I'm not a morning person but today is probably one of my favorite mornings, being woken up by my beautiful slave, Faris, kissing me while in my embrace, I can definitely get used to this.

After some quick morning "exercises", we set off to the blacksmith store to pick up the gear we ordered yesterday before heading to the adventurer guild to have my morning training sessions with Morgan. I've been getting more use to fighting up close with casting magic at the same time, I should be able to manage against weaker monsters.

Today we are once again heading to Greens Filth, the goblins in the dungeon may get more numerous and well equipped but their fighting strength is still near the bottom of the barrel and easy to kill. Going to other dungeons like Elemental Slime Nest will slow down our progress as we would have to get used to fighting new enemies, and they may be some enemies that are more annoying to kill than the vulnerable goblins.

With Blacky carrying us through the journey, we comfortably arrive at the familiar scene at the entrance to Greens Filth, filled with people heading into the dungeon as well as the businesses catered towards adventurers. We leave Blacky with the same caretaker as last time before entering the dungeon ourselves.

"Enter." Our two voice overlaps.

We are going to aim for at least reaching the next floor today while getting used to our new battle formation of me drawing the focus of our opponents.

Faris picks up on the trail to a small team of goblins as we approach them without any intention of hiding at all, sneak attack would not help us practice much against these small fries. I walk straight toward the three goblins we found, they notice me and start rushing at me brainlessly with their wooden spears, hoping to overwhelm me with numbers.

I cast a small mana efficient water stream targeting the area between two goblins, waves of water being guided by the ice surrounding it soon reaches the goblins, I change the water into ice, freezing a foot from each of the two goblins in place.

The two goblins stop in their track but the last one reaches me, giving me the opportunity to try out my ice shield in real combat. I wait until the goblin starts the motion for this thrusts before I start casting my ice shield, round-shaped water flows out into the path of his attack and freezes into ice. My speed is still not where I want it to be as the goblin's spear is stuck inside my shield, I was too slow.

I use my magic control to move the ice shield to the side, pulling the spear away from the goblin as I sweep my spear from the side at his feet, knocking him down onto the ground before finishing him off with a stab. I look over to see two cleanly decapitated goblin heads next to Faris as she is working to gouge out their mana crystals from their heads. Noticing that I'm finished, Faris smiles sweetly to me.

"How was it, master?"

"I'm still a little to slow at forming my shields, I'll need to predict their attack trajectories for now until I can form my shields fast enough."

"Hm, master's water magic is still only level 12, it's already really impressive."

After the incident being attacked from the kidnapper remnants, my levels shot up from killing them, giving me two levels in water magic and four levels in electric magic. Though Faris's levels barely went up from the fight, it's getting harder and harder to level up as our level grows.

 

Human Male

Age: 18

Magic Level:   Water Lv.12   Electric Lv. 10   Fire Lv. 1   Earth Lv. 1   Wind Lv.1   Healing Lv. 1   Dark Lv. 1   Light Lv. 1   Nature Lv.1

Unique Magic:   Identify

Human Female

Age:18

Magic Level:   Dexterity Lv. 26   Stamina Lv. 15   Strength Lv. 1   Fire Lv. 1   Water Lv. 1

Unique Magic:   Sense Danger

I wanted to both get stronger and come up with funds to buy our third party member at the upcoming slave auction soon so heading deeper into the dungeons to fight against more powerful monsters just so happens to meet both my goals right now.

We continue to breeze our way past the goblins and occasional wolves we encounter as we aim straight for the second floor. We spot a huge wooden door with a metal frame in the distance at the foot of a small mountain.

The door has the symbol of the guild, the Weycorus tree engraved onto the body, showing that it is the entrance to the next floor. In dungeons like Greens Filth where it is an open space, these doors guide adventurers the way to the next level. There may be several of these in a floor or only one, causing adventurers to sometimes have to camp out in the dungeon to continue to search for the entrance.

"Master, we found it!"

"Yeah, get ready to fight against the boss."

"With our new armor, I doubt a first-floor boss would even be able to hurt us." Faris cheerfully says while heading straight to the door.

The area around the door is empty as Faris rests her hand on the entrance before giving me a final glance to ask for my permission.

"I'm ready, let's do it."

I tightly grip my spear with both hands, strapping my old shield to my back as my need for it has drastically decreased with my ice shield spell.

We enter into a dark open cave which prompts me to cast a light magic spell, creating a small ball of light above each of our heads to act as our light source. The light illuminates a full ten-meter area around us.

We move forward carefully, straining our ears to listen for any enemies. We move a little further into the cave before the soft sound of fire crackling rings in front of us. I create a new ball of light and sends it off in the direction of the sound, showing a narrow passageway at the end of the room we are in. We head into the passageway, following a ball of light I sent slightly in front of us to investigate.

