The spring in this world was shorter than I was used to on earth. Here spring lasted around two months at longest and summer lasted for almost five whole months. Autumn was even shorter than spring though, only about a month and winter lasted around four months. No need to add that the existence of magic could turn even this phenomena on its head. The book I got from the Gods, the World Introduction book, mentioned that there are places, and even entire continents, where the flow of magical powers shift the natural order and so, there exist deserts with everlasting sandstorms, Volcanoes that spew ice and snow, tornadoes made of lightning and much more different environments.

Anyway, spring continued through its well known rails and summer was getting closer. Or more like, it was about damn time it came! The wolves’ delivery date was around the corner and there was still snow around to be shoveled! This year's winter was longer than any I remember here.

The wolves safely delivered their pups about a week after the snow melted completly and I was surprised once again. Shikuro's partner, Shimana gave birth to six pups. That was the highest of all female wolves this year. Four of these pups were Shadow wolves like the two of them, but one was a so-called Infernal Wolf and the last one was called Blizzard wolf.

These two are practically a complete opposites of each other. The Blizzard Wolf is completely white with blue eyes, it also has these ice blue horn-like stumps near its ears. The Infernal Wolf is on the other hand completely black, just like Black wolves and Shadow wolves, but the fur have slightly reddish tips, making it look like smoldering wood. He also has stumps like the Blizzard wolf, albeit red ones. I believe they will grow horns as they get older, but so far I only have to wait and see.

As for the remaining Black wolves, they all had four to five pups, all of which were Black wolves. This brought the total of my Black wolves to a great number of sixty eight. Which isn't a lot compared to the slimes, but it still is a lot compared to other monsters' regular deliveries.

The three eggs Persia had, have hatched safely and the baby owls were really loud. This made me create a new wind magic spell I named Silence. Finding out that sound can be used as magic I continued experimenting and made spells like Screech, Voice Changer and Whisper.

Screech makes a sound so high-pitched that it makes eardrums explode. This was tested on my friendly enemies called Skull Bears. Voice changer allows me to change my voice, but it has a tendency to jump from high to low if my magic control isn't consistent. Lastly, Whisper allows my whispers to travel across certain distances. These distances are decided by how much magic power I use. It's quite useful for directing my wolves when we are on a hunt. I also found out that if the enemy is directly between me and my monster, it has to have heightened senses to notice anything. The bears picked it up instantly while the bandits did not.

Oops, I got distracted over there…

The three young owls are all black with some white feathers here and there. They are the most common owl monsters called Shadow Owls.

I thought that that would be all my surprises, but lately, there were some goblins appearing from time to time. Most of the time, the moment they saw Urza or Chika they ran away with red faces. Boys are in love, eh?

"Hey, Arito, look," Blanche pointed at one of the goblins who came from the forest. He was only dressed in a loincloth, but held a flower in his hand, which was fairly beaten up, though. He went right to Urza and Chika. But once he got to them, he passed them and went to Shizu in the back.

"Oh…"

"Unexpected turn of events…" the two of us turned into commentators.

Shizu blushed hard and started shaking. Her hand suddenly raised high into the air and delivered a big slap that sent the goblin and his beaten up flower flying. "Stinkyyyyyyyyy!!!"

"What a curveball… but as we would expect from our dear Shizu."

"Fair ladies don't like stinky men," we continued our commentary with big smiles as Shizu ran away into our cave, quickly followed by Urza and Chika.

The goblin got on his rear, his head hung limply. At that moment his friends came out of the forest and surrounded him. They made some sounds and the depressed goblin looked up. As he did his eyes fell on Blanche and a big perverted smile appeared on his face.

"Oy…" my voice, surprisingly deep, made the goblin flinch, but given I suddenly appeared before him and grabbed him by his neck, the surprise could be from multiple things.

