"Good morning!"

The unusually cheerful Amber greeted me from the door first thing in the morning.

"What the hell…"

It was nice to see her smiling face, but the problem was that it was currently four o'clock and the door she was standing by was my bedroom door.

"Sorry for waking you up so early, but commander Mavuto has to head for the battlefield soon, so this was the only time we could come over. He's currently waiting for you downstairs... Eek!"

I hurriedly got out of bed to put on some clothes. Amber probably hadn't expected that I'd be wearing nothing but underpants and shrieked at the sight before going downstairs.

It was too late to cover myself, so I just ignored her and continued what I was doing, then ran downstairs.

The commander was wearing a full suit of lustrous armor like yesterday, and carried a large sword that was almost as tall as him. Standing next to him was a giant whose heavy metal armor covered the person from head to toe, while Amber was fiddling with some of the potion bottles on the shelves. Judging by the stature of the giant, I'd guess that it was an ogre under all that armor.

"Good morning, Blaze. There was something I forgot to tell you yesterday, which is why I'm here now. Please excuse me for coming over at such an early hour."

"It's fine. I should really thank you right now for giving me such a nice home and shop."

I can't let myself show displeasure towards the person that was essentially my employer, especially when he just gave me a large house without charging any rent.

"This is one of my supply officers. It's a bit embarrassing to say this, but I don't know his name…"

"..."

"He's a zombie ogre, so his vocal chords are severely damaged, and he's not dextrous enough to write legibly, which is why nobody has been able to figure out his name for the past few decades…"

That just really makes me wonder how he was addressed and treated over the past few decades. Did people just call him "giant ogre zombie" and figure it out on their own or something? Did he even want to work in the army in the first place?

"Putting that matter aside, if you recall that list of from yesterday, I'd like you to craft all the items written on it every day unless otherwise noted. Starting tomorrow, this supply officer will come by every day at ten o'clock to pick the items up and drop off your payment."

"That sounds doable."

"Also, please take this since you might need some extra supplies for item crafting."

The commander took out a small stack of colored paper sheets and gave it to me.

"I'm sorry for asking, but what is this?"

"Ah, I almost forgot that you used metal currency on the other side of the border. By order of the king, we switched to using paper currency here about fifty years ago. It took us a while to get used to the switch, but the convenience of having a significantly lighter load on the battlefield was amazing. In terms of purchasing power, one small copper coin from where you came from is equivalent to ten units of our currency, the doviti."

No matter how I looked at the money, it looked like some child randomly scribbled on some colored paper, though. Was this a prank?

Perhaps having noticed my confused look, Amber giggled and explained the scribbles to me.

"The writing on most signage and currency used here is in the Demon language alphabet. Our king has been trying to spread it recently, but because of the difficulty of learning it, we have to start with introducing the writing system and basic words first while the scholars figure out the best course of education for everyone. Unfortunately, most of the kingdom's efforts are dedicated to the war, so their research is a bit slow..."

If trying to spread a new language was really that difficult, then I truly am impressed that the ancestors of this world managed to get every single race to speak the common language we were currently using.

"Could you tell me how much each of these doviti notes are worth, then?"

"Of course!"

There were nine different denominations of the currency: 1, 10, 50, 200, 1000, 5000, 20000, 100000, and 1000000; which meant the largest and second smallest denominations were equivalent to a large gold coin and a small copper coin, respectively. The smallest and largest denominations were colored white and black, while the remaining seven were colored red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. I couldn't tell if it was intentional or not, but these were the seven colors of a rainbow. It's probably best if I didn't inquire about it…

If I was still on the other side of the border, then the total sales price of what the commander requested would have been 1 small gold coin and 3 large silver coins, which was equivalent to 130000 doviti. When I counted the stack I was given, it added up to 182500.

"This is half of your daily payment. The supply officer will pay you the remaining half tomorrow. I'm not too familiar with market prices, so this is only an estimate. Please do let me know if there's a problem with it."

While I'd love to add "ripped off a devil" to my list of achievements in life, I'd rather not run the risk of getting the commander and his followers to turn against me in the future.

"You're actually overpaying by a lot. I would normally only charge two thirds of what you gave me just now for the whole batch."

"Is that so? Well, you can consider the extra money I gave you as a token of appreciation, then. If you're uncomfortable with receiving so much, I can lower your daily payment to about 250000, too."

"I'd feel really bad about charging triple the market price, so please do lower the payment as much as possible..."

He briefly laughed at my response. Seems like it was uncommon for people to willingly ask for a pay reduction.

To be fair, getting so much money for no reason really did make me feel uncomfortable. He was going to give me two small gold coins worth of money every day, after all. For comparison, the average daily wage for those in the working class was about half a silver coin, so two small gold coins would have been the same as a year of work.

Besides, even if the commander was willing to pay so much, the same couldn't be said for his followers. There was always the chance that some greedy individual would want to assault me for a robbery. I might have been an adventurer before, but there are far too many races whose members were naturally stronger than I was, so I wouldn't be able to fend off an assault at all.

But most importantly, there was the issue of door-to-door salesmen. I don't want to be a target of those annoying people, so it's best if my profit margin was lowered.

"Well, I'll be heading for the battlefield soon, so talk to Amber if you have any questions. She'll also be teaching you how to read the Demon language every night, so make sure you leave at least half an hour in your daily schedule free."

"I will, thank you."

Learning how to read the Demon language sure sounds useful. I probably won't understand a single thing, but I might be able to learn some new spells if I can at least read the chant. That's assuming demon spellcasters even had spell books in the first place, of course. Even if they did, there was a limit to what I could possibly learn, since I only had an affinity with fire-type spells.

Magic in this world required casters to convert mana through some unexplainable innate means into elemental spells. Basic magic that required very little conversion could be used by anyone that had good control over their mana, but intermediate and advanced magic could only be learned if one had an affinity with the elements required by it. I don't know how affinities are determined, but apparently I'm only able to use intermediate and advanced spells involving the element of fire.

Even if one had an affinity for a certain element, however, it was not guaranteed that the person could cast the spell for that magic. Some strange old people talked about the phenomena of "levels" and "skill points" before, but such ideas were disregarded since they could not offer any observable evidence. As a result, they were branded as lunatics and the mystery of what magic one could learn and use still remains unsolved.

Oh well, I'll figure out if I could learn demon magic later, if I ever get my hands on a demonic spell book.

As the commander left, the giant zombie followed along. The giant made a groaning sound and waved at me as he went out the door. Amber was the only one who stayed behind in the shop, so I turned to her to talk.

"Sorry for asking, but what job do you have in commander Mavuto's army?"

"I was an agent whose job was to gather intelligence and find an alchemist or potion maker that was willing to come work for the Demon King. Now that I've completed that task, I'm just a regular house maid. The commander has instructed me to look after you during your stay here."

"So… does that make you my personal maid, then?"

"I'm a maid for the commander's household, so no, I'm not your personal maid unless he adopts you. If anything, you can consider me a shop assistant and tour guide."

Shop assistant, huh. She does seem to have some knowledge of magic, so it might not be too difficult to teach her basic magic crafting.

"In that case, I'll teach you some basic recipes in return for you teaching me how to read the Demon language."

"That's splendid!"

She seems enthusiastic about getting to learn new things. I sure hope that she'd be a quick learner.

"But I'll do that in the afternoon, though. I'm too tired right now."

"Oh, alright."

It was a quarter past four right now. While I'd like to teach Amber some basic knowledge about magic crafting as soon as possible, I liked getting enough sleep more.

I headed back upstairs towards my bedroom, then slept for a few more hours.