Tree House Expansion

The next morning, I went downstairs to make some breakfast and found the maids and the princess already indulging. I was getting pretty used to seeing them work early in the day, but it felt strange to have freshly made breakfast as soon as I woke up all the time. Not like I was complaining though.

They asked me if I had heard a strange commotion the previous night coming from the forest, and I stayed quiet for a moment as I thought about what to tell them.

If I said I didn't know anything about it, then they would think that a dangerous monster was lurking close to town. But if I said that I was practicing some new type of magic, then the princess would surely get upset.

I told them the truth, and just like I predicted, the princess stared daggers at me with an annoyed expression. So, I apologized and promised her that I would teach her the new spells when our real training began.

Even when I had been teaching her lots of new magic and spells, we still had work to do before we could move on to the harder subjects.

We had to finish the knight's barracks that was about halfway done and build new houses for the refugees that had arrived in town, and since we were already late with the homes, I decided to split our workload.

The princess and I would finish the barracks while Vespera started working on the houses. That way if we finished first we could still help her out and have a big chunk of work ready.

During my time with the princess, I taught her a few more materials that she could visualize when raising earth walls and she happily started casting them with different materials and colors.

It reminded me of a video game where the player would build and take down different walls to see what they liked better, but this time it was happening in front of me. Huge walls that were as strong as concrete getting taken down and built back up in a few seconds by the princess.

It took us a few days to finish all the construction since we had to create the bathrooms along with their waterpipes. Besides, the princess took her sweet time deciding which walls and flooring she should make for the knight's barracks.

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Since we had a few weeks before the knight's order arrived, I used that time to take the princess and the maids to my tree house in the forest. It had been a while since I last visited, and the only reason I knew it was still standing was thanks to Vespera's little spiders that scouted the perimeters every day and passed by to pick up herbs from the magical flower field.

Once we teleported there, the group looked pretty amazed as I showed them around the tree house, explaining to them how I had carved the rooms using nature magic and used enchantments for the appliances.

I asked Vespera and Yoru to show them around the area while I carved additional rooms for them on the third floor next to mine, which ended up being faster than I expected. I thought they weren't anything fancy, but the maids and the princess looked a bit astonished at the rooms.

They were pretty much a copy of my own room, except theirs looked clean and spotless. I hadn't even noticed how much of a mess I had in my room until then.

With our first problem out of the way, the princess kept asking me all kinds of questions about the enchantments around the house. So, I ended up spending a few hours going through all of the appliances around and explaining to her how they worked.

Finally, I showed them the bathtub that I had built right outside in a perfect spot where the stars weren't covered by the tree's foliage. However, while I pridefully explained how the hot water enchantment worked, I realized that there was only one bathtub and I was the only guy in the group.

("I guess I'll just build a smaller one on the other side or something…") I thought.

Just as I expected, that same night, I ended up using the shower that I had built inside the tree house for winter season while, outside, I could hear the laughter of both maids, the princess, and Vespera having fun in the bathtub.

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of breakfast and was greeted by the maids and the princess who were already serving me a plate, just like every other day.

I had planned to go hunting with the princess to train, but then I also remembered that she wanted to learn more than just combat spells. Even so, it was important for her to get some experience with a real monster if she wanted to go adventuring with me later.

Surprisingly, she was easy to persuade and changed her attire into what she called her 'adventuring clothes'; the same leather armor she wore during our expedition to the fairy island. However, her sleeves were much shorter this time which made sense since the temperature was getting pretty high. Even I didn't want to wear my good old cloak.

The maids changed their attires into their leather armor as well, but I asked them to follow us from a distance since hunting all of us together would just hinder our hiding spots. Thankfully they agreed and we went on our first hunt.

As we walked through the forest, we found ourselves having to step over a few overgrown roots that came from the surrounding trees. While I carefully walked over, I saw that the princess stumbled back and slipped on the smooth moss that covered the roots, but I was able to catch her hand quickly by pure reflex.

After that, I kept holding her hand while I guided her through the forest in search of our prey. I must have been really focused while using my 'Seach' spell since I hadn't noticed that minutes after her slip, I was still holding her hand tightly.

I noticed she had stopped asking questions, and when I turned I saw her face bright red with a somewhat embarrassed expression. I tried retracting my hand quickly, but instead, she placed her other hand and held it tightly while staring at me with a dumbfounded face.

("W-why is she looking at me like that…?") I thought as the princess stared into my eyes, then slowly walked back a few steps, not letting go of my palm.

("Well, if she wants to hold my hand that's fine…") I thought as I continued on our way.

After a few minutes of walking, I began getting a bit frustrated a the fact that I couldn't sense any decent monsters around. The princess asked about what kind of spell 'Search' was, so I explained it to her on my own terms.

This spell wasn't something that she could easily copy with her assimilation skill, and the reason for that was that nobody was able to see the spell. 'Search' worked as a way for the caster to sense the living beings around them in a wide area, but whenever I used it, there was no visual feedback for the rest to see.

Being able to see my magic was the biggest reason the princess was able to easily copy my spells. Magic worked by visualizing what you wanted to create, so having actually seen the spell you wanted to cast made it much easier for people to learn.

The way I explained it to her was by "sending invisible waves" that could sense any amount of small magical power around her. In my mind, it worked like a radar, where I could visualize these entities as red dots as I was looking from above. However, that wasn't an example that I could give the princess for her to understand.

Thinking carefully about how to teach it, I told her to try moving her vision into the magical energy she expelled as waves. With enough imagination and power, I was sure she would be able to do it.