"The grandpa landlord told me my house has good fortune. Every owner of the house has left with success."
"The landlord said that?"
"Yes! And he gave me so much good advice."
"…"
"But you know, I was so surprised when the neighbor I met a little while ago suddenly started talking about ghosts."
Don't tell me she bought the house without knowing…
Well, she does have a little sister; there is no reason for her to take a house with such a chaotic rumor.
That aside, what is this talk about 'a house with good fortune'? Or about 'every owner of the house leaving with success'? If you're going to lie, at least know the limit. This landlord, seriously. But if he said all that and sold the house, then there's no way the price of the house was knocked down. This was obviously the old landlord extorting the heroine.
Not even knowing that, Anne-Marie gave a smile as radiant as the clear skies above.
"Now I see there must be some kind of misunderstanding. I think the neighbor was also worried about me and that's why he told me that. When I see him again, I better let him know that he's mistaken."
…Will the heroine be okay like this?
Of course, there was no such thing as a ghost in that house, so she can live just fine. But aside from that, I couldn't help but wonder if she could survive in this cruel world when she was deceived so easily like this.
Ah, right. There was a guy who made it okay for the protagonist to be like this and as if proving that things only existed for the protagonist, at the end of the novel, she would find her rich maternal grandmother, get her inheritance and her fate would bloom bright again.
Then I guess it doesn't matter.
"I'm glad such nice people live in my neighborhood. I'll be in your care from now on."
While my mind wandered in thought, I curled my lips like the cheerful woman in front of me and gave a faint smile.
"Yes…same here."
* * *
"Hmm, should I just move somewhere else…"
That evening, I thought about it seriously as I watched the sunset outside the window. At first, I was going to just not concern myself with it, but the more I chewed over my encounter with the heroine, the more uncomfortable I felt, even though I didn't know why.
From my experiences so far, it wasn't wise to ignore such instinctual feelings…
"Mph!"
Right then, a sound came from beneath my feet, disrupting me but I ignored it. The image of the woman who had been at the door of my house earlier lingered before my eyes. Come to think of it, I thought of Coco for the first time in a long while. It had really been a long time since memories of my previous life brought up such sentimental feelings in me like this.
Since losing my emotions at the institute, even things like attachment or longing had grown dim. My current feeling was similar to how I felt back when I first met Lakis Avalon, and remembered my favorite character who had died.
Maybe this is why I unexpectedly liked the heroine a bit but..
"Mph! Mmmphh…!"
"Mister, be a little quiet. I can't think."
I had been engrossed in faint sentimentality, but I was dragged back to reality. It seemed the person under me was now fully conscious because the noises digging into my eardrums had become more intense.
I glanced down, taking a look at the person I was sitting on.
The man, who was hanging in the air, rolled up in a cocoon of white threads, was wriggling in fright. It irritated me so I kept sitting on the man's back with my legs crossed and moved the threads that attached his body to the ceiling. When his suspended body began to swing back and forth, the man went 'hiiik' and the sound of him sucking in a deep breath rang out in the desolate room.
"You have a nice house, Mister. The ceiling is high, the soundproofing is good too."
"Mmp…"
"How much does a house like this cost? It should be around 5000 gold coins at least, right?"
The man who had stopped struggling at some point, let out a weak groan. This place was used as both a mansion and a chapel, and the distance from the ceiling to the floor was about 10 meters. So unless the man was very unlucky, he wouldn't die even if he fell but he was making too much of a fuss. Maybe he had a fear of heights?
"See? If you had simply listened to me earlier, there would be no reason for you to be like this right now."
Well, it wasn't any of my business so I swung back and forth on the man's suspended body in the air and enjoyed the scenery of the flaming sunset beyond the window.
At a glance, it seemed like a very calm and leisure scene but the situation below wasn't quite the same. The people who tried to protect the man from me were littered in unconscious heaps on the bloody floor.
But please don't misunderstand me.
Whatever it may be, I was in the middle of a job right now. I didn't have a hobby of making a sport out of uninvolved people. My purpose today was to get some kind of information from this man but…
"Ah, this has gotten a bit annoying…"
Actually, I accepted this request because it offered a lot of money, but this sort of request was a little annoying.
