-Day 5-

After two days of Saria's instinct directing us, we finally managed to find some shady looking building. Apparently her kin had a strong sense of instinctual direction like an inner compass that allowed them to know where to go when they had been there once before. A handy ability to have for sure. The building was massive in size so it was tough to miss it from far away.

(Draven) «So, this is the place?»

(Saria) "Shouldn't you know that it is if you fought those bad humans here?"

(Draven) «I barely even remember smacking those guys into the wall and ceiling.»

If there was anyone waiting for us here then they hid their presence well, because this looked as much like a deserted haunted house as advertised by Saria.

We went inside, ready to engage in case someone who wanted us gone ambushed us. The entry was just big, no other word to describe it really. It's like in those movies where there is just one large hall with stairs leading to the next story and loads of side rooms to get lost in.

Whatever room we checked, most rooms were either wrecked or empty. We did happen to find one with a bed upstairs though, so with this, Saria should be able to get some comfy sleep for once. When I pointed out that the bed as for sleeping, I realized she didn't even know what a real luxurious bed looks like. And as the atmosphere suggested, it was dirty. So dirty that it wasn't worth even trying to clean anything we wouldn't use. She dusted off the sheets of the bed and tried lying on it, almost falling asleep due to how good it must have been.

Of course, we managed to find a kitchen downstairs too. A kitchen tells a story about a person, and in this case about the technologies available to the wealthy. But, yeah, it was a bit from the kitchen I was used to. I could understand the purpose of some of the basic appliances, like a large stove plate and a couple refrigerator-looking contraptions, but there were pipes and stuff which didn't make sense in a kitchen, like a pipe going out of what I assumed was the refrigerator like a chimney. Next to one of the refrigerators was a tube leading into it, almost like a grill of sorts. So maybe this refrigerator kept things... warm?

Something told me that some of these tools would probably work with magic stuff, since that's a thing now, but don't expect me to be some sort of archaeologist who just knows what everything is used for.

(Saria) "Mister shadow, I thought there would be food here... I'm starving."

Her stomach growled as she complained about food, lying on a table in the kitchen while doing circles on it with her finger.

(Draven) «I've told you a few times already to eat the meat from the fae we killed, but you refused to do so every time.»

(Saria) "I don't want their meat! It's disgusting! Can't we just take some food from the humans?"

(Draven) «If you want to end up with a hand chopped off because you stole from them, go ahead.»

(Saria) "Ugh..."

Actually, I could just heal the chopped off hand back now that I think about it. Suddenly losing a hand for stealing sounded pretty enticing.

After some rummaging, we were blessed to find a large bucket standing around in the room that still had water in it. Not completely clean, but still leagues better than the water that Saria found in the ditches. There was still the issue of food. As suspected there wasn't really anything here. And if there was, it would probably be rotten. This mansion must have been abandoned for some time now.

Still, for some reason, I would have imagined something as basic as a bucket of water to have been dried out by whatever infestations that were in this place.

(Saria) "Humans live weird."

(Draven) «Hm? What's so weird about this?»

(Saria) "There are no trophies from hunts at all, and the floor and roof is all wood. Isn't that dangerous when using fire?"

So, turns out, demons have different values when it comes to defining a home. She spent time explaining that the gist of it is that they essentially make their home much more personal. Ideally, a home would then be something you created yourself, not something you live comfortably in after having contracted some company to build it for you.

Home is something that they make. Furs from beasts they hunt would be used as decoration, bones as building materials and utensils. Essentially, they use everything on the beasts they slay. Nothing really goes to waste, which I guess isn't really that bad. And the mightier the beast, the more status it gives to a demon. Kind of like having a really expensive painting according to her. However, I was wondering why this "use everything" attitude even mattered to her since we essentially just left all the things that attacked us rot where we killed them.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Of course, there are things that they don't use the loot from hunting animals for as well. They don't spend time creating floors. They just start building off the land they decide to build on, so their floors are usually dirt or stone.

Wood is dangerous to use because it is flammable. Their kind specializes in heat and warmth. Fire magic was most revered in their tribes, but even water and earth magic users would be trained to use heat in their magic. Naturally, having a flammable house would be a bad idea then when using magic that can light your home on fire in their daily life.

I also thought that this could be why Saria's light magic was all about warmth for her. Maybe it's in their nature to use heat. Maybe you could use light in different ways she hadn't thought of. Just the fact that she can create light from nothing was already incredible, but it sounded like a very basic thing to do with loads of ways to utilize it.

