One month in. At last, the treasure mountain—more precisely, the mountain buried in coins so that nothing inside was visible—had shrunk to 1/2 its size. What an absurd mountain of treasure, to lose half its bulk just from removing the gold and silver bars, jewels, and gold and silver coins. I piled the extracted treasure well away from the original mountain.
I could've cleared all of it into a storeroom, but since I planned to sort everything before putting it away, it occupied one side of my lair. The gold and silver bars were stacked neatly, with a heap of gold coins and a heap of silver coins beside them, and a mountain of jewels beside those.
Come to think of it, where are the Personality Stones I made? Surely they aren't mixed in with those jewels? Oh, forget it. I'll look for them at leisure later. Time to pull out the bookcases, assorted furniture, and boxes.
First, I carefully began separating the bookcases. Doing this reminded me of the old days, when we'd turn a container of Korean-chess pieces upside down on the board with a smack! Then we'd pick the pieces apart without letting any fall. I used to do that endlessly with my friends as a child.
Apart from the absurdly huge size of the chess pieces, and all the small things inside them, there wasn't much to it now.—Though that meant over 100,000 books. Each bookcase had 6 shelves, and assuming each shelf held 50 ordinary novels, that made 300 books per bookcase, or 333 bookcases in total. Three hundred and thirty-three. It sounds easy enough to say, but try looking at them! It's practically a library!
I could've used spirits, but bookcases this big were beyond their powers. The weight wasn't an issue, but the size was. I used a spell called Telekinesis to lift 3 bookcases at a time and place them far, far away from the treasures I'd sorted earlier.
Moving bookcases was easier. Separating coins with Telekinesis had been so infuriating. Scraping the little things off the surface was fine, but you have no idea how irritating it was to find coins that had slipped between bookcases and furniture, then pull them up with Telekinesis too.
It wasn't tiring or anything. But the work was so boring and exasperating that I finally gave up on telekinesis and gathered the coins by hand, one at a time. That was easier on my mind.
Standing still, doing nothing but sorting them out...... Argh, my head's splitting.
But moving the bookcases was better, at least. Three at a time, just 111 trips, wouldn't that do it? It took a minute to move one batch, so even a generous estimate left only 2 hours. This was easier. Much easier.
I'd finished arranging the bookcases full of 100,000 books, all new releases I hadn't read, which had first made me scream with joy, then made me scream again when it came time to sort them.
What remained were all sorts of exquisitely crafted ornaments—jewels and gold came as standard—over 300 empty boxes I'd specially requested and enchanted against breakage—closer to chests, really—a few clothes—hundreds of outfits had just been demoted to a few—and a little furniture to put them in—dozens of pieces of furniture had been demoted to a little.
There were also mountains of ingredients that looked sufficient to feed a village of 500 for a week, kitchenware to cook them, some cleaning tools, and a double bed, said to be science rather than furniture—it might not be an A*e bed, but beds are science. Forget double. Even triple wouldn't describe its size—among other things...... Everything needed for daily life, the so-called odds and ends.
I suppose over 100 weapons and suits of armor count as household necessities too, if you need them. The ingredients were enchanted with absolute preservation, making them the ultimate ingredients that would quite literally never rot or spoil.
Whooooo! My chef's soul is ablaze!
Having finished a rough sort, I spent a moment feeling miserable that this rough sort had required 2 long months, then grinned at my possessions, so numerous that sorting them had taken 2 long months.
It had taken a while, but these were my possessions. Mine. Back when I was human, I'd thought I wouldn't get my hands on over 100 million won even if I died and came back to life. Then I died, came back to life, and could get my hands on dozens of times that.
To place the sorted treasures in suitable locations, I began inspecting the caves that I assumed—no, was certain—the old dragon had hollowed out. My lair looked about 600 meters in diameter. Along one half of its circumference was a row of caves that looked suitable for storerooms. On the other half was a passage approximately 4 meters high and 2.5 meters wide. Apparently, this led outside, but was constructed so that the passage couldn't be seen at all from outside.
I keep saying ‘......apparently.’ because I hadn't yet been outside my lair. I was only repeating what my family and relatives, who'd inspected the place beforehand, had told me. Hmm, once I've tidied up, I ought to go for a walk, shouldn't I? It's ridiculous for the rightful owner of a territory not to have looked around his own land yet. To do that, I need to finish tidying first, don't I? I need to put everything in the storerooms, don't I?
For reference, some people may think dragons love gathering all their treasure in one place inside their lair and sleeping on it, but that isn't true at all. Whether it was easy or hard to collect, why sleep on treasure you'd gathered? Because it feels good? Dragon skin is hard enough to offer more protection than armor. Could it even feel the touch of a jewel or a gold coin?
No, more to the point, if something as big as an adult dragon lay on those treasures, they'd probably lose their shape at once. The coins would flatten, the jewels would break or crack, the swords would snap...... That sort of thing was inevitable. So unless a dragon had peculiar tastes, it put all its treasure in storerooms. Then it went to the storerooms and admired it for hours with an enraptured expression. Now, shall we begin?
There were 24 caves in my lair altogether. Their entrances were spaced a little over 30 meters apart, averaging perhaps 3 meters high and 2 meters wide? That was the general size. Some entrances were a little narrow, others incredibly wide; they all varied. The sizes inside varied too, so after careful consideration, I divided the storerooms into large, medium, and small to manage my possessions, then distributed the goods among them.
