'Phew… Another disaster avoided. And, if luck will bless me, it will be a good opportunity to speed up the process of my mission.'

The young man sighed in relief with a loud exhale as he leaned on the wall of the tunnel and relaxed his muscles. Despite being much stronger than the goblin, he found himself in a disadvantageous terrain; the dark tunnel was too narrow for even average-height humans, and it was pitch-black dark, making navigation without using his eyes challenging.

This resulted in painful bruises and scratches all around his body from hitting the walls of the tunnel. Some of his muscles felt strained. Surprisingly, his mood remained very good, and he didn't mind these minor wounds. The feeling of fighting for victory and the subsequent reward injected a big dose of dopamine into his brain. At that moment, he didn't care about anything, feeling light.

'But still… This was dangerous again… I really need something to defend myself. I was snuck upon several times already, even by Tyr, weaker than me, or Koro, whose brain's circuit doesn't work, if they meant ill will like those nightmare monsters.'

Goosebumps spread across his skin as he thought of that. Even having Fel and Sera close to him didn't stop Tyr from taking him underground.

'I should be more aware of my surroundings… Even now…'

He fell into deep thought as he wondered about the rule number for this situation.

'Should be eight—no, nine. So, Rule 9: Beware of traps and surprise attacks.'

And as he thought about the devil, devils came.

Growl

Hearing the growling from a distance made him feel the helplessness of his current situation. If it were some wild beast, he would have big problems getting out of here unscathed. Fortunately, this beast wasn't wild; it was halfway tamed.

“Woof! Friend! Smell blood.”

‘Haha, she is concerned about me. How cute.’

“Don’t worry, Fel. I am- Whoa?!”

Fel jumped right at him. He didn’t expect her to do this as he couldn’t see her, and his breath was taken away from his lungs as she started to sniff him around.

“Not good! I have to take you out. I smell something! Grrr! Someone wanted to mark Friend! I have to take him out quickly!”

Hearing this, she got to his leg and gently bit on it. While it was gentle, it was in no way loose. She bit firmly and started to pull him into the darkness.

He panicked as she suddenly started to drag him and struggled. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything against this girl. But then he remembered. Since he was her leader, he should be able to stop her with his order. And so he called out to her.

“No- Wait, Fel-Puuui?!”

Unfortunately, her tempo sped up, and his opened mouth prepared to speak was filled with dirt. And so, only moaning and grunting were heard in the tunnels as his help finally came.

…

Sera was feeling anxious at this very moment and fidgeted as she started to bite her nails in frustration.

‘My goodness… What to do? What if something happens to him?’

Besides being very friendly to most people, she was also very concerned about his safety because of his status. From what she observed, this young human seemed to have basic civility that she hoped for the Housekeeper to have. She didn’t have high standards, lowered after each Housekeeper that had come to power in this place.

Some got their power accidentally, some took it with force, and some were even selected by the realm and the house itself. Not for their character but for their abilities to contribute. And a lot of them did. The Housekeeper known as Goblin Revolutionist was experimenting on the goblin tenants all the time in the past. Yet he was selected as Housekeeper without doing any tricks.

As for why? That’s because he revolutionized the entire place with machines that elevated this place from having middle age technology. This entire place was connected with steel and iron, making everything much more efficient. Not only that, but he also made a connection with many worlds thanks to him sending many goblins from this place.

This permanent mark allowed subsequent Housekeepers to visit each of those worlds. But could he be counted as a good person? That was debatable. For villagers of those distant worlds where goblins were wreaking havoc everywhere he was a hero. But for the goblins that were abducted and experimented on? He was the devil himself.

With people like this becoming Housekeepers, many tenants became stressed out when even just candidates appeared. But now when she found one with a character that seemed so far as passable he was abducted. She didn’t see who or what it was but could guess.

‘Damn goblins! If you do something to him, will you take responsibility?’

She really wanted to run to their village and show them what the word consequences really is. Unfortunately, they were underground where it was cramped. If she didn’t want to fight with her head under one of her armpits then she could only prepare herself to bump her head and let it fall on the ground each time she wanted to move.

She was used to it, but if she wanted to achieve something with this kind of thing then it would be obviously impossible. Fortunately, Fel, without a hint of hesitation, jumped down the hole that the goblins made and ran after them. Even Koro, whose body was small enough to get into the tunnel, followed after since she thought it would be ‘fun’.

What Sera didn’t know was that Fell and Koro had fallen into a trap. This trap was simple; it altered the structure of the tunnel corridors, causing even Fel, a werewolf at the peak of her sensitivity, to search for him by his smell for several minutes. On the other hand, Koro, who fell into a completely different corridor, didn’t have any way to navigate herself, so she was just wandering around.

