Nora entered her house and was immediately astonished. What she saw was a nicely furnished home. The inside was a sort of simple den, painted in neutral colors. It had the basics: a couch, some armchairs, and a fireplace. Nora also noticed a hall with doors on the side.
She figured that the one at the end of the hall was probably her actual house, but she was curious what the other rooms were. Inside the first, she noticed a nicely furnished half bathroom.
There was a sink and a toilet, but no shower or bath. The next door was a small utility closet, furnished with what looked like a broom, a mop, some cloths, and a couple of jars of unknown liquid that Nora assumed was some sort of cleaner. The final door on the sides of the hall was a small guest bedroom, it was furnished modestly, like the rest of this small apartment, with a. Twin bed and nightstand, as well as a comfy chair, a desk, and some wall art of different birds in heroic poses.
Nora felt that even if she didn't have another house at the end of the hall, this was more than enough for her. She cautiously approached the door at the end of the hall, and she opened up and was immediately stupefied.
She was presented with a mansion-like entrance, and there were two separate staircases in the entrance that led up to the second floor. The staircases were linked with expensive-looking carved wooden railings, and the steps had a red velvet carpet that led up.
Looking straight forward, she noticed that there was a huge glass door that looked like it led to a courtyard, with more behind it. Just while standing there, Nora noticed that the entire second floor wrapped around this courtyard and had a view of the courtyard all the way around.
Nora spent the next couple of hours simply exploring the mansion of a house that she was given, feeling giddy as she examined each room with great detail.
The kitchen was stunning, it had large marble countertops and every appliance imaginable, the kitchen and the dining room were connected, separated not by an island that spanned across the center of the room.
There was a large wooden table placed in the center of the dining room, a chandelier hung elegantly above it, and small balls of light illuminated the space perfectly. Nora could sense faint magic coming from the balls of light, but she couldn't quite place it.
The entire eating area was decorated lavishly, and Nora almost felt bad standing in it, like she was simply ditching the place by being there. On the other side of the double staircase was a nice-looking living room, large, very comfortable couches were sprawled around, and bookshelves decorated with books Nora couldn't read lined the walls.
Nora decided to sit on one of the couches and instantly melted into it, unwilling to move for at least 30 minutes. When she finally got the motivation, she decided to check out the courtyard area. Stepping outside, she was met with a pleasant, warm breeze and the smell of unfamiliar plants.
She wandered through carefully, taking the time to inspect each of the plants. Most were normal flowers that she could kind of recognize from her past life, but some were entirely new; none of them had any special characteristics other than calming the creatures that were in their presence.
Nora was curious about the pocket dimension that she was stationed in. From what she could tell, all that was here was her house. Looking up, she could see a pale blue sky, like she would see in the real world; this one felt artificial, though.
Shaking her head, Nora continued to look around the courtyard.
The door on the left side of the courtyard just led to an empty room, and so did one of the doors on the right. The other two doors on the right were conveniently labeled training 2: combat training and training 3:custom.
'Wait, shouldn't there be another combat training door around here somewhere?' Nora looked around. There were only 5 doors in the courtyard, and she had explored 4 of them already. Approaching the 5th door, Nora noticed that it seemed to lead to a hallway.
Entering the hallway, Nora was met with more doors.
' This place is massive, holy hell...' Nora decided to spend less time exploring these rooms, discovering that all of them were guest rooms, each lavishly decorated with their own theme.
In total, on the first floor, she had 7 guest rooms, 2 empty rooms, a living room, a kitchen and dining room, 2 training rooms, and a courtyard.
Nora headed back to the double staircase and began exploring the second floor.
The first room that she entered seemed to be yet another guest room, though she couldn't be too sure since it looked especially fancy; for all she knew, it could be the master bedroom, it did have a rather nice bathroom attached to it.
Before she claimed any of the rooms as her own, she decided to finish exploring the house first.
The next room she found was a surveillance room. Unlike all the other rooms she had encountered so far, this one was unlabeled. She entered the room to find a rather cramped space, with small, robust screens that showed different areas around the house.
The surveillance room especially piqued her interest, as all the technology she had seen so far was indicative of some sort of medieval world, and yet here was something that looked like modern electronics. Looking closer, she could see that the screens seemed to emit a faint sign of mana.
It seemed that every day that Nora spent here, she got better at sensing the mana in this world, although all the time that she spent in the trials seemed to have stunted her progress a little bit.
Nora headed out of the surveillance room absentmindedly, still preoccupied with the camera mechanisms that she had just discovered. She was so distracted that she had almost completely walked past the next door.
The room that she almost passed was labeled 'Spa'. Upon seeing this, Nora's eyes almost bugged out of her head. Sure, this place was luxurious, but a spa too?? She almost couldn't believe it.
'Just how rich is the bird clan?' she pondered, heading into the spa room.
The spa was decorated sparsely, with tasteful decorations placed around in spots that made sense. Inside, she was greeted with the quiet sounds of wind chimes and a faint scent of eucalyptus. Unconsciously, Nora's shoulders relaxed and she began to breathe deeply, feeling a sense of calm wash over her. Apart from the main area, there appeared to be several other rooms, each of them were a typical room you would find in a spa.
One of the rooms contained several small pools, steam quietly rising from each of them, and the smell of eucalyptus was stronger in here. Another had a massage bed placed in the middle, a small space for rocks to heat up off to the side, and a candle slowly flickering. The final two rooms appeared to be a sauna and a steam room. Nora had already seen these in her past life, so she didn't dwell too much on them.
Once she had looked through all the rooms in the spa, she reluctantly left to continue her exploration. The next room that she found was a library. It would have been very impressive, something out of a fantasy book; however, since Nora had spent so much time in the infinite library, it wasn't anything special. She quickly looked around, absentmindedly flipped through some books, and left quickly, bored.
The final room was the master bedroom, decorated exactly to Nora's tastes. It was lavish; still, however, everything in it was suited to Nora. The bed was a deep purple, with accents of black and gold. There was also a large bathroom off to the side, complete with a rain shower and a large bathtub. Once again, everything in here was suited to her tastes; each of the soaps only had a slight aroma to accommodate her new, stronger sense of smell.
Finally, Nora had completed the house tour, the sky had turned dark, and she felt the weight of exhaustion fall over her. Scanning the bedroom, she found a small closet in the corner. Inside were a few pairs of different outfits, including a pair of what looked like pajamas. Nora changed without hesitation and then flopped down onto her new bed, completely overwhelmed by all the events of today. Sleep took her quickly, and she was snoring within moments.
Her dreams consisted of nothing, she had a blissful first night in her new house, completely content and surprisingly at ease in this new place.