Chapter 59

"Phew, I got a house more easily than I thought I would."

"It was quite a bit cheaper compared to the capital."

The day after arriving in Brunne, we went to a real estate agency and managed to buy a house. And now, the house we bought is right in front of us.

I can't tell exactly how many tsubo it is, but it's a regular-sized house. It's a single-story with two rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a storage room, a toilet, and a living room.

It would be enough for one person, but I think it would be tough for four of us to live here.

It's not that far from the Adventurers' Guild, and at 7 million G, it was quite cheap. It's in a corner, not on the main street, but the location isn't that bad.

It's for testing the House Extension, so even if we can't live here in the worst case, it's fine... but I'd like to live here if possible.

"I thought we finally got a house, but it doesn't look like we can live here as it is."

"It should at least serve as a base for our activities in this town."

The house is made of stone and looks quite impressive, but the weeds around it have grown quite a bit and are even clinging to the walls.

The windows are also a bit dirty, so we'll need to clean them.

It might be impossible for everyone to have their own room, but I think we can manage to live here as it is.

"Well, let's get started... Ugh, there's a lot of dust."

"It was pretty bad when we checked it out too."

When we went inside, the dust in the house started to fly around because we opened the door. We did check it out before buying it, but the dust was flying around when we opened the door then too.

It seems that no one had lived here for a while and it had been neglected. As we moved forward, we could see footprints on the floor, indicating how much dust had accumulated.

I wish they had cleaned it up...

"Should we start with cleaning? I can get rid of the dust in an instant with wind magic—"

"Wait, wait, wait!? If you're going to do it, open all the windows first and control the power!"

"Moo, do you think I'd use magic without thinking, big brother? That's rude."

Estelle immediately tried to cast a spell with her staff, so I stopped her.

She pouted and complained, but anyone would react the same way if they were about to start cleaning. Besides, she was definitely going to do it. If she used magic the way she usually does, the house would blow away.

"First, we need to clean... Do we need things like beds and other household items?"

"Yeah, that's right. Even if we're not sure if we can live here, we need curtains, dishes, and... thinking about it, we need a lot of things."

There's no furniture at all, so we'll need to buy a lot if we're going to live here.

We don't know how much we can expand with the House Extension, so we might go shopping after that.

"Since we don't know what will happen, let's clean first."

So, we decided to prioritize cleaning. If we don't, the dirt will spread even to the expanded areas.

Moffett was put in the pet house, and we started cleaning right away.

●

"Yaaaah!"

Suddenly, a scream echoed through the house. At the same time, a heavy thud shook the house.

"What, what!?"

"That was Estelle's scream!"

I had entrusted Estelle and Cissa to clean the storage room. It was unusual for her to scream like that.

Nole and I, who were cleaning the living room, looked at each other and headed towards the storage room where the scream came from.

"Oof, what's—"

"Big brother... that... that thing came out! It was black and flew fast..."

"Try to calm down."

When we arrived, Estelle clung to me. She was looking up at me with her cheeks flushed and slightly teary.

I was a bit startled by the direct contact since I wasn't wearing armor, but I decided to calm her down first.

What was that thing? To be so scared... black and fast... a cockroach? Could there be cockroaches in this world?

I didn't see it, so I can't say for sure, but it was probably something similar. For Estelle, who usually defeats monsters without hesitation, to be this scared...

However, I understood the cause of the scream, but what was that sound that came with it? If she had blown it away with magic, it would be strange if this area wasn't blown away too.

I handed the trembling Estelle to Nole and decided to check the storage room.

"The wall is broken!? What happened!?"

When I looked inside the storage room, Cissa was there. The storage room was reasonably spacious, about two tatami mats in size.

There was a hole about the size of a soccer ball in the back. She was holding a Viting... did she crush that black creature with it?

"Wow, I was surprised too. I accidentally crushed it in shock."

"I'm surprised that you destroyed the stone wall... to attack with that much force..."

I didn't expect it to be destroyed right after we bought it. It's good that she crushed it in shock, but don't attack with enough force to destroy the wall...

What should we do? If something like that gets in, it will come in through here, so we need to block it somehow... Can we fix it with the House Extension?

"Oh, it's a Gokibun. You could just grab it and throw it outside."

"Huh?"

"Huh? Is something wrong?"

When we came out of the storage room, Nole nodded as if she understood. It seems the creature was called a Gokibun.

When she said to grab and throw it, Estelle and Cissa backed away from Nole.

