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I expanded the size of the building again. It was now 700 square feet. It was about the size of an apartment now, so it was definitely getting there. I decided to make Elizabeth’s working station officially into a room. At that point, I was curious about the enchantments that existed towards rooms. One of the major aspects of being a builder was that I could enchant the room with effects.
I glanced down the list of options. There was high regeneration allowing people to heal quicker. There was a room that enhanced concentration. There was one that increased paranoia. That was useless to me. Another increased a person’s sense of well-being. There was one that increased mana regeneration. There was also one that decreased it. There were battle rooms that increased damage or decreased it. One room nullified damage completely, making it a safe room. Oh, there was an effect that increased sexual desire! I looked at the price and couldn’t help but sigh. Any room enchantment was 50 dragons or more.
Instead, I decided to settle on other things. Specifically, I purchased a real bed for Elizabeth. I had a feeling a futon wouldn’t quite do, so I got the bed frame and everything. I bought décor for the room too, and I found lubricant as part of the health care stuff. I hadn’t seen it before, so I wondered if this was a system that unlocked stuff based on personal expectations and needs. If that’s the case, there might be a day I can summon a big screen TV and Netflix. Well, that was the dream, I guess.
I’d eventually want to update everything. I wanted a bathroom with indoor plumbing. It’d be nice to get electricity. I’d love to have an air-conditioning unit for the summer. The furnace has been enough to keep the place warm since it’s fall but come next summer the weather will definitely be unfortunate. In fact, the furnace might not cover it for the middle of winter either. I heard in the old days they put heated coals under the beds or something. I didn’t know how that worked. Unfortunately, it was all too expensive at the moment.
I finished remodeling Elizabeth’s workspace and then I did my own room and Elizabeth and Diana’s room. They had two futons now in her room and a place to put their clothing. I’d need to get them more outfits soon, but I found myself already out of money. Updating the house was expensive. I always kept money to spare for food though, so we wouldn’t starve. I was confident now we’d get more money thanks to Elizabeth’s hard work.
As time passed on, the girls didn’t return. I started to frown as I wondered what was holding them up so much. I then remembered that this place wasn’t really safe for human women. Cursing at my stupidity for letting the girls wander outside, I immediately charged out the door. I could feel where Elizabeth was through the bond. Fortunately, she was only a few streets over. As I got there, I immediately heard a nasty conversation.
“What do you mean, no? Damn human. You clean cocks, don’t you?”
“I d-do that under Master. P-please, go to his place to purchase.”
“Eh? Money? Why should I pay? Just service me and my boys and we’ll let you go.”
“Please… just let me go.”
“Don’t mouth off to me. I even learned damned human speech so that you stupid creatures can understand me. Now, open your mouth!”
I came around the edge to see three aggressive-looking demons. The guy in charge actually looked the most human of the bunch, with skin the same color as a human, like me. His horns were ram horns though, instead of the small horns on my head. If I did my hair up a certain way, I’d look a bit like a human. For this guy, that’d be impossible. Next to him was a green skin and red skin. At this point, I still didn’t know what the variations in skin color and horn-type meant for demons. Some looked essentially human, while others were seven feet tall and looked like they came from the bowels of hell.
The had surrounded Elizabeth and she was pressed against a wall. As for her daughter, Diana was huddled behind her shaking. The human-like demon with the ram horns had a hand on her shoulder and was trying to forcefully push her down to her knees.
I cleared my throat as I walked down the alleyway. “Excuse me, you appear to be bothering my companion.”
The group turned back to me. Elizabeth put on a look of relief and then blushed. The one in charge sneered when he looked at me.
“You’re the one that runs that expensive shop? Hmph. What a scam! I can hire a human to do that for a tenth of the price!”
“Then, please do that,” I responded. “But my human only works for me at the price I set.”
His expression instantly turned ugly. I could guess that he had some kind of bad experience in the past with these kinds of things. Perhaps he had even been waiting for my girl to leave so that he could target her. It seemed like her reputation was growing in the city.
“Get lost! The humans are the same as trash. You can’t own trash. I’ll just use what I want.” He declared boldly.
I glanced at the two demons behind him. “Do the pair of you feel the same way?”
The two men looked at each other, but something about the look in my eye caused them to have doubts. They both shook their heads and took a step back. The guy in front’s eyes turned even uglier.
“You cowards! Fine… I’ll just enjoy her all by myself!”
With that, the man turned and ran at me. I sighed as he charged me and opened up the builder’s menu, bought a fire crystal, and then tossed it at him. Fire crystals came from fire element monsters. They were generally unstable and mostly used by enchanters. However, they weren’t something you could casually walk around with. If I wasn’t able to summon it on the spot with the builder’s ability, it would have been impossible to use it in this manner.
The good thing was that it was only valued at 50 wyverns. That’s still half a drake! My wallet felt the pain of my attack. As soon as the crystal hit him about five feet in front of me it exploded in fire. The flash was scarier than the damage it caused. He stopped short as the world in front of him exploded with a pop. It wasn’t a fireball, but someone who didn’t know any better might think it was. Worst of all, the man’s shirt was now in flames.
“Ahhhh! Ahhhh!”
He turned and ran the other way, screaming as smoke and fire rose from his shirt. Had that explosive not been enough to throw him off, I was prepared to summon a steel sword next. That would have cost 5 drakes. That was digging into my meal money, so I definitely would have been unhappy.
The two men with him didn’t see the crystal, so as far as they knew I was some powerful demon mage. They turned and fled too, chasing after their smoking buddy as they desperately tried to put out the fire. Within thirty seconds, the alley was cleared and it was just me and the girls. Elizabeth was looking at me with awe-inspired eyes. It really wasn’t much. I just tossed a fire crystal at them. However, a moment later, text floated across my vision.
Your minion’s faith in you has increased.
Your minion [Elizabeth] has increased to level 3.
She has 1 minion point to spend. Would you like to give her a perk?