Chapter 10
After spending the night at a hotel, a nice one that cost 3,000 Ryo a night, Rosa had Kentaro take her to the estate agent to get a viewing of the house she wanted.
Upon arrival, the staff took one look at the metal plate on his forehead, and almost immediately she could see their faces shift into fawning expressions, scrambling over each other to greet him. It made it clear exactly how he had gotten her current place so quickly, apparently shinobi were this world's celebrities of a sense, able to attract attention from service providers without even doing anything. After maybe twenty seconds, a slightly rotund but jovial-seeming man came out of an office and strode over, extending a hand for Kentaro to take, giving his entire arm a firm shake. "'Taro, good to see you again. Ahh, and who is this lovely lady here? Evidently not your woman, she hasn't picked up your atrocious fashion sense."
She knew it was an attempt at fishing for information, but the pout, the actual, real, literal and undeniable pout on Kentaro's face made her laugh out loud. "No, nothing of the sort." Rosa pushed out past her laughter, wiping her eyes. "I'm Rosa, Kentaro here owed me for saving him, and so now he's helping me get myself settled here in Keishi." The man nodded, eyeing Kentaro with a gaze Rosa couldn't figure out. Obviously, the two had history, nobody would be so brazen otherwise, but the specifics of that history eluded her.
"And I suppose his sudden interest in real estate options came from you?" She nodded, taking out the house listing she wanted and handing it to him. "Hmm, that's very curious. You see, not an hour earlier, an individual came and asked to be taken for viewing that particular building, that's where Erin went." He directed the last part of the sentence at Kentaro, who gave a curt nod, his face back to impassiveness. "No contract though, any deal over ten-thousand Ryo a month has to be signed here and witnessed by me. If I may, how much is this building worth to you? I don't ask as a businessman, but as an associate of 'Taro here, I am allowed some level of bias. If you want this place enough, I can keep it from being purchased until you can go have your own viewing."
Rosa bit her lip, looking at the pictures again. "I...I really want it. I know someone else came first, and being kind would mean letting them have it and conceding that I was just too late, but I really like it." She admitted as she flicked through the pictures, looking closely at each one and simply affirming in her mind that yes, she was willing to be selfish and deny it to someone else. "Honestly, I'd be happy to sign the contract now. A viewing would be nice, but the pictures already tell me a lot about the place, and it just looks perfect for me."
"Alright, I'll get the paperwork in order. It'll take maybe...-" He did some quick mental maths and got back to her after a few seconds. "-...twenty minutes?" Nodding and waving him off, Rosa sat down at an offered comfy chair, Kentaro settling down beside her. With nothing better to do, she opened up her interface and skimmed her different traits, checking out the available control menus curiously. Most didn't really have anything to change, especially crafting, foraging and healing, but any that had split-off effects had a slider to change.
One that she changed immediately was the 'physical changes' slider present in Strength, Agility and Endurance. Her body was fairly in shape, not to the point of being toned but most definitely not fat, and she was happy with it. Improving her stats had changed that a little, her body was a bit lither and more...'defined' was the best way to put it. When she changed the slider, her entire body changed just a little, losing that artificial improvement that her trait had bestowed upon her, returning her to her previous state. Doing so got Kentaro's attention for a moment as he looked at her, trying to figure out what had changed, before he looked away again, either disinterested or respecting her privacy.
After that was done, she then had a dilemma. Her Carrying Capacity was at F-3, and with 300 points, she had exactly enough to raise it to F-1. Alternatively, she could take it to F-2 and leave it at that. She definitely at least wanted one level, so she threw 120 points at it, then opened her inventory to check out the difference. Along one side, two extra boxes had appeared, increasing the capacity from 4 to 6. It wasn't a groundbreaking increase, but two extra spaces would be pretty handy, especially once she had a place to dump the cooking utensils that were taking up one space, as well as the blankets and pillows taking up a second space.
Opening her quest log, she stared at the quest, slightly annoyed by it. Three acolytes, that wasn't going to be hard to do, just a bit time-consuming. She had to make a name for herself and then she could hire people to help her out. One person could be a porter, taking finished products to the blacksmith. The second could take her orders to the commodities exchange. As for the third...there wasn't really a job available. Maybe she could have a second porter...but that'd only be necessary once her production reached a point where one blacksmith couldn't take all the things she sold them.
