In this way, he was looking for the fruits until he had full arms.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any basket or something to hold it but he guessed that it would be better to get fresh fruits every time. If he took too much it could rot over time.

‘Or would it?’

He wasn’t sure. But he didn’t plan to try it. What if it would tick Miss Gardener off?

As such, after this, he went back to the paved road and went in one direction.

In truth, he didn’t know where the exit but staying in one place wouldn’t solve anything.

When he was falling he saw the gate and the path, but once he got inside of that barrier-like film over the place, he saw only green.

It was either an illusion or the place was much bigger inside than from the outside.

His guess was the second one. It reminded him of that freaky house that could change itself.

“I am done here. Now only get back to my room. I hope I won’t die here while looking for the way~”

He said this loudly as he walked.

He hoped for some kind of response or help since he was sure he wouldn't find a way to get outside without outside help.

Fortunately, the Gardener was still watching him. She commanded the flora around and it started to change slowly creating a path toward the gate.

Furthermore, the path shrank itself since this place was so big that he would walk for days otherwise.

And so, in a few minutes, he saw the gate in the distance. He was relieved at this.

The gate was big enough to see it from far but it didn’t take long to get in front of it.

Beside the gate was a fence enclosing the entire garden. It was made out of metal covered in patterns of flowers. All in all, it looked like part of an aristocratic garden that someone had behind their mansion…

But the truth was far from it.

Once he passed the gate he felt the same sensation as when he was falling. It was as if he passed some kind of film. He guessed it was a kind of barrier that created the illusion.

Maybe it had other functions.

‘Let’s hope I never find out.’

When he turned back he saw that the garden already looked as if it was just a small garden.

Still big but within the limits of normality.

His mouth twitched at this. Nothing was normal here.

Soon, he set off as he had to get into the house. Sera told him that the only safe places were the Housekeeper’s territory, living room, and garden.

And he was in none of those as of now…

He was on a small paved road, the same one that took him out of the garden and guided him to the doors of the house.

Around him were all kinds of statues of different species in different positions, bushes sculpted into all kinds of shapes and whatnot.

It was a wondrous sight. However, for him, it felt as if those statues were looking at him scaring him. He didn’t know if it was just his fantasy and he would rather not find it out…

And so he hurried up and came in front of the backdoor of the house.

How did he know it was a backdoor?

The entrance was a quite small door leading to the garden. What else would it be?

He won’t believe that this big ass house would use this door as the main one.

He reached out for the knob hoping in silence that the door was not locked.

*Click*

Fortunately, it wasn’t and he quickly entered and closed it behind him.

“Phew…”

The sigh of relief he had at that moment was indescribable.

The fear of meeting any other creature in this place got his goosebumps.

He really hoped that he wouldn’t meet anything else.

With this thought, he started to randomly go around the corridors looking for his room.

If he could find Sera she would help him. However, he would have to find her first. Was she in the living room? Or somewhere else? He didn’t have an idea. Even if he knew where she was he didn’t know how to get to her.

He just hoped that he wouldn't encounter anything dangerous.

In the end, he spent what he felt like forever until he finally found the right place.

“Finally!”

It didn’t take as much time as he feared since the house didn’t actively try to mess with him but he still was completely spent after this day.

When he got to the doors and pulled at them he believed that today there won’t be anything surprising anymore.

However…

“Oh no…”

His face got pale.

The doors were locked. And he didn’t have the key.

‘Damn you, Koro! Damn you, cloak!’

He was angry but he couldn’t do anything.

“Hey, can you open the doors for me?”

The try of asking the house failed as soon as it began as he was completely ignored.

‘What should I do?’

The key he got from the house was within the cloak which turned into a cat.

‘Wait a minute. If it turned into a cat, where did the key disappear?’

He didn’t think about it before as the flora attacked him soon after he tried to go after the cat and that made him forget to think about it.

‘Should I go back and ask Miss Gardener for help?’

He wondered if the key got simply lost.

‘No, the cat can shapeshift. Who knows if it can keep the key or not.’

“But what choice do I have?”

He sighed as he prepared to go back to the garden.

However, the sound of humming came out of the doors that startled him.

“What?!”

The same humming came out of him. Respectively from the pocket of his suit.

The rhythm of both were synchronized.

Looking at his pocket he got curious and touched whatever was inside.

“Oh!”

The same key he thought he lost was there.

