"And this here is the master bedroom," the gnomish real-estate agent explained as she guided the trio around the house. The room they had just entered was absolutely massive, as almost every room in this house was, to account for the larger folk that apparently once lived here. The remains of the massive bed also once again showed what sort of people used to own this house.

  It was the sort of bed solidly set onto the ground instead of having feet that could potentially break. Though, the wooden frame around it did break in parts, clearly from damage done by people that came in here and let out their anger after it was already abandoned.

  "As you may realize by now, but the entire building is constructed for heavier weights, so while it may look a bit rundown, if you were to strip all the surface-level materials it is actually still a quite solid structure," the real-estate agent explained, seemingly genuinely happy to be showing this place to people. It was clearly abandoned for quite a while, and despite that, it was still a pretty expensive building and property. People that could afford this sort of house would probably rather buy one that they didn't have to invest a large amount of money into to fix up. On top of that, the fact that it was quite out of the way made it even harder to get people that were interested in it.

  Ryan turned toward his friends with a light smile, "That sounds pretty good, right? That should be easier to deal with?"

  "Mhm..." Silvia responded absent-mindedly. Though she was pretty hesitant about this house at first, the moment the tour started and they all saw more of the place, she started falling into a pattern of her that both Ryan and Modak had seen quite a bit. She was imagining what she could do with this place. Until now, Silvia mostly had that look on her face when she was planning out a project for new clothes or some tech customization, but now, she was glancing all over the place trying to figure out what this house could turn into.

  How would she paint the walls, how could the natural architecture be highlighted, and of course, what place would be best for her to make her own art in? Silvia was already mentally moving into the place, and Modak clearly didn't have anything against this house either.

  Riveria used to be a mostly hominid country, and even then, larger species like cyclopes and giants only came here after a war on the Isles, so on the main part of New Riverside, a lot of the older buildings - of which there were many - were built for humans, elves, or gnomes; species on the medium to smaller scale of things. Even orcs, who were technically more distantly related to other common hominid species, only came here a few hundred years ago. That was why it was hard to even find a place for taller orcs, not even mentioning non-hominid species that could often get much larger, like minotaurs.

  The apartment that Modak grew up in already had fairly tall ceilings and doorways, but Yanna still struggled to move around without feeling like she was going to bump into something. A house like this was absolutely perfect, as far as he was concerned, since it would not only allow Modak to really stretch his limbs out, but Yanna could come visit whenever she wanted. Not even mentioning the parties they could throw here, where they didn't have to curate the invites based on species.

  However, at the same time, the more they were guided through here, Modak started feeling a bit queasy about it all. He leaned over to Ryan, whispering into his ear, "Are you totally sure this is okay? I mean, this place has to cost an absolute fortune..."

  Ryan looked at his friend, smiling wryly, "Yeah... it feels a bit weird to me as well, but Runar said it was fine?"

  "Hm..." Modak grumbled slightly, "And you don't think we should just, like, find a place ourselves? I mean, wouldn't this place belong to the Aglecards?"

  "Sort of? Runar said he would give me the deed to the place, and once I have the deed, I'm pretty sure I can just have us three on it, so it's like, our place. Legally they wouldn't be able to do anything, if that's what you're worried about," Ryan added. He had spent plenty of time thinking about all of this already, so he basically had an answer ready for whatever Modak was worried about.

  "Well, sure, but don't you think they might expect stuff from us if they buy us a house? And we can't really turn them down then either, right?"

  "Dude, they want me to do nothing at all," Ryan pointed out, trying to make that very clear to his friend, all the whilst Silvia and the real-estate agent were talking a bit more about the building. He pulled Modak away a bit more, properly explaining things to him, "Basically, from what I'm gathering, they just want the Spirit Keeper to be some kind of... well, puppet. Just sitting there, looking pretty, whatever. I don't even think they really care about helping the spirits out; they just want to prevent the White Shadow Society from getting their hands on the Spirit Keeper."

  Modak raised a brow, "So they're going to do whatever they can to make sure of that?"

