NOVEL NEXT Renting a house
"It's not the light element." Upon hearing this, Nicola immediately shook their head in denial.
"Although it's some kind of similar elemental particle, it's clearly different from light element. That feeling..."
"It's like air." After thinking hard for a moment, she finally found a relatively accurate metaphor to describe it.
Upon hearing this, I was a little disappointed, but immediately thought of another key point.
"Then could it be the wind element that the astrologer mentioned?"
"That's possible!" Nicola was taken aback for a moment, then slapped her palm and blurted out, "It would make sense if it was wind element."
"Speaking of which, you don't even know about wind element, yet you were able to make a wind elemental celestial weapon."
Seeing her like this, I couldn't help but feel a little speechless. Could it really be the power of paying?
"Then why don't you try making one with light element?"
Since they were both elements, light and wind elements were just different types, so they should be interchangeable, right? My mind wandered as I was about to have her try it out, but then I suddenly remembered I shouldn't let her take risks again, so I immediately changed what I was saying.
"Nevermind, let me try instead. Just tell me the method."
Upon hearing this, Nicola immediately told me the method of making the sword. It sounded very simple, just a few steps.
But...
"It's not working!" I looked at the aggregation of light elements in the shape of a sword in my palm, helplessly dispersing my control over them.
"Although it formed into the shape of a sword, I simply can't make it materialize like you said."
"Moreover, the process was completely different! "
Her method made it majestically emerge from her palm, whereas mine had the light elemental particles buzzing out from my palm and clustering together into the shape of a sword, like mosquitoes.
"I feel cheated! You must have deliberately hid the real method, you are afraid I would learn it."
Seeing my accusatory look, Nicola hurriedly tried it herself with light element as well, and discovered the result was the same as mine.
"Uh...sorry, I wrongly blamed you."
Seeing she had the same result, I realized it was indeed not an issue with the method, it seemed the problem was with the material.
"Let's try finding a wind element mage another day?" I secretly planned, but also felt it probably wouldn't work, because if it was possible, celestial weapons would be everywhere already.
Don't assume others haven't thought of the same things, because Nicola's method was so simple, simple to the point that I felt like I was moulding weapons from mud.
So what exactly was the reason?
I still couldn't figure it out.
Because the magical beast had not shown up yet, we waited in the same spot for another few dozen minutes.
"Isn't the wait too long?" Nicola looked like her patience was just about worn out.
"But it's said that they only appear two or three times a day at most." I looked at the info on the mission card. The frequency of this magical beast attack was not high, but each appearance meant lives could be lost.
"Could it be because we're angels, so the magical beasts don't dare approach?"
I told her about the situation when I first met Vivianne and the others, how those three hellhounds suddenly ran away as I approached, and Selene soon detected the angelic aura.
"There's this kind of thing?"
Nicola looked very shocked after hearing this. She seemed to be thinking deeply about many things. "No wonder I was so puzzled about how Irene was able to find where I was hiding and sleeping after she tried to assassinate me."
"So after angels reveal their wings, they probably look like big light bulbs to magical beasts, and are hard to hide."
I smiled bitterly and retracted my wings. If that was the case, then we probably waited in vain for so long before, wasting quite some time.
Nicola followed suit. I noticed that after her wings disappeared, the Condensation Sword she had been holding was still there, instead of vanishing along with them.
Things became much smoother after that. We only waited another dozen or so minutes, and when a passerby walked by, a roar was soon heard as a huge lizard leapt out from the bushes across the way, charging straight at the passerby.
"Go!" Nicola swiftly revealed her wings and rushed out, kicking the magical beast back into the bushes on the other side, heavily slamming into a tree trunk.
"Don't let it get away." I flew out after her, picked up my weapon, and wildly hacked away at the giant lizard still dazed under the tree.
"Yah yah yah yah yah..."
"This is..." When Nicola arrived again, she couldn't help but gasp. All she saw was a pile of meat chunks and a large pool of blood.
"Too violent!"
" I got too excited, didn't expect it to go down just like that..."
Unable to bear looking, I also felt the scene was too bloody, and could only explain very helplessly.
The kill was so fast that I didn't even react before the magical beast was already hacked into pieces.
"This was the first magical beast I've killed after all."
I suddenly felt like crying but no tears would come out. I had thought I could experience an intense battle, but it collapsed without me even using much force.
"Luckily the head is still intact." Nicola squatted down and picked up the lizard head that had rolled to the side, with half its face sliced off.
"If you had slashed a few more times, our mission would have been wasted."
"Don't say any more, I'll reflect on this next time." After handing my sword to Nicola, I flew up into the sky without looking back.
"I need to find a way to get a storage ring."
Nicola also flew up after me, only leaving the passerby still standing in the road looking completely confused.
After waiting for the mission for hours but completing it in seconds, this summed up our magical beast extermination mission experience.
"You killed this magical beast using wind blades, right? This was a 3rd order giant lizard." In the mission settlement office, the staff member in charge of checking tasks, upon seeing the wounds, thought it was caused by magic. It seemed not every person could recognize the damage from celestial weapons like the Sages' Coalition members.
"In a few days we'll send staff to verify the mission details with the relevant client. If any cheating is discovered, not only will the reward be reclaimed, you'll also be added to the Adventurers' Association blacklist!"
After taking back the mission card, seeing we were newbies, the staff made the effort to explain some procedural matters.
With the money obtained after mission fees were deducted from the two missions, we left the settlement office.
We finally earned our first income in this world, something worthy of celebrating.
