Empty and eerily silent streets greeted Ken when he walked down the under-privileged corners of Orario. His injuries stung less after he was given first-aid treatment by the members of Dian Cecht Familia. He even bought a few potions and some more medicines in case he required them in the future. He even signed a membership deal with the familia so that he could get whatever medical items he required on order basis.
It was one of the ways of the Dian Cecht group for retaining their customers.
After having himself patched up, Ken visited multiple stores to get basic necessity items required for survival. The items included a broom and mop for cleaning. He had an inkling that the abandoned warehouse would require a lot of cleaning work to be done if he wished to make it his place of residence. Other than that he brought a pair of lanterns, a pot for boiling water if and when required, and maybe also use it for cooking.
For tonight's dinner, he brought some rice, potatoes, salt and a few spices.
Buying all these essentials emptied his pockets much more quickly than he had expected.
"This place definitely has quite the personality.." Tet dryly commented, watching Ken somehow get inside the warehouse, with all the essentials and groceries in his hands, from a collapsed portion of the wall from the side of the building. What welcomed him was piles of cracked stone bricks and moldy wood planks littered all across the floor.
"Were you expecting a welcome mat?" Ken quipped back, finding a somewhat clean and dry place on the floor where it was not littered by moss and wood pieces. He then proceeded to light up one of the lanterns. The light from the lantern was enough to illuminate the area around them.
He ventured further inside, checking every corner of the warehouse, it was dark and dusty, a clear indication that no one had been in this place for a while. He kept the lantern on the top of an empty box. There were a good number of boxes and crates all around. Cracking his knuckles, Ken quickly got to work, lifting the boxes one above another or pushing the crates to the corner to make enough space for him to keep his essentials and also for him to lie down to sleep when he would need to.
While he was shifting the crates and boxes, his eyes fell on a very worn out sofa hidden in the corner. He pulled it out and inspected it.
"That does not look nice enough to sleep in.." Tet commented.
"I have slept on worse but I will have to agree on this." Ken eyed the piece of furniture warily before pressing his fist on the surface of it, only for a spring to pop up out of nowhere. "I am taking the floor."
He lit up another lantern and kept it on top of another crate for better lightning. Then he brought all his purchases and kept them on the sofa. The things would stay better here and within his reach whenever he would be needing them. He then did a quick cleaning of the place with the broom before spreading a single mat on the floor. All the cleaning and arrangement of his living conditions took him almost an hour.
"You know you should take it easy." The tiny spherical light orbited around Ken's head, watching him wince because of his injuries whenever he was doing the lifting and dropping of stuff. "You are still injured and not entirely healed yet."
"This is nothing." Ken countered in a monotonous tone. These injuries were minor scratches compared to what he usually used to deal with on a daily basis. He knew his body enough to know that by morning the pain would subside and he wouldn't feel a thing.
Ken arranged the wood pieces he had bought from a carpenter store at a cheap price. He did not need to negotiate much on the price due to the fact that the store was closing and the owner wanted to be just done with his work of the day. Though seeing the sheer quantity of discarded wood all around the warehouse, Ken was sure that he won't be needing to buy the next lot of wood anytime soon.
He lit fire on the arranged wood pieces, like a campfire before hanging the pot over it. The pot was filled with water. He then poured rice, a few pieces of potato after peeling them off and a handful of salt into the water before letting it boil. He sat down nearby leaning by a large crate.
"Boiled rice and potatoes?" Tet remarked.
"And salt for taste." Ken added, the bright yellow fire reflected in his navy blue eyes as he stared at it with a blank expression.
The next couple of minutes passed in silence between the two. Ken silently ate his meal and then extinguished the fire and dimmed the lanterns before finally laying down on the mat. He kept his sword beside him, within the reach of his hand, a habit that was subconsciously developed and became muscle memory. Without the sword beside him, he could never fall asleep properly. He was not a heavy sleeper but even he knew the importance of taking rest and giving the human body time to refresh for the next battle.
With no more quip or comment from his guardian light ball, Ken slowly drifted off to sleep, the entire day's exhaustion of almost dying, being revived, sent to another world, battling monsters he had never even seen before, finally catching up to him.
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Despite his best efforts, Ken did not sleep for the majority of the night and it was spent staring at the ceiling of the warehouse. He did sneak in a shut-eye from time-to-time but most of the night was spent between mentally accepting the reality that this was his life and what his plan of action for the following day would be.
Ken eventually got up from the mat when the sun's rays started peeping in from windows of the warehouse. Freshening up, he got ready for the day. He had still a few valis saved from yesterday, therefore he made up mind to eat breakfast at one of the taverns or pubs in the city and then head for the dungeon.
Finishing up with breakfast, Ken went straight to the guild, remembering what his manager had told him the previous night about updating his records and making a report of the monsters he had hunted on his first day. He found all the reports and record-keeping a little odd, because unlike his previous occupation, now every swing of his sword needs to be put on paper.
"Good morning." The redhead werewolf greeted once he walked into her field of vision. She was already working on his report, having already made a list of monster drops and loot he had brought with him yesterday. "How is your residence? Is it to your liking or you planning to shift?"
Rose had seen the warehouse on passing, from the outside. Even having seen the place just once, she knew that place is not suitable for living, not unless some renovation is done there. That entire area of Orario was filled with rundown buildings, more than a few on the verge of collapsing and many others with very bad maintenance. People hardly resided there and those that did mostly had no other choice but to live in those conditions.
"The warehouse is fine. It may need some fixing here and there but otherwise it is the perfect place for me to stay." Ken replied with a straight face, which made Rose wonder if he was actually joking with her or was completely serious about what he said.
'Maybe I should not judge him by normal person standards..' The guild manager thought to herself. Ken, her newest responsibility had hunted down a War Shadow, a monster popularly known by the name, 'Newbie Killer' on his first day.
There has never been a record of a newbie adventurer taking down a War Shadow on their very first dive. Once she publishes this record in the official guild papers, she knows this will be causing quite the uproar among other adventurers and more so within the familias who will be interested in taking Ken under them.
"Why did I have a feeling you would say that…" Rose muttered under her breath.
"You said something?" Ken inquired to which Rose quickly shook her head. "Can I go now?"
"Yeah, yeah you can." Rose said before handing him some papers at the desk. "After you go through these. These are yesterday's hunt records of yours based on whatever loot you brought back along with the stones. I need you to match them and tell me if anything is missing so I can add it before updating your record."
"And there's this." The redhead pulled the lowest drawer on her desk and pulled out three black knives. "The guild blacksmiths made quick work of the war shadow claws you brought. I hope this will come in handy."
Ken examined the knives, silently admiring the craftsmanship. The knives appeared to be simple but the adventurer knew that these weapons were lethal. Having fought the source material of these knives, he knew that these would prove to be useful in the dungeon.
"Thank you." He said formally with a sincere nod, before checking over the hunt records that Rose had compiled. The records contained the monsters he had hunted, the loot he had collected from their corpses, the stones and the floors he had ventured into. Finding no mistakes to be fixed or anything that was left out to be added, Ken handed the records back to his manager.
"You can go ahead with this." He further added. "If there is nothing else for me to do here, can I go?"
"Sure." Rose nodded and the adventurer turned around to take his leave. He had only walked a few steps when she called him again. "Ken!"
"Yes?" The latter asked, looking back at her over his shoulder.
"Be careful."
The swordsman just nodded reassuringly before pocketing his hands and walked out of the guild's doors.