Chapter 105

After signing the contract, the two of them brought over the furniture they had been using in Ratteon. However, other than their beds, none of the pieces were really usable. This was because all their existing furniture had been intended for single-person use. Blaine stared at the cluttered living room, filled with mismatched pieces, and spoke up as if he’d just remembered something.

“I still have the furniture I bought from the Secret Shop back then. Do you think we could use that?”

“Wasn’t all that was left a sofa and a table?”

“That’s true, but…”

“Those would sell for quite a bit. Are you sure it’s okay for us to use them?”

“Yes! I want to use them with you, Hyung!”

“Alright then… We’ll use those for the sofa and the table…”

Even with the sofa and table settled, the other furniture remained an issue. Theo had originally used cheap, store-bought furniture for everything except his bed. However, he couldn’t exactly demand that Blaine live such a stingy lifestyle as well.

Since the bedrooms were private spaces, it was fine to use their old furniture there, but the living room—a communal area—needed furniture they could share. They couldn’t exactly just set two separate single-person chairs side-by-side and call it a day.

Theo silently surveyed the spacious interior. Unlike his cramped house in Ratteon, filling this place with the right furniture would require a significant amount of money. Especially if they wanted pieces designed for two or three people rather than just one.

He had spent all his spare cash on buying the house, and he couldn’t let Blaine pay for all the furniture either. Theo narrowed his eyes in thought before looking up with a determined expression.

“Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“The Guild House.”

“?”

With a bewildered look, Blaine followed behind Theo as he marched out of the residence with a solemn face. When the two arrived at the Guild House and stepped inside, the noisy interior instantly went silent, as if someone had splashed cold water over the room. Countless gazes landed on them, but as if nothing had happened, everyone quickly looked away and resumed their loud chatter.

As they headed up to the central hall, they saw Father, Holanghee, and Noquia sitting at a table, with the twins standing behind Father’s back. When the twins made eye contact with Theo, they whistled and looked away, pretending not to notice him. From that reaction, Theo felt it instinctively: the twins had already spread the rumor to everyone and their mother.

“You’re here?”

“Hello, my sweet honeys.”

Father and Holanghee offered warm greetings, while Noquia simply smiled and waved. The way all three of them had their eyes crinkled suggested they were fully prepared to tease him.

Theo gave a wave and said, “We’re here,” while Blaine bowed his head with a beaming smile. Seeing Blaine looking like the sun had risen in his face, the trio smirked. They had already heard from the twins that the two had registered as partners and had been scouring Lucilvania for a new home. They figured that even if Blaine didn’t mind, Theo would try to hide the fact that they’d registered as partners for a while.

So, they had planned to tease him mercilessly until he confessed it himself….

“We registered as partners.”

But Theo spoke quite casually as he sat down across from the three. The twins, Father, Holanghee, and Noquia all stared at Theo with dumbfounded expressions.

“Huh?”

At the same time, the sound of something dropping and rolling echoed through the hall. Looking over, they saw Daize standing halfway up the second-floor stairs. At his feet, a cup he seemed to have dropped was clattering down the steps.

Everyone in the Guild House, including Father’s group, turned their gaze toward Daize. Theo looked back and forth between Daize and the rolling cup with an indifferent gaze, then simply continued.

“I said we registered as partners. Oh, and we moved to Lucilvania today. Drop by when you have time.”

At the sound of Theo’s voice, all the eyes that had been on Daize snapped back to him.

“I-is it okay for you to just blurt it out like that?”

Noquia asked, stammering with a look of utter confusion. She hadn’t expected him to just let it slip so easily. However, Theo shrugged his shoulders and replied nonchalantly.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Father, Holanghee, and Noquia looked at each other in bewilderment before offering awkward smiles and words of congratulations.

“Uh… well, it’s a bit sudden, but anyway, congratulations…”

“Yeah… Congrats. Our Sweetie must be happy…”

Blaine’s cheeks flushed a lovely shade of pink at the back-to-back congratulations from Father and Holanghee. He nodded with a smile that practically radiated a halo. At the same time, as if he had been waiting for this exact moment, Theo’s eyes gleamed.

“Just words?”

“Huh?”

“You said you wanted to congratulate us. Are you really just giving us words?”

“…?”

The beggar had turned into a bandit.

After receiving a hefty amount of “material congratulations” from the guild members, Theo and Blaine headed to Flam with heavy pockets. Last time, they had used a flying carriage from the Sky Station, but this time, they could travel comfortably via the warp gate.