After all, it wasn't a video game, she couldn't just sell ten-thousand kunai to them in an hour and have no issues, they had to sell those kunai on before they'd be willing to take any more stock. It was something she would require to be amended into the contract actually, that if the blacksmith couldn't take her stock, she could sell to other places until the blacksmith was able to buy more stock. A tap on her shoulder brought her out of her thoughts, glancing at Kentaro. "He's ready."
Surprised at how fast time had gone by, Rosa got up and headed over to the desk, behind which sat the man, another person whose name she didn't know. "Alright, here's the rental contract. Our company own the building, so you don't have to worry about a landlord kicking you out. Of course, if you can't afford to pay rent then that's a different question entirely, but 'Taro being here is enough to convince me you aren't wasting our time." Rosa nodded, that sounded like common sense really.
"Alright, so are there any rules I need to be aware of? Aside from keeping the place in good condition and paying rent on time, is there anything else I should know? I assume you'll be doing periodic inspections to make sure I'm not turning the place into a dumpster, but, well, I'm just wanting to be sure about things." The man palmed his chin for a moment and looked thoughtful before shaking his head.
"No, anything else isn't something you really have to be concerned about. It'll all be in the contract, so you can flip through it at your leisure, but aside from what you mentioned, there isn't really much to say. If that sounds agreeable to you, we can get this contract signed right here and now." He gestured at the fairly thin stack of papers on the desk, pushing it gently towards her.
Picking the papers up, she flipped through them, skimming the contents before arriving at the end, having spied nothing out of the ordinary. Most of it was legalese jargon she barely understood, and it all seemed above board. She would still need to go through it with a much more careful eye, but Kentaro being beside her made her feel fairly confident in signing it, she doubted that someone who was friends with him would fuck over what he likely assumed was one of Kentaro's friends, or at least an associate of his. Using an offered pen, she signed the documents with a flourish, pushing them back towards the man, then taking out 9 10,000 Ryo notes from her inventory, enough to rent the house for three months.
"Thank you." The man said as he swept up the documents and the money, handing them off. "Well, after those are copied, one copy will be given to you, one will be retained here, and the third will be sent to be stored with an archiving business as a backup. Oh, and as for the gentleman who is viewing the building, rest assured we won't allow him to harass you over this, it was our business's decision to make this contract after all." She gave him a smile, leaning back in her chair a little as she did so.
"Well, I could understand if he was a bit pissed off, he was there first after all, but hey, that's life."
With a contract and the keys to the house in hand, Rosa ambled over to her new residence with only a little bit of extra bounce in her steps.
But she felt that it was entirely reasonable to be excited, she had never owned or even rented her own house before. Apartments, sure, but never a full-blown house, so having some jitters of excitement was totally acceptable. She didn't forget about the guy she had screwed over though, he was probably going to be having some choice words for her if he ran into her. But that was why she had Kentaro, he could kick some butt if he had to so if that guy wanted to get in her face, he was going to have another thing coming. And, once they finally arrived, all those thoughts of fairness went out the window, leaving her with only one, which she simply put into a single word. "Wow." She breathed, her eyes drifting around, from the garden, to the house, taking it all in. Seeing it in pictures was nice, but...it was, in a single word, perfection.
"Sounds like you like it." Kentaro said with an amusement-tinted voice, which she blocked out in favor of taking slow steps up the garden path. It didn't quite feel real, that she actually owned a house. A real, bonafide house...sure, she rented it, she didn't actually own it, but she didn't doubt that once she had some more cash, she could just buy the house outright. Walking up to the front door, she looked around at the garden again with a simple smile, then unlocked the door and pushed it over, entering and hearing Kentaro follow her in and shut the door, whilst she was busy admiring the house.
The floorboards were made from some kind of dark wood, whilst the walls and ceiling were a gorgeous light cherry colour. In the living room was an intricately-carved alabaster fireplace and a large set of bay windows looking out over the front garden. There was a connected kitchen with an island between the living room and the countertops with all the cupboards and wooden detailing being made of dark wood whilst the tops were all made of a clean and light-pink sandstone, maintaining the colour coordination of the house.
And the rest of the house was just as beautiful. There weren't any appliances or furniture, but in her mind she was already picturing it. Some comfortable chairs around the fireplace, a lounger that could see out over the garden and the front path, a table in one corner, maybe some shelves on either side of the fireplace, it was all just so...so perfect, though the word didn't even do credit to how much she had fallen for the empty building.