We see the passageway connects to another spacious area as we spot the orangey glow of fire as well as the sound of goblins screaming from noticing our light as well. The sound of something sharply pierces through the air followed by the noise created from an impact with the stone ground. The goblins fired two arrows at the ball of light in front of us but the only thing they hit is the stone floor.

I create two ice shield in front of me as I rush out to meet the goblins, while Faris looks for an opportunity to attack while I draw their attention.

I move the previous ball of light towards the goblins to let me have a clear view of what I'm up against. I spot two archer goblins, four goblins with metal-tipped spears, and one goblin with a rusty short sword wearing some crude leather armor. They must be the guardians of the first floor, the boss monster, or in this case, monsters.

While I am sizing them up, another two arrows get fired but this time at me. The arrows get easily blocked as I move one of my ice shields into their path while I send my other shield slamming towards the two archers. The shield slams into one of the archers, knocking the bow out of his hand while he coughs up blood from the impact.

The other four charges toward me with the armored goblin following a distance behind. They are still over ten meters away from me, letting me cast two ice spears to quickly eliminate two of the spearmen. The other two goblins closes the distance to me and prepares to thrust out their spears but two daggers suddenly pierces the back of their heads, causing them to fall flat on their faces from their charge.

I look behind them and see Faris's right hand holding a sword that's stabbing into the heart of the unhurt archer while her left hand wields another sword stained with blood, likely from the other archer I hit earlier because I spot him lying in a pool of blood.

The last goblin hesitates a little from seeing his men getting swiftly slaughtered but manages to dodge the ice lance I launched at him only to step into my water stream. Seeing Faris rush up to finish him, I fire an electric current into the stream, paralyzing the goblin's movements, giving Faris free rein to deal with him as she pleases.

We collect their mana crystals and find the entrance to the next floor nearby, a statue in pitch black shaped as a Weycorus tree, similar to the one at the entrance of the dungeon looms at the end of the cave. Seeing it's about time, we choose to exit the dungeon to have a comfortable lunch before continuing on to the next floor.

We found some meat skewers from the stalls around the dungeon entrance, making sure not to overeat, we manage to finish lunch within half an hour before heading straight to the second floor of Greens Filth.

The second floor isn't as much different as I thought, the scenery is similar to the first floor, forest area but with more small mountains around along with denser greenery. We encounter our first monsters within five minutes, six goblins all using iron-tipped spears or rusty short swords. We dispatched them easily as their strength is pretty much the same as the ones on the first floor except with slightly better equipment.

We continue our hunt as fast as possible without rest to try to maximize our profits for the day. It didn't even take us two hours of hunting until we found the entrance door to the next floor. My levels show no signs of going up not to talk about Faris's so I readily take the chance to head another level down.

We enter another dark cave but much narrower this time, only allowing two people to stand side by side and enough leftover space to swing a weapon. We proceed with the same strategy from earlier, sending a ball of light slightly in front of us.

"Master, there's a trap in front of us." Faris suddenly blurts out while holding onto me.

She skillfully pokes at the ground with her short sword and the sword goes straight through the ground.

"Illusion traps, probably a pitfall, follow my steps, master" Faris explained to me while holding my hand.

 

The cave twisted left and right with only one way to go, after ten minutes of walking, we see arrows being fired at the ball of light. Sending the light at our attackers, we see half a dozen goblin archers spread out on the ledges to the side that's three-meter above us. I form two ice shields to protect us while Faris freely throws daggers at her unmoving targets as they are limited space for them to dodge to. I send my ice shield flying at three goblins to the left, soaking up all their oncoming arrows before pinning them against the wall of the cave.

Faris finishes off all three of the goblins on her side and is climbing up to collect their crystals and retrieve her daggers. I make my way up towards the goblins I pinned and start sending a strong electric current at the ice then slowly turn my ice back into water to allow for better conductivity. Confirming they're dead, I bring out a small knife and collect my mana crystals from my prey as well.

We continue heading further into the cave until we spot the entrance to the next floor, though another three archer goblins hiding behind three leather armored goblins holding shields up toward us blocks our way. Being in such a narrow area, I form one ice shield to protect us from arrows while simultaneously sending a water stream flowing towards their formation. I don't even need to guide the water with a layer of ice as the stone won't absorb the water and the narrow passageway acts as the guide.

Seeing that it would be more mana efficient to just freeze the water than to send electricity for six goblins worth, I do just that and freeze their feet. While the goblins struggle to remove their feet from within the ice, we push up towards them hiding behind my ice shield until Faris is in melee range. She jumps to their backline and harvests the lives of their archers and we finish off the goblins with the shield by attacking from both sides.

We reach the statue and decide to end the day early to give us some extra time to move into our new home. We retrieve Blacky and start riding him back to Unatis as I count the fruit of our efforts for the day. We got a total of 142 mana crystals today.

The advantages of hunting with only myself and my slaves are really showing with ample rewards for only a day's work.