I wouldn't want to grab a cockroach even with gloves... I'm a bit curious about what kind of creature it was.

●

"Ugh... Cleaning a house is hard..."

"I'm more tired than fighting..."

After a few hours, we finally got rid of the dust in the house. The major part was done with Estelle's magic, but it took a lot of time to wipe the fine parts.

If this is how much work it takes for a small house, I can't imagine what it would be like for a larger one. Maybe we should hire professional cleaners next time... if they exist.

"Phew, just seeing a Gokibun was the worst part of the cleaning."

"It was disgusting..."

They seem to be quite shaken mentally from encountering the Gokibun. I understand how they feel; I also make a big fuss when I encounter cockroaches.

"If we don't hurry, we'll have to go back to the inn again. Let's try using the House Extension."

"Ooh, we can finally use it. I've been looking forward to it."

The atmosphere had become a bit gloomy due to the fatigue, but we decided to cheer up and use the House Extension.

I operated my smartphone, selected the item, and chose to use it on the current building. A message appeared: "Do you want to use it on the current building? Yes, No." I chose Yes.

The screen changed to show a floor plan of the house we were in, like a map app. It was drawn with evenly spaced lines, like graph paper.

On the right side, there were options for expansion, repair, deletion, and conversion, and in the upper right corner, it said 0 points.

"Um? What do we do with this?"

"It seems we can designate areas beyond the size of the house. If we do that, will it extend outside?"

"Hmm? I don't know, let's try converting something."

We could select areas beyond the floor plan, and when we pressed them, the squares changed color. This must be how we select areas.

Since we didn't have any points, I decided to try the conversion option first. The item list appeared, and it said to choose an item to convert.

The rates were also listed: R items for 10 points, SR for 100, SSR for 2500, and UR for 10,000.

"Huh? R is 10 and SR is 100!?"

"The points are quite low."

Hey, this is a bit harsh. Our main equipment is mostly SR. The options for conversion are quite limited... but we don't know how many points we need for expansion. It's too early to be disappointed.

So, I decided to check the expansion option.

The list showed: "Corridor" 100P per square, "Room" 1000P, "Kitchen" 3000P, "Toilet" 3000P, "Bathroom" 5000P... and there were also options for storage rooms and studies.

"Haha... Seriously? We don't have enough points at all..."

"Does this mean we need to do more gacha...?"

We don't have enough points at all. A room costs 1000P... we need to sacrifice 10 SR items to make one, which is too much. A bathroom costs 5000P, which is equivalent to two SSR items.

What we need right now is a room. If I convert my armor, I can make two... but that's not a good idea. We should prioritize the house. Let's convert unnecessary equipment first.

After staring at the item list for a while and discussing with them, we managed to choose 1100P worth of items to convert.

Estelle and Cissa's SR staves were chosen for conversion. We also converted appearance-focused items like the Gorgeous Shoes. We didn't convert convenient items like the Auto Guard Sphere or rings.

We included the Eclipse Sword and some R equipment, and managed to extract 1100P. I should have sold the R weapons to Gantz...

"Let's check how it works first."

With the preparations done, we decided to use the expansion function to add a corridor. We wanted to test how it works with a corridor before expanding a room.

Since the neighboring houses were a bit far, a slight expansion shouldn't be a problem. But if it suddenly extended outside, it would be troublesome later.

So, we selected a corridor to extend outside the house. Light shot out from the smartphone and headed towards the selected part of the wall. The light gathered and formed a long, narrow shape, and a door appeared.

"Whoa!? A door appeared?"

"Let's see... A corridor has been created! I'll check outside."

Nole approached the door first and opened it. There was a space about one tatami mat in size. The walls and ceiling were white, and the floor was wooden. There was a light embedded in the ceiling, making it bright.

It looked like a corridor from a house in my world, which was a bit ridiculous.

She ran outside to check the area where the space was created.

"Ookura-sama, there's no change in the walls outside."

"Huh? Then what happened to this part?"

Since we created the space beyond the house's boundaries, the wall should have extended outward.

But she said there was no such part. I went to check, and indeed, there was no extension.

What's going on?

"Is it an extradimensional space?"

"The house's size remains the same, but the internal space expands. That's convenient."

An extradimensional space... that's a bit scary. But it means we can expand a small house without causing trouble for the neighbors or drawing attention.

Maybe we should have bought a house in the capital. I feel a bit regretful, but we couldn't have known without trying. For now, let's make this place our base and create a comfortable home. To do that, we need to do more gacha... but it's a long road ahead.