We started cleaning the dirty house, as we can't just show a dirty haunted house where even a ghost wouldn't stay as our base of operations.
"Khaleesi, go and fetch the posters from the artist.", I said to khaleesi.
"Okay sir.", and with that she was gone.
The house had two stories and I am not even sure how it managed to stay stable. We set up a camp near the front door to stay.(We were too scared to live during the night, also we did not have any bedding and the floor was not clean).
We had managed to clean up the hall and the kitchen. The house contained a lot of old ornaments, so we decided to put it on display in the shop. The shop in it was basically an old storehouse inside the house that opened up in second lane.
"Are you not going to become the adventurer?", asked Alexa.
"No"
"Seriously?"
"i HAVE TOLD YOU, WE ARE GOING TO ROLL IN MONEY THROUGH OUR CON, I MEAN LAWFUL BUSINESS."
"How are you planning to use science?"
"If I am correct, this world is in medieval ages and has magic so science is not used."
"Yes! But how does that make any difference? People will use magic to solve their problems and you don't even use magic."
"Come to think of it, I haven't practiced using magic in a while."
"YOU WANT TO? I WILL HELP YOU!"
"Why are you so obsessed with teaching me magic?And no, I have better things to do."
"By the way~ you can use magic to instantly clean the whole hous-"
"Teach me magic!"
"That was quick, For now I will teach you basic magic."
"How does magic work by the way?"
"You are asking that right now? The story of magic is - Long, long, ago mermaid who fell in love with a human-"(Was it about to say, their love was forbidden, but the mermaid gave him some powers or something and he became a prince?)
"You have weird examples, teach me in the language of science"
"How dare you insult the most famous children story of this world like that, do you know how wholesome and good that story was? Anyways, in scientific world, this world gets different laws of physics, and also a new dimension - magic. Even I do not explain how the dimension thingy works out, but in layman's term, the addition of this dimension adds a new form of energy - mana, which exists in living organisms. The magic is the ability to convert the mana into other forms of energy or matter. The magic can also be defined as a mea-"
"Why are you such a spoil sport? Why did you ruin my imagination? Thanks to you now I can't imagine a world of fairies and gypsies and mages. You could have just said some childish story and gone along the lines and said 'It's magic!'. "
"WHO DO YOU THINK TOLD ME TO EXPLAIN IT IN SCIENTIFIC TERMS? GEEZ WHEN I WAS TELLING ABOUT THE MERMAID AND THE PRINCE!"
"So can I use magic?"
"Yes, depends on what you are planning to do with it."
"By the way, how can I read and write in this world? I understand the livetron explanation but how does that explain this?"
"it's magic! LEAVE IT TO YOUR IMAGINATION!."
"Just say even you don't understand the reason. How do I use magic?"
"Just imagine converting your life into something and something or other will pop out equivalent to the mana."
"Okay, I am almost done.", and then a boom came. I was pushed back from it and even my arm was almost fractured.
"Just now you pushed the air by creating matter to displace it, this caused immense air pressure and pushed you back. In worse conditions, your whole arm and nerves could have been ripped out of your body."
"Bruh! Then why didn't you stop me?"
"YOU NEVER KNOW UNTIL YOU REACH THE END!"
What's with this guy's motivational thoughts.
"If it can push air? Then can I use it to blow off the dirt from the house?"
"Let me control your mind, and I will use wind magic."
"I don't trust you."
"Why? I am just an innocent and good message system~"
"You sound shady, but fine, control my mind."
And it really took over my body. To describe in simple words how it felt, I was in a sleeping state although I could feel my body's movements and senses.
"Haha~", I(the message system) laughed.
What are you doing with my body?, I communicated in the unconscious state.
"Well, I am going to test out your body or in simple words, torture you!", he said in an evil tone
'Nooo, you said I could trust you!'
"Rule number 1 - Never trust anyone.", he said with a laugh.
"YOU! "
After that I was subjected to a number of tortures.
HE USED A PIGEON FEATHER AND TICKLED ME! I COULD FEEL IT, BUT STILL NOT LAUGH AS I COULD NOT CONTROL MY MUSCLES.