‘Was it always in the suit? Or did it appear later?’

He would notice if it was the first. The key was quite heavy. It was hard to believe that he wouldn’t know about it as he walked in the suit for some time.

But he wouldn’t question it.

He was happy at this fact since he could go inside.

He took the key out and inserted it into the keyhole which was on the knob of the doors.

Then, with one fluent turn to the right he heard clicking sounds as the mechanism inside the doors unlocked the room.

*Click*

This time he pulled and the doors opened and he could enter.

“Thank god.”

He took the key back and looked inside.

With a few steps he entered and closed the doors behind him.

*Meow*

The strong meowing resounded as he entered.

On the bed was a little kitten that looked a little panicked as it crawled in the direction of the doors.

That made him a little nervous.

‘Did something enter the room?’

For a moment, he thought the kitty was simply scared and tried to escape from something after it woke up.

But then he realized it was looking at him with longing. Or at least that was how it looked to him.

He couldn’t think anymore as the kitten got on the edge of the bed and still didn’t stop.

Given that it was spirit it probably wouldn’t hurt itself from the fall but he still didn’t want to make it happen.

He let go of the fruits and with a sprint, he ran to the bed and caught the ball of fur into his arms before it fell.

“Gotcha! What are you doing little one? you could fall on your head.”

With a gentle flick, he tapped the forehead of the pure white kitty.

The kitty didn’t care as it was purring while cuddling towards his arms.

“Sigh…”

He just smiled helplessly. This was the kind of healing he urgently needed after the day he went through.

There was, however, one thing that kinda bothered him.

‘This isn’t how cats should be acting, no?’

He was more of a dog person since the dogs were most of the time the most adorable creatures that deserved the best.

Unfortunately, because his late mother was allergic to fur, he never had the opportunity.

After his parent’s passing, he didn’t have time for pets since he was going to college and he didn’t want the animal to be home alone most of the time.

He never even considered cats. Not because he didn’t like them but simply because he was hypnotized by the videos on the internet of evil cats terrorizing their owners.

How big a pain in the ass would it be to have such a little devil at home?

Yet, he got one now. And because of it, he ended up here…

‘Whatever. I don’t dislike her being like this.’

Kitty is as cute as this. How could he hate something like that?

And so, he just cuddled with her at that moment.

Only after some time did he remember what he came to do here.

He put the kitten down and went to collect the fruits he let go of before.

The kitten wasn’t content with this and tried to keep itself on him but in the end, it was too weak to oppose him.

“Just going for food. You didn’t have food for a long time, didn’t you?”

He collected every fruit and put it on the tray on the bedside table.

‘Was it there before?’

He didn’t think that there was anything else than the lamp when he was here for the first time.

It was definitely suspicious.

‘Let’s just hope it isn’t anything bad.’

He then took one of the fruits with golden skin and sniffed it.

By the looks of it, this one was one of the fruits that should be peeled first.

And so he did.

It didn’t take long and in front of his eyes, a flesh of the fruit showed itself.

if he didn’t know better he would think it was liquid gold.

Just the smell made him salivate.

The fruit itself was divided into seven segments and so he took one.

With little hesitation, he put it into his mouth.

However, he couldn’t bite it.

It literally melted in his mouth as the sweet nectar flowed into his belly.

His eyes widened at this delicacy. This was what he imagined when someone said heaven.

So sweet yet it wasn’t as uncomfortable as some kinds of sweets made on Earth which are simply over-sweetened. But this? It was a perfect balance of sweetness and freshness giving him the feeling of being liberated.

He ate another three segments with relish until he felt full despite it being a small amount.

After that, he washed it down with the sacred water in the waterskin.

“Damn, so good!”

This was the best food he ever had. The food tasted even better after a hard day.

*Meow*

This daze lasted until he felt his finger being sucked by the kitten.

“Oh yeah. Do you want some too? Here!”

He already had the word of the Gardener that it was fine for it to eat. It was spirit anyway so it should be fine.

He gave it to the kitten who was having problems eating it. It didn’t have teeth yet.

So he took it back and broke it down into smaller pieces and was feeding it.

Once the kitten tasted the fruits its eyes widened as it suddenly became much more active as it crawled to get more.

“Haha. Easy there. I won’t run with it anywhere.”

With a smile, he continued to feed it and let it drink from his waterskin.

Once it had enough it fell asleep again.

