After his upset stomach finally calmed down, he could sigh in relief.

For a moment, he thought they would die after Fel jumped at the bridge.

He really feared that the bridge would overturn with them.

In truth, he would rather go on another flying season with Koro than go through this bridge again.

He wanted to scold Fel, but he didn't have any strength to even try to explain her mistakes. He knew she would be oblivious to whatever she did, as always.

“Ugh… Let’s go… We must take this thing to the Fire…”

‘Wait a second… Couldn’t we just dump those things in this abyss? Why are we even going to the Fire Pit?’

“Sera… Can’t we just dump IT into the abyss?”

He started to explain his reasoning to Sera in hopes that they won’t need to go through this bridge twice every day. That is like a nightmare for him.

“No, we can’t. If we do this, we will taint this realm in no time… You already saw how this realm should look like in the dream realm. This abyss actually leads further under the Spirit Ocean that is flowing around. If we throw it there, other tenants at the bottom of the abyss will be angry, and it can cause other kinds of problems too. The best way to get rid of something completely without leftovers is to throw it into the Fire Pit.”

Sera explained this to him as she looked into the abyss with a little apprehension.

He could already guess that the ones there aren’t other cute girls like Sera, Fel, and Koro.

Some scary beings that are not necessarily even humanoid-looking…

“By the way, what do you mean by Spirit Ocean? I mean, I don’t remember that dream that vividly. But I am sure I didn’t see any big bodies of water around.”

He wondered what she meant by that. To him, this place seems like a big piece of land with lots of mountains.

However, she had an answer to this.

“This entire place is the same as the House. It can change its size, environment, weather… Basically anything. Back then the Spirit Ocean was polluted, so it disappeared from our eyes ever since… That is also why all garbage was accumulated in the House. There is fear that some things got polluted too and can spread it even more.”

After saying this, she started to hike the dark mountain as they were far from the peak.

When he looked up, he felt a little dizzy seeing how high this thing was. And now he has to climb it…

For a moment, he considered jumping on Fel’s back and riding her.

Of course, that is just his fantasy. He doesn’t have the guts to do that. Forget about Fel; he feared that Sera’s expression would change into one of condescending!

As a person who was strongly conscious of others' opinions about him, he would die of shame.

He could only sigh as he went after Sera. He noticed that when it doesn’t come to cleaning, she is quite a dependable girl. He would definitely fall on the bridge if she didn’t hold him with one hand.

The only weakness he could nitpick about her is that stupid head of hers. It feels like she was beheaded but was pretending she was okay despite it!

At least glue that head so it doesn’t fall at every light blow of the wind!

‘This definitely isn’t natural.’

There is no way that dullahans are this defective. There must be some catch here.

But since it feels like a bad topic to talk about, he will be considerate and not talk about it.

Instead, after climbing some meters, he looked around to see the realm better.

Even if he couldn’t see as well as from the balcony, the view was amazing.

Unfortunately, everything looked quite gloomy and dangerous.

That made him remember Sera’s words.

‘The ocean ran away…’

The idea itself sounded ridiculous. But considering the fact that the House itself could change its corridors and even let someone wander in circles forever, it isn’t that inconceivable.

The question is whether this will be his next task to get his position…

‘Hopefully not. How the heck would I purify an ocean?’

Taking a deep breath, he exhaled a sigh as he followed closely behind Sera.

Fortunately, Sera seemed to know the best path up and didn’t waste everyone’s time on difficult climbing through rocky terrain and instead guided them to places where even he can go without getting a rugged breath in a few seconds.

Unfortunately, as they went up, the fresh wind blowing in the air disappeared and instead showed the smog and smoke coming out of the volcano.

He feared that he could breathe it in and so he covered his mouth. Sera did the same.

But when he saw that Fel and Koro didn’t, he knew he had to warn them.

“Hey, cover your mouth, you two! Don’t breathe it in!”

Both of them looked at me in wonder.

““Why?””

Seeing their identical reaction, he rolled his eyes.

“Because it is dangerous for your health. Don’t question it. Just cover your mouth.”

Fel, who considered him as the leader, listened to his words and covered her mouth.

That made her a little displeased as she had to stand on her two legs. Normally, she used all four of her legs to move around just like dogs or wolves. But with one hand used, it became burdensome for her.

On the other hand, Koro didn’t seem to be able to do so. She looked at her wings with confusion. But as she fell into deep contemplation that nobody would understand, she forgot to move her wings properly and started to sway in the air.

When he saw this, he came under her and caught her waist, which startled as she squeaked.

“Hagh?!”

Looking downwards, she noticed that it was him which calmed her a little but she still fidgeted in his arms.

“What is Mr. Housekeeper doing to Koro?!”

“Don’t be a baby. You almost fell. If you can’t cover your mouth while flying I will carry you.”

Her reaction made him feel as if he was some kind of offender. Even though he just wanted to help!

‘Should I throw her away?’

However, after looking at her innocent face with the ends of her ears red, he felt a little amused.

Blaming her wouldn’t solve anything. She isn’t like a normal girl, so he can’t compare her with normal standards. And so, without words, he put the girl on his back next to the sack.