THEN HE HIT MY TOE IN A WALL, I SWEAR, MY TOE ALMOST BENT. I COULD NOT EVEN CRY.
"I think that's enough for now. I will clean the house and get out of this dirty body"
Even though i hadn't bathed since past 2 month(last bath was in the farmer's house), he had no right to call me dirty after throwing me in a jungle.
(Was It just me or the alexa had stopped calling me an insolent fool?)
In a few minutes, all the trash was cleaned by me in possesed state. He cleaned it like it was a very easy job. The old haunted house was now an old clean building. The building still had many cracks.
After the whole house was cleaned, I gained back the control of my body and swore to never trust the alexa again.
"How would you rate my cleaning services?"
"6/10, okay enough. Also you get a 0/10 for your rudeness."
The house was clean enough to reside in, khaleesi was going to come soon. So I rested for some time, my toe was still paining from when it got hurt.
After rest, I went into the house and found a washroom. The washroom had rusty taps and water did not flow. It had an old bath tub and a weird designed toilet. The bathroom's door was broken down.
There were three bedrooms, a big one and two small ones. The big bedroom had a double bed(it wasn't comfortable, small pieces of hay pricked you when you tried to sit) and a wardrobe with a rusty mirror. It also had a window with the street view. I saw many cartons passing by and a familiar guy passing through. It was Richard the rich, the person who owned the mansion we accidentally got in. He was a total jerk and I decided to throw a pebble on him. Unfortunately, my aim was bad and it accidentally hit a young boy.
"Who did that? Owww!that hurts mommy!", the boy said while weeping. I pretended that nothing happened and went back to the tent we set up.
It was taking khaleesi a lot of time to bring the posters. So I decided to go and check her out myself but I met her on the backstreet. Turns out when she was sticking the posters, she was caught.
The police fined her but she did not have any money on her so they were taking her to the police station. I gave the guards some money and they released her.
"How did you get caught up in such a situation?"
"I could not use the mistress in distress card. Those guys did not allow me to, but I posted many posters around the city. All of them in strategically perfect location"
"Now we can only wait. By the way did you put our address on the poster?"
"Yes."
"You can go inside the house now, I cleaned it up."
"How did you do that? Did you sign a contract with a devil?", she asked with doubt.
"No, no, I simply used magic."
"Magic? Wait magic exists in this world?", khaleesi said shocked by the existence of the magic.
"Yes, wait you did not know?"
"No, I thought it was some kind of joke you came up with."
"Let me show you, although I can't control it." and I tried to blast a small amount of matter. The air flowed from my hand, it was a small wind, very small compared to the earlier violent blast.
"WAHHHH! So cool!", she said with a glint in her eyes.
"Hehe, you are still a child at heart."
"Of course, this is new to me. By the way, are we sleeping in the house today?"
"Good question! I am not scared of the ghost so I am sleeping inside the house."
"Don't lie, you got so scared that you hid behind me when we opened the ho-"
"LA LA LA LA, did you say something? I did not hear it, anyways I am sleeping in the hall."
"If you want to really avoid that topic just say so. I am sleeping in the kitchen, also where do I pass of my wastes?"
"There is a bathroom on the second floor, use it."
She went and came back two minutes later.
"No way in hell I am using that thing. I will go and use the public bathroom."
"Okay."
I had only went to the public bathroom when I needed to pass stools, otherwise I would piss in some farm. And only bathed twice since I came to this world but since this house had a bathroom it was a waste to no use it. The bathroom did not have water supply and sewage system also seemed to be choked. (I did not change the clothes in which I came in this world. They were laundered once.)
I decided to use my middle class family plumber skills to fix it. But unfortunately the water connection was from the river and the pipe was broken and disconnected from our house's tank(it had holes). Hydraulics wasn't my cup of tea so I decided not t o interfere further.
"I am back!", said khaleesi with a sign of relief.
"What do we have for lunch?"
"We can have bread."
"Alright, I will go and fetch it."
I went to the grocery store in the main market. The prices were pretty reasonable, it also gave me an idea about the living standards of this town. The people were living just above the poverty line. I bought some bread and returned home.