I made quick work of all five goblins and ordered Grime slimes to eat their corpses. During the winter they were the ones who experienced the greatest boom in numbers. Mainly because their food so far was only my and Blanche's— ahem… wastes. During the winter I had them eat all the rotten meat and trash we collected from the bandits as well as waste from the wolves and owls as they turned out to be too lazy to go out. That goes even for Skopi who is a Freezing owl of all things, and he did not want to go out in the cold.

Now that I think about it, the winter was great for sorting out all the things we got. Surprisingly it was quite the sum.

I looked at one black sword and yellow spear I had hung crossed above the fireplace. There was also a Black Staff that was owned by a sorcerer leading the group in which was the man with black sword, but I couldn't come up with a way to showcase it as it had bad proportions. Though they were so weak I didn't even need to get close to them. My archery skills grew by leaps and bounds ever since I came from Earth.

Now that I think about it, my Archery skill is actually called [Bow mastery], I wonder how much I leveled it up.

The air felt nice. The breeze was warm and felt nice against the skin.

"Those goblins really pissed me off…"

"Thank you for protecting me," Blanche hugged me as I walked to her.

"Of course, you are my sweetheart, after all," I smiled at her.

"J-jeez, how can you say something so embarrassing so easily?" Blanche blushed deep crimson and burrowed her face in my neck.

"I don't think honest feelings are embarrassing though?" I gave her a confident smile.

"Yo! Arito, we came back!"

"H-how long were you there?" my voice skipped an octave when I saw Raven walking up to me with Kellen, who seemed a little more buffed then before.

"Fufufu, you are getting embarrassed, Arito," Blanche smiled teasingly.

"Grrr… anyway, what are you doing here?"

"The duke and his family came to give you their thanks… Did we come at the wrong time?" Kellen looked at me with a smirk.

"N-no it's okay! Please bring them here!" I called out to them, "How many people are we talking about?"

"The Ducal family of five, their butler and us the guards you met last time," Raven counted them on his fingers.

"Ten people… I understand."

With that we moved quickly. Given we had a table only for five (as Romi only needed blood for her sustenance, hence she didn't eat the same food as us), I needed to move everything to my dimension home and used earth magic to create a bigger table and chairs to go along with it. Once that was done, Shizu made a miniature mound with stones and gems in the middle to make it look nicer. Though why did she put a stone slime on the top again?

We went outside and waited for a little while before the group arrived. My eyes instantly went to an elder with a long beard with completely white hairs and brown skin. He was most definitely an Ancient just like me. Next to him was a woman that looked to be around twenty years old with similar features, albeit a little paler. Next to this woman was Henry, the duke and two kids. Henretta I met before and a small kid around my and Blanche's age. The butler looked nothing like one though. He was on the older side, yes, but his short build and massive, and I mean massive, muscles practically screamed that he was a dwarf. The guards were still the same as last time, but there was a big difference with one of them. Agatha was now wearing a maid uniform instead of armor.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you, I'm Arito Aruze."

"Happy to make your acquaintance, my name is Blanche."

"My name Laina Nomille, thank you for standing up for my husband and his men in their time of need," the twenty-or-so looking woman bowed, pinching the hem of her skirt.

"My name is Kalvig of the Reba tribe. I'm father of Laina and an Ancient, just like you, Mr. Arito. Is the Aruze tribe a small one? I've never heard about it before."

Well, I'm definitely the only one as I came from another world…

"I don't know… I've never met any others… except for my parents."

"I see. Sorry I asked," Kalvig bowed slightly, his green eyes shone slightly blue. Was that a skill or something?

"We finally met again! I came to repay my dues Arito!" Henretta smiled brightly.

"To be honest, we would come sooner, but Retty insisted on coming too so it took some time."

"It's okay… you didn't need to bother with it so much… let's come inside, standing around isn't comfortable," I gestured to the group and led them inside.

"Ah! Umm…" the small girl, who looked more like her mother than her father, said, "I'm Lena Nomille… it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Ah, yes, pleasure's all mine, young lady."

"Good work, Lena…"

I could hear Laina whisper to her daughter. I guess she isn't really good at talking with people.

We all moved inside the cave and sat around the table.