After what felt like an eternity, Sera became all the more anxious and had the urge to jump into that hole despite knowing all the risks. However, as she hesitated, a subtle noise emanated from the hole until another shadow emerged. Sera stiffened, thinking it was another goblin, but when she saw that it was Fel, she sighed in relief.

“You are here finally! I was worried for sir’s safet- What happened?!”

She visibly relaxed when she saw Fel, but it didn’t take long before her body became taut again. Seeing the man in such a sorry state made her anxiety spike as she wondered if Fel brought back just a cold body already. However, the quiet grunting and subsequent spitting of dirt made her relax again. This fluctuation of mood made her feel weak, and her legs wobbled.

“Damn it…”

On the other hand, the young man was feeling even worse. Propping his body up with his palms, he breathed heavily, trying to get the dirt stuck in his mouth out. After a while, he still felt his mouth was dirty, so he took the waterskin and rinsed his mouth with it.

If the old sages knew that in the far realm of miracles, there was a young man who used sacred water from a sacred pond to rinse his mouth, who knows what they would think. Maybe they would feel pain from wasting such a rare treasure or turn green from envy. Unfortunately for them, the young man doesn’t realize this. He heard from Gardener that it is called ‘sacred,’ but he doesn’t know what to think about it. Such words are so common that he has no chance to know what kind of relevance this water has. He drank from it and didn’t feel much so far except quenching his thirst.

Furthermore, since Gardener let him and even others drink it, then it should not be so rare. No one would let strangers drink something so rare, right? However, for the tenants of this place, it isn’t something so uncommon, so nobody really cared.

Thus, when he finally got rid of that taste of dirt, he plopped on the ground.

“Haah…Haah… Damn you, Fel…”

His breaths were heavy as he complained with a soft voice to the troublemaker that did this to him.

“Woof! I had to get you out! Too dangerous!”

“Haah…”

After rolling his eyes internally, he tried to get up. When he sat, he looked at his clothes with a pained look.

‘My clothes…’

They were devastated. Surprisingly, he didn’t see any torn parts. However, the fact that they looked like crumpled paper thrown in the mud didn’t help. He sighed and then wondered how he would clean them. He has to. After all, until he gets a promised promotion, then he won’t be able to get any clothes from the dressing room! There is only a finite range that he can select out of. If he just wasted them all, then he will have no other choice than to find Púca, who has already betrayed him, or conquer the main Dressing Room that is under tyrant dictatorship!

As he has no chance to get into the main dressing room at this moment, he could only try to find Púca. But Gardener said that it was hidden for many generations of Housekeepers without anyone seeing it. He still doesn’t know why it showed itself to him. It could be only an accident or it was temporarily curious about him. But now? He has no chance to find it if everyone else couldn’t do it. So he can only try to clean it up. But firstly, he needs to find out how and where.

In his room, he didn’t see anything he could use for the purpose of cleaning dirty clothes.

‘Well, whatever. I will think about it once I get back…’

Today was probably one of the most tiring days he has ever gone through. And since the cuckoo didn’t show up so far, there is a big chance that even half a day hasn't passed yet…

“Sir, are you alright? Oh no, you are bleeding…”

As he thought so, Sera, who was fidgeting the entire time, ran to him and checked his body.

“It’s just scratches… It doesn’t matter. I want to get back as soon as possible.”

Seeing him like this, Sera holds her tongue back. She had many questions. After all, goblins wouldn’t kidnap him like this only for fun. She didn’t know why they would do this as they never had a chance to kidnap someone before. That made Sera and other tenants oblivious to their problems.

“Alright, I will help-”

“No! Don’t touch! I will take Friend!”

Sera wanted to take him into princess carry as before, but Fel stopped her. His eyes widened in horror thinking she wanted to drag him by leg again, but he relaxed when she took him on her back, giving him a piggyback. Although he still could muster the strength to go on his own legs, he didn’t fight back. Instead, he wondered about the second village of goblins.

‘She said they were in some swamp? Do they also have the same problem and can’t get out? Well, I guess they wouldn’t be able to get any females here either. They are all monsters…’

And so, they went through the living labyrinth and finally got to the main entrance of the house. He almost teared up when he saw it.

‘Finally…’

Although the house was also full of dangers, it still gave him a little feeling of safety compared to the outside. Right now he just wanted a big rest without caring about anything. And that can be done only in the safety of the Master Bedroom. Unfortunately, he still has some things to do today lest he will suffer in the same way tomorrow.

‘I need Sera to show me all the hidden corridors…’