“This must be the place.”
I arrived at the building listed on the request sheet, a somewhat large house about ten minutes on foot from the Adventurers’ Guild. The plants in the garden had grown wild.
There was a doorbell, so I pressed it and waited for the client to come out.
“Yes? Who is it?”
A young woman appeared. She wore a black robe, and although its hood concealed her hair, what I could see looked unkempt.
“My name is Erik. The Adventurers’ Guild sent me to help with your housework.”
“The domestic-help request? Wow, someone actually accepted it! Thank you for coming!”
She’d looked wary when she first peered through the door, but once I explained who I was and why I’d come, she welcomed me inside.
Her name was Marina, and she told me she was an alchemist.
“When I become absorbed in my research, I tend to neglect the house. I ask adventurers to help every time it happens, but hardly anyone accepts…”
“Most adventurers want to go on adventures. For me, this was a welcome request because I could earn money safely inside the city.”
“So you’re a novice adventurer. I have quite a lot of clutter. Will that be all right?”
“It will. I may not look it, but I often helped with housework in the village, so I’m good at cleaning. If you tell me beforehand what I mustn’t touch, I’ll leave it alone.”
There hadn’t been many ways to earn money in the village. My family treated me as though I didn’t exist and wouldn’t even let me help with the family business. As a result, I’d earned money by helping with chores in other homes.
Cleaning jobs paid particularly well. Houses grew dirty before people noticed, especially those belonging to single residents, so some villagers hired me regularly.
Looking back, perhaps they sometimes let the dirt accumulate for my sake.
“Please don’t touch anything in that room or the items over here. I barely use the second floor, so it doesn’t matter whether you clean it.”
“Understood. I’ll begin now. If I have any questions, I’ll come find you, so you can continue your work.”
“All right. I’ll be working in there, so ask if there’s anything you don’t understand.”
Marina went into her workroom, and I immediately got to work.
“Phew… It’s been a long time since I washed so many dishes.”
An hour after beginning the job, I’d already gathered the large piles of rubbish from the living room into bags and started on the dishes.
Marina lived alone, yet owned enough dishes for more than ten people. She probably had so many because she found washing them troublesome and wanted clean replacements available.
“The more dishes you own, the more you let them pile up. It’s best to keep only what you actually use.”
Thinking that, I scrubbed the dishes, then cleaned the sink and surrounding area. Dirt had accumulated because the dishes had sat there for so long, but I removed it with the cleaning agents Marina provided.
As an alchemist, Marina made detergents and similar products herself. She might not have been able to clean, but she possessed plenty of tools and had given me permission to use them. I took full advantage of them and continued working.
“Marina, do you have a moment?”
“Of course. Is something wrong?”
“No, I’ve finished cleaning and came to report it.”
“Y-You’re finished already?”
Three hours after I began, I told Marina the work was complete. She rushed out of her workroom, then froze when she saw the transformed house.
“I cleaned the living room and the areas around the water fixtures. You said the second floor was rarely used, but it was dusty, so I cleaned that while I was at it.”
“The second floor too?”
“Yes. You also said everything growing in the garden was a weed, so I cleared that out as well.”
Marina hurried outside to look.
“It’s clean! That completely overgrown garden is clean!”
“Once the weeds were gone, I saw how spacious it was. You could plant something there. I also found some flowerpots lying at the edge of the garden, so I washed them and left them to dry.”
“Those are the pots I bought when I first moved here because I wanted a small garden! I wondered where they’d disappeared to. They were hidden in all that growth…”
When Marina finished inspecting everything, she returned indoors at a slow pace, as if being surprised so many times had exhausted her.
“Erik, who exactly are you? Did you use magic to clean all this in such a short time?”
“No, I can’t use magic. I’m simply accustomed to cleaning, so I worked steadily.”
“And that was enough to finish so quickly…?”
Marina looked overwhelmed, but she signed the completion report.
“And here, this is an additional reward. Your work was excellent, so please let me pay you more.”
“Are you sure? Thank you very much!”
She gave me two additional silver coins.
I bowed in gratitude and left her house. Making someone happy through my own efforts felt wonderful.
In high spirits, I made my way back to the guild to submit my report.
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