Judging different cultures aside, there were two sets of clothes hidden in one of the rooms when we went exploring. Although servants outfits, at least it gave some kind of protection.

Wait, Saria isn't much bigger than a normal human child... Why would they have servant clothes in those sizes? That thought gave me a few shudders for sure, as this just felt a bit too perfect to be true. Nothing I could do about that right now though.

She did look dashing in her clothes though. It was a black robe that reached just below her knees with a nice pair of boots to cover her feet. It came with a black girdle as well, keeping the robe from fluttering about too much when moving.

(Saria) "Ughh, I can't eat clothes... I'm still starving.>

(Draven) «There are still a few hours left before it turns dark. So let's look around a bit.»

I told her to go to the entrance of the mansion again so we could check the area outside. Worst case scenario, she would go hungry to bed, but considering that she has had a few meals of berries and whatever we could find earlier today, she should be alright. Best case scenario, we could find food just around the building.

(Draven) «There. Let's go down the road.»

I missed it when we got here, but outside of what looked like a large parking lot for horses, there was naturally a road that led somewhere. One would assume it led to some sort of civilization.

I reckoned we shouldn't go too far today still, but just assessing what's down there would be important in case someone suddenly showed up. Saria followed the road ahead and eventually we reached a... wall?

It looked like a wall, but it had this sort of "KEEP OUT" feeling attached to it. You know, it looks like a normal gate, but there were planks hammered all over it with large red symbols that didn't make sense to me.

(Saria) "Hm? What does it say, mister shadow?"

(Draven) «How am I supposed to know? I thought you could read it maybe.»

(Saria) "But you're a human, aren't you? Don't you know how to read human?"

(Draven) «And you're from this world! Aren't you the one supposed to know more about it than me?»

(Saria) "I never learned how to read something like this, obviously."

Right, her past was a bit murky. It wasn't difficult for Saria to climb the wall. And once past it, there was a nice stone road which looked used. She looked a bit perplexed when she saw the infrastructure before us.

(Draven) «You don't know anything about humans, do you? This looks like something humans would make.»

(Saria) "The road?"

(Draven) «Yeah. We should be careful though, if some guards suddenly show up we could be in big trouble. I don't imagine that demons have a good relationship with them, right?»

(Saria) "Nuh-uh, humans are parasites and are too scared to face real demons."

Well, thank you very much for indirectly calling me trash, you brat.

I suggested that we should take a detour to explore more of the area, thus we begun moving back into the forest while at the same time going towards our new home base. But it turned out to be more of the same. Just trees everywhere.

Lady luck finally smiled on us though when we found something that did in fact not belong in a forest, just as the sun was starting to set.

(Draven) «Oh, Saria! A plantation!»

(Saria) "Huh? What is that?"

I pointed to her right and there it was. A field with hundreds of trees in a more orderly fashion behind fences. She had only looked for two seconds and her mouth was already drooling. Didn't take long for her to realize that the word plantation equaled to food.

(Saria) "I can go, right? I want the food!"

(Draven) «Alright, alright. But make sure nobody sees you for now.»

It couldn't be helped. I've had to listen to her telling me she was starving for the last couple of hours. She silently raced towards the field. I told her to make sure she was undetected, but I made double sure to keep tabs on all directions.

Nobody seemed to be looking though. The plantation was pretty big in size and looked to have a lot of produce growing on trees. It had a clearly human built house that looked small in comparison with the amount of land it boasted and two stables in the far back, but it was very far away. Overall a nice plantation by Earth standards. Or is it an orchard?

As expected, Saria munched down on some of the fruit the people here were growing. Luckily she wouldn't need to climb up the trees as some fruits were dropped to the ground. Three of these apple-shaped things were gone within a minute. And that's good, because the longer we stayed here, the higher the chance of someone seeing us steal their harvest would be.

(Draven) «Hey, you little glutton, pick some for the road and let's get out of here.»

(Saria) "Whaat? But I just started eating!"

She started crying on command with her mouth full of food, some of it dropping out of her mouth... Yikes...

(Draven) «I don't care, we can go here tomorrow again.»

(Saria) "Sniff... I'm going to miss you..."

With tears glistening in the wind she ran back to the mansion with her hands actually filled with fruit. I felt like some sort of strict mom now. But she did listen, and it was getting late.

We finally got back. The sun just recently set and Saria finished eating her food in moderation for once. I would have told her to brush her teeth if that even were a concept here, but that would require a toothbrush. Instead she made her way into the bed we found earlier today. With a surprising amount of comfort, she let out a sigh and we told each other goodnight with good conscience for once.