The Darkness Was Comfortable for Me

Chapter 187: Cooking, laundry, cleaning, and the Person of Hell

“Right, Kuro, what happened with the matter of hiring a maid?” (Jeanne)

Jeanne says this as if she suddenly remembered it.

At the time when we bought the house, the idea of hiring a maid was proposed.

“Aah, that, I don’t think there’s a need to. There’s nothing to do aside from the house chores, so I will do them.” (Hikaru)

“If you are fine with that, Kuro, that’s okay, but I can’t do anything and won’t be doing it, you know?” (Jeanne)

“It is not like there’s that much to do, so that’s okay. The laundry is a bit of a pain though.” (Hikaru)

“I will help out!” (Rifreya)

Honestly speaking, it is pretty difficult to clean up this big house. I do think that it would be easier on us if we had a person dedicated to that job.

But if we were to hire a person, I would end up having to ask for a variety of things, and the thing that I understood after living together with Jeanne and Rifreya is that living together with a stranger…creates cultural friction…or like, there’s difficulties that I didn’t even imagine.

Even with Jeanne who is a Chosen like me and understands the situation, and Rifreya who knows to a certain degree about the circumstances, it is still like that.

Adding one more person to that is something that I don’t know how to describe, but I don’t like the idea.

The fact that we have to hide our circumstances of being Chosen is also a plain pain too.

“If it eventually gets unbearable, we will hire someone. Right now, we have used so much money on our equipment that there’s no leeway.” (Hikaru)

“Hmm, well, if that’s okay with you, Kuro. I have no objections.” (Jeanne)

“I am okay with that too. Ah, depending on how much coin we have, we could have a girl that worked in my house before to come here.” (Rifreya)

If it is a person that worked at the home of Rifreya, it does sound trustworthy. Doesn’t sound bad. It might be fine to hire someone eventually.

Also, if there’s someone we can leave the house to, we can concentrate more in dungeon exploration.

But I am also conflicted whether we should really create an environment that will allow us to concentrate even more than this.

Dungeon exploration is a dangerous job.

It is apparently the norm to rest for several days after 1 dive, and in this world’s standards, we are currently overworking.

Even if we are aiming for the lowest floor, it is not like there’s a hard time limit. There’s absolutely no reason to push ourselves like at the time with the Viewer Count Race, and it would be better to prioritize performance.

Thinking of it in that way, it might be just right to have work at home too for some balance.

(Also, well…the cooking is fine, but the cleaning and laundry…) (Hikaru)

It comes to how much it is outsourced, but the laundry and cleaning is all done by hand in this world, and it takes quite a lot of time to do thoroughly.

And there’s a waterway at the side of the house for common use (the drinking water and wastewater are divided, and if you drain wastewater into the drinking water, you are penalized super heavily, and on top of that, the Great Water Spirit can detect it, so you will 100% get arrested for it. Scary) so it is easy to obtain water.

However, laundry is washed by hand with a washboard (this washboard is also something I bought with Crystals), I do the cleaning of the house with a broom and dustpan, and would use a rag to wipe things; there’s quite a lot of workload.

Well, Rifreya also helps me out with the cleaning, so it is better than it could be…

(We could outsource a part of it even if we don’t increase our exploration. At the very least, the laundry.) (Hikaru)

I was thinking that while eating without stopping, then Jeanne spoke with a baffled expression.

“…Anyways, you guys really eat a lot. Will I eventually end up that way too?” (Jeanne)

Rifreya and I were on our 3rd corn.

This corn is also tasty. It makes me wonder if there was selective breeding involved in it. That’s just how sweet and big the corn kernels are. It is apparently right in season, and the market is filled with corn.

I boiled 20 today in the cauldron from early in the morning.

“The frontline has an easier time to increase their Tier after all. You will eventually be eating more than me, Jeanne-san.” (Rifreya)

“Really? That sounds like a pain…” (Jeanne)

“Eeh? But isn’t it bliss to be able to eat a whole lot of Hikaru’s handmade cooking? I am really happy about it though.” (Rifreya)

Rifreya said this with a big smile and it made my heart skip a beat.

Rifreya eats a whole lot, so it makes it worth making the food, and her being happy about it also makes me happy.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying it is my specialty, but cooking is one of the few things that I can do.

“The food today was also delicious. You really can do anything, Hikaru.” (Rifreya)

Jeanne nods to the words of Rifreya, but even with that, it seems like turning into a glutton didn’t sound like a fun idea to her, she was still making a sullen expression.

“It certainly is tasty. But because it takes longer to eat, the time is also being eaten away…” (Jeanne)

“It is true that it does feel like we could waste a full day just eating if our Tiers increase too much.” (Hikaru)

I do understand the worry of Jeanne.

If we are going to go even further down the floors, we will have to increase our Tiers to match it.

It is good that you don’t get hungry in the dungeon, but the people that have adapted too much to the dungeon are unable to do any other job aside from exploring because of it.