  "Basically. And since I'm my father's son, the elders want me to get involved even less. The only reason why we can really do whatever we want is Runar," he continued to explain, "But even he would prefer if I don't get involved. As far as the family is concerned, they want to turn this house into a 'prison' for me, so that I can't go and do my own thing. Which, obviously, is not going to happen, but they wouldn't ask anything of us. At least not because of the house."

  Modak let out a long, deep sigh, "If you're sure."

  "Yes, dude, I am. Now don't worry, and just enjoy ripping off some rich old farts," Ryan carefully patted his friend on the back, trying not to accidentally touch his injured shoulder or ribs, "This place is pretty cool so far, right?"

  "Well... it is pretty neat, and if we can fix some stuff up, it should be pretty nice."

  "Right?" with a grin, Ryan walked back over to Silvia and the real-estate agent. Modak kept standing there for a moment, looking around. It was definitely a nice place, but something still seemed off about this whole thing. And it wasn't just that he was feeling uncomfortable about getting something like this bought for him out of nowhere, but something about this house itself was weird, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Sort of instinctively, he tried to see if it was something about the house's interior, or maybe there was something hiding in here that he hadn't consciously spotted yet. Though, Ryan should be the one to notice that sort of thing.

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  That being the case, the real-estate agent showed the trio back downstairs, "And that was the main building! Again, it does need some love, but if you can get it fixed up right, it should be an absolute dear to live in. Now, let's take a look at the outside."

  They made their way through one of the doors into the garden. Just like the front of the building, the back was completely overgrown. In the distance, you could see the brick walls that surrounded the entire property. They were almost overgrown with vines and grass from this side. There were a couple of trees scattered across the large property, and one of them even had an old treehouse built into it.

  There was a trampled path here; it was cobbled with stone, but so many weeds and grass had grown over it that you could barely even notice it. If it weren't for the fact that someone had come through here to make everything accessible for today's tour, it would have been impossible to get through to any of the sheds or the barn on the other side of the property.

  "Did they use to keep animals here?" Ryan asked, looking over at the barn, "Or was there some kind of farmland around here that the people here cared for?"

  Trying to remember the details she had read about the building, the gnomish woman hummed for a moment, "They used to have some pigs and a few chickens if I recall correctly. Maybe some cockatrices," she explained. Modak almost flinched at the mention, when he remembered that the ones down in the hidden village were a special case. Most cockatrices didn't have the 'petrifying gaze' that those down there did, "And I do think there was some farmland that used to belong to this property as well, yes, but it has been long sold and repurposed. Now it is only the parts that are encased by the walls."

  Ryan nodded, continuing to look around and see if there was enough space for Gaia to do what she wanted to, when he noticed something from the corner of his eye. It was a small black spot that was moving around. It was just there for a moment, but he could swear it was there. He hadn't really paid it any mind if he hadn't experienced this plenty of times in the hidden village already; it was a Sprite.

  Sprites tended to linger around places with a lot of mana and stayed away from people most of the time. The ones in the hidden village just got used to being around others all the time, so they were pretty sociable and let their childlike curiosity run wild. But usually, Sprites did whatever they could to not be spotted, turning into insects or animals to not attract any attention. Due to their habits and the places they were drawn to, they often ended up in abandoned areas that were going to turn into a dungeon at some point in the near future.

  Was there that much mana here? There was more than usual, but not to the point where he was really worried about it turning into a dungeon or anything like that. Was that what drew Ryan here?

  "Yo, guys, have you noticed-"

  "It's too big..." Modak whispered, looking at the main building from the outside, now that he had seen what it looked like inside. His eyes were darting across the outside, as if he was counting or calculating something, "The rooms inside should be bigger than they actually are."

  Ryan raised a brow. At least it wasn't anything dungeon-related yet; that would make the rooms inside bigger than they should be, "What do you mean?"

  "There's a ton of space that's unaccounted for. I think the walls and floors are too thick, and it's not just because of the extra structural supports," Modak explained quietly, while the real-estate agent worked on opening the large lock hanging from the barn's door. Silvia had overheard the two of them speaking, and also came and added something.

