Survive in the parallel world, please!

Chapter 55: Survive the freeze, please! part

“It was your fault! you did it out of the blue!”

“It’s now my fault you made it so easy”

Rina shrugged making Claire chuckle.

“You two really are something”

Claire said covering her smile with a hand.

“But I’m hungry!”

Rina pouted

.....

“Yes yes, now go and wait for dinner as everyone else, I don’t play favorites”

Ryu said as he dragged Rina out of the kitchen. When dinner was ready, Dylan and Helena were discussing priest skills, he told Helena that his mother had a skill that could heal broken bones but he didn’t know how to acquire it. His mother learned it from a scroll that was for sale at the empire and it helped her to unlock it.

Since Sera’s arm couldn’t be healed completely by Helena’s healing skill, she did her best to fashion a splint to help her. The mood at the table was gloomy because of Sera’s condition. Ryu did his best to avoid showing his own guilt since not only he failed to heal her when he promised, she also got hurt when trying to save her.

When the meal was finished everyone went to their rooms to sleep. Claire and Sera went to their room together, everybody else had their own room except for Eiri and Kairi. The day before they slept with Ryu because nobody told them that they were able to sleep at one of the tavern’s rooms, so they just assumed they had to fulfill their duties as slaves and went to sleep with him.

But after spending the night with him they were worried because he didn’t even touch them, and it got them thinking that maybe he didn’t like them at all and they shouldn’t be sleeping with him. In the end, both of them remained downstairs and slept on the ground until morning.

Everyone slept peacefully with their doors open to allow the heat from the brazier to enter their rooms. The first one to wake up was Ryu, but instead of walking downstairs by himself he thought it would be best if everyone woke up early. The first room he went into was Rina’s, he stood outside and knocked on the door.

“What’s the matter Ryu? it’s the freeze, we’re supposed to sleep until later”

She said as she sat on the bed rubbing her eyes.

“We don’t have much time to get ready for what’s coming, so I need everyone to wake up earlier than usual”

“This is unfair! the freeze is my only vacation!”

Rina said patting the bed with both hands making a tantrum. Only then did she realize that she was completely naked and Ryu was not looking at her face. Instead of feeling embarrassed, she thought in using this to her advantage.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to join me in bed?”

She said seductively as she lifted the blankets and made a spot for him. Ryu gulped his saliva but managed to escape before losing to his own desires. the sight in front of him was alluring, and staying in bed a little longer was tempting, but there was a time for everything and now wasn’t the time for resting.

One by one he woke up everyone, although now he was more careful when knocking on the girl’s rooms. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of people complaining as they started getting dressed. But when he came to Eiri’s and Kairi’s room he noticed that the bed was made, and the girls were nowhere to be found.

‘These airheads’ he thought inwardly.

When everyone was downstairs Ryu stood in front of them.

“I know you guys wanted to sleep more now that we can’t get outside, but you’re not being paid to sleep. Even if there are no clients we need to take the chance to improve ourselves and the tavern. This is why, starting today, everyone will be waking up at the same time and we are going to be performing different exercises and tasks to improve our stats”

Dylan sleepy face shifted into a wide smile.

“Yes sir!”

Ryu went one by one asking everyone to perform different exercises like lifting sacks of flour, doing sit ups, push ups and jumping a rope. Sera wanted to participate too, she had a look of determination on her face, but when Ryu came he asked her to follow him to the storage room. There was a desk and a pile of papers in front.

“Your first task will be to read all this notes, learn the names and purpose of every plant and herb in here”

Sera’s face was a bit saddened, everyone was doing exercise but Ryu asked her to do something entirely different, but she would never defy his orders. In her eyes, Ryu was an existence beyond her reach and his words were her commands. Even with her broken arm she would’ve done push ups if Ryu asked her, in fact, that’s what she wanted so she could show him how much effort she was willing to put into anything he asked of her.

