Chad walked up to the bedroom, he could feel two people holed up in the cabinet there. Crack! He didn’t wait for a second and busted the door open.
“AGRAA!” one of the two sisters screamed at the top of her lungs while the other held her tight. Chad glared at them as if they were a couple of scared kittens.
“What brought you to my house? I don’t ever remember renting it.” Chad smiled, this was the house that he left when traveling. Even if the kingdom went into ruin, he somehow expected people to respect his property.
As the woman sensed no hostility coming from Chad, she gathered her courage in hope of speaking up.
Contrary to her belief, Chad was ready to smack her and her sister if the answer didn’t satisfy him. Only his charisma was giving them a sense of safety around him.
“O-Our house went up in flames a couple of years ago, we took refuge here since the place seemed abandoned. We didn’t know this place had an owner!” The woman tried to explain herself. She wasn’t sure if Chad was the owner of the house, he could be a mere bandit after all. But she didn’t have a choice besides entertaining his ideas.
“The door was locked with magic, how did you get inside?” Chad growled at her.
“The basement, there a door there that leads to the sewers.” The woman replied with a bitter face, “We lived there for a while before stumbling on that entrance.” She said.
From what she said, Chad understood that their house went up in flames. They run and lived in the sewers for a while before coming across the secret entrance to his house from the sewers.
“I can understand that, where are the other three?” Chad asked, Zaleria said there were five sisters and he can only see two.
The woman stared at him in shock, how did he know there were five of them? “I-I don’t know…” She hesitated for a while before speaking.
Chad glared at her and the cabinet suddenly glowed green. She wasn’t lying.
“I don’t know if my other two companions are going to be decent enough to let them live so let’s hurry and find them.” Chad walked outside and the two sisters followed silently as if they were in a trance.
…
Mei being two small tried to push the door open but failed. “Is it locked?” She twisted her fingers and a branch extended from the door to turn the knob. “Easy!” Mei puffed her chest in pride.
As she slowly floated inside, a woman leaped from behind the door with a shovel. “AGRAA!” The woman cried as she swung as hard as she could. Whoever was the person who entered, she was sure it wasn’t any of her sisters.
“Hello, are you by any chance from the people occupying this house?” Mei asked Calmly as the shovel handle jerked to life and tied the woman down.
“What is this?” The woman cried.
“I haven’t decided yet, how about a poisonous plant?” Mei smiled as her eyes glowed deep red. Poisonous needles emerged from the handle.
That wasn’t the end of it, multiple thorny vines grew from the wooden walls and crept around the woman. “I advise you to pay respect, I might be the next Titania in the future!” Mei gave the woman a smug smile.
The Mana Cain was providing her with from the maze was superb in both quality and quantity. She could use stronger magic than she did before being summoned.
“Hey, did you find the rest?” Zaleria walked into the hallway dragging two women by their hair. When Chad looked down at her from upstairs he found it hard not to laugh. Zaleria was covered in steaming hot soup, he could the carrot bits stuck in her hair.
“What happened?” Chad asked with a big smile.
“They thought throwing boiling soup on me was enough, sadly I can’t get burned!” Zaleria glared at the two women she was dragging.
“Let me go!” One of the cried, being dragged from her hair was painful.
“That’s for throwing soup on me!” Zaleria growled at her.
“Now now, do you mind leaving them alone? They have their circumstances it seems!” Chad said as he walked down with the other two behind him.
“What is happening? You seem to have found them all!” Mei floated in dragging the woman she captured. She frowned upon seeing them with the remaining four. “I caught the least.”
Chad proceeded to explain what the two sisters told him, they were really living here for over five years.
“So for that, let’s start by proving that I’m the owner of this house.” Chad clapped his hands and the rooms lit up.
“luminescent wood? Haven’t seen such a thing in a while.” Mei flew around with a happy face.
“This house is filled with magical devices and hidden rooms, I did have the court magician construct it for me after all,” Chad said with a happy smile.
“I don’t mind you using the house, even after now. I only came back to pick something from the basement so don’t worry.” Chad smiled as he walked toward the hidden trap door.
Splash! Mei poured a decent amount of water on Zaleria’s head to get the soup from her hair. “You really smell like a delicious soup.” Mei laughed and Zaleria released a wave of heat at her.
