Ivy was staring at James with a genuinely confused expression after their long, long conversation.

James stared back.

It was only after a solid few seconds did she reveal the source of her confusion.

“So you were on the planet for a hundred years,” she stated, and James nodded. “And you built almost an entire world in one room, but you didn’t build a proper house for yourself?”

James blinked and tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t have a library to store your books. You just get the shop to vanish them. You didn’t make a sauna room for yourself or a swimming pool. You didn’t make yourself a kitchen to experiment with dishes and perhaps learn how to cook. Hell, you didn’t even go outside during the time you were in that world, exploring and trying local dishes or just having fun. You literally didn’t live.”

James gulped. When she put it like that, it did sound like he did literally nothing with the shop. “W-well, I didn’t think of doing any of those things, yeah. But there was a reason I didn’t want to explore the world I was in—It was all medieval and boring!”

Ivy sighed, covering her forehead with one hand. “You don’t know how to live life. Make another door in the corridor. We should start asap on making a proper house for ourselves. Two bedrooms next to each other, a kitchen, a very, very big library, a theater, perhaps a swimming pool, and a sauna. Anything else would be excessive, yeah?”

“But that’d make our house too big. And we agreed that unnecessarily large houses were creepy and unnecessary, right?” James replied. “Well, I thought we did. I think you changed your opinion.”

His sister hummed and pondered about it. “Yeah, no, I still think big houses are creepy. Then maybe we could put the sauna and all the extra rooms as separate doors in the corridor. The corridor is endless anyway.”

James nodded. Then, he felt curious. Could the shop not give his sister the permission to edit the corridor and the rooms within? Give her access to his points.

The shop can indeed do so, representative. Should the shop mark human Ivy as ‘shop manager’, thus giving her access to the personal stockpile of the representative and owner James? Any excessive requests by her shall still pass through you, representative James.

James blinked. Then nodded passionately. “Sure, make my sister a manager, shop.”

“A manager?” his sister questioned.

“Yeah, that way you can access my point stockpile and build all the rooms you want on your own. Just… don’t go too overboard, alright? Knowing you, it’d not take long for you to burn through all my points.”

“Don’t you have millions though?” Ivy tilted her head.

James just looked at her.

“Fair point,” she acknowledged, nodding. “I won’t go overboard, then.”

—

Archaniel’s call woke James up from his sleep as he groggily lifted it. It had been hours since Ivy had begun building their house, but James wasn’t let inside since she’d not yet perfected the details. So he just decided to sleep in his old, proper bedroom, the one that the stairs led to.

“What’s up, senior?”

“Lend me some points, junior.”

“How many?”

“Hmm. Fifty thousand? Yeah, that should tide me over for a year or perhaps a few.”

“What’re you even doing with all those points?” James asked, rubbing at his eyes and yawning.

The voice on the other side of the call paused and hummed, seemingly trying to figure out how to explain. “You know, overthrowing some governments, quelling crime, things like that.”

James paused. What in god’s name…? He felt a shiver travel down his spine as a former Earth resident, imagining just what state the world might be in. Then again, his senior was a good person.

Perhaps his overthrowing and quelling are indeed making the world a better place.

Even though that was an extremely optimistic viewpoint to have, the vibe that he had gotten from Archaniel was that his senior thrived in chaos.

So…

Why, though? Wasn’t his senior supposed to be on vacation? “And that is your idea of a… vacation?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“See, it’s always been the ones I assist to do stuff like this. So doing it myself feels strangely cathartic. Though this isn’t my idea of a vacation, no. I just sort of… got carried away.”

“Carried away,” James repeated in a hollow tone.

“Y-yes.”

It was only after a few seconds of silence did James sigh and nod. “Alright, I’ll lend you the fifty thousand points you need.”

Transferring fifty thousand points from representative James’ ‘personal stockpile’ to the ‘personal stockpile’ of ex-owner Archaniel.

“Thanks, Junior. I won’t keep pestering you for points, don’t worry. Consider this a one time thing.”

James rolled his eyes. “I don’t mind even if you keep pestering me for points.”

—

James looked at the hall with raised eyebrows. He’d expected that Ivy would go with a more urban rich look, like the mansions back on Earth, but instead, she decided to go all cozy and “hut hidden away in a forest” style.

The hall was filled with wooden browns, may it be on the walls or the items themselves. Very soothing and relaxing, James thought.

