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Chapter 293: Transformation

My hideout had teleportation prevention installations. That was only natural — I had enough treasures there to throw the kingdoms off-balance.

Incidentally, I had a passerby magician help me with setting it up, but he later committed an evil deed and I ended up putting an end to him. In other words, the existence of this place was still known to limited people.

Moreover, I had the Ogre Den live there now, so if we teleported there, we could catch him in an awkward situation which would leave a bad aftertaste.

Everyone would feel discomfort if someone suddenly popped out in their home.

As such, we instead showed up nearby the hideout. If you are curious as to why we came here and not Aste’s cave, it was because I was a little interested in how Den was doing.

I didn’t come here ever since that day. In other words, I haven’t checked how he was doing. I was curious what kind of life he was leading now.

We were in a half-buried ghost town in the thickly grown woods. Among all the grass, there was a single hardened path, similar to an animal trail.

It was probably the path Den used to take when going in and out.

“Considering the tread marks on the grass, he should have gone through here recently.”

“Which should mean he is doing okay, I suppose?”

“Well, we did ask Aste to look after him, so he shouldn’t have gotten into any trouble.”

We were having an Ogre live in a nearby garden, so to speak, so it would be weirder if he didn’t care about Den… Or that should normally be the case, but that guy probably wouldn’t care.

Setting that aside, I did want to have a talk with that good-natured Ogre, so this was a good opportunity.

Following the animal trail, I arrived at the hideout. It was the same old tattered, half-destroyed house from the outside. But looking closely, there were traces of brand new repairs.

“Hmm?”

“What is it, Reid?”

“There are traces of repairs.”

Would that Ogre really bother to repair the roof and walls when he used to keep all that raw garbage in his own den?

He prided to have a healthy enough body to not catch illnesses or cold, after all. He shouldn’t have cared about some roof leaks.

“Did someone else start living here?”

“This is Sir Aste’s territory. That just cannot be.”

“Then what are those repairs for? Surely Den doesn’t need them.”

“That is true…”

At any rate, we wouldn’t know what was going on inside just by looking at the outside. I was a little doubtful, so vigilantly opened the door—which used to be a window, by the way—and entered in,

“Crimson one, Ultramarine one, Gold two—Light.”

Maxwell promptly created the light source and secured our vision. Gold two, in other words, two hours duration. Seeing the illuminated indoor state made me drop my jaw.

“What… Is this…”

Everything was in perfect order, and there was even wallpaper put on the walls. There was even a mat laid at the entrance here so you could get the dirt off your feet.

The walls were even decorated with flowers, and the place was cleaned with not a fragment of dust seen anywhere — It was a far more pleasant sight than Maxwell’s mansion.

“Is this… Sir Aste’s doing?”

“No, that curt guy wouldn’t have gone out of his way to reform the place for an Ogre, would he?”

“Quite so indeed.”

Den was timid and had intellect, but he was still an Ogre. He wouldn’t die even if you threw him out in the wild. The only things that could cause his death here would be if he incurred Aste’s wrath, or if he failed to obtain food and starved to death.

We opened the door and headed down the stairs. The floor used to be so rotten you had to tread carefully lest you’d risk stepping on the nails, but now, it seemed to have been perfectly remade.

The foothold was so firm it didn’t even raise creaks. It was one thing for a light person like myself, but it was the same for Maxwell too.

“There really is remodeling going on here.”

“Did Den do all this?”

“I simply cannot believe that. Mutated he may be, he is still an Ogre.”

“Right.”

This was ridiculous. Despite our thoughts, our doubt couldn’t be cleared. After all, only Aste or Den would come to this place.

And judging by Aste’s personality, fixing the living environment for an Ogre was—perhaps possible given his whimsical nature, but—really hard to imagine.

Then, just as we arrived on the lower floor, someone directed a murderous attack at us. It was a heavy blow.

However, I sensed it and easily avoided it. Rather, it stopped before I was about to do that. I was also about to counterattack with my dagger—but similarly stopped in place.

“Wait, huh, Den… Or are you?”

There stood a three-meter-tall giant in proper butler clothes. But I knew that face. It was quite a bit refined, but it was still unmistakably Den’s.

“My apologies. I failed to realize it was you M’lady Nicole. I assumed it was a trespasser.”

He lowered his first and made an elegant—practically on the level of a royal butler—bow. It was an Ogre who knew my name and also addressed me with an honorific. I only knew of Den that fit the description.

“What in the world happened to you…?”

Looking closely, he had disposed of the unwanted hair on his face, and it looked really clean, probably from washing it every day.

It was unmistakably Den, one was giving of a sense of cleanliness even more than Cloud.