Slimo almost dropped to his knees hearing the news.

"We don’t have to pay for these?! What do you mean we don’t have to pay?!"

Pops smiled and gestured toward the house on the left.

"Brand new kingdom of Paria Empire. The emperor himself ordered us to not charge for housing so the economy here can get kickstarted. However, I need two of you to simply do some paperwork to claim the land as your own."

Lidia laughed and followed Pops in the house.

"I like this place already! Where do I sign?!"

Slimo, however, seemed hesitant to accept the news.

"I don’t know about this, guys. This whole thing has a bad scent to it."

Squabee sniffed the air around him and held her nose.

"It’s probably just you. Hopefully these places have baths."

Slimo gave Squabee a stern look before following Lidia in the house. The first floor contained a large, open kitchen with a long marble table in a connected room. There were kitchen utensils no one recognized before. Sarah and Slimo’s eyes were glistening at the silverware as they studied the kitchen countertops.

"Is this a dream?! I could make so many new recipes with these!!"

"I call this house!"

Sarah looked at Slimo with a menacing gaze.

"You didn’t even want to walk in. It’s MINE."

Both of them started wrestling each other before Lidia grabbed Slimo by the nape of his neck and threw him away.

"Stop being a sore loser. We can live in the other house."

Slimo looked at Lidia curiously for a moment.

’We?’

Pops ignored the small scuffled and slowly walked up a cramped staircase that led to the second floor. As he walked, he explained the layout of the house in more detail.

"As you can see, there are multiple rooms on each floor. In fact, if you all wished, you could just live in one house! However, I decided on two for your group in case any of you needed privacy. This floor in particular has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The floors above this one all have six bedrooms and four bathrooms. All of the bathrooms will be located at the end of each hallway, opposite of where you enter from these stairs."

Zoey looked anxious to get a layout of her new living space.

"Can we look at what the rooms look like?"

"Certainly! I forgot to mention, these two houses are almost identical. The king wanted to save materials and time by making all housing nearly identical with simple designs."

Zoey quickly ran into the first room she could find in the hallway. She ran her hands through her dark red hair as she studied its layout. The room was fitted with a large bed with white sheets, a dresser that sat near a window that looked out into the street, and a small desk with a candle for late-night reading or writing. There was also a dark red rug placed under the bed for aesthetic. The curtains on the window were held to the side with small brass hooks. The room wasn’t extraordinary, but it beat the dark cell of a prison camp by leaps and bounds.

"This is... wonderful! I want this to be my room!"

An idea suddenly struck Zoey’s head.

"Hey, Pops. I have a question."

The old man looked curiously at the young woman.

"What is it?"

"Are we allowed to decorate this room however we want?"

"Why, of course! It will be your property! You may do what you wish with it!"

Zoey grinned deeply.

"Awesome. I got big plans for this hehe."

"Would you all like to see attic? The other floors will not be much different than this one."

Lidia nodded and stepped out of Pops’s way to let him walk back towards the stairs. After reaching the fourth and final floor, Pops walked towards a strange door that glistened with ruby gems at the end of the hallway.

"This door leads to the attic. It will always be located right here by all the bathrooms. Remember that it is the door with the gems on it."

When he opened the door, a dusty ladder appeared behind it. Slowly, the old man struggled to climb up the wooden rings. Lidia supported him from below as the climbed. Before long, they all stuffed themselves in the attic. There were multiple wooden crates surrounding the area with one large window peering out into the kingdom. Since they were so high up, they could see over multiple buildings in front of them all the way to the wall.

"This is... something. What’s with all these crates? I thought this place was new?"

Pops took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt.

"All houses are full of small storage containers in case you decided to move to another house. Normally, when someone’s child grows old enough, they are used to move them to our education building that’s next to the palace."

Lidia’s eyes widened.

"Ahh, so you do have an educational institution?"

Everyone around Lidia slouched upon hearing that she remembered about sending them all to school.

"That’s right! It’s simple things that they learn there. The history of our world, how it works, the dangers you must be aware of on the road, I’m sure you are all familiar with that last part by now."

"That’s correct. However, most of these guys grew up in really poor villages. They never got a proper education, so we considered sending them there. Would that be allowed?"

"Certainly. Anyone old enough is allowed to seek out an education."

"Do we need to fill out paperwork for that as well?"

Pops laughed lightly.

"Let’s just figure out the paperwork when we go back to the dining room on the first floor."

As they all filed down the creaky ladder, Slimo was the last to leave the attic. The moment he put his two feet on the ladder, he heard a small creak from one of the boxes. He paused and studied his surroundings for a bit.

’I must be hearing things.’

He continued down the ladder.

"OW!"

It happened once again. Only this time, it wasn’t a creak. It sounded more like a muffled human voice. Slimo stopped once more and scaled back up the ladder.

"Hello?"

No response. He kicked around the crates hoping he would get the same sound that he kept hearing. He ran his fingers through his thick hair.

’What the hell was that noise?’

Another creak resounded behind a crate. Slimo steadily approached it. Using a bit force, he kicked the crate to the side. A tiny rodent scurried away from behind it and ran towards a small crack in the roof. Slimo sighed deeply.

"Damn rodents."