Okay, for the time being, here's how we're going to handle this issue: from now on, I will only use Warp to move to the Adventurer's Guild buildings and into the Labyrinth's, just to play my cards safe. Before I went back downstairs to rejoin Roxanne and Honesta I stayed on the first floor for a bit pretending that I was looking around so that it would not look unnatural that I went upstairs and then immediately came down.
「How about it?The obvious downside of this house is that the river and the well are somewhat far away from here so drawing water from them will always require a little walk and that it is also far from the Labyrinth's entrance, but since that shouldn't be a problem for you then I think you will agree that this place is not half bad, right?」
The Landlady welcomed me when I came back down, and then remarked after glancing at both me and Roxanne. Well guess what, Mrs. Honesta? Even if a well and a river are far away and drawing water from them would take time, those downsides do not affect us in any way because of my Warp distance will not be a problem anymore.
「Most certainly. I think this is a good property.」
I don't know what Roxanne's thoughts on the matter are, but from the looks of it she does not look like she's dissatisfied with what she saw so far. In that case she should be overjoyed when I will tell her later that since I have access to Water Magic we probably won't have to bother ourselves with drawing it by hand as well if I could fill the water container by shooting at it with Waterball. Honesta said that doing it shouldn't be a problem for me, but from her perspective she probably assumed that Roxanne, my slave, would have been tasked with doing it while I stayed home. And you know what, let her think that. Whatever's inside her head is her business, not ours.
「Really? Well I'm glad to hear it.」
Yes, really. The shortcomings of this house do not apply to us because of my Warp, so I can definitely say that this is a good property.
The problem is whether we should decide on this house or wait and see the other options Honesta has to offer right now. However, looking over the other properties and checking if it would be possible to use Warp from them would definitely take a fair amount of time. Renting such a house will definitely be cheaper then living in an inn for an entire year, is far away from the center of the city and has relatively few neighbors in the area, so for now I guess we can take this one and switch over to the new one if it does not end up being to our liking in the end. Besides, if Roxanne does not have any objections and agrees with my assessment that his is a pretty good house, then I think tha pretty much seals the deal here.
「So, what should we do now? Set the price of the rent?」
「Precisely. You look like your mind's made up, so we can move on to that. Let's see…」
For a moment Honesta simply stood there with her hand on her chin.
「Since the garden has been left unattended and neglected for so long I can subtract that from the overall cost od the rent, meaning that instead of the usual 50,000 Nar the cost of the yearly contract would go down to 45,000 Nar per year. Since the day is slowly drawing to a close, then let's say that the contract will start tomorrow and will be in full legal force until tomorrow of the next year, that is to say the 14th day of Spring.」
So it seems that today is the 13th day of spring. Regarding the cost of the yearly rent, it is great that it is not that far away from the usual market price. Not bad, not bad at all, if I do say so myself, but I guess that is the bare minimum required of someone who makes a living as a property manager. If all she did was tricking the customers into signing shady contracts like some kinda villain to extort them of their money, I highly doubt she'd be able to last long in the industry. She has the ability to discern that Roxanne was my slave simply by looking at her (or at least that is my assumption), and she was kind enough to give us a tour of the house before we even decided to if we want to buy it or not. If that is her strategy for running her business, then my guess is that she must be one of the better ones from all of Quratar's landlords, of which there are bound to be multiple ones if the entire city is divided into so many districts. If she wanted to deceive others, she would have been better off not working as a property caretaker at all.
I looked at Roxanne over my shoulder, and she nodded back at me.
「Okay, we will be taking this house. What do we do now, sign the contract, or are there any other things we need to take care of before that?」
I also nodded at the caretaker, and conveyed our intentions of signing a contract to her.
「There is one matter, actually.」
After we finished the inspection of what would become our new home, we were the taken to the Knight's guardhouse so that we could have our Intelligence Cards checked. Even though she is working as a Merchant, Honesta does not seem to have the Skill that would allow her to check our Intelligence Cards herself. From all the people I have met so far, the only ones capable of doing it were the Kinights in the guardhouses and the owner of the Veil Pavilion.
「Now that that's done, all that is left to do is signing the rent contract. Can you write?」
Honesta asked me that question when we went back to her hardware store. I guess asking such a question makes sense, since apparently there are not that many people in this world who can actually do it, although I have to regrettably admit that I am a member of that vast majority myself.
「Is it okay for someone else to be my ghostwriter and sign the document on my behalf?」
「Of course, as long as it will be someone whom you absolutely know you can trust.」
「Then, can I ask you to do it for me, Roxanne?」
「Understood!」
Honesta and Roxanne started taking care of all the necessary documents. Since there was nothing for me to do to help them with that, I decided to have a quick look around the store in order to kill time. As expected of a hardware store, it was lined up with all kinds of products and utensils made of metal, and all of them must have been created by the couple of owners themselves, just like the landlady said before when we met her husband on the way to the house. I can't help but to wonder as to exactly how helpful tools like that can be in your daily life in a world such as this… oh, looks like they even have a wok here. Huh, who would have guessed? Well, just to be sure…
「Excuse me, but what is this?」
「That thing over there? It is a pot used by professional chefs. It is used primarily when the dish you're cooking requires a large amount of heat to properly prepare.」
「You don't say.」
Not gonna lie, looking at this thing made me feel kinda nostalgic, even though it's not totally the same, but extremely similar. But that should be expected, I guess, since I suddenly saw one of the things that I thought I was never going to see again. If both this wok and the one I know from back home are used for the same purpose, then it should be perfectly fine for them to have a nearly identical shape.
「My shop is the only one around these parts that produces a tool of this type, so it's not strange that this might be your first time seeing such a thing. If you're interested in it, then why not buy it? If your girl-companion over there is a good cook, then she will definitely appreciate it. So? How about it?」
「Has anyone ever told you that you're quite good at your job? *Sigh* Then I will be getting this together with the rent. How much would that be in total?」