"Aren't those two big?" Alexander asked when Jean showed them the residences he had prepared for them.
The houses were smaller than Aura had, but they still were bigger than Edward's. They even had some ten meters tall walls and a large garden. Not to mention, all of them had three floors. The area of the terrains was at least two hundred meters long and one hundred wide. That was Billy's new house, the others were a bit smaller, and even they looked a bit overwhelmed. Maintaining all that clean and tidy would be a massive pain in the ass.
"It seems spacious at first sight, but you will get used to it," Jean said.
It was hard to say if that was a proper reward or if Jean was trying really hard to stay on their good side. Nevertheless, it was clear that those houses belonged to some nobles… or perhaps even Jean's relatives. That became even more apparent when they checked the interior, and it already had all kinds of things, tables, chairs, cooking utensils, wardrobes…
"I can find some staff to take care of the mansions in your place, they might find it weird at the beginning since you are from outside, but they also will get used to it," Jean said.
"That will help… putting that aside, any news about the beast tamers?" Billy asked.
"The Intel that I got says that they are having a hard time, so they are focusing on wearing down the strength of their enemies," Jean said. "They fight like barbarians, but those guys apparently can use that skill that you taught Pierre and Marie."
He was talking about Fierce Aura… the idea of facing an army that uses that was quite unsettling. Still, Billy couldn't imagine them having a high level of that skill since they were warriors. Their mana should be limited… Jean probably knew that as well. That was why he was doing all that… he wanted to make Billy and the others pass down the Fierce Aura that was already within their plans, though.
"When will you guys be ready to work?" Billy asked.
"In one week, I guess," Alexander replied.
"You said that I am short fused, but I want to try too," Natalie said.
"Well, that is probably for the best," Billy said. "I will be around working here if you guys need help with something, but I will skip on the instructor thing. Alexander can teach the spear to all those who want it."
All members of his party could teach Billy's skills, so it was fine. Despite that, Jean seemed a bit disappointed. Instead of that, Billy could do a lot more doing his research with his skills. Now that he had learned Earth Transformation, he was itching to learn and discover new things.
Earth Transformation
Requirements: Magic - 275, Earth Manipulation Lv 55
It gives you the power to focus more mana on the earth to transform its properties down to atomic levels.
For some reason, Billy could see the requirements of skills now… it was probably because Analyze reached level thirty. Regardless, first things first, unpack… Thanks to the tools of his workshop, the beautiful garden of the house had become weird. The black of the tools and the iron of the weapons didn't fit with the colorful garden. Still, they would stay there for a while until Billy finished his underground workshop. Regardless, thanks to his magic, the trees were back on the ground on the very first day. After that, Billy threw his clothes in the living room after the sun was setting, and he began to dig.
"Why does he have this fixation of having an underground hideout?" Kate asked while they were watching Billy working.
"Beats me, Billy still is a mystery box to me," Natalie said.
Billy had a hard time getting rid of the earth he dug up that week. There wasn't a sewer system under the capital, so he had to get rid of it on the old way. Thanks to that, Billy had another amazing idea… he began to dig an underground path that would lead him to outside the capital. By having one, he could leave it and enter without letting anyone know.
"Hehe, this is going to be fun," Billy smirked.
At the end of the week, his workshop was ready… but the underground path still had a long way ahead of him. In any case, he began to work on the ventilation system that would take the smoke produced in his workshop to the chimney of the house. It would be weird for a chimney to always burn something, but Billy couldn't care less about that.
Once Billy finished that part of the work, he finally unpacked his things in one of the rooms. There were several on the third floor, and Kate told him to get one of the free ones. It was a bit dangerous to have rooms so close to the beauties that were going to marry him in the future, but it would be even weirder to sleep away from them.
"Done with the hideout?" Kate asked when they were having dinner in the weirdly large dining room.
"Yep," Billy replied.
"The work starts tomorrow and the people that Jean select to look after the house will show up tomorrow as well," Natalie said.
"You can leave them to me," Billy said. "You guys can teach them whatever you want, it will take a while for most people to learn Fierce Aura, but I suppose the basics will help. If something happens, don't solve the problem with violence."
"Why are you looking at me while saying that?" Natalie asked.
"What are you going to do after all that, Billy?" Kate asked.
"There are certain things I want to try, I have the feeling that the beast tamers won't lose too much in their war and will try to cause problems to us as soon as possible," Billy replied.