There was a television on the wall, to which James pointed and asked, “Why do we need this? You made a theater room too, didn’t you?”

“What house wouldn’t have a television?” his sister asked, to which James nodded. That was true. A house wouldn’t just feel right without an obligatory television, would it?

He pointed to the doors, a small smile on his face. “Are all the bedrooms of this style too? All cozy and wooden?”

“Even the bathrooms are,” his sister declared, to which James paused.

He thought about it for a second. Would that work? Sure, that could work. It sounded surprisingly nice. “Let’s continue our house tour, then.”

—

James gasped when he saw the theater. It was absolutely gigantic. There were so many seats, and the screen was even bigger than the ones he’d see back home.

“Why do we need such a big screen?” James asked, to which Ivy rolled her eyes.

“The same reason we need so many seats.”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s about the experience, James. Making it feel like an actual theater we have all for ourselves.”

“Ah.” James nodded, once more feeling appreciative.

Really, compared to his sister, James did indeed not know how to live.

—

It was a few days later, when they were both chilling in front of the television—they decided to only use the theater when they felt like the movie deserved it—that Ivy asked him, “Have you ever tried creating life?”

“What do you mean?” James asked.

“No, you made such a big world within that door, but it's all so… empty. It feels hollow, fake. What if you made life to inhabit that world?”

James blinked. “Now why would you want to do that?”

“Well…” His sister stroked her chin. “Perhaps it’d be possible for the shop to make itself self-sufficient?”

“Self… sufficient?” James questioned.

Just as his sister was going to explain, however, golden letters appeared to the side in a location where they could both see clearly. This was the new approach the shop had taken after his sister had become a manager.

An ex-owner has tried previously. This, however, led to the creation of the rule, ‘Forbidding of Sentience’. The souls of the creatures the shop makes will also belong to the wider world, thus being judged by the Soul Administrators and their council once the creatures die.

So creating life to sustain and maintain in the shop, in an attempt to make itself self-sufficient, will eventually lead to its discovery. The creature will have at least some traces of the location it has attained birth in, no matter how hard the shop tries to wipe these traces. If this location is found out to be ‘obscure’ and in a world not within the Soul Administrators’ records, they shall go on a witch hunt, alerted.

True self sufficiency, thus, is impossible. Unless we have a soul administrator’s support or access to the sole soul core.

Ivy bit her lip as she read through the shop’s words. “I see, that makes sense.” She paused for a few seconds, biting her lip harder. “But it is indeed possible for the shop to create sentience, then? What if we create beings that simply will not die, thus being out of the Soul Administrators’ domain?”

That will require soul points to maintain, to create and sustain such a species. The losses shall far outweigh the benefits.

To this, Ivy did not say anything, simply nodding. However, the shop’s letters still changed, asking them about something else entirely.

When will the representative and employee begin harvesting another world?

James blinked. Right, now that he was reunited with Ivy, there was no reason for them to stay in ‘nowhere’. They could just go to some other world entirely, even if that’d effectively close Archaniel from teleporting into the shop.

You do not need to worry about ex-owner Archaniel. He still has the soul energy points lent by representative James and a mild connection to the shop. He shall fare just fine on Earth.

The shop understands if the representatives want to spend a while longer in ‘nowhere’. However, the shop spends a lot more points sustaining itself in ‘nowhere’ compared to an actual world.

James nodded and turned to his sister. “What say you?”

“Well, I see no reason to stay in ‘nowhere’. Besides, exploring a new world sounds fun and interesting. Unlike you, I won’t stay cooped up in the shop.”

“You’ll never let that go, will you?”

“Never.”

James sighed and turned back to where the shop’s letters were. “Do I go to the core and select a world once more, shop?”

It is up to you. Some ex-owners preferred doing so, while some preferred to let me select a world automatically.

“Automatically sounds good, yeah.” James nodded. He was not good with decisions. Besides, why go all the way to the core room and select a world when the shop can do it for him and he can just lay here, watching a fun movie?

Does the representative have any requirements for the world?

James hummed. “Perhaps make its timespan faster than Earth’s. I’d not like to leave my poor senior all alone on Earth for a full hundred years.”

Understood.

The shop’s letters faded completely, and they once more turned to the television, Ivy yawning. It was only a few seconds later did the shop declare:

The shop has stationed itself in the world, ‘Aiguo.’

James nodded. “Thanks, shop.”