“Fuuu, What should I do now? I have already taken care of my basic needs. Should I bathe? I don’t need to since the pond already purified me… But I really want to lay in the hot water after this day…”

He contemplated it as he didn’t want to waste the water on something useless.

But in the end, he felt that he deserved it after this day. He doesn’t plan to go out today anyway. He will go right to bed soon enough.

He then went to the grandfather clock that was standing there to see what time it showed.

It looked like stylish clocks that people would have in their basements after their great-grandparents.

This one was, however, fully functional with the pendulum swinging from one side to another.

Looking at the face of the clock.

And as he expected, it didn’t show any weird times.

It was a normal 12-hour clock. The mix of the sexagesimal system and duodecimal system where sixty seconds makes one minute, sixty minutes makes one hour and twelve hours makes one cycle, a half day.

Three clock hands, one showing seconds, the second showing minutes, and the third one showing hours. Nothing strange.

It was just a few minutes after 9 p.m.

It was fantastic that he could at least know how the time passed in here but he also felt uncomfortable for being so naked in front of everything.

Ever since he entered this room he felt like everything was prepared for him specifically.

Since housekeepers could be any race, even a little kitten, there is no chance that the master bedroom would be the same. That means that the entire place observes you and analyzes you.

For all he knew, the tray he put the fruits on wasn't there before. That would mean that something or someone moved it there because he held the fruits.

“Haah… I really need that bath. Since it is so late I will go to sleep after that.

And so he went into the bathroom. This time he was prepared as he had enough water.

With quick steps, he passed the front room and entered the one in the back.

There the bathtub already awaited him.

“Firstly, I need to find out if it has some heating mechanism or something.”

He didn’t look before as the water tubs didn’t work so it didn’t matter if he could heat the water but now it was a matter of whether he would bathe in cold or hot water.

The bath had some kind of levers and buttons at the side showing that it had at least several functions so heating should be at least one of them.

He opened the waterskin and turned it down so the water could flow out.

“Well, water first.”

He waited for the water to fill the tub but then he frowned.

‘The tub is too big. It will take forever. Hmm?’

Or not. The water surface was going up at a quick pace despite the limited amount of water flowing from the waterskin.

‘Is it some optical illusion or what?’

It was quite mind-boggling.

In the end, he could only shake his head and stop pouring more water.

“At least I won’t waste too much of it.”

While muttering to himself he turned his attention to the levers and buttons.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to try everything to know what button does what as everything was marked with easy-to-understand symbols.

One lever had symbols around it. On one side was the symbol of snowflake and on the other that of flame. There were some others between those but he already got the gist.

He pulled the lever from the left side to the right side and waited for what would happen.

“Nothing, huh?”

As he expected, nothing was happening despite waiting for some time.

Despite expecting this he still had some hope so he was quite disappointed.

‘I guess I can just bathe in the normal water then. It wasn’t cold so it didn't matter.’

As he thought so he prepared to enter the tub.

However, he noticed something.

The small door at the bottom of the bathtub appeared.

Now he was sure that things change in the room based on the needs.

It is just that the mechanisms don’t work since they are broken.

He crouched and looked inside of that square door.

It was a hole full of ash that was right under the tub.

“Knew it. It is a primitive way but at least I don’t need to fear it won’t work. Thank you, whoever manifested this!”

With this, he just needed to make a fire under the tub to make it hot.

‘Firewood. I need some… Ah!’

There were some kept next to the fireplace and the stove.

He ran for them in excitement and in not even a minute he was back with hands full of wood.

He stuffed some inside.

But as he was satisfied he realized something.

‘How to make a fire?’

Unfortunately, he didn’t have matches or light.

It is not like he doesn’t have a clue how to make fire.

His uncle has a cottage deep in the forest. He played there as a kid a lot.

However, without tools, he would need to do it in the most primitive way.

And that would take too much time.

So he looked around the room if there wasn’t something that could be used.

And there was.

‘Is this…?’

Next to the fireplace, he found a piece of steel made into the shape of a C and some kind of rock or stone.

‘That’s fucking flint and steel, isn’t it?’

He already expected it from looking at this place but it is really obsolete.

‘How the fuck do I use it?’

With a sigh, he returned to the bathtub and sat down before the fire door.

He played with both items for a while and concluded one thing.

‘This flint is not flint and this steel striker isn’t from steel. Who would have thought? I will call it  fake flint and steel then.’