Chapter 445: Freedom?

Kamiko and Kat weren't actually sure what to do once they were outside. They didn't want to run around in the garden or even just sit on the grass. They had literally just had a bath and with what happened to Kamiko's Dad, they didn't want to risk the need for another so they just stood awkwardly around on the edge of the patio which really, wasn't as clean as either of them would have liked.

Which of course, revealed an interesting fact. It seemed that there was something ingrained in sentient creatures, at least some of them, to keep themselves tidy. Kat and Kamiko had already forgotten that their skin just had dirt fall off of it. It was very hard for them to get dirty without it getting stuck somewhere like under toenails or in the crooks of their necks. Despite this though, neither was even trying to get further away from the house.

Eventually, Kamiko made the decision that standing around was still too much effort and said, "Wait here for me I'll be right back" before dashing inside. Once there, she opened the cupboard full of extra furniture setups and found the outdoor lawn chair set before bringing it back outside. Setting it down, Kamiko enlarged them both to normal size and claimed one for herself.

Kat needed no prompting to follow that example and claim the other. Kat was beyond happy to note that the structure let her wings and tail phase through it just like Kamiko room, though Kat noticed her tail didn't really need that part because of the angle the chairs were at and decided to leave it draped over her midsection instead.

The two girls breathed a sigh of relief to be both away from the smell and once again lying down. Kat did feel the partial urge to get up and do something from her body, but Kat's mind slammed the idea down so fast she hardly twitched in place. She was going nowhere, and even the changing scenery was not something she wanted to deal with. A treadmill might have been acceptable, but looking for one was not.

This left them both to lounge around for about thirty minutes before Kat's mind actually formed an idea. She didn't like the idea she'd been given, and was certainly not keen to think about it further but once it was in her mind, it wouldn't go away. "Hey Kamiko…"

"Yeah Kat?" asked Kamiko after Kat had just left the words unsaid for another thirty seconds.

"Look… there's no easy way to ask this but… are we just stuck out here? How will the smell dissipate? Will we make it to your room? How far will that horrible smell spread?" asked Kat

Kamiko let out a pained sigh as she realised Kat had questions that really needed answers. She hadn't even thought that there might be issues going back into the house and Kat had managed to hit the nail on the head with all of her questions. "Well, in terms of spreading we should be mostly fine. The bathroom is sealed. It cycles air somehow but it's on a separate system to the rest of the house so that should be fine…

"The rest though… I'm not too sure. Depending on what that smell actually was, the lingering stench might spread a bit and then stay in the house. I hesitate to open up windows lest we get a real complaint from the neighbours. Those can be serious for proper violations like chemical warfare." Kamiko said that last part with a grin.

"As to how or if we should go to my room. Honestly I'm as lost as you are Kat. I think we might be able to find some blankets in the extra furniture cupboard? I'm not certain about that but one of the tiny chests might have blankets and pillows in them so we could certainly make do out here if worse comes to worst

"I'm not sure how safe my bedroom is. I know Kerra's room was upgraded so that the paint fumes didn't cause her any health issues, Mum insisted on it, and then Erra asked for a similar upgrade to keep her books in healthy condition so those two rooms are probably safe. I'm not sure if my room got that treatment though, because the upgrades happened before I was born, so it's never really come up. The only reason I know about the upgrades is I came home crying one day when I was little and heard about how deadly paint fumes could be if you used exotic stuff, which I knew Kerra did, and didn't air out the room." Explained Kamiko

"That sounds like really useful information right about now Kamiko" said Kat

"I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just not sure if they'd have bothered to get the upgrade for all the bedrooms. It's a per room thing, and clearly it isn't covering the whole house because otherwise we wouldn't have dealt with the smell on the way out" explained Kamiko.

Kat wished that didn't make so much sense. One part of her didn't want to think through any more options. Just assume that Kamiko's room had been upgraded and be done with it. Another louder part though, said she wasn't nearly tired enough to avoid thinking about ways to avoid that truly foul odour, so she had to keep going through the options. "Is there any way to clean things up?" asked Kat

Kamiko bit her lip at that question before answering. "Well… sort of? In theory there should be. I've never seen my parents cleaning up the house, so there must be some way that it keeps itself clean. Maybe a master switch to clean certain things? I'm not sure. If there is, I don't know about it.

"Maybe it goes off once a week? I know some dust and grime do build up occasionally, but it's rare and very quickly disappears once you notice it." Said Kamiko

Kat lifted her tail a bit just to let it flop back down on her stomach as she asked, "Well what are the chances your dad knows how to clean things up and get rid of the stench?"

Kamiko bit her lip again, sucking on it for a few seconds as she trawled her tired mind for memories that might actually help answer Kat's question. You'd think it would be a simple thing but for demons, there were enchantments for this sort of thing. Nobody spent the time to clean things because vacuum cleaners didn't really exist for them. They had faded out long ago as an overly complicated piece of machinery that did a worse job then other cheaper enchantments.

This meant that Kamiko didn't really have any memories of ANYONE in her family cleaning up except Kerra, because paint was a bit of a grey area even when it was on the floor, and Kerra had picked up an ability early on to manipulate paint. It was horribly slow, and not at all combat viable but it let her take discarded paint and separate it out into useable forms once again so she would regularly clean up her room, but that was about the extent of it.

So Kamiko was forced to go on personality. Would her mother share that sort of thing with her dad? Probably yes. The better question though, was whose job was it to maintain it and did her father remember how to do it and where it was. Kamiko's mother was blessed with an improved memory like Kat early on, but her Father only picked it up at Rank 5 and it was nowhere near as easy to utilise, having not been used to the feature.

"I'm not sure Kat. I think… Dad certainly will fix things if he can. If he knows where the enchanting hub for the house is and if the cleaning is something he can manually do he'll certainly make sure it's done. I just don't know if he'd remember, or if he took the time to find out. It's very much something Mum would spend time getting very exact for maximum efficiency…

"And I just don't know if she'd have bothered to properly explain it. Dad would be more than happy to just let it be on of 'her things' and let it be. If I had to guess, I'd say he knows where the core of the enchanting is, but has no idea how to use any of it and likely won't be able to deal with the smell.

"Oh, and just like you I can't message people. The best we can do is wait for Dad to clean up, and PRAY that he is actually clean, and then get him to message Mum and have it explained… but it's probably too complicated to mess with just over messaging and Mum might be busy" explained Kamiko.

"Well, at least I don't have issues with the temperature" mumbled Kat "Will you be alright if we have to stay outside?"

Kamiko grimaced. "Hopefully?" she didn't sound convincing at all.