It took me a while to overcome my shock over the sudden change of the once friendly Risa. I had found her to be attractive and nice at first, but now I couldn't stop comparing her to the elf. She wasn't as mischievous as Cilia or as bad as Sahria, but I would never be able to think of her as loveable and cute.

“I will show her soon enough …”

I took several deep breaths, before walking towards the first of the two doors waiting for me on the left side of the room. Upon opening it, I was greeted by some kind of office room. It had a large table with a comfortable chair to sit on and several bookshelves filled with weighty tomes.

Seeing all of those books, I cheered up instantly, thinking they would contain magic, but upon pulling out the first of them, I quickly found out I couldn't read a single one of the words. There were thousands of lines of numbers I could identify, the language of the writing, however, was foreign to me.

The second and third book each greeted me with walls of text. There were no pictures, no numbers, no diagrams, nothing I could use to even guess the meaning behind this. Even after pulling out another few dozens of those tomes I was left without an idea. There was only one thing I knew: the mayor was married to his work.

“Can't you help me to read those?”
「I don't know how to read those, either!」
“You are a goddess! Why can't you read?!”
「Why would I need to?」
“You are useless …”

Sighing, I placed all of the books back into the shelf and left the room to enter the neighboring one instead.

“This is much better, I guess.”

A comfortable looking room greeted me. There were three large sofas placed around a low table that was decorated with a vase full of long withered flowers. All of this was placed on several large pelts that must once have belonged to animals that were bigger than bears and fluffier than a sheep.

It wasn't the sofas that had won me over, but a smaller, even softer looking pelt that was waiting in front of an open fireplace. There was a small rack of firewood just waiting to be used, too. I already saw myself dozing in front of the gentle fire, forgetting about the world and everyone trying to push me down.

My mood was slightly better by now. Even though the pelts, sofas and drawings weren't exactly to my liking, they certainly made these rooms look much more welcoming and comfortable.

The next room I found was the kitchen. It had two stoves and several large cupboards for the chef to work with. In the back of the room, there were two additional doors. One led into an empty storage room with a large cabinet that looked like a refrigerator, the other room had three beds in it, cupboards and a small washbasin. This was where the attendants slept.

“This somehow looks like a room you would give to your slaves …”

It was probably exactly that. Paid attendants would live somewhere in a cheap inn or house instead of this small room that only had a small window to light it up.

「But where do they take a shit?」 The vixen suddenly asked.
“Who would want to know the answer to that?! Maybe they have the same void magic thing Ofris uses!”
「I hope they won't touch your food without washing their hands before.」
“... I will cook for myself.”

My mood had turned sour again. I didn't even want to think about what could have happened had somebody else found me. This could have easily been my new life.

“I should thank Ofris …”

I hurriedly left the kitchen and opened the fourth door instead. Nothing aside from a flight of stairs greeted me. I slowly made my way upwards.

The stairs led towards the attic, which had three bay windows to both of its sides to light it up. In the midst of it, there was a king-sized bed with several pelts waiting for me to snuggle myself up in. A large chandelier was waiting to be used in the night, either for reading one of the books on the shelf next to the bed or for 'having fun'.

“I guess I will never use it for that …”
 「I'm sure Ofris-」
“We aren’t like that!”
「But he would! Maybe.」
“I don't care!”

After dealing with the vixen, I walked down the stars again. The last door already awaited me, the last chance this residential quarters had for raising my mood.

It did. My poor mood really became better. When I opened this last large door, I found a large washing area decorated with a stone floor and tiled walls. It had three mirrors on its one side, and what looked like a shower on the other. Two low sinks were waiting to be used, each of them came with a small stool standing in front of it.

On my right side, there was a wide shelf with several baskets standing on it. Each of the baskets had towels and blankets for me to use, should I decide to step through the door on the other side of the room.

I didn't hesitate. After not bathing and showering for what felt like ages, both my body and soul screamed for me to use this chance. I took the first two towels that had grasped my attention and made my way into the last room.

The bath used the whole length of the building, it was nearly as large as the living room and solely built using stone and water resistant, almost black wood.

The small chandelier lighting the room up allowed me to only barely make out the silhouettes of what seemed to be a fountain mounted on the other side of the room but was far more than bright enough to show me the empty hole that was supposed to be filled with water.

“There is no water?”

My mood was on its lowest point. Just as I turned around to leave the room again and start cursing at the guys who had the nice plan to trap me inside of here, I made out a small, pale blue ball of glass that was embedded in the wall next to the entrance. It looked completely out of place between the dark wood and brownish-red stone used to build the bath itself.

“What is this? Looks like a light source of some sort. It has to have some kind of lever, then!”

I reached out for the stone and began to feel for any kinds of buttons hidden on its surface – there was none. Next, I tried to push the ball in, but it seemed to be firmly connected to its wall. It was only when I placed both of my hands on it, that something changed.

A tingling feeling ran through my hands and towards the ball. It began to glow in a pale blue before a light pattering of water could be heard from behind me. When I turned around to look for it, the water instantly stopped flowing.

The chandelier which was glowing brightly, slowly lost its power again to once again reveal nothing but silhouettes of itself and the bath it was supposed to light up.

“So I have to keep my hands on it to charge it up?”

I put my hands back on the surface of the ball. If it was for a nice, hot bath, doing this much was nothing!

The tingling feeling grew stronger and stronger as the room lit up. The water, too, now was flowing with more force than before. It would take minutes to fill up the large pool, maybe even an hour, but I had long made my decision. Today I would laze around and forget this godforsaken excuse of a fantasy world!

My hope didn't last for longer than a few minutes when a sudden dizziness overwhelmed me. It felt like all blood had rushed oút of my head, but that didn't last long. Within a few seconds, I first fell to my knees, completely deprived of all my strength, before falling flat onto the hard floor that felt slightly warmer than before.

Then, there was nothing, an endless, black nothingness.