Everyone kept exercising even after breakfast, but for Anne and Helena it was nothing. They had better stats than everyone else and the same amount of exercise wouldn’t even be enough as warm up for them. Ryu knew this, but he thought it would be good for everyone to see how stronger they could get if they trained enough.

The ones struggling the most were Eiri and Kairi, not only because they were in and physical shape and malnourished, but also because they slept poorly on the ground. Claire was doing ok, but it showed that she was putting a lot of effort into it, while Dylan was the most enthusiast.

When he reached Rina, she was trying to make it look like she was exercising, but she would barely move. He caught her in the middle of a poorly executed sit up and he didn’t miss the chance to slap her in the rear.

“Kyaa! what are you doing?”

Rina shrieked.

“What am I doing? what are YOU doing? put your heart into this or I’ll do it again”

After a while Claire went to clean herself and then joined Ryu at the kitchen to make lunch. He was slicing the dough in thin lines to make noodles, he mixed five parts of regular flour with one part of elven wheat fruit flour.

“What’s that?”

Claire asked looking at the strange flour Ryu was using.

“This is a special ingredient with a high nutritional value that will keep everyone in good shape after their physical effort”

They served a bowl of noodles to everyone and they were so hungry that by the time they came back with their own servings, people were already asking for seconds. After the meal they were relieved when Ryu told them they could rest, but they were disheartened when he told them that it would be their morning routine from that day onward.

At dinner they drank some beer and played darts. Anne, of course, was the best at the game, she was so good at it that she could hit bullseye from far away.

“Eiri, Kairi, come over here. Why did you sleep downstairs last night?”

“Because we didn’t want to trouble master and we learned that master is dating Rina, so...”

“But there was a room ready for you”

“We are nothing but slaves, we don’t deserve such generosity. Also, miss Anne told us that master intended to use that room as a workshop”

Ryu recalled that he mentioned it after taking charge of the tavern, making he feel even more guilty than before. He’s been so focused on many things that he completely forgot about their accommodation, now that he’s responsible for their well being he needed to figure out where to set up his workshop, especially now that he had a distiller.

Ryu asked Rina to come upstairs with him and she followed with an intrigued expression.

“What’s the matter boss? I swear I’ll take the morning exercises more seriously, you don’t need to worry about that”

“That’s not it, did you know Eiri and Kairi slept on the ground yesterday?”

“uh, why didn’t they sleep in their room?”

“Because no one told them that it was supposed to be their room. But there’s something troubling me, I need to set up a workshop and there’s not enough space available. According to Ayumi’s instructions the distiller produces flammable fumes so it would be dangerous to ensemble it in a room without proper ventilation. So... that’s why...”

Noticing the awkwardness in Ryu’s voice tone Rina replied.

“So you want to sleep with them”

“That’s not it, I don’t want them to think that I want to take advantage from them”

“Then why don’t you ask the girls to sleep with Dylan? I bet he’ll be happy”

“Because... I don’t want him to take advantage from them either”

Rina was confused about it, they were slaves so it really didn’t matter how he treated them and they knew it. But then she remembered how Ryu treated her for the short period when she was a slave and everything made sense to her.

“Listen Ryu, being a slave is bad, but being your slave is not nearly as bad as it would be if they were someone else’s. Trust me on this, they will serve you and do anything you ask of them, I bet they’re grateful to you just for the meals you prepare for them. Even free people would kill for this kind of treatment, if other girls in town knew how they were going to be treated as your slaves they wouldn’t hesitate to sell themselves. Just sleep with them and have fun, everything will be solved, they’ll have somewhere comfortable to sleep and you’ll get your workshop”

Rina explained

“That’s not it Rina... would that really be ok? I mean, we’re dating and...”

“Oh!? I thought you weren’t interested in me anymore, after you turned me down. Don’t worry, I don’t mind if you have sex with other people. Even married men play on the side or go to the brothel, there are some miners with more than one spouse too and I wouldn’t mind that either”

Ryu pondered for a second before asking Rina.

“Rina, would you like to move into my room?”