“This is seriously the place you rented? You know… I gave you a lot of coin…”

“That’s not the problem!” Drake cried, bowing his head down on the ground. “It’s just that this Lord Reign guy charges an arm and a leg for taxes. Getting any property in the city is nearly impossible, and everything costs money.”

I had vaguely noticed before that Alerith seemed to cost a lot, but I had mostly avoided it by living off the dungeon. It turned out that Lord Reign was unreasonable with his citizens.

In the small space was Drake and his two cohorts, my party, me, and then Carmine and Salicia. We were currently in a small dump of a place that looked like it belonged in a poor district, but these guys insisted it was the best they could buy given the coin I had given them. At first, I had thought that they had pocketed the coin, but they were living in these conditions too and didn’t seem the type to hold on to money where comfort was involved. That was especially the case for Carmine and Salicia, who were trapped in the same room to Salicia’s delight.

“Please… Master, I will happily fight to the death for you, but living in this squalor is unbecoming of a beauty like me!”

“You can consider this part of your punishment for spending excessively, and since you had a short vacation, consider that your reward for doing well the last week.” I sighed, deciding not to give them any increase in salary for the moment before turning back to Drake, who was still on the ground. “What is the progress?”

“Carmine has been registered as a gladiator in the upcoming match. She will be fighting tomorrow in the pits. Since she was able to bypass the preliminaries, these will be the first ranked matches she will participate in. Right now, being as she’s unknown, the current betting is in our favor. Should we put some money down?”

I sighed and pulled out ten gold coins. “Don’t go overboard.”

“Of course!” He finally stood up and smoothly pocketed the money. “The gladiator board doesn’t suspect a thing. We’re the managers of the slave Carmine, who is owned by a mysterious rich merchant. Salicia is her coach. That’s the current story we’re going with.”

“If you increase in ranking, I’ll consider giving you more pocket money.” I finally responded.

Carmine’s eyes brightened, and the three men all looked excitedly at each other. In truth, they already didn’t regret working for me. As they said, this place was as good as their place in the Capital anyway, where they rented from a shady noble and were unable to own property. As for going to the beach, it wasn’t something they had hoped to do in their entire lives, so it was already a job that had paid off dividends in their minds.

If they continued to work well for me, I might find them a position in Chalm that suited them. Although they were all a bit shady, they also had an earnest side to them that I didn’t disagree with. I didn’t really like being in the cramped property, and I didn’t want to accidentally be seen outside it, so we discussed everything we needed to discuss and then I opened my third Portal for the day. It was time to finally tackle the 27th floor of the Widow’s Dungeon.