At the very least, it would make it difficult to do long journeys because of the worry of food.

Well, in my case, I have Shadow Storage, so it should be okay if I just fill it up with food, but for the explorers that don’t have that, they won’t be able to separate from the dungeons for the rest of their lives.

“I think the one with the highest Tier in this city is Garnet-san from the Crimson Vials, but it is not like she is always eating something at every passing moment.” (Rifreya)

“That red haired person with the giant axe, huh. If she is like that at that level, it should be decently fine.” (Hikaru)

“…But she is always at taverns though.” (Rifreya)

“Isn’t that technically ‘always eating’…?” (Hikaru)

“I wonder about that. She is always drinking booze.” (Rifreya)

She might just be a drunkard, but your appetite is supposed to gradually increase. Dive the dungeon in order to earn coin for your food expenses, and because you dive into the dungeon, your Tier increases, and you end up dropping into a downward spiral, and in the end, you either die or become a Devil.

The wild animals eat the animals around to take in the varied Spirit Energy into their bodies and, in the end, become Monstrosities; people take in Spirit Energy from monsters, and the varied Spirit Energy you take in…in other words, the Chaotic Spirit Energy, enhances your body, and then you change into a Devil that surpasses a human…apparently.

“Devil, huh… Speaking of which, are Devils different from normal people?” (Hikaru)

When I asked this to Rifreya, she answered after finishing the last corn.

“Garnet-san is called a Devil, but the characteristic of a Devil is not only being strong according to what the Great Spirit-samas say. There’s apparently other things. I myself haven’t asked in detail about it, so I don’t really know though.” (Rifreya)

“It isn’t simply just a person who has raised their Tier?” (Hikaru)

“So it seems. If it is an old dungeon like Gran Alismaris, there might be though -actual Devils.” (Rifreya)

Actual Devils might have horns.

Or maybe they begin to eat people?

The possibility is there. Your appetite increasing seems to actually be true after all.

Raising our Tiers too high might be risky.

Well, it is not an immediate worry.

“Now then, we will challenge the 3rd Floor for real today. Our objective is to fight a Garden Panther.” (Jeanne)

After the meal, we talked about today’s plan.

Looks like Jeanne wants to fight a Garden Panther, but…

“Panthers rarely show up, you know? They are even more rare than a Mantis.” (Hikaru)

“No problem. We will stay the whole time in the 3rd Floor until a Panther shows up and we defeat it.” (Jeanne)

It ended up with that.

We have to get used to our new weapons, and our teamwork is still questionable.

I want to add the Spirit Abilities of Rifreya into our battle tactics as a trump card too. There’s countless things to do.

I would like to get ourselves in top shape before going to the 4th Floor.

While waiting for Jeanne and Rifreya to finish their preparations, I opened the World Map in the Status Board, and confirmed the situation.

First, in Meltia, there’s 8 dots overlapping.

6 from the 2nd group. At the time when they were transferred, they were at slightly apart locations, so we managed to tell that there were 6, but they are currently all in Meltia, so they are completely overlapped. It is a state where we don’t know how many there are.

If we had the Map of the Surroundings, we would be able to tell in detail where they are, but the 6 new Chosen shouldn’t have the map either. That one costs a ridiculous amount of Points, so it isn’t worth the price, and its uses are very limited.

The number of viewers has decreased a little.

300 new Chosen have come. It would be like having more channels on your TV all of a sudden. Of course the viewers would disperse.

That said, I am grateful for that.

“Hm? That Chosen in the hell, they are still alive.” (Jeanne)

Jeanne looked at the map and showed a rare surprised face as she said this.

That’s how rough of a place it must be. It is true that there’s a blue dot still there.

“They must have kept points when they transferred. I think they are using Barrier Stones.” (Hikaru)

“The other possibility being that they brought quite the powerful weapon. It depends on the matchup, but if a master from Earth uses Physical Strength Up to their maximum when they transfer, they can defeat monsters to a certain extent.” (Jeanne)

“To a certain extent, that is…” (Hikaru)

I remember the forest I was transferred to.

Would a master be able to defeat that gorilla? Even now, my back gets shivers just from remembering it. Would we be able to defeat it presently with all 3 of us…? We might be able to defeat it, but that’s something that can only be said after raising your Spirit Abilities plenty enough. I don’t think even one bit that a Chosen who was recently transferred can defeat it. They might be able to defeat it if they brought a heavy gun and turned it into swiss cheese though…

Thinking about it normally, not just the gorilla, even the wolves would be out of the realm of possibility.

Moreover, it seems like this hell is being seen as even more of a danger zone than the forest…

“I don’t know what situation they are in, but I would like them to hang on.” (Hikaru)

I was feeling sympathy towards the Chosen in hell.

I don’t know what their situation is, but even I survived. If they properly use the Survival Hints, they should be able to receive useful hints just like me. I want them to believe in the possibility and do their best.

And I want them to survive.

Even though I feel danger in making contact with the 2nd Chosen group, it was weird that I felt this way.

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