"Wow, what an amazing house you have. The walls are so smooth, were you using magic to do it?"

"Yes, I was using spells called Clay and Pavement."

"Oh? I never heard about them, what kind of spells are they?" Kalvig asked.

"Clay is similar to Rock and Break rock. It takes dirt and stones and turns them into soft clay in which monsters can get caught in. If you cut off the magic power it turns into rock again. Pavement is a spell that turns ground into solid rock. This spell is especially effective against treants."

"You've fought treants here?" Henry asked with raised eyebrows.

"Just once to the north from here. It wasn't particularly strong and some of my slimes enjoyed its leaves for a snack."

Especially those two leaf eating ones. They still haven't evolved yet, though.

"Didn't their leaves dry instantly like with other treants?"

"They did, but those two didn't mind at all."

"Um, I have a question. Father told us you came up with a thesis on monster evolution… I wish to become a tamer so I wonder if you could help me with it, if it's not too much to ask," Lena raised her hand, cheeks fully red and eyes sparkling lightly, even her mother's eyes started to sparkle. Henry did say that his wife is a tamer, if I recall it correctly…

"It's definitely not that much to ask. From what I saw in this forest, monsters divide into two categories. Magic born and Adapted… are you familiar with the term?"

"N-no…"

"I must say I heard about it for the first time too."

Hmm? Isn't this basic knowledge? Wait… don't tell me the gods gave me basic information based on their own knowledge instead of knowledge of the people…

As the ducal family, and their retainers too, did not know about what I was talking about, I decided to continue, "The Magic born refers to monsters who are primarily consistent of Magic power. Like spirits, undead, dragons and slimes. These monsters tend to evolve in many different ways and even multiple times as well."

"I see, so those slimes around you can still evolve?"

"They should be able to, but there are still some unknown requirements. Though, except for one I know exactly how to evolve the rest of my higher ranked species."

"You know???" Lady Laina instantly appeared next to me.

"You are too close," Blanche cut between us with a pout.

"Ah! Sorry about that. You see, I research monsters as a hobby but did not get much results."

"I can understand that. I believe that every Magic born monster species has its own requirements. For example for slimes it's eating, depending on what you feed them they evolve. Vampires on the other hand have requirements of drinking a certain amount of blood and having an exact number of servants. The Adapted monsters however lived their lives in place with high concentration of Magical power which caused their mutation. There you can find Fire beetles, Shadow owls, Black wolves, you name it. These monsters however never evolve. Only their children can be born into advanced species, but the exact reason is still too far from me to understand. You could say that this is still work in progress."

"What a breakthrough!!!! Everyone! You are hereby forbidden to speak of anything you hear here to anyone else! Duchess' orders!" Laina's eyes had flames erupt from them in excitement.

"Understood, madam," the servants bowed as one after straightening their back.

"Ahem, madam, I believe you are scaring Mr. Arito and Mrs. Blanche," the muscular butler, whose actual name was apparently Edgar, said while clearing his throat lightly.

"Ah, sorry, I got too excited."

"It's fine… Oh, right. Did you already finished a taming contract with some monster?" I asked turning to Lena.

"N-no… I thought I would be able to do it on my travels, though."

"We haven't decided on what kind of monster she should get, but we would rather it not be a goblin."

"Stinky…" Shizu muttered as she started pouring tea in the kitchen area.

"IT TALKED?!!!!" The entire ducal family, except for Henry, got surprised, which was also true about their butler Edgar, Kallen and Agatha who have not met the goblin trio due to them being incapacitated at the time.

"Yes, my Hobgoblin and Gobinas can speak Rishan language," I smiled proudly as Urza took the plate and brought the tea to the table.

"But that would mean… Arito isn't just your usual tamer, right? He might even have a knack for being a lecturer…" the duke's family whispered among themselves.

"Indeed, master is exceptional in every sense of the word. Why, teaching us how to speak your language only took him half a year," Urza, the most eloquent of the trio, sang my praises as easily as she breathed. She's getting a little too heated again…

"It only shows how good students you three are."

