POV Miria
I was resting peacefully after those last wishes, taking some time to just relax. However, after playing the piano for a bit, I began to hear those voices echoing in my mind once again:
"Please, tell us if ##### ##### is worthy of wielding the element of fire."
It seems the calling has returned. As always, I just say yes. After all, I am not actually a deity or a powerful spirit brimming with ancient wisdom. To be honest, I don't even know if I hear these voices because I am a goddess or a powerful elemental spirit, though everything points to me belonging to fire. This information wasn't in the books inside the lamp. In fact, I noticed that every single book here has the exact same handwriting. It seems the person who wrote them did it out of pure boredom, especially the romance novels. That would explain why the clothes I create persist and function perfectly as brand-new items. But seriously, couldn't the original owner of this body have put a little more useful knowledge into these books?
And how do I know it was the original owner of this body who wrote them? My muscle memory when holding a quill slightly remembers the stroke of those texts. Over time, there is no difference at all in the handwriting, especially after spending so much time here. But man, she had great taste in writing romance stories! I also ended up writing a few stories just for fun, and I learned to avoid spelling mistakes by remembering my English classes. Well, at least thanks to my enhanced memory, I have never misspelled a single word.
The days passed inside the lamp without much difference. I learned to love this solitude; so many years isolated made me enjoy the quiet, although I still prefer freedom. Sometimes it's good to have time to yourself. My daily routine boils down to answering the voices. My God, these voices won't stop! Well, I know that's normal, but it feels like the frequency has increased a bit lately. Is this what allows people to use magic in the outside world? The worst part is the lack of information in these books. Damn it, why didn't the former owner of this place write down more of their knowledge? Now I am completely lost.
I have a plan: if I meet someone humble whom I can truly talk to, I will suggest that I lost my memory and ask them to use a wish to restore it. And why don't I just ask them to set me free? Well, very few people would do that out of pure fear of a freed Genie's power. Think about it: if you were standing before a practically omnipotent being, wouldn't you be afraid?
After a while, I felt the lamp being rubbed. This time, although those 100 years from the longest eras hadn't passed, it took longer than the brief interval of a few days from the last time as well. I would guess the interval was somewhere in the middle, between half a month or a whole month since the mage's wishes.
As soon as I emerged from the smoke, I found myself in an extremely smelly, messy place, yet crammed with valuable things—though the treasures there were worth much more than the house itself. The appearance of the individuals around me made it clear: they were thieves.
Holding back a look of disgust, I recited my automatic monologue. That was when their wishes began, and they were the most shameless things possible. One of them asked for a mountain of money (fine, standard) and to know how to flirt perfectly. It made me incredibly sick. These were wishes driven purely by selfishness and personal whims, completely different from the young man from before, who actually seemed to deserve his wishes. These guys made wishes without the slightest consideration. I would return to the lamp, be summoned again, and more people would appear with selfish demands. I had to calm myself down multiple times to keep from losing control. It was always the same thing: power, making women like them, and nonsense like that.
To make matters worse, they kept commenting among themselves about how hot I was, saying that if they wanted to, they could waste a wish to force me to like them. Lucky for me, the man who seemed to be the leader of the gang ordered everyone not to touch the Genie, otherwise I would have been in deep trouble a long time ago. It was best to just wait.
I spent a few days in this degrading routine, with them wasting wish after wish on stupid things. Until, finally, the situation changed: a cook from a restaurant ended up taking the lamp as payment for the gang's debt! Even though they had nearly unlimited money from the wishes, those idiots managed to spend it incredibly fast. Seriously, they even paid for their past crimes with gold, bribed the system, and bought titles of nobility. They cleared their names and no longer had debts with the law, but because they grew arrogant and thought they were above everyone else, they left without paying the restaurant owner. This caused them to lose the lamp. Lucky me! I couldn't stand granting that gang's stupid wishes anymore.
POV Leader of the Elite Thieves
After meticulously planning the heist of the king's treasures, we decided to proceed with the break-in. Thanks to the fact that I possess an affinity for all elements due to my massive potential, it was extremely easy to put the royal guards to sleep. We made our way to the main vault and used a stolen magic tool to breach the entrance. We utilized a high-capacity storage bag to plunder as many goods as possible.
Amidst the riches, we found a section filled with magic lamps. Facing doubts about which one to take, I used appraisal magic—an advanced light-element spell—to check which artifacts were corrupted and which were intact. To my surprise, almost all of them were corrupted. It seems the lamps that had been stored there for a long time and the ones that were already damaged ended up influencing each other. The concentrated mana around the royal vault acted as a conductor, spreading the corruption from one artifact to another. It was a combination of many factors.
I found the only lamp that still worked perfectly, grabbed it, and retreated along with those idiots from my gang. I already knew they would probably use the Genie's wishes for the stupidest things possible. I would have to watch them and remind them of the rules every single second.