ignored Lewis's comments and took off the rest of his clothes. But upon seeing the state of his clothes, he could only shake his head. 'Huh, I really went inside the kids' room with such bloodstained clothes? They probably think I'm a mass murderer. Technically I am one, but I only kill these bad guys, so it's justified.'

As Luz sat on the marble stone, a sharp pain invaded his chest, making him grind his teeth while also reminding him that he should be careful from now on. 'I need to take care of this problem as fast as possible.'

Seeing that Lewis was already at the stove, Luz attempted a conversation with the latter. "Ayo. Lewis, how old are you?"

The latter activated the stove while answering his question. "I'm 16, so ehm Luzifer…how long have you been a slave before getting bought? Also, hot water will be ready in a few minutes."

His age shocked Luz as the former expected the petite and athletic man, who was half a head shorter than him, to be at most 14 years old. Lewis's eyes and hair were hazel with a slight tint of red, which wasn't really dominant.

But after staring at the young lad's face a second time, Luz's doubt grew. 'No way is that child 17. Lewis is definitely lying to me. Just look at his immature face. It is absent of any masculine features. Hopefully, puberty changes that. May God bless him with a thick beard, the epitome of masculinity.'

Luz seemed to have fallen back into his thoughts as he caressed his short black beard.

Seeing how Luz didn't answer his question, Lewis repeated his name. "Luzifer?"

That name snapped the latter out of his thoughts, and he immediately apologized for his rudeness before correcting Lewis with an amused undertone. "Well, I may look like a devil such as Lucifer because of the sticky blood all over my body, but fear not. I'm neither a devil nor an evil person. I'm just an unfortunate man whose name is Luz. As for your other question," Before Luz could finish his sentence, Lewis cut him short.

"So my guess was right, and it was blood. Is it human or animal blood?" Lewis asked excitedly and quickly added: "I shouldn't be asking such sensitive stuff since we don't know each other that well."

A smile appeared on Luz's face as he stretched his body before seizing the opportunity to boost his standing by recounting his heroic adventure in the forest as the water was heating up in the background. And so Luz overdramatized his feats.

But that wasn't enough, and Luz recounted how he challenged both the dragon and Master Brian. Lewis smirked at his story, and although he knew that it was heavily dramatized, he still enjoyed it. After all, who doesn't like stories about dragon slayers?

But during his narration, the two forgot the boiler, and Lewis jumped halfway through the story, cursing loudly in a language unbeknownst to Luz. Worried about Lewis, Luz followed suit and stood up to help.

Hastily Lewis pressed a few buttons, shutting down the boiler. Only after that, he groaned loudly: "It's nothing important, Luz. It's just the water is hot enough to boil others alive."

After quickly filling up two buckets with the boiling hot water, he walked back while Luz asked him a question that had been bothering him. "Yo, Lewis, what kind of person is Master Brian? You might as well tell me more about you."

Lewis placed the two buckets filled with boiling hot buckets in front of Luz before answering his question with a wink. "One after the other. But first, let me bring you a bucket with cold water. Also, if we continue to stay too long here, some peeps may think that we are doing something naughty here.~"

A minute later, Luz grabbed a piece of linen, which he tugged earlier into the hot water, and rubbed it onto his body. It was burning hot but bearable. After cleaning himself with water, he followed that up by rubbing his body with hard soap. Most of the dirt and dried blood were washed away after a few rounds, except for one spot he couldn't reach properly. That spot was his back.

Lewis, who had already cleaned himself, looked impatiently at Luz before sighing loudly. "Give me the soap. The dragon will die of old age before you finish cleaning yourself."

Embarrassed, Luz let Lewis clean his back on a nonhomoerotic basis while repeating the question he asked earlier. "So what kind of person is Master Brian?"

The nonchalant mood Lewis had just seconds ago slowly vanished. In the end, Luz could only hear a sigh, followed by the echo of water plunging into the bucket due to squeezing a wet piece of linen. "So you want to know more about Master Brian, huh?"

Gulping, Luz replied: "of course. One needs to know one's master so they can act accordingly," which gained Lewis's approval. The tense atmosphere slowly faded.

Casually Lewis answered his question. "You see… Master Brian is a kind but eccentric man with weird hobbies. Whenever Master Brian is bored, he sets out to find new, unjustly enslaved mages. Every servant working here was once a slave saved by Master Brian and taken under his wings during one of his journeys through the country.

Luz's eyes narrowed immediately, and a new question popped up in his mind. "What do you mean once a slave? Aren't you all technically still slaves, and why should a free man stay with a slaveholder?"

Upon seeing Lewis's change in reaction to his question, Luz immediately regretted asking such a provocative question. The room temperature immediately dropped from a warm 30 degrees to a chilly five degrees in the blink of an eye.

Lewis's face turned serious, and coldly he answered Luz's question. "These questions will get you beaten here. But what should I expect from someone who had been well off till now? After all, you never faced the hardships of being a slave. For you, this place might be annoying as you have to work to get fed. BUT FOR US, IT'S HEAVEN."

Author note: Sacrifice your power stones to me. I crave them and everyone knows that I deserve them. I'm willing to upload bonus chapters for PS.^^