It took a couple minutes to go over some more details about my work here, but I was basically expected to run an alchemy shop like before. The commander had to finish some paperwork, so he asked Amber to look after me for the rest of the evening.

The commander said that I was being provided with a shop that doubled as a private home at the center of the market district, with no rent charge as long as I can complete the tasks I am given in the future. The district was on the other side of town, so Amber and I rode the horse-drawn carriage containing my belongings to get there, with Amber giving me general information along the way.

Ignoring the matter of how she was able to load all the items onto the carriage, I felt like I really inconvenienced Amber and commander Mavuto. It's not because I had too many belongings, but rather because everything I had was inside a wardrobe and two crates, which barely took up one sixth of the space inside the carriage. Two pack mules would have sufficed, yet they had to go through the trouble of smuggling a large and conspicuous horse-drawn carriage in and out of enemy territory.

We were currently in the town of Sachiru, about three hours by horse north of the border. From the road pavement to the houses in this town, almost everything was made with stone, so the town generally looked dark and depressing during the daytime because of the grayish material. However, during this current sunset hour, the whole town was dyed in a pleasant orange color. It was a rather peaceful sight.

The town population was varied between 15000 and 20000, with the majority being orcs and goblins who were mostly responsible for the production and maintenance of the army's weapons and armor. I was the only human in town with a wholesome undamaged body since all other humans in this town were raised from the dead through necromancy, which prompted curious gazes from all the children that the carriage passed by. There weren't a lot of zombie humans, though, so I think my presence would have been peculiar to the children regardless.

"We've arrived."

After some twenty minutes of travel and idle chatting, Amber stopped the carriage in the market district and pointed at what was to be my workshop and new home.

"Isn't this a bit too much?"

The shop only had two floors, but it was unexpectedly large. The outside was about twenty paces wide and about thirty paces deep. It also stood out for being the only building in the area that made use of wood, bricks, and glass in its construction. Such a structure seemed lavishly out of place.

"Orcs and goblins have very high strength but lack dexterity, so they can only work with sturdy rough building materials like stone or marble."

"That explains why I only saw stone houses in this town. But this house isn't made with stone or marble, though. Did the orcs and goblins mutate or something?"

"Commander Mavuto had the minor devils in his army work on its construction, so it uses different materials from most homes in this town. It just goes to show how much he values an alchemist like you."

While I appreciate how important the commander considers me, I'm worried I might garner jealousy from the neighborhood just because of this preferential treatment. I should make a mental note not to walk through a dark empty alley in the middle of the night. Or perhaps I should just avoid going outside in the evening altogether. A giant orc could just easily crush me if one were to "accidentally" trip and fall on top of me.

Amber unlocked the door, then handed me a key.

"This is yours now. I'll leave the carriage here for now for you to unload your belongings. I'm going to go buy something for dinner while you take a look around."

"Alright. Thanks, Amber."

The front half of the ground floor was used as a shop space. The back of the ground floor had half the space designated as a work area, while the other half was divided into a kitchen with adjoined small dining room, and a storage closet.

The work area had everything I needed: pots and cauldrons of various sizes, a workbench, and several useful hand tools. There was even an anvil and magic furnace, too, so a blacksmith could even work here.

The upper floor had three small bedrooms, a study, a washroom with a small bath, and a common area. The bath was directly above the magic furnace to make heating the water be more economical, but in case the furnace was off, there was a magic heater in the bath where one could channel mana in to power it.

After taking a look at all the rooms, I went back downstairs and outside towards the carriage to retrieve my belongings.

"…"

The wardrobe and two crates were heavy, probably about twice my weight or slightly more. I can cast a physical enhancement buff on myself to double my strength, but even then, it's still too heavy for me to lift and carry.

How in the world did that girl even manage to load these onto the carriage in the first place, anyways? Compared to humans, cat-people had significantly stronger leg strength, but their arm strength was weaker. The strongest known physical buff can only quadruple one's strength at most, so the feat should still have been impossible for her. I'm inclined to think that she might be a warrior, but she was far from looking swole.

Oh well, there's no point trying to figure that out. I pried open one of the crates to search for a strength boosting potion. I doubt Amber used one of these in the first place since it would have made her pass out after a while, which would have been undesirable since she still had to guide the carriage for several hours earlier today. After finding the potion, I cast a physical enhancement buff on myself and drank it. Lifting and carrying the wardrobe and crates should be ten times easier.

Since the exhaustion incurred after the potion expires was proportional to how long I made use of the super strength boost, I planned to run and drop the two crates in the workspace, and the wardrobe in the hallway upstairs and leave it like that. I could unpack and shove them in the right spots after the potion wears out since that wouldn't require too much strength.

In the end, I overestimated my strength. As an archmage, it was understandable for me to have a relatively low strength stat, but this was really just embarrassing. With both my self-buff and the strength boosting potion, the wardrobe and crates should only have felt as heavy as a five year old kid, yet I was struggling to move faster than one step every three seconds.

It took far longer than I expected to carry those three items from the carriage. Given the amount of time I made use of the potion's effects, I think I should be suffering extreme fatigue for about two to three hours.

The potion effect wore out shortly after I finished carrying everything, and I felt a strong jolt as if a strong electric current was running through my body. Then my entire body ached so badly that I could not keep myself standing, and I dropped to the ground immediately.

Amber came back after twenty minutes to find me lying flat on the floor with my head turned slightly to the side.

"...I'll just leave your dinner on the counter. See you in the morning."

She walked out as quickly as when she came in. I was going to ask her to at least help me sit up, but she had already left before I mustered the strength to open my mouth. At least she turned me face-up earlier, when she was checking to make sure I wasn't dead.

Oh well, I guess I'll just count the number of dark spots on the wooden ceiling while waiting to recover… But there weren't any spots like that. Damn it, whoever designed this house paid too much attention to details. I had already passed out for eight hours earlier today, so I couldn't even force myself to take a nap to pass the time, either.

Since I couldn't get myself to the light switch to channel mana in, the lights went out fifteen minutes later, leaving me in darkness. I could only vaguely see the outline of the shelves next to me because of the moonlight coming in from the window. I think Amber locked the door on her way out, but I really hope nobody looks through the window and think that they were looking at the scene of a locked room murder.

As I hummed to pass the time, there was a slight tickling sensation on my arm. I slowly turned my neck towards where it tickled to find what looked like a spider crawling on my arm. Before I could gather the strength to try to move my arm enough to shake it off, I felt another tickling sensation on my face. Looks like the spider had a friend.

The second spider unexpectedly crawled into my mouth, and probably by sheer stupidity drowned in my saliva and lied dead on my tongue. In a panic after tasting something unappealing, my body reacted by immediately sitting up to spit the spider out.

Unfortunately, as my body hadn't recovered at all since the potion wore out, the muscle strain from unexpectedly sitting up proved to be too much to handle, making me pass out. Well, I suppose the spider encounter was a good thing, then.

I regained consciousness about two hours later, and my muscles had completely recovered by then, so I was able to get up and turn the lights back on. I found that Amber had left me a very long sandwich on the counter, which I promptly heated up and ate. I spent the rest of the night unloading and moving my items around afterwards.

The three bedrooms upstairs were identical when I took a look earlier, so I picked the one closest to the stairs, put a name label on the door, then headed to bed. It feels rather nice to finally have a comfortable bed of my own.

And thus my otherwise uneventful first night in the Demon King territory came to an end.