On returning home, I saw a woman enter the house. She looked like a rich lady and I thought she was our first customer.
When she came inside, we welcomed her in the hall and sat on the floor. She was a little surprised as she was rich and thought we had a good place.
"Miss, what business do you have here?"
"I am Gala, the owner of the Strong milk company. It's a dairy company. We have been facing troubles in our company for a while. I saw your poster and thought you were some kind of astrologists specializing in the unknown 'Science' magic?", said the lady confused about the science part.
"Please explain your troubles."
"Our company got a contract, we have to supply milk to the neighbouring Raza town. But it takes a journey of 2 hours to get there, and the milk spoils before reaching. We had to bear many losses due to this, plus we can't even cancel the contract."
"We have got a solution. For that let us handle the company. In return, ", I broke off in between.
"In return?"
"...", I gave her the silent treatment.
"What do you want in return, if you can solve this trouble we will help you in any way possible."
Bingo, she got impatient.
"50% royalty on the profits earned goes to us when it's successful. and we will buy all the spoiled milk in the journey at the market price."
I proposed the monstrous deal
"That's too much to ask! We can't give 50% as royalty.", she said after getting pale and sweating.
"Please keep in mind the loss we have to bear if it is not successful.", I said with a devil's smile
"40%, I can't give more."
"45%, deal! Now let's begin with the plan.", I imposed the '45%' on my own.
She looked with a shocked face. The colours flew away from her face.
Poor her, she had to agree to it.
"Wha? Please tell the plan.", she said after getting tired.
"For that, give us enough cows to supply Raza town with milk."
"I will ask my assistants to hand over the cows, but what are you planning to do?"
"Hehe, that is a business secret! Also lease some land in Raza."
"What's my guarantee that you won't run away?"
"We have sealed a deal with the landlord that if we move away from here in another 100 years, we will be his slaves. And you as a businessperson should know the power possessed by a noble."
"Fine."
"And give us the carts you use to carry milk to the neighbouring village. They will be used by us. Sign this contract.", I pulled out a contract from my pocket with a devil's smirk.
"Where would you even get that from?"
She signed the contract as she had no other choices. HAA! She has made a deal with a devil.
"I think we are done here."
Although I meant to say, 'Congrats on joining hands with a devil.'
"My servant will bring what you need tomorrow. Goodbye", she left with her bent spine.
And with that she left.
"What are you planning to do sir?"
"Have you heard about the story of a minister and cabbage.", I said with a smile
"No?"
"Long ago-"
"Summarize in 100 words or less.", She said with a sharp look.
"A kingdom was famed for it's tasty cabbages. The neighbouring country asked for some cabbages however the distance was too far and cabbages would spoil by the time reached. So a clever minister in their court suggested to plant seedlings in a pot and deliver that pot. By the time it reached the kingdom, it was a full grown cabbage."
"That was weird, but are you planning to do what I am thinking?"
"I don't know what you are thinking."(#dadjokes101)
"Are you planning to deliver the cows instead of milk?"
"Yes, you are absolutely right."
"That would be cheating right, and also if they came to know about it, they would just cancel the contract."
"That's where you are wrong, they cannot cancel the contract as I have already mentioned in the contract that it can't be canceled unless both parties agree to. And even if they manage to use their connections to cancel the contract, I will put a patent on this idea."
"Aren't we just leeching them off? And can we even patent that idea?"
"No, it's called as an equivalent exchange, my dear. We converted their losses into profits. Plus they will soon start using our idea to supply milk to other towns. They will earn huge profits, and meanwhile we will leech 40% of it. This is called entrepreneurship. And as long as the mafia, I mean merchant's guild gets our bribes, they will enforce our patent."
"Master, you are way too greedy and cunning. I don't know whether I should praise you or badmouth you."
"Is that a comment or a compliment?"
"Take it as whatever you like."
"You are as confusing as always. Anyways, we start reaping big tomorrow onwards. We have the devil's luck on our side that we got such a big host, I mean customer as our first customer."
I can't wait to see the look on gala's face when she realizes the solution was that simple.