"You really are a good teacher though. You taught me how to read and write in no time at all," Blanche sipped some of her tea and smiled happily.

"Ahem! We got distracted there a little. Miss Lena what kind of monster would you prefer as your partner?" I said, hiding my embarrassment.

"P-partner?"

"If you take good care of your monster, it will give you more trust then it would otherwise. It's fair to say that monsters are partners to their tamers," as I said that, Kuro and Nana came to my side and placed their heads on my lap and I patted them.

"I-I see what you mean… Then… I think I would like some kind of bird? Though I wouldn't be discouraged by slime either."

"Hmm… that's kind of a hard choice. There are owls, but they appear only rarely. I saw some Retjays flying around, but those are too fast even for us…"

"I see… then, could you tell me more about the slimes? Given what you said before, I take it you could use their favorite food as bait to lure in the exact slime you want."

"You catch on quick. It is exactly as you said. Come on guys! We have a show time," I clapped my hand a few times to make the slimes come to us. Soon, the room was swarming with slimes.

"Wow, that's a lot of slimes… and every single one of them is different…" Kalvig sounded impressed.

"Are there any slimes you have some knowledge of?"

"Yes. I know Acid slimes, Poison slimes and Cocoon slimes."

"In that case, let's start with these guys, the Corpse slimes. These guys eat dead bodies, rotting meat, and even processed leather, it honestly seems like they can eat everything that is made from animals that are in a certain state of rotting. Next to them we have Moss slimes. These guys ate moss growing in the cave in the back of the waterfall. Coincidentally, those yellow ones are not different types of moss, but are Spore slimes. They evolved from eating mushrooms and flowers outside the cave from the Moss slimes."

"Interesting, so spore slimes evolve from moss slimes… do they have some kind of special power?"

"Yes, the Spore slimes can release extremely irritating particles that force you to sneeze and they water your eyes quickly."

"Like an allergic reaction…" Lena whispered to herself which I accidentally picked up.

I guess this world knows about some kind of allergies, then. I guess they are much more advanced than I thought.

"Oh, this little guy is Golden slime. Though I guess you can already tell by its color. I believe he ate gold to evolve this way, but I'm not foolish enough to try that out."

"Indeed… gold mines are only few, after all. And gold is an important commodity, not just for currency and artistic works, but for many cultures as well," Henry nodded.

Well, if I get my alchemy skill to level nine or ten, I should be able to make it. The number of alchemy recipes is so little that it was even listed in the alchemy book. Though, I'm more interested in making Mithril and other fantasy-esque materials. Especially Scarledian, that thing looks awesome and apparently has many uses.

"Following that, these green fellows are Medicine Slimes."

"Medicine Slimes?"

"They can make medicine. Though, they evolve from poison slimes…"

"Medicine in the wrong dose can become a poison, right?"

"Exactly miss Lena. They seem to prefer eating the same food as Poison slimes, but they won't touch poisoned animals. Poison slimes would eat them without hesitation, though. They both consume poisonous plants, poison glands of venomous creatures and even poisons made by hand,."

"I see…" Lena continued scribbling in her notepad.

"Next two are Resin slime and Collagen slime. The Collagen slime evolved similarly to Acid slime by eating animal bones, but it also ate muscles and ligaments. The Resin slime evolved after it drank a bucket of resin I extracted from firewood with a spell called Extract moisture. This spell works much better than simple pressing. I actually could extract some oil from flowers this spring."

"Yeah, the deer fried in Selset oil was so yummy…" Blanche looked all dreamy right next to me.

"Anyway, the next two types of slime are magic types. <Pick up>" I chanted a spell and a purplish slime with no visible core appeared in my palm.

"Wh-what is this slime?! It has enormous magical power!" Kalvig's green eyes shone with red light this time.

"You can see magical powers?"

"Ah?! Oh, yes, it's a skill called Magic sight, it can tell you how much magical power someone has, but that's not important right now! This slime…" Kalvig was getting closer which made the slime panic and teleport away.

