Chapter 30 - Rhema’s Interesting House

“You don’t like it? I can redecorate it anytime…”

“No, no!” Azriel hurriedly shook her head, but she was still reluctant to step in. Rhema tilted his head and pushed her back slightly. “Get inside and look around, and let me know what you don’t like about it.”

She ended up stepping on the carpet with bare feet. The feeling of the carpet underneath was much softer than she imagined. She was completely blown away. Looking at her bare feet, Rhema thought that he should buy shoes. Azriel, who was dragging a huge tunic around the room, stepped on the hem and stumbled. He thought that he should pick up some clothes as well. Rhema, this time, went to the best tailor in the city and demanded the best clothes of all kinds. The experienced tailor realized that he had caught a great pushover. He suggested that a girl needed bigger clothes as she grew up and should follow seasonal trends. Eventually, Rhema signed an agreement to buy clothes from him periodically. It was likewise with a shoemaker. Soon, cute and various clothes and shoes that a seven-year-old girl might wear were filling a huge wardrobe. From intricate dresses that could not be put on without a maid to travel clothes made out of high-quality leather, all sorts of children’s clothes were bought.

Remembering Azriel’s reaction after eating chocolate, Rhema ordered a mountain of chocolates as well. The bakery owner of the city recommended other kinds of confectioneries to the wizard as he only ordered chocolates. Rhema bought them all in as well. Whatever labeled with phrases such as, ‘a child might like,’ ‘would make a child happy,’ and ‘would go well with a child,’ he bought everything without hesitation. To him, money was meaningless like a grain of sand on the ground.

Not long after, in Pizarro, the nearest city to the village, the silver-haired wizard became a celebrity, as a pushover who would buy anything regardless of money if it was for his girl. The wizard often showed his appearance, but no one had seen the girl. Even the tailor had never seen the girl. He only made clothes as Rhema described.

“How much on earth does that wizard care for the girl that he’d never send her out?”

“Even when ordering clothes, he only comes with the measurements.”

“Maybe that girl is in such a high position that she can’t expose herself recklessly.”

“Perhaps a royal blood that he raises in secret?”

“That could be true.”

This was how Azriel became a hidden princess that the wizard serves among the city merchants. Young Azriel stood vacantly in front of the wardrobe after opening its doors. All the clothes were so glamorous that she was afraid to touch them. She felt dizzy.

‘What if I wear it and get it dirty?’ She, at last, picked the most modest-looking dress without decorations. Of course, Azriel back then could not imagine that it only looked modest but was, in fact, a piece made from an expensive material by a master craftsman. She never knew that the things like the cushions that rolled around her room like nothing, the leather shoes that she wore with ease since they did not have any decoration, and little sparkling rocks that she played with thinking that they were glass beads were extremely luxurious. 

In those days, Azriel could not come to her senses as she faced miraculous everyday life. To her, all of the moments in Rhema’s house felt like magic. She used to think that the freshly baked white bread was the best food and the dress with pockets that the bakery owner’s daughter wore was the best clothes. Nice clothes, a cute and spacious room, and all sorts of confectioneries and foods were what she could not have ever imagined. Just like that, her life was turned upside down in one day.

Azriel, who used to curl up near the chimney’s outer wall to feel its warmth, now slept alone on a huge bed that could fit in five young children. When the morning sun shone on her room window, Blanchet quietly pushed the room door and came in. Noir, who always followed around Blanchet, also quickly followed her. When the two cats jumped up on her bed, walked on her, cried, or kneaded her, Azriel naturally opened her eyes. She used to hug them tightly as the morning greeting. Blanchet obediently fell into her arms, but Noir often ran away.

Soft, light pink sleepers were always prepared under the bed. When she put them on and came out of the room, the cats would follow her. They went to the kitchen only after seeing her go down the stairs and enter the bathroom right next to the stairs.

One side of the bathroom wall consisted of half-transparent crystal. There was a spring below that crystal, and clean water flowed from above like a little waterfall. It was a mechanism formed by magic close to a miracle, but since everything was surprising to Azriel, she was not especially marveled by the bathroom.

When she came out after washing her face with the water from the spring, she could always smell something delicious from the kitchen. The living room with a fireplace and the kitchen were divided by a swingy curtain. When she opened the curtain and entered the kitchen, the cats were eating breakfast on one side. Largo, a big, yellow dog, finished eating by then and wagged its tail. Even while busily moving in the kitchen, the lump of light used to sparkle when it saw Azriel as if it said hello. The light was a spirit Rhema created. Seldomly, Rhema cooked on his own, but the spirit was the one who cooked most of the time.

Azriel had no idea what a spirit was or what it meant to make one. However, she soon got used to the sight of a spirit going around, stirring pots, and doing house chores such as cleaning and washing clothes.

Rhema was often absent in the morning. Sometimes he was not in the house or had not woken up yet. When she sat on the table chair, the spirit gave her a breakfast meal with fresh milk and fruits. Azriel used to eat breakfast alone. After eating breakfast, it was time to play until lunch. Since Rhema had never raised a child, there were no toys in the house, but there were plenty of things to play with without such things.

Azriel played with Largo or followed around the cats. She also watched chicks and looked for eggs that the chickens had laid here and there in the yard. Sometimes she found them and brought them to the kitchen, and the spirit would make her a snack.

In the backyard of the house, there was a garden where unknown herbs grew, a little greenhouse, and a pond. She also liked watching marvelous herbs but never touched them.

“You can enter the greenhouse as much as you want. But there are dangerous herbs among them, so don’t touch them.”

It was because Rhema warned her so. Azriel never went against his words.