  "I also think there's a room hidden somewhere. I'm not super sure, but I was thinking about layout stuff and tearing down some walls or drawing new ones to make things a bit nicer, and somewhere in the middle of the house, there's a massive blank space."

  "... And I saw some Sprites lingering around. There's definitely something going on here," Ryan pointed out, "Do you think we should...?"

  Before even finishing the sentence, he could see the sparkle in Silvia's eye, and though he was trying to hide it, Modak's curiosity was also almost overflowing. An old, abandoned house with a hidden room? There was no way these three wouldn't want to see what was behind all of this.

  A cup fell to the ground, shattering. Steaming hot, dark coffee flowed over the floorboards, seeping into the cracks. Runar looked down, exhausted, without even the energy to sigh.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose and pulled out his pen with a quivering hand, writing a series of runes into the air. As he activated them a few moments later, the puddle of coffee gathered back together, and the shards of the cup slowly fused back into one. The coffee practically jumped back into the cup, as if time was completely reversed.

  Runar took a sip of the coffee, scrunched up his face at the gone-off taste, and sat down on a chair next to him, staring into the cup. A few moments later, a young boy's face peeked into the room.

  "Is... is everything okay?" Liam looked at Runar, worried after hearing something break. Trying not to worry the boy, Runar nodded.

  "It's fine, I just dropped something. But what's up, why aren't you sleeping yet? It's already..." Runar looked at the old watch on his wrist, hesitating as he read the time, "... seven in the morning? Sorry, did I wake you?"

  Liam slowly shook his head, "No, I was getting ready for school anyway. Yamada said she would pick me up in thirty minutes."

  "Right, right, of course," Runar forced a smile, "Do you want something to eat? We got some new shakes the other day. It was, uh... chocolate flavour?"

  "... I already tried them yesterday, remember?"

  Runar hesitated to answer. He tried to remember it, but he barely even knew what day it was, "No, yeah, for sure, sorry."

  In awkward silence, Liam sat down at the kitchen table. He took out a workbook and started filling in some of the fields.

  "Are you doing homework? Shouldn't you have done that yesterday?" trying to lighten the mood, Runar laughed slightly, but Liam just glanced up from the book, and then shook his head.

  "I'm really behind some of the other kids at school... so Ryan suggested that I do a couple of these tasks every morning to catch up. It's a different one than the one we use in school, Ryan bought it for me," he explained, "... I leave it here and then Ryan checks it when he has the time and then in the evening we sit down when he helps me with my homework and go over these as well."

  Runar raised his brows, "I wasn't... aware he helps you with your homework."

  Liam stayed quiet.

  "You're talking different now, as well. You're not doing the whole 'King' and 'Knight' thing anymore."

  The sound of Liam's pencil scribbling over the paper stopped as he nervously hid his face, avoiding making eye-contact with Runar, "I... uhm... some of the kids at school are avoiding me when I talk like that... Ryan told me I could do that all I want with him if I can't do it at school."

  "... Ryan really takes care of you, huh?"

  "Mhm..."

  The uncomfortable silence continued on. Runar and Liam really didn't spend a lot of time together. When Ryan moved out, things would get pretty hard here for a while, but Runar figured he would be able to manage. If Ryan could do it, then so could he.

  Having forgotten the taste of his coffee after it fell on the ground, Runar took another sip, barely even reacting this time. He looked at Liam, carefully working on those simple problems. He really looked like nothing but a normal kid right now. He was living out in the open as a vampire, but the announcement about vampires didn't happen last week as it should have. Things went far too badly during Spirit Week to take that risk right then.

  Spirits had been exploited and corrupted under his nose, Anders was almost killed, and he still had no idea what the hell was going on with the Shadows. All of this came completely out of nowhere. To top it all off, it looked like the spies that they had in the shadows were jeopardized, because even they weren't able to warn the Aglecards about all of these plans. And with how big of an operation this was, there was no way it didn't involve the sectors that were infiltrated.

  And even the Magic Tower couldn't be properly relied on anymore. For the past few months, Alicia had been acting completely off, as if she knew something that Runar didn't. It was annoying, and he didn't like it. Nothing was going his way at all.

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