"This is Space slime. It can use Space magic."

"Space magic?!" Kalvig was completely baffled.

"Grandpa, calm down," Henretta tried to cheer up her grandfather, albeit poorly.

"This is nonsense…"

"Ahem! Let me explain how exactly the slime evolved. I saw some slimes running away from goblins. This guy staggered behind and got really beaten. I got worried, so I used Space magic spell Pick up to get it to my hands and then I used Heal to heal its wounds. After it was done, and the goblins were exterminated, I tamed this guy and from that moment he asked to be Pick up'ed quite often, which led to his evolution."

"What an interesting slime… does the second magical slime have a similar backstory?"

"Yes, it's just that. Allow me to introduce you to a Healing slime."

"Hmm… so Healing magic evolved them into Healing slime and Space magic into Space slime… does that mean that other elements have their slimes too?"

"I believe so, but my magic control isn't really that high so I could allow myself to experiment on it, and I don't want to hurt them."

"I see… that leaves those two right? The soap-like one and the brown one."

"Yes. They are Cleaning Slime and Grime Slime respectively. They are similar in terms of eating wastes. However the Grime slimes eat everything, while Cleaning slimes only eat the filth and nothing else. They are great for cleaning clothes, weapons and other things. They can even wash your hair and remove any and all makeup."

"Makeup?" Laina sounded interested.

"We fought some female bandits about two weeks ago and their leader considered herself 'the most beautiful bandit to the south of Kalmish.' It turned out that she was using so much that it made her face all wrinkly, which in turn she hide by adding more makeup…"

"Huh? How can you be sure it was due to the makeup?"

"The whitening solution used lead as a base. Lead is toxic to the human body, even if you have Poison resistance of level 7 or 8 you won't be spared the consequences affecting the body, it could even lead to death. The poison slimes loved it, though."

"I had no idea… I must tell that to my friends at the next tea party."

"That is a good call. I will tell my friends at work too. Many of them have wives who use it."

The ducal pair talked to each other, while Henretta was completely unbothered.

"Sister, didn't you tell me some of your classmates use that whitening powder too?"

"Yeaaaah, but… if the price for using it is looking older than you actually are, then I guess I will look younger than them for quite some time, heh-heh-heh," Henretta laughed softly, but it did not reach her eyes.

"M-mooom! Retty has the scary look again!" Lena went over to her mother.

"Retty, how many times do I need to tell you that it's not good way for a noble lady to act?" Laina chided her daughter softly, yet intensely. Something tells me that Laina will also take her time telling it to her friends.

"Heheh, sorry mother," Henretta smiled like a child caught in the midst of its prank.

"So those were the slimes?"

"Yes… however there is one more, I forgot about."

"And what kind is that?"

"A Stone slime," with my words, the slime from the top of the pyramid jumped high and landed in my palm. This, of course, surprised everyone so much that they backed off.

"Sorry, I scared you. This is a Stone slime. As you can see it looks completely like a stone. Its mimicry is so perfect that monsters don't even notice them. I spread them around the forest and had them report monsters and humans that come to this forest. It made hunting much more effective," I smiled innocently.

"Hunting as… the bandits?"

"Those as well, but they also reported you, though they couldn't say the exact numbers as they rely on magical powers and there was a person with so much energy that he practically blinded my slimes."

"Hahah, that must've been me, sorry about that," Kalvig laughed heartily.

"Hmm… I thought about it and I think I should go with a Healing slime. I can use some basic healing magic so I should be able to make it evolve… Mother, Fater, I'm going to find a slime."

"Hold it for a moment please!"

"Hm? Mr. Arito, what is the problem?"

"If you are going to tame a slime, you can stay in this cave. There is a small pond back there that is connected to the outside pond. Slimes appear there quite often so you should be able to pick one or two. Also, the slimes will not evolve right away, but they will follow you even without taming magic."

"I see! Thank you kindly, Mr. Arito," Lena bowed and darted out of the room, followed closely by Alvin.