OUCH! “You almost burned my wings!” Mei cried.
“Who are you?” One of the sisters asked with a worried face, she was the one who threw the soup of Zaleria.
“Me? A red dragon and she is a pixie. That was a human to make it easy to understand.” Zaleria replied calmly.
The five sisters stared at her in disbelief, dragons were large, monstrous lizards and not women like her.
…
Chad walked down to his hidden basement. The place was dark but lit up as soon as he walked inside. If all the magic was still working that means the hidden room was probably safe. That’s true, there is a hidden room inside the hidden basement.
CRACK! Chad pushed the basement door open slowly and walked inside. The amount of dust there was unbelievable as if no one walked there in eight years.
“I guess this is what I get for not coming back for a long time.” Chad lit the place up, the basement was filled with weapons and scrolls, magic tomes, and magic weapons.
All of those were great and extremely pricy on their own. But Chad was looking for something bigger, rarer, and more powerful. This was for his son’s wedding and he won’t be cheap.
Chad looked around, the desk was still in the middle of the room as he left it, and the bookshelves looked more worn out than he expected.
CLAP! Chad clapped both of his hands together as he tried to remember how to open the hidden room. It quickly came back to him, “Jus open!” The room will only open when the door is infused with Chad’s magic. That’s the way the court magician made it.
Even though all the walls looked the same, the chunk right behind the desk was the secret door. Hence why Chad was happy to see the desk in his place.
Walking with a smile, Chad moved the desk away and gently touched the door. CRACK! The wall got pushed back and revealed a narrow dark corridor that lead to absolute darkness.
That didn’t last long as with each step Chad took inside, a shining light emerged from the ceiling above him. After walking a few steps, Chad reached the destined spot and snapped his fingers to lit the room. He looked around, the room looked the same as he remembers.
A clean white room without a grain of dust, the magic locked his place so tightly it stayed the way he left it. To his left, Magic tomes of the seventh and eighth tier were stacked one on top of the other. Underneath them was a box filled with cursed items that he gathered, Chad could remember that most of the items there weren’t destroyed because they can’t be destroyed.
“Better keep that closed.” Chad smiled as he turned right.
A large wooden box lay in front of him. As chad opened it, the gleaming glow of gold and gems almost blinded him.
Chad started taking a handful after the other and throwing it behind him. Each handful carried thousands worth of gold coins in gems. “No this, not those, only trash!” Chad didn’t seem to care much about what was in the box.
Eventually, he emptied the whole box. A single key was left inside. “Found it!” Chad smiled and took the key, he then kicked the box away and slotted the key in a small hole that was underneath the box.
After the ground opened, Chad took a small body from inside the hole. He happily opened the box and started reading the labels inside.
“Not this, and not this, definitely this isn’t it.” After a while, Chad finally found what he was looking for. A small pouch labeled [Furberg]
Inside the pouch, he found a wooden plate with the engraved on it with a red kiss mark. “This might be all that is left from her, I should take it with me!” The wooden plate was like the business card for Cain’s mother, Chad had kept it safe all those years.
“Now to find something suitable for a bride price!” Chad looked at the mess behind him. For a second his brain stopped, “What do people usually take for bride price? I never married so there is no way I will know…” He finally realized that he didn’t know what he came looking for.
“Who cares? I will take everything back with me and I will let them choose, what should please them.”
Something here must be of enough value. After thinking for a moment Chad smiled, “Why should I understand what a woman wants when I have everything? She can do the understanding part herself and choose. If she didn’t find anything to her liking, I would have saved myself the trouble of looking for something that doesn’t exist!”
‘I don’t think that Cain’s wives are going to ask for much though…But honestly thinking, women who don’t ask for much are the ones deserving of more so letting them choose should be for the best’ Chad thought as he called Mei and Zaleria.
He then started putting all the valuable gems in the box and collected the magic items in a single place.
“Did you find something suitable?” Mei asked.
“I don’t what is suitable so we’re bringing everything!” Chad declared as he buried her in gold and glittering gems.
Zaleria who just entered stared at him, “If all those books were yours then you have more wealth than the kingdom itself, this place could be called a dragon hoard and it won’t fall short.”