The back garden was amazing as well, the only small, minor little thing lacking about it was that it lacked a water feature of some kind. There was a stone patio, grass surrounded on three sides by flower bushes, a shed at the end of the garden which was reached by stepping stones that lazily trailed up the garden. If there was a small stream and a quaint little wooden bridge across it, she dared to say it would be as perfect as the house itself. Still, she couldn't have absolutely everything exactly the way she wanted it, at least for the moment.
As for the basement, well, it was a basement, it was never going to be as impressive. Spacious though, and the coal chute was clean. Sealed off, so she would have to re-open it and find a way to lock it so people couldn't just slide into her basement from outside, since the entrance to the coal chute was against the exterior of the fence, but that was a piddlingly small problem honestly. Even if the house had cost three times as much a month, she would have still paid it with a massive smile on her face.
Rosa could say, with absolute honesty, that she was utterly in love.
After touring the house personally, Rosa set to work turning it from a house into a home.
The first order of business was furniture, and so she dragged Kentaro around all morning picking out things and having them delivered to the house, spending a full 120,000 Ryo on all the stuff she bought, and leaving a hair over 100,000 Ryo. Sure, pricey, but she bought everything. She bought a fridge and a freezer, an oven and a microwave, the most comfortable chairs she could find, two big beds for the two bedrooms, bedside tables, a dining table for the living room, a big bathtub and shower combination and so many other things she probably bought duplicate items from how much spending she did.
But it was also just so much fun, buying stuff for her own home, knowing it was all hers. Nobody lent her things, she had done it all herself, and that just made her feel giddy inside. Of course, after all that was done, she then had to build her forging apparatus again, but that was easily achieved. This time, she used iron and 'fine leather' which was just a higher quality pelt from a rarer animal. On top of that, she used mahogany for the wood and gneiss for the stone, raising the quality of the forging apparatus up to E-3, where previously it was a pitiful F-2.
That was placed down in the basement beneath one of the small windows that let light in from outside, just in case she needed the ventilation. Considering how she didn't actually have to use the forge properly, she didn't expect to need it, but it was probably still a good idea in case anyone got curious about it. On top of that, she headed to the commodities exchange in order to change the delivery location, alongside ordering a hundred kilograms of iron ore and some more pigskin, spending another 22,350 Ryo.
In doing so, she also had to set her sights on the coal chute, examining it more closely. The top had a pair of 'storm doors', whilst the bottom was covered by a solid piece of wood. Was being the keyword, since after she added a lock to the upper doors, she got Kentaro to remove the wood. It wouldn't stop someone determined to break in, but that was why she fully intended to add a second set of doors to the bottom. Those ones would be metal, and the lock would of course be on the inside of the basement, making it impossible to pick from the outside.
But that could wait for later, as she spent the entire day handling the delivery of all of her furniture, dictating where everything went. It all went rather smoothly honestly, though whether that was thanks to Kentaro standing beside her with his arms folded, she didn't know. She suspected that his being a shinobi definitely helped grease some wheels, the furniture was all delivered in one day, and all those who delivered it were all too eager to listen when she asked them to move things around so they were set up just perfectly, a far cry from what she had expected.
Perhaps it was just prejudice from her last life though, where those who delivered furniture would typically barely bother to listen and would just dump their delivery anywhere and then leave the buyer to move it themselves...but it was more likely that Kentaro had saved her from that fate. To thank him, she took him out for dinner, and by that she actually begged him to tell her where they could find some good ribs, then pouted when he told her he had no idea since he primarily ate noodles and never bothered looking at proper restaurants.
She did sympathize though when, after she asked if he could come with her to find a restaurant, he told her he didn't like restaurants much, too cramped and too many angles people could come from. She'd picked up plenty and knew his being a shinobi, especially a 'chunin', was effectively his being an elite soldier, with all the associated PTSD and paranoia that came with the job. As such, she settled for bringing him to, or rather him leading her to, a nice, out-of-the-way noodle shop. She wasn't really a fan of noodles, far preferring substantial meals like ribs or steaks, but it was still a respectable and filling meal.
Though, whilst she enjoyed her meal, Kentaro made it seem like he had a grudge against the wheat-based strands, devouring a full five bowls, then an extra four when she told him she was paying. He didn't eat nearly as much at breakfast that morning, and the fact he put nine bowls of noodles away was honestly...either impressive or intimidating, she couldn't decide which, but it didn't matter much. Each bowl only cost 100 Ryo, so it wasn't like he was draining her funds much, and if he wanted to eat to his heart's content, well, she really did owe him at the barest minimum that much.
Without Kentaro, she would have still been in her cave banging rocks together and devolving into a cavewoman.