To list their sizes.......
Medium, medium, large, large, large, small, small, small, medium, small, medium, medium, small, large, medium, large, large, large, small, small, small, small, medium, large.
That was roughly the order. The large rooms were caverns about 40–50 meters across, the medium ones 30–40 meters, and the small ones 20–30 meters.
That order ran from left to right as viewed from the entrance, and I put suitable quantities of things inside them.
The list went roughly as follows.
Weapons, armor, magical items, library 1, library 2, library 3, jewels 1, jewels 2, treasure 2, treasure 2, clothes 1, clothes 2, magical clothes, kitchen 1, kitchen 2, bathroom 1, bathroom 2, miscellaneous storage, guest rooms 1–5, my room.
First, since there weren't all that many weapons and suits of armor I'd made or received, they went into 2 medium rooms in turn. I assigned a large room to magical items, allowing for the many more I'd make in future.
For the libraries, I squared off the surrounding walls and put the books inside. I'd made the actual rooms larger than their original size, and arranged books along the walls on a second-story balcony, minimizing what would've otherwise required another storeroom. With 40,000 books in the first library, 40,000 in the second, and 20,000 in the last, I'd rather forcibly crammed in 100,000 books. If more books arrived, I might have to create another storeroom for them.
For the jewel storerooms, I neither had nor needed all that many jewels, so I sorted them into chests by type and filled 2 small storerooms. For the treasure storerooms, I put only gold coins, gold bars, and silver bars in the first, and silver coins and assorted ornaments in the second, which fitted perfectly.
I only needed one clothes storeroom, but greed made me prepare another. With magic, even a dress with all sorts of extra features—4 layers of frills, for example, or invisible stitching—could be whipped up in 10 minutes at most. I'd have more clothes in future.
I wasn't particularly greedy for clothes. I just wanted to recreate life where I'd lived as closely as possible. The magical-clothes storeroom held garments that could be called artifacts, ones that never burned, let their wearer fly, turned their wearer invisible, and so on. They should've gone in the magical-item storeroom, but somehow I wanted to give clothes special treatment. Above all, they were a different category.
Next, the kitchens. An enormous kitchen and a slightly smaller kitchen. There was really no reason to make them so large. It wasn't as if I'd be throwing parties here. Even so, the enormous quantity of ingredients had made the kitchens that big. Once I used 3/4 of the large and medium storerooms for ingredients, the actual kitchens weren't so large.
I liked big bathrooms, and as I went along, I found I'd somehow made 2 of them. Even I didn't know why I'd done that. Surely they weren't a men's bath and a women's bath? In this lair where I lived alone?
Anyway, the place felt rather mysterious, but I thought the interior had turned out quite well for something I'd done myself. With that much space, I could cool the water and use it as a swimming pool too, so I suppose it was fine.
The miscellaneous storeroom held exactly that, miscellaneous odds and ends.
As for the guest rooms, it wasn't as if I had guests coming to stay, but once I'd finished everything through the miscellaneous storeroom, I had 5 storerooms left, apart from the room at the far end I'd reserved for myself. So I squared off all those rooms and added doors to give them the feel of guest rooms, then arranged furniture inside like real guest rooms. I liked the results quite a bit.
Each guest room basically had a double bed, an empty bookcase, a wardrobe, a table and 4 chairs, and a private shower and toilet, making it just like a well-proportioned suite. On every room apart from my own, I cast Cycling Preservation(Cycling preservation), a circulating preservation spell that prevented even dust from accumulating until the door was opened.
For fun, I decorated the medium guest room like a VIP suite. A more ornate bed, a private bath rather than a shower, and a slightly larger toilet. For tables, I added a long dining table for 6, plus 2 four-person sofas where 8 people could sit and chat, and a sofa table.
Hmm, now that I've decorated it, isn't it almost too nice?
And I decorated my own room like an emperor's chamber. First, an enormous bed that looked twice the size of a double bed. I even hung lace above it to emphasize the splendor. The bed was made of a white Magic Air Cushion(Magic Air Cushion), magically filled with air so that even pressing it with a finger made it sink deeply. Every pillow was stuffed with the finest feathers. There was also a row of windows magically projecting images of the outside—something no other room had—with white-silk curtains.
On the ceiling, a glittering silver chandelier(Chandelier) made up of countless Continual Lights(Continual Light) shone brightly. I'd filled 2 bookcases with books brought from Mom's lair and stood them side by side.
Beside the bed stood a round table and 8 chairs. Across the table, as viewed from the bed, was a fireplace. Above it hung the 3 Ego Swords I'd made, crossed over one another.
To the left of the fireplace was the door to an ultra-luxurious toilet—a specially made flush toilet. Every toilet in my lair flushed, with absolutely no smell. What a revolutionary technology! All thanks to magic!—and to the right was a Teleport magic circle connected to the large bathroom. There was a magic circle in the large bathroom leading back here too, so getting back and forth was no trouble.
Turning my gaze again, beside the bookcases was a liquor shelf stocked with fine drinks. A few bottles had been made the day I was born, giving them an aroma and flavor beyond anything in the human world. I might be spending some time steeped in drink.