"Blanche, there should be more slimes than usual, could you please…"

"Take the basket and take in any slime that refuses the contract? Consider it done," Blanche beamed a happy smile and skipped over to follow Lena.

The doors closed soon and I was alone with the Ducal family and their servants.

"Mr. Arito, can I ask about this tea? It's unusual color and its taste is much grander than what you could normally find," Edgar asked me, breaking the silence which spread after I send the slimes back to their

"The leaves were actually harvested here in this forest. If that's what interests you."

"Truly?! But this soft fragrance and bitter taste with a sweet aftertaste is simply unique. I never thought there would be a tree producing such high quality leaves…"

"These are actually the best leaves I could find. It took a lot of experimenting, but I decided on a combination of Lagoda tree leaves, Grippa seeds and roasted Maiga root."

It's kinda similar to coffee, but lacks the energy boosting effect.

"But Maiga roots, and Maiga in general is a poisonous plant!"

"The poison can be removed from the plant, if treated carefully. <Dimension home>" I went into my spell's artificial space and took several pots out. "I'm still experimenting on this, but can you tell the difference between these three Maiga plants?"

Maiga is a bonsai sized tree that usually grows in swamps and I got my hands on it only by pure chance when I was investigating western side of the forest. Back then, the Poison slimes started digging around and unearthed their roots. Maiga have extremely long root systems and new plants grow from them. It kinda looks like a combination of Mangrove and Yew tree.

"Hmm… it seems like the first two have a more vibrant color, with the middle one being slightly bigger… Did you use Wood magic on it perchance?"

"I have some basic understanding of it, and can use it a little, but no, I did no such things. Actually, when you use it on Maiga, it will only get more poisonous."

"More poisonous if wood magic is added? Interesting."

"It got me thinking. If adding regular wood magic makes it more poisonous, would other types of magic have different effects? I tried out Water, Healing and Light magics, but with no effect."

"Um, how would Light and Healing magic work? I can understand Water magic, but the other two are rather…" Henretta asked with question marks flying around her head.

"Well, Light magic has a spell called Sunshine, I engraved it on a magic stone to make it last longer and closed it in a separate space. On the other hand, the healing magic is all about boosting vitality and healing abilities of targets. At the time I thought I could remove the poison with it, but looking back at it, it was a dumb idea. Anyway, I got frustrated and as I was already tired at the time, I used Poisoning smoke."

"A Poison magic, eh? That's not an element you see every day. How was it?" Henry patted his chin.

"It was the best idea I had, though I thought I just killed the plant at first. The next day, when I was about to throw it out, I found that the Poison slimes did not want to touch it at all. Surprised, I used Appraisal and found out that all poison was gone."

"So that's how it is. You instead of removing poison added more, making the two poisons cancel each other out."

"Yes, exactly. These three pots are for finding out the best possible way to get the wanted outcome. The one on the left uses my Poison magic, the right one Liquid from poison slime and the middle one uses a combination of the two."

"Erasing poisonous effects with poison. We could try that out on some grains we can't grow right now… Ah! I forgot about the gifts for you. I'm sorry, but with all these innovations and new discoveries, I got completely distracted," Henry scratched the back of his head.

"It's okay. I can understand that."

"Hmm… you should consider registering with the Summoners guild."

"S-summoners guild?"

I heard about that place in the World Introduction book from the Gods. It was originally founded for research of monsters, if I remember it right.

"It's a place where you get evaluated by monsters you can summon or tame. They collect and share information on monsters as well as sell cheaper food for tamers. In some areas you can also find them to sell monsters as pets."

"Indeed, but you still need taming magic for such monsters to make them less dangerous… The problem of compatibility is another thing too, you can feel unwell when taming monsters you don't have affinity for and in the worst case scenario, you can even get attacked. Well you already have healing magic so you wouldn't even need to get yourself treated in town't church if that happened," Laina frowned a little.

"A town, huh?"

"I-it's completely fine if you don't register though! We don't want to force you or anything!" Laina and Henretta suddenly got flustered and backed off a little.