Pop.
I began to slowly reduce the number of threads sticking to the ceiling.
"Do I just take the advance payment and write this off as a failed request?"
Snap.
As more threads broke off, the man's body lowered more and more, and his breathing grew increasingly unstable. Finally, when there were only a few threads still attached to the ceiling, I casually looked down at the man's pale face and asked.
"Mister, what do you think of just dying right now, fast and clean? You don't have to tell me what I asked for."
At those words, my seating platform began to wriggle fiercely again.
"Mph! Mph!…"
The way he was looking at me was a little different from before. Did he sense my true feelings when I said that? I guess he was finally thinking of talking. I removed the bind that was blocking his mouth.
"The…the documents are hidden in…."
He trembled as he answered the question I had asked earlier.
Actually, I had agreed to let my client finish off this man at the end, so quite frankly, I had no intentions of killing him myself. But the man didn't know that, so he was frantic.
The sinking glow of setting sun shone through the large window that took up one side of the wall and cast a reddish sheen that reached even where I was.
It looks like I could go home early today; the man was more of a coward than I thought.
* * *
Not too long after, I was by myself, walking through the narrow alley that led to my house.
As my mind wandered, I realized that I hadn't eaten dinner yet. When I got home, I should make something for myself.
Then suddenly, I noticed an old lady walking ahead of me, carrying a heavy load. I didn't see anyone else around. I changed my direction and walked towards the elderly woman in my line of sight.
"Grandma, let me help you with that."
"Oh my, it will be heavy though."
I didn't feel like this much weight was heavy because my body had been strengthened at the research institute. And if need be, I could extend a thread from my hand to support my weight. I was capable of manipulating the length and thickness of any thread I pulled out.
"Thank you, dear. I got here quickly because of you. Here's a little something for you to eat."
Thanks to the old lady's warm heart, I got two unexpected apples.
"Thank you, grandma."
Honestly, I didn't do this because I felt a strong respect for elders or because I had high morals or ethics.
Whenever I took on a request, I tried to do something good, even if it was a small thing. Although I did my job to make a living, I was of course, aware that my work wasn't exactly good. So this was something I decided as a result. However, I can't really say I felt guilty for doing this kind of work.
~
Sometime later, I returned home and prepared a rather late dinner for myself. I was going to have a simple sandwich made with the whole-wheat bread I bought this morning, fresh lettuce, tomatoes, sauce and bacon toppings.
Actually, after the experiments at the institute, my body became able to survive without a steady intake of nutrients, but I still ate all three meals of the day, every day, when possible.
I took out my groceries in the kitchen and was about to start cooking(I know you can't really call it cooking), then I suddenly remembered something and stretched my hand to the window.
A translucent white thread extended out at my will and the tip of the thread sank into the curtain.
Swoosh!
I gestured slightly and the thread moved, letting down the curtains by the window. They were specially ordered blackout curtains, so my house was instantly plunged into darkness.
Next, I sent out a thread in the other direction and turned on the light. Of course, there was no electricity in this place, so the light wasn't real. This was something made by the alchemists in the east.
Household items, such as simple freezers for freezing and storing food, or heaters for warming food like a gas stove, were all brought to life by eastern alchemists. Of course, these items looked very different from the modern items I knew but their uses were similar.
They was very easy to use, and their effects was semi-permanent so even if the alchemists had sold them to a noble at a high price, they would have hit the jackpot. However, the first alchemist that made these items, made them in abundance and distributed them at a low price.
Thanks to that, it was common to see such items among ordinary citizens like myself. Just for reference, that great alchemist was one of the male leads in novel.
Of course he was. Would it make sense if he didn't have that much weight in the novel when he was so great? Items that were put out on the market had the engraving 'DS' on them, an abbreviation of his name.
I mean, he wasn't my favorite male character in the novel of course, but it was still thanks to him that life was made easier so after praising him for a bit, I got back to making my sandwich.
In the meantime, the ingredients that were skewered on the thin silver thread, danced alone in the air.