When they arrived at the bazaar, there weren’t many people around, likely due to the “Reinforcement State”. Even the number of stalls had significantly decreased. Since the supply of materials was difficult, it seemed distribution had come to a halt as well.

Looking around the unusually quiet bazaar with a look of dismay, Theo let out a sigh.

“Let’s just look through the stalls that are here, then we’ll hit every village with a furniture merchant and try to trigger a Secret Shop.”

Blaine nodded blankly, clearly finding the empty bazaar strange as well.

They looked through the few stalls selling furniture and tried talking to the furniture merchant in Flam, but unlike last time, the Secret Shop didn’t open. In the end, they couldn’t buy a single piece of furniture they liked at the bazaar.

The two left the bazaar feeling disappointed. Even so, lured by a scent that tempted their noses, they each bought and munched on a piece of “Addictive Corn.”

Now, only the long journey of visiting every single furniture shop in every village remained. Theo opened the map and scouted out every village that had a furniture merchant. He narrowed the list down to about twenty locations.

No matter how lucky Blaine was, they wouldn’t be able to open every Secret Shop. Their plan was to buy what they could from Secret Shops first, and then return to the bazaar once the Reinforcement State was lifted.

The first village they chose was Ratteon. In Ratteon, everything was basically cheap and crummy. Even a Secret Shop there wouldn’t sell anything particularly high-end, but it didn’t hurt to check.

“How is it?”

Theo asked as he watched Blaine talk to the furniture merchant NPC in Ratteon, but Blaine shook his head with a disappointed face.

“It didn’t open….”

“…Well, the stuff they sell here is crummy anyway. Let’s move to the next village.”

The next village was Lucilvania. The furniture sold by the merchants in Lucilvania naturally matched the local housing style. Theo felt a secret sense of anticipation as he spoke to the NPC.

As expected, the Secret Shop didn’t open for Theo. Cursing his own terrible luck, Theo looked at Blaine despondently.

“Oh? It opened!”

And just like that, Blaine opened the Secret Shop as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Though they traveled through more than twenty villages, the number of Secret Shops Blaine managed to open was only four, including the one in Lucilvania. It seemed like a small number relatively speaking, but the amount of furniture they bought was substantial. Though they balked at the murderous prices demanded by the Secret Shops, their wallets took no damage thanks to the material congratulations from the guild members.

Returning to their residence, the two began arranging the furniture. Since these were special items bought from Secret Shops, they were unique and came with excellent options, but the problem was that none of the pieces matched each other. Still, after they finished the installation, the once-empty house looked quite decent.

Finally, while Theo was setting up a temporary Storage unit in the house, Blaine asked a question.

“Come to think of it, what should we do about our Storage? Should we share it?”

“Hm? Ah… I don’t mind sharing, but if you’re uncomfortable with it, we don’t have to.”

“I’m fine with it too!”

Blaine smiled brightly with an innocent face. He pulled up the partner window and enabled Storage sharing. When Blaine consented to the sharing, a prompt appeared for Theo asking if he would also like to share his Storage. With Theo’s approval, their Storages were linked. After getting each other’s permission, they opened the temporary Storage to look through each other’s items.

As Theo browsed through Blaine’s Storage out of curiosity, his face quickly went pale.

“Hey… why do you have so much money?”

“Pardon? Oh, my parents give me an allowance every month. I don’t really have anything to spend it on in reality, so I’ve been exchanging it all for in-game currency.”

“…Let’s stop sharing the Storage.”

“What? Why?”

“What if I spend your money by mistake…?”

It might not be a mistake; he feared he might spend it while pretending it was a mistake.

Unaware of Theo’s wavering gaze—shaking with the fear that he might succumb to greed and covet the kid’s money—Blaine shouted happily.

“You can spend it! No, please spend it. My money is your money now, Hyung.”

“No… let’s not share the Storage…”

Theo shut down Blaine’s chanting of “please spend it” with cold efficiency and immediately disconnected the shared Storage. A notification popped up for Blaine asking if he wanted to stop sharing as well.

Blaine didn’t want to stop sharing, but seeing Theo’s firm stance, he had no choice but to press the “Agree” button. As he forced himself to click it, his chin puckered like a walnut shell from how displeased he was.

The next day, the two headed toward the Guild House, discussing what crops to plant in the garden and what outdoor furniture to put on the porch. There, they ran into Aslan in front of the building. As soon as Aslan spotted Theo, he ran over as if he’d been waiting and shouted in a voice loud enough to wake the dead.

“Hey! How could you do this?!”

Theo frowned and covered his ears. Aslan huffed with an indignant face before shouting once more.

“You told me you were never going to register as partners with anyone!”