Huh? Did I make a weird face or something?

"You don't have to go to town, but I personally feel like it would be a waste to just stay in one forest."

"… I was actually thinking about moving somewhere else… but I can't make that decision alone. We have only a few weeks old pups and owls here, plus…"

"We're back!" Blanche returned with a basket full of slimes and a stone sitting on top of the lid.

"Everyone, I got three slimes to contract with me!"

"Congratulations," we gave Lena a small ovation before I quickly checked on the slimes and made a contract with them.

"I tried to use magic on the slimes other than Healing as you suggested with Space slime, and it appears this little one has an aptitude for Light magic."

"Wow, really? What kind of spell did you use?"

"Just the basic Light."

"I see, I guess I forgot about the fact that it's not a damaging spell… Guess I was blinding bandits with it so much that I forgot about it being originally a non-lethal spell…"

"That's true, but here! Additional slime!" Blanche smiled widely.

"Hm? I've already tamed him, but did something happen with this particular slime?"

"Yep! When Miss Lena used Light on it, it backed off as if frightened."

"Really?! Then it may have a higher affinity with the Darkness attribute… Let's try this, <Darkness>" as I chanted a spell on the slime, it wiggled with delight. "Well, that confirms it."

"Arito, it's getting late," Blanche pointed at the magic lamp that I always charged in a way that went out of power every 10 hours.

"Mrs. Blanche is correct. It seems I've gotten quite dark outside, sir," Edgar bowed politely and his muscles bulged under his suit.

"I see… Can we make it back to the camp?"

"If you want… you can stay here," I offered them a little service given they came so far for us.

"Are you sure? We have quite a large group," Kalvig patted his beard.

"It's okay. We have just finished cleaning a few rooms that served as storage rooms previously… so just make holes for wind circulation and it's done."

"If that's alright with you, then we will take you up on that offer. Raven, contact the people waiting for us outside of the forest."

"Understood. <Message>"

Oh, it's the space magic spell for telepathic communication. So Mr. Raven can use Space magic too? Maybe I could ask him about Teleport or Warp. I'm not really good with the first one, and I can't use Warp at all.

"Let's go prepare the rooms, Blanche."

"Hold it, young man," Agatha stopped me and pointed to a corner where she was waiting this entire time, "we are going to look at the clothes first. They will need some alterations and the rest of the gifts can be revealed after you two have a change of clothes."

"Y-yes…" I could instantly tell that saying no to this woman was impossible. Kinda like my auntie in the boonies in my previous life. Too bad we couldn't reach out to each other more when she was still alive.

It took approximately two more hours (calculated by my inner clock so it could last a different amount of time) to make all alterations to clothes the ducal family brought to me and Blanche. Surprisingly, Romi joined in the middle of Blanche's clothes changing and as if in competition with Agatha she started altering clothes with first class perfection.

Coincidentally, one of the gifts were clocks so if I received it a little bit sooner, I could tell if it really was two hours. Also, about time, I never had to count hours here, so my internal clock shifted to morning, evening and night, but it seems that in this world a twenty-four hour system used as a standard too. One minute might not be exactly sixty seconds, but one hour definitely is.

As Blanche was deciding on clothes and Romi and Agatha were making adjustments, I went to prepare the rooms for the noble family and one separated for their servants.

"Um… Mr. Arito, could I ask you about one thing…" Edgar asked me with Henretta blushing as a tomato little way behind him.

"Toilets are at the end of the hallway on the left—" Before I could even finish, Henretta sped past us like a comet and disappeared behind wooden doors.

"WOW!!! There’s even a bathtub!!!" We all could hear her voice from the other side of the doors.

„Yes, I forgot to mention it, but we do have one here. You are free to use it, we usually use the cleaner slimes to get rid of the water afterwards so you don’t need to worry about anything and use as much water as you want.“

To my warm smile they answered in kind, yet it felt a little stranded. Well, whatever, I still have dinner before me. Time to show off those ten years of living alone with only self support!