“So you want to stay here?”
“Yes, for now.”
“Isn’t trouble going to find you sooner or later if you stay here?”
“Maybe. At least here, I won’t die because of it. I like going outside, but isn’t it much more dangerous there?”
“…I guess so.”
I turned toward the one who had stayed quiet so far.
“What about you, Minsto?”
“I agree with Suuru.”
“Ugh, you girls. What am I going to do with this house if no one wants to live in it?”
“What about those children you told us about?”
“They’re hesitating too. They’re going to tell me tomorrow.”
“It would be good for them to move there. If you tell them about your affinity, they can go back and forth Geola a lot more easily.”
“Right… But, not yet. I’m already stretching my trust by letting them live in my house. I can’t surrender my most critical trump card so easily.”
It would be known sooner or later, whether inside or outside the domes. Letting others know about it was both an advantage and a disadvantage. For now, I thought the cons outnumbered the pros, which is why I wanted to keep the status quo for as long as possible. Ideally, until I reached rank 6, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe this was realistic.
“What about you, Tila? Are you going to stay here or live in the village?”
“That’s a good question.”
I hadn’t taken the time to think about it in case they completely refused to move there, like right now. Frankly, both were fine to me. Even though the outer world was dangerous, the bunnies’ village was the most peaceful place I knew out there. Even Geola was worse, full of pickpockets, spies, scammers, and a lot of mercenaries roaming around. It only took one drunk rank 5 or 6 to cause a lot of trouble. It was fine in the nice districts, like the one where the city hall and my shop were, but a lot of other places didn’t have such high security. The village, on the other hand, was guarded by the army, with strict control of the flow of visitors.
“I think I don’t care either way. I’ll probably live there for a while until I finish furnishing it. After that, I don’t know. I like it here, but it’s still your house, Suuru.”
She pouted a bit.
“You can’t say that after living here for a whole year.”
“Haha, true. It’s like my own house, too.”
After Minsto came, we bought another bed. In theory, it was mine. In reality, Minsto randomly slept with whoever she wished to each night. In the end, we sold our two beds and bought a larger one to accommodate the three of us together and avoid the hassle of finding who would sleep with whom every night. When we felt like having sex, we would wait for Minsto to get asleep before moving to the living room for some fun. Minsto always seemed to be sleeping deeply, so it was unknown how much she knew about what we were doing.
On another note, that second freeloader didn’t seem to have any intention of finding a place of her own at all. She didn’t even mention the topic even once, which was very consistent with her personality.
The following day, the children came to see me at lunchtime. They hadn’t made their decision yet, but told me they would take a break from magic studies this afternoon.
“Can we visit the bunnies’ village once before choosing?”
It was a reasonable request, so I agreed. I usually teleported the horses and carriage around with me, like when I was fetching the food or buying fresh fish. My horses were probably the happiest in the region. They only needed to trot a little bit before suddenly reaching their destination. They had completely gotten used to the sensation of teleporting by now and didn’t feel anything anymore when it happened. Today, they would finally have to do their job for real.
I took the kids to the stables I used in Geola, where I rented some space for them to spend the night. They had all seen horses moving around the streets before, but it was different when they were so close. Orun had his mouth wide open, his small tail trembling in wonder.
“Oh… Big.”
The smallest horse was two times taller than he was, forcing him to lift his head to stare at them. He was staying at a safe distance, not daring to move any closer.
“They’re very gentle, you know? Do you want to caress them?”
He shook his head hard.
“Really? You should give them some carrots. They’ll need a lot of strength to take us to the village.”
I extended a carrot his way, but he shook his head again, hiding behind his sister.
“Poor horses. Fine, I’ll give them the carrots myself.”
I did so, the animals greedily devouring the treats under Orun’s impressed gaze. Truthfully, they didn’t need to eat that much. Since they didn’t move a lot on average, they had gotten quite fat over time. It was unknown if they would be able to pull a full carriage to Makji again, like they did in the past.
Since the load was just four people today, two horses would be enough. Still, this was a good opportunity for them to stroll a bit, so I prepared all six. Orun stayed in the back of the carriage, far away from the horses but close to Erin, holding onto her as if his life depended on it. It was funny to see him so scared of the horses. He would get used to them soon enough, though.
I held the reins, and we began the trip. Aren stayed with Orun for a moment before soon sitting next to me, at the front. When we reached the road outside of Geola, with much less traffic, I extended the reins toward him.
“Do you want to try driving the carriage?”