Chapter 9.2

Chapter 9.2

Seok-kyung, despite the weight of his words, placed a clean dish on the drying rack with a nonchalant expression.

“When you live too long, you easily forget what it feels like to be alive. I’m not even human to begin with. The joy of breathing, the fear of recognizing a finite life—those are things I don’t understand well. Appreciating the mundane? That’s even more out of reach for me.”

“Oh…”

“That’s why doing something as mundane as this can be quite helpful. It’s just a ritual, but it proves that my time is passing normally.”

His voice was remarkably calm as if he were discussing something utterly mundane and obvious.

But to Ara, his calmness felt oddly sad.

Some might call her concern for a powerful deity naive. After all, she was in a lopsided contract with him, and Seok-kyung was the stingy landlord who would only grant her wish after three months of imposing his will.

Even so, she couldn’t help it. Emotions didn’t stem from logic; they arose unexpectedly, like the pang she felt in her chest now.

Ara wanted to offer him some words of comfort.

The problem was that she knew very little about Seok-kyung. Not just about him, but also about the basic rules and culture of the goblin world. So, she couldn’t even guess what kind of words might bring him comfort.

“So, do you also clean, do laundry, and cook yourself?”

In the end, she changed the subject.

“As much as I can.”

Come to think of it, there wasn’t a speck of dust in the house. His suits were always impeccably pressed, and the easily soiled cuffs and collars were pristinely white.

“That’s surprising. You look like someone who never had to lift a finger.”

“What kind of look is that?”

“This kind of look.”

Ara pointed at Seok-kyung’s face with her index finger.

He turned his head to look down at her, his well-shaped eyebrows forming a slanted line.

Even his skeptical expression was perfect.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know you’re handsome?” Ara, momentarily lost in thought, accidentally voiced what she had been thinking.

“I know.” His response was even more outrageous.

It would have been ridiculous if he had denied it, but hearing his confident answer was also quite unexpected.

“I’m an exceptional beauty. It’s because of my special nature.”

“Oh, I see…”

While Ara looked at him with an expression like she’d bitten into a sour apple, Seok-kyung finished the dishes and thoroughly wiped down the surrounding area with a dry cloth.

“Come with me.”

After cleaning up the dining table, Seok-kyung picked up the jacket he had set aside. The metal watch clicked back onto his solid wrist.

“Where are we going?” Ara, still unsure of what was happening, took off her apron and followed him.

Seok-kyung, already several steps ahead, glanced back at her. “You need to know the layout of the house so you don’t bother me as much.”

***

Seok-kyung personally showed Ara around the goblin house.

There were seven bedrooms alone. In addition, there were about ten other rooms for various purposes: fitness, home theater, meetings, a library, storage, and more. The basement housed a swimming pool and a sauna, and the rooftop had a vegetable garden where he grew his own produce.

Can this even be called a “house”?

Ara discovered for the first time how exhausting it could be just to walk around a house. After checking out the exterior of the house with Seok-kyung, her jaw dropped.

The dilapidated old house she had seen yesterday was nowhere to be found. Instead, a five-story single-family home, seemingly designed by a famous architect, stood in its place. The dirt ground, once home to broken jars and a clogged well, was now covered with well-manicured grass swaying gently in the breeze.

“This is incredible…”

Seok-kyung chuckled at Ara’s unfiltered amazement.

“The exterior and interior structure change irregularly as needed, so don’t be so rustic and easily surprised.”

“Do you change it with a goblin bat? Like, just a tap?”

“Yeah, just like that. At my whim, with a tap.”

“Wow…”

I should have been born a goblin.

Ara looked around the area several times with an innocent expression. The weather was perfectly sunny, as if to complete the scene, enhancing the beautiful view.

Amidst all this, something suddenly caught her eye—a small path.

“What’s that?”