"We sure did earn a lot today didn't we, Faris?

 

"Yea, we're hunting at a good pace."

 

"But with if we're earning this much for just a day's work, aren't most adventurers rich, even if they have to spend a decent amount on new equipment or repairs?"

 

"Master, most other adventurers either aren't as fast as us, having to rest their mages more frequently as well as having to split their rewards. Even so, you're right master, adventurers earn a lot that's why it's a popular occupation but a lot of risks come along with it as well besides the monsters, lots of rogue adventurers target other adventurers in the dungeon for their wealth. And being in the dungeon, their crimes would be near impossible to be discovered if they finish off everyone. That's why most adventurers try to save up and quit adventuring as soon as they have made enough."

"...Sigh, greed always gets to some people"

"Don't worry master, they usually target people in more secluded dungeons, even then, they won't act unless given an opportunity, after all, all adventurers are capable fighters."

"Let's work hard and quickly earn enough to get us a new reliable party member, safety in numbers."

"Hmm, I'll do my best, master."

---

We return to town and immediately went to the housing store to get the keys to our new home.

"Welcome sir and madam, your property has already been cleaned and is ready for you, here are the keys, please don't lose them or there will be a fine."

I've been getting the hang of horsemanship so I make Blacky trot to the inn we are currently staying at to gather our belongings and checking out of the inn.

We didn't have much so we managed to carry everything on us while we headed toward our new home. We exit the main street area and enter the residential area where there are no shops in sight.

It didn't take long for us to find our house, at the front is a small iron gate that opened as it sensed our magic key, reminds me of key fobs from my old world. No wonder mana crystals are always in demand, they power pretty much everything. We cross the small front yard and leave Blacky in a small detached stable off to the side before entering the house using the same key.

The interior looked just as described in the catalog, stone walls painted in white, wooden staircase near the entrance, and the fine wooden floor that I'd be fine walking barefooted on.

We rush into our master bedroom to unload our stuff only to be greeted by a humongous bed that I'm sure will fit four people with room to spare.

"This place is pretty good, what do you think Faris?"

"It's beautiful, master."

"Yep, and starting today, it'll be our home, feel free to choose one of the other rooms to take as your own."

"...Master wants me to sleep by myself?" Faris says while looking like an abandoned puppy.

"No, no, just to have your own place, to keep your stuff or to have some personal time. At night you'll be sleeping with me though." I speak as I hug onto my Faris.

"You're still too kind master, giving your slaves their own room..."

"As I said before, you may be my slave but you're like family to me." Faris's face turns red as I finish that line.

We finish unpacking our stuff and head back down and sit on the leather couch for a break.

"Hey Faris, do you want to eat out tonight or cook at home?"

"Master, I'll cook for you! I can't let the opportunity pass to properly make you a meal."

"Sure, let's go shopping for food and any items that we'll like to have in our house. Let's head out now before sunset, we can cook together after, though I'm probably not that good at it."

As a man who lived alone, I certainly know how to make my own food, though I would certainly call it more of a survival skill than cooking skills. I'm not that picky of an eater so I would simply throw on some simple spices and cook it until edible, or buy pre-marinated cuts but that isn't an option now.

"...But..." Faris puts on a troubled face.

"No buts, we're cooking together, I'm sure it'll be fun and taste better having been part of the creation process."

Having been trained in cooking, Faris easily produces a list of ingredients to buy as we head out to the market. They sure are a lot of people doing some end of the day shopping before sunset as we tried to get more familiar with what's on the market and which stalls were better, I ended buying a calendar of this world. I left Faris to pick the ingredients as she knew better while I stuck to being the wallet, haggling with the shopkeepers.

We got home during sunset and got started on making a feast to celebrate moving into my first home. Faris made some delicious baked fish, some pasta-like dish as well as some local dishes to the kingdom.

Having our bellies filled and the dishes cleaned, we head to my most anticipated place of this new house, the bathroom. The bathroom located inside the master bedroom in this house is completely all wooden, along with the built-in bath that can probably able to fit in a dozen people, being four meters long, five meters wide, and one meter deep.

Finally, I can take a bath once again, with no showers available so far, I've been looking forward to live in a place with a bath. I instantly conjure some hot water to fill the bath and jump in, feeling the comfort that is washing away all fatigue from the core of my being, I can't help be let out a relieved sigh. That sure took quite a bit of mana but definitely worth it as it is good practice anyway.

Faris jumps in shortly afterward, when she fully enters the steaming bath, her expression melts, looking like she has reached paradise. I think I'm in paradise too as I enjoy the bath while holding onto my Faris. I stayed in the bath for over half an hour before I reluctantly get out with Faris to move to the next event, breaking in the new bed. And I'm happy to report that the bed was very soft and sturdy, no squeaky noises heard no matter how hard I bounced on it. Yep, quality bed indeed.