Rise Of The Hoarder

The woman gave me a disbelieving gasp and shook her head in disagreement. Her expression told me she would rather die than spend another minute here. The moment I gave her a serious look in an attempt to ask if she truly meant it, her expression dissolved instantly.

Well, I could tell she was still very uncomfortable about the whole thing—frankly speaking, I was too.

But…

“I suppose we could use a makeover.”

It was at times like this, not just in combat, that I loved my Gift’s abilities the most!

My eyes scoured the room, making sure I spotted every single nuisance in an instant—none of which were deemed to be ‘living things’ by the System.

In the blink of an eye, they all vanished! From the deep musk that wafted in the air, to the piles of garbage and unspeakably unhygienic substances littered about—everything disappeared.

“Tadah! Now, this is much better!” I beamed, now looking at the extremely clean room! Thanks to my attention to detail, there was practically no single piece of dirt in sight and the horrid smell was gone.

“A-amazing… your Gift never ceases to surprise me, Jeremy,” Lara whispered in awe, though I could tell she was trying her hardest to suppress it.

“<Summon>”_.

Bringing out of some miscellaneous items, a few of many I hardly considered using, I stationed some air fresheners across the room.

Though the pungent odor had vanished, I preferred a place smelling nice than merely being stale.

“Open the windows.” My command rang.

Lara, not forgetting her place, nodded and obeyed, moving to the sides of the room where the slides were, turning them to allow proper ventilation.

>WHUUUSSHH<

Fresh air invaded the room and I felt refreshed by the cool breeze. It was certainly better now.

Looking at the bare ground, I brought out a pair of mattresses for both myself and Lara. I had quite a few of them to spare, after all.

“Make yourself comfortable. It’s time to eat too…”

Lara didn’t hesitate to appreciate my kindness and took her seat. Her eyes were on me, as though finding all my actions to be absurd.

“You think I’m weird, don’t you?” I smiled.

It seemed my question caught her off guard as she sharply reacted to it.

“W-well, I’ve always considered you to be strange, but you’ve been acting awfully…”

“Nice?” I made an attempt to complete her words.

“… Different.”

Her unsure eyes scanned me, as though considering whether or not to say any more.

“I understand, Lara. Maybe I have grown soft… who knows? Are you disappointed?”

The woman’s hesitation began to vanish a little.

“Only by a bit…”

My smile broadened.

“Well, why don’t we confirm that tomorrow. I wonder if you’ll feel that way after then.”

Lara’s expression changed once again, now showing curiosity and slight fear. Perhaps it was due to the smile and aura I was giving off… the psychiatrist must have deduced that something was going to happen then.

“What do you want to do?”

“Oh? It’s nothing really important, don’t worry yourself about it…” I shrugged.

“You’ll see when tomorrow comes. For now, though, let’s eat!”

I could still feel Lara’s watchful gaze on me, but chose to ignore it. Tomorrow was simply for a bit of entertainment, after all. I wondered what kind of impression she would have of me after that, though.

With our conversation concluded, I proceeded to summon our meal for the day.

*************************

As usual, I watched Lara sleep for some hours, and after that, I ‘recalled’ her and got some shuteye myself.

My level of alertness was very high, and just inc case any danger would approach, I summoned my <Invisible Barrier>’s properties which I had stored earlier.

Since the barrier was now an item within [Subspace] and no longer functioned as a Skill, it had no timeout, so I could maintain it as long as possible.

‘It was merely distorted air, after all.

Once morning came, I made my way downstairs and summoned Lara too.

“We should have a clean bath… I should also brush my teeth. I haven’t done that in a while.”

Thanks to Level Ups, our bodies were basically rid of toxins and became fully healed. That went for our skin and teeth too. They became clean. For Lara and I, who killed and Leveled Up just yesterday, we were most certainly not ‘dirty’, but I still longed for the refreshing downpour of water.

I glanced at Lara, who also seemed to agree with the plan. We made our way to the toilet, but, just like everywhere else in the building, the facilities were dirty as well.

I had to use up Slots in [Subspace] to clean up the murk, and it was absolutely repulsive. However, as soon I was done, the place sparkled once again, returning my desire to bathe.

“So, how do we do this…?”

It was the women’s toilet, one I chose since it was generally believed that they were cleaner than the men’s. Unfortunately, both lavatories were in the same state. Considering the scavengers only had men in their group, it made perfect sense.

With both of us alone in the toilet, we could decide to bathe in the toilet stalls, but there was very little room in each stall. No one would feel very comfortable while bathing there.

The general toilet area that also had the washer, dryer, and mirrors located had a bigger space, but there was no demarcation.

‘Urgh!’

As much as I would love to help myself to the sight of Lara’s body, I also wanted to enjoy my bath without having to feel embarrassed by her looking at my… ‘equipment’

‘It’s not very big, but it’s not tiny either… shit…’

Weighing my options, I decided to give up on any perverted ideas since they would adversely affect Lara’s image of me… and the little warrior hidden between my legs.

Once I concluded on that, an idea naturally appeared in my mind. All that we really needed was for me to make our own demarcation.