God Of Crafting

I slowly pried my eyes open, only to see the ceiling that slowly, slowly, I was starting to get familiar with.

Yet, as my consciousness started to cast away the chains of slumber, I was soon hit with a whole series of effects that nearly dragged me right back to the realm of sleep.

Even though I'd cast my covers at some point in the night, only half of my body felt cold while the other half was as comfortably warm as it could get with the addition of a soothing weight pinning me down to the bed's cushions.

A weight that kept on gently moving with every breath Claire took.

'Another morning like that, huh?' I thought, holding off on the desire to stretch out all the morning tiredness I could still feel in my bones.

I wasn't rude enough to try stretching when Claire was still sleeping atop the right side of my chest.

'Weren't we supposed to get the delivery early in the morning today, though?' I thought, turning my eyes over to the massive and expensively decorated clock that hung over the room's doors.

A moment of reading the analog clock later I had to now suppress my desire to just bolt out of the bed and rush to the doors in hopes of being just in time not to miss the important delivery.

But with her warm weight pinning me down, with the gentle near-asmr-like sound of her breathing, the way she snuggled up to my chest…

Was I really the kind of a demon who would risk waking her up just to get some deliveries accepted?

Of course, I was!

But that didn't mean I was going to rudely pay no mind to her sleep.

And so, began a ten-minute-long adventure of slowly, slowly shifting Claire's hands, then arms, and then sliding out from underneath her, all the while making sure to keep her comfortable and undisturbed. An adventure that only ended when I slid down from the bed and recovered the very blanket we kicked off during our pre-sleep exercise and covered Claire's half-naked body with it.

'Now then,' I thought as I grabbed a bathrobe and threw it on my shoulders, only bothering to bind it belt down around my waist once I left our bedroom and moved down the corridor, no longer worried about my actions forcing the girl out of her peaceful slumber.

After what I made her go through before we went to sleep, this kind of respect for her sleep was the least I could do to let her recover!

My worries about the delivery, however, soon turned out to be both on point and completely unfounded.

"Sir…?" one of the house staff raised their head from the box he had just nicely piled up in the corner of the massive storage set directly connected to the house, his face revealing just how surprised he was to see me.

Was it because this wasn't the place he expected me to see? Or maybe it was still too early for someone actually living in this expensive villa to wake up in this butler's eyes?

"Is this the delivery from the merchant's house…?" I asked as I stared at what now looked more like a warehouse than a simple storage shed with all the boxes stacked upon massive, ceiling-high shelves.

A sight all the more amazing when I realized how every last thing neatly stacked within those boxes was here… all for me to play around with!

"It sure is sir!" the young, maybe twenty years old man reported with the energy I would never expect from anyone at this ungodly hour. "Do you have anything you would like moved directly to the workshop, or…?" he then asked, eagerly seeking even more orders…

Even when all it took was a single glance to see just as many boxes stacked outside the shed as there were boxes already moved inside of it.

'Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of ordering much more than we actually needed if I let some random butler know exactly what I need?' I thought, thinking back to the conversation I had with Claire back at the merchant house.

"That will be quite fine," I replied now openly looking over to where the boxes still waited for their turn to be moved into the safety of the shed. "It seems you still have a lot of work to do, so, the only thing I want to know is…"

The young handyman's face tensed up a little in response to my words.

"Why are you the only one dealing with all of those boxes?"

After working the dead-end shift at a simple grocery store, I wasn't going to turn into the spoiled piece of shit that would abuse those who worked for my sake, especially when it wasn't my personal money that contributed to their wages!

"Sir…?"

My question clearly took the young handyman off-guard, to the point he actually froze in place with a clearly heavy box still weighing down on his hands.

"Haaah…" I released a long, heavy sigh. "You are free to put this box down, man. I don't know how they treated you here before, but I'm not going to make your life harder just because you stop for a moment as we talk…"

Once again, I had to resist my desire, this time to just hang my head low and sigh out all of my frustration and exasperation away.

Then again, no matter how weird it was to be looked at in the same way I looked at my own boss back when I still cared about my job… I still had a whole lot of excitement to deal with!

"Actually sir, it took an insane amount of vetting to get this job," the young man explained, obediently putting the box down only to quickly stand up right back up and straighten his back as if he felt the need to stand at attention. "There is only a limited number of people in this villa, and they each have their own tasks to deal with. That's why when it comes to random jobs that pop out."

Hearing this, my eyebrow ended up moving up my forehead.

'On one hand, there's a strict vetting system and on the other, we even have someone here just to pick up random jobs that do not fit the standard?' I thought for a moment before shaking my head and smiling at the man.

"Well, I'm not going to stress you any further then," I stated before turning sideways to the young handyman and moving over to where he already stacked some of the boxes. "You just keep going at a rate you are comfortable with.

And don't take me being here for an inspection," I added with a smile, perfectly aware of how it felt to have one's boss standing around while one tried to do their job in peace, "I just need to familiarize myself with where everything is."

"Will do, boss!" the young man replied cheerfully… Before showing great dedication in picking up the box and going back to his work that soon brought him back, outside of the shed and away from my prying eyes.

'What a strange, young man,' I thought, watching how he left before turning my attention, as announced, back towards the boxes. And with how they all came perfectly labeled, I didn't even have to open each and every last one of them to figure out what box held what items.

In other words, for a crafter like me…

Isn't this what heaven would look like?