Herald of Steel

It seemed she and Mean had done a great job of making the house appear flawless at a casual glance.

"I see. It must have been hard to do, but you two have done a fantastic job. Congratulations." Hence Alexander nodded in appreciation and praised.

"Thank you, master!" And this worked to put a large smile on Ophenia\'s somewhat tired face, while Mean also puffed her chest with pride and then seizing the chance, decided to also air out some of her own grievances.

"Mmmn, that\'s right, it took a lot of hard work to get all this done in such a short time you know." She began, before elucidating,

"Because would not believe the state of the house I found it in. This place had been neglected for quite some time, and was in a much worse shape than Lady Nanazin\'s one."

"Although from the outside it seemed to have no issue and the outer structures were intact, so no leaking roof or creaking floor, but I still needed to do quite a bit of work to fix it and make it liveable again.."

"Like when I came to see it first, it was filled up to my hips with dust and grim everywhere.

with an unpleasant damp smell filling the air and I even saw a bunch of cockroaches and rats scampering around…in fact there were several large nests of them… ewe, ewe." Mean involuntarily raised one of her legs as she shuddered recalling the experience, an act that Alexander actually found quite endearing.

But the girl did not notice this look of amusement neither did she think it was something to laugh about, as she continued, turning her retelling into a small rant of a kind.

"Seeing the state of it all, we knew we had to fix or replace most things here, from the rusted candlestands on the walls to the locks on the door, to even some of the doors or windows. Almost everything!" Mean\'s octaves went up a few notices, as she then particularly stressed almost vehemently,

"And most importantly, we had to replace all the carpets, curtains, bed sheets, and mattresses here, all the fabrics really."

"Because all of them stank of mold and there were every kind of disgusting things imaginable there…dead bugs, droppings, insect eggs, you name it…*whackkkk*."

As Mean described this condition of the house, the memory of it all came back to her and it could not help but make her retch, something that Alexander saw for the first time.

But for Mean, this pause lasted only a moment for she was determined to end her story, so she continued,

"After seeing all that, I knew I had to change everything here. So we threw all of them out and even set them on fire, fearing more insects might be hiding in the cloth."

"And then got everything we would need from all the other empty guest houses around here."

"And doing just that took us almost sundown."

"As for now, well the only things still from here are the furniture. And so the maids are now thoroughly cleaning them of dust and cobwebs, and then washing them with soap for good measure!"

Mean put her hands on her hips with pride as she at last finished her long, long speech.

And hearing this, Alexander\'s first reaction was, \'Using soap water to clean wooden furniture! Isn\'t that asking for rot to set it?\'

\'Where\'s the varnish?\'

It seemed that after Alexander sang the praises of using soap, it had worked a bit too well, causing Mean to think it was an all-in-one cleaner.

Hence believing it to be more effective, the girl had decided to use soapy water instead of varnish to clean the wood.

And finding this out Alexander did not know whether to laugh or cry.

It was good that Alexander had the money to buy new furniture with no problem so he wasn\'t really worried about ruining these.

And it was also nice to see that Mean was attentive to his sayings, though this was not really what he meant.

But for now he was also way too tired to try and correct Mean about this, so he shelved it for later, noting to himself,

\'I should try to be more precise in my sayings.\'

And instead, Alexander decided to somewhat reward Mean, so he teased her by nodding, "Good, good, as expected of my little Mean," before lightly pinching her cute butt, and smirking, "Haha, you can expect a reward soon."

"Yo..you rogue," And seeing Alexander act so openly even in front of some of the servants caused Mean to blush furiously while knowing the kind of reward Alexander was hinting at made her heart swell a bit with anticipation, though outwardly she put a fake facade of anger.

"Hahaha," And as the others were able to read Mean like an open book, it elicited a few giggles of laughter.

Until Cambyses, who felt she had standing around for too long decided to finally join in, urging,

"Okay, okay, enough chatting. We are all tired, so let\'s go to our rooms and freshen up. Dinner should be getting cold."

"Mmmm, yes, yes. this way. And we can give a tour of the house in the process too." And Ophenia was the one to quickly take Cambyses on the offer, excited to show her master the place.

"Okay, I want to see it too." And Alexander did not mind, adding, "It seems the maids could use a bit more time to get everything ready."

And so with the head of the house spoken, Ophenia quickly started the tour, and to Alexander\'s mild surprise, he found it to be almost a smaller version of his manor.

Something that did not escape Ophenia\'s notice eye too which she expressed by saying, "These Adhanians seem to lack creativity, huh master."

Alexander simply gave a perfunctory nod to this, knowing many Thesians felt themselves culturally superior to Adhanians and vice versa, while he was much more interested in surveying his new house.

The two-storied bungalow was divided as tradition dictated into two parts, the front and back area.

The front area with its high ceilings was fully furnished with expensive couches, chairs, dining tables, and even various rooms on either side meant for receiving and entertaining arriving guests.

These rooms also had beds, tables, cupboards and other furniture showing they could also be used as bedrooms.

While the back area, as Ophenia showed it, was meant for more intimate gatherings.

It had rooms like Alexander\'s study, a room containing rows of shelves which was probably meant to act as the library, a few secret conference rooms, though none had in-door floor heating like his previous one, a huge room at the very back very likely to house a noble\'s haram, and lastly a small stage around the inner patio, possibly use to practice and perform the arts such as reciting stories and poetry to friends and family.

And of course at the center of it all, around the small garden was housed as customary the soul of the house- a small shrine to worship Ramuh.

"Replace it with that of the Goddess\'s statue," Alexander was instant in his direction regarding that.

This was the end of the tour regarding the lower floor, which Alexander found reasonably opulent, with frescos, mosaics, and expensive paintings gracing each of the walls, though a lot of it seemed to have been also eroded with time.

With an additional eye sore being the carpets, and curtains all around, which were all over the place.

The colors, and patterns on them did not at all match the decor, and sometimes even the size was not right, causing some parts of the house to expose their stone or wood underneath, while others had rolled up carpet along the edges.

Alexander would be pretty embarrassed to show this house to someone like the Queen Mother or Pasha Farzah, or even Nanazin, and so was relieved they were not here.

Of course, he also understood why this place looked like this.

Given the time crunch Mean was in, she must have thrown anything and everything she could get her hands on simply to get the house in any kind of shape, thus producing this incongruent aesthetic mess.

Though it was also thanks to that he could have a house to live under, and not be forced to crush at one of his retainer\'s house.

Or worse bunk at the barracks with the soldiers, though that would have been unlikely.

So Alexander did not dare complain.

Instead, he focused on the second floor which he got through a spiraling staircase, where all the personal bedrooms were located.

These were the private chambers of the nobleman and his family, and frankly, there was really nothing too special.

Simply various opulent beds with various extravagant furniture like wardrobes, cupboards, tables, chairs, etc.

And out of all the bedrooms, he was at last led to the biggest room in the house, which would be his and Cambyses\'s shared abode, and as the door was pushed open, he found there were even two small hot tubs already waiting for them, filled with hot water still giving off steam.

It seemed the maids had seen them coming, and only then filled the portable bathtub.

And Alexander could not wait to get in.