Seeing it was still early, just past noon, I suggested doing two more rounds of missions, and now that we were familiar with the process, we could also split up to work, which should improve efficiency.
Nicola had no objections, so a few hours later, we gathered again in the Adventurers' Association lobby. By then the money in both our hands had accumulated to over 1000 silvers.
"Too bad the rewards for later missions weren't so high, only a few dozen silvers."
I counted the coins in my hand regretfully. It still didn't seem like enough.
"Can't be helped, there were a couple, like that cat finding mission, with a 300 silver reward. But it was impossible to complete, just a waste of time."
Nicola had been eyeing that mission the whole time, but after reading the mission brief she hesitated for a long time before resisting the urge.
"This money now should be enough to rent a house, right?"
Seeing it was still early in the day, I figured we could take this chance to find a house, so we wouldn't have to keep troubling Vivianne and the others tonight.
The combined rent for Vivianne's two rooms was just over 2000 silvers, so we just needed a place around 1000 silvers. To save money, we could ask for lower, and might even have some left over.
"Then let's go look on the main streets."
Nicola pulled me towards a random city avenue. There were many peddlers on the roads going in and out of the city, but almost no rental information.
I didn't know how Vivianne and the others had rented their place. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen any real estate agencies in this city either.
"Why don't we go check the alleyways instead?"
After searching half the day in vain, I decided to change approaches.
Sure enough, on some side paths, many shop doors had all kinds of rental housing info posted.
"Why not just get this one?"
I looked at the current room we were in and asked Nicola. After going around many places, we finally found an affordable place that also looked livable.
It was also a second floor room, not very big, just over 10 square meters, above a bookstore. The landlord was a middle-aged uncle, looking around 40 years old. The rent was cheap at just 750 silvers, and it came furnished including a large bed.
"Not bad. We just need to buy bedding and we can move in first." Nicola nodded. Of course she wouldn't normally even glance at such a rundown little house, but with little money, she could only make do.
After paying the rent, I cleaned the room while Nicola went out to buy necessities. Soon the empty room was filled with a homey feel.
"It really was swift, huh." Lying on the bed, Nicola sighed,
"This morning we were still penniless, yet before evening we've already rented and moved into a house."
"The sky is already dark, so it should be past dusk now, let's just say it's evening."
I looked up at the sky and corrected her wording.
"As long as we keep working hard, we'll eventually be able to upgrade to a bigger house. This is just the starting phase."
I knew Nicola actually couldn't be used to living in this kind of rundown small hut, but out of limited money and consideration for my feelings, she was willing to endure these hardships.
"It's nothing much..."
She seemed unconcerned with her words and expression.
"I don't think it's a problem, as long as I'm with you I feel like anywhere is fine."
"Is that so?" I didn't expect her, previously a rich young playboy, without experience of poverty and destitution, to say something like this. Her ability to adapt like this made me admire her.
"Not bad, a young master like you is willing to endure hardship along with me. It seems I'll have to reconsider my opinion of you."
I patted her shoulder, looking at her with an extremely gratified expression as I spoke words of praise.
"Do you really think that?"
Hearing my words, Nicola looked at me with a very strange expression. How odd, just a moment ago I still saw her reacting shyly, seeming embarrassed, why did she suddenly change her attitude?
"Is something wrong?"
I thought about it. Could I have guessed wrong? Was she unwilling to endure hardship with me? Or perhaps she had experienced poverty in the past like me?
Come to think of it, I heard many rich kids have to go through deliberate training before they can inherit the fortune.
"Nevermind, nothing's wrong."
Nicola sat up and walked towards the door.
"We still have to go to Vivianne and the others' place to let them know we rented a house. Let's go."
"Ah right, I almost forgot!"
I hurried after her out of the room.
"You guys are really moving out?"
In Vivianne's room, she looked at us somewhat sadly. Clearly she still didn't want us to move out. Adrian and Brennan weren't home yet, so they didn't know about this yet.
"Of course, the house is already rented. And with three people here it really is too much trouble for you."
I knew she would ask this, so I answered with the response I had thought up on the way.
"So fast? You didn't rob someone, did you?"
She still couldn't believe we were able to earn enough to rent a house in one day.
"How could that be possible! It was all earned from doing missions."
I was speechless. It was just that ordinary people probably couldn't finish so many missions this quickly.
"Oh right, you guys are angels..."
Vivianne also seemed to recall that, and immediately understood.
"Anyway it's not far, just a few streets over. Feel free to come play."
Seeing she was still very sad, I couldn't help but console her.
"Alright, but I'm coming over tomorrow!"
Seeing the matter could not be reversed, she could only express her compromise in a very childish manner.
"Fine!" I readily agreed.
"If you can't get used to the rented house, you can still come over here and sleep with me."
Right up until we left, Vivianne was still saying these reluctant words.
After bidding her farewell, Nicola and I felt our stomachs rumbling from hunger. Another advantage of the angelic body was no hunger during the day, and no easy tiredness, but at night it was no different from ordinary people.
Counting that we still had over 100 silvers, on the way we happened to eat our fill at a nearby restaurant.
"Eating out this time only. Starting tomorrow we have to cook ourselves."
After getting home, I counted the remaining money, feeling it was too costly to eat out. Another benefit of this house was we could cook. It was much better than the place I rented on Earth.
"I can't cook anyway, leaving it all to you."
Lying on the bed behind me, Nicola still had that couldn't-care-less attitude, and soon fell silent.
"You should still learn to cook and prepare meals..."
Seeing her completely unresponsive, I was helpless. I could only yawn, wash up, and go to bed to sleep.
The regular otherworldly life could finally begin!