Normally, this would be quite hard for him as he wasn’t very strong but fortunately, this girl was very light. Actually, it was so light that it was quite disturbing.

“Hold me and cover that mouth of yours.”

“Koro u-understands…”

She circled her felons around his waist while using her wing to cover her mouth. However, she was still a little fidgety.

“Mr. Housekeeper is such a rogue.”

“What?”

He heard her muttering something but she was too silent for him to hear.

“N-nothing.”

He wondered if he heard someone else but nobody… Wait… Why was both Sera and Fel looking at him?

Fel was looking just with curiosity but Sera was once again looking with that strange expression. Lately she was looking at him like that quite often…

He wanted to ask, but he felt that they wouldn’t tell him anything.

‘I won’t think about it.’

So, as the professional procrastinator, he chose to ignore it.

Instead, he thought about something else.

‘Now that I think about it, Koro is quite weird. On Earth, there are quite a few versions of harpies. Usually more birds than women and being the little devils that terrorize people around. On the other hand, Koro is completely different. She is more human-like, has a personality that isn’t inherently evil, and her feathers are colorful. While not so uncommon, it was still shocking to see her looking like that. Why did harpies evolve in that way? Did they even evolve like animals on Earth? He had the same questions about dullahans and werewolves.’

Thinking about all of this, he once again realized that he was far from his home and that he is currently stranded in a place where he doesn’t know anything about that much.

He could only sigh internally and climb.

Fortunately, after an hour they were finally at the peak. He would lie down on the ground to rest for a bit if the rocks around weren’t so heated.

As this was the active volcano, the closer they got to the peak where the hole was, the higher the temperature got. That made not only the air extremely dry, but the ground was so hot that he felt that he would get second-degree burns just by touching it!

For a moment, he feared that his shoes would get destroyed, but they were unblemished, making him relieved.

He was also relieved that Fel was standing on her two feet as she also had…

‘She doesn’t have shoes?!’

When his eyes turned to her legs to see shoes, he noticed that she was barefoot the entire time!

She was walking around with small unblemished feet with small claws on her toes without even making a sound!

He wanted to cry out, but no sound came out of his mouth for a second.

Seeing this made him anxious. It was uncomfortable to see her stepping on those rocks with her bare feet so much that he almost felt the pain for her.

After a while, she noticed his sigh and turned around.

“Friend?”

“Oh.. hahahah… I just wondered if you don’t feel pain walking around without shoes.”

“This is just a little warm though?”

“...”

Looking at her face, he didn’t notice any sign of pain or even trying to endure pain. So when he looked back at the feet, he looked closely and noticed that they were still as white as her face without any burn at all…

It was as if she walked on any other floor.

‘So I feared in vain, huh…I guess I forgot she was a werewolf..’

“I guess it is fine, then.”

“Oh…”

She didn’t understand why he would ask about this, but she grinned since she felt her friend’s worry. Her leader’s worry meant she didn’t choose him wrong as her leader.

Boom

“Whoa?!”

Suddenly, the entire volcano started to rumble as the ground under everyone’s legs trembled.

For a moment, he thought he would fall as his balance was off, but Fel, who was next to him, caught him.

“Phew.. Thanks, Fel.”

“Woof!”

Her tail wagged from side to side, showing that she liked being thanked.

He smiled and patted her head. It was almost an automatic action on his side, but he realized it too late to stop. Fortunately, Fel didn’t mind as she even stretched her head in the direction of his hand and closed her eyes.

He even harbored the thought to caress those ears of hers that looked so fluffy, but Sera’s voice interrupted him.

‘Sir, we need to go. It seems that Firewyrm is up and moving around. It could be dangerous.’

While saying this, she held with both of her hands her head as the trembling almost caused her head to fall.

The poor girl almost lost her head irreversibly several times since they got out of the House.

‘No wonder she didn’t come here before…’

Shaking his head, he went to the edge of the volcano. They were already close, so he slowed down.

He didn’t want to fall down.

“Fel, can you hold Koro for a moment?”

He had to give Fel Koro as he held the sack and had to throw it inside.

But with Koro, his balance was a little bad and felt that risking his life over that would be stupid.

Fel didn’t look like she was content with it, but she didn’t refuse. So without hesitation, he dumped Koro on her.

“Eh? Why Mr. Housekeeper throwing Koro at doggy?”

“Not a dog!”

“Shush, you two!”

He scolded them as he needed to concentrate.

He untied the makeshift sack made out of the cloth and crouched down closer to the edge.

“Sera, you need to catch me if I fall, alright?”

“Of course, sir!”

Feeling nervous, he started to throw all that garbage down. One by one.

It was inefficient and took a long time, but he simply didn’t want to fall inside when throwing everything at once.

Physics is the enemy of clumsy ones. It will try to undermine you every time.

He also didn’t want to throw it out with the still-tied sack as they needed it for another batch.

And so, with patience, he threw everything gradually inside the volcano. There was no splash. There was only the bubbling sound of lava burning everything down…