After playing around with Sophia on the bed for a while, the satisfied Kars finally walks out of his bedroom in a black silk sleeping robe with gold embroidery, and an equally satisfied Sophia, who is dressed in a purple lace nightgown, follows behind him closely like his shadow as she walks quite awkwardly.
The two of them walk through the minimally decorated marble hallway of the second floor with familiarity as they head to the bathroom on the first floor while the sun is now leaving the horizon behind, shining its light through the large windows of the mansion and painting their figures with golden light.
On their way, Kars sees a girl with short black hair and black eyes in a maid uniform wait dutifully by the stairs of the entrance hall. She bows as she sees them come down the stairs, her hands clasped in front of her white apron.
"Siesta," Kars called her and only acknowledged her presence with a nod as the maid straightened up. She was one of his earliest "profits" from his loan business, and now she is working as his maid in the mansion.
Originally, Siesta was just a daughter from a random middle-class family that fell on hard times as her father took a loan from Kars' Blood Fund in hope of making a comeback. But when her father passed away unexpectedly and her family did not have enough money to pay the debt back without ending up as a beggar in the slum, Siesta was forced to sacrifice herself for her family. Now she's indentured to Kars for the next thirty years in place of her father.
"Good morning, Boss and Mistress," Siesta greeted, her voice small with the faint blush on her cheeks from the unmistakable lewd sounds she heard earlier from upstairs as she continued to speak. "The bath is already prepared, and the breakfast is ready to serve in the dining room..."
"That's great, thanks, and you go tell the others to prepare the carriage. Today I'll go inspect the Kolosseum construction site after breakfast." Kars smirked at the blushing maid before he gave her an order as he strode past her with Sophia trailing behind him.
"Please prepare for our usual outfits as well." Sophia turned to speak with Siesta when she passed her by as she smiled at the girl, whom she felt a sense of sympathy with for their similar circumstance of being sold out by their family.
"Yes, Boss, Mistress!" Siesta then bowed again behind the two before she hurried off to relay the orders and prepare the clothes for them after a bath.
Two hours later, after a bath and breakfast, Kars and Sophia stepped into the courtyard of his mansion, where a black carriage waited, its lacquered wood gleaming under the morning sun, but unlike a usual horse-drawn carriage, in place of horses, a group of ten former mercenaries that ended up becoming Kars' legal slaves from various circumstances snapped to attention when Kars imposingly appeared from his mansion, their faces carefully masked with a blank look as they greeted Kars with a bow.
It's common knowledge that if anyone is showing defiance, Kars will rip their soul out and put it back again, which ends up making the victim lose something such as their strength, one of their senses, their memory, or their intelligence. A terrifying punishment that makes Kars' legal slaves very obedient to him.
After the boss of the slum and his concubine were sitting down in the red cushion seat of the carriage, Sophia, in a white blouse with silver accents, adjusted her long black skirt properly beside Kars, while he, in his work outfit that he still keeps wearing to this day as his signature outfit, pulled up the fur hood over his head before the carriage started to move.
"Hey-ho!" The carriage lurched forward with the cries of ten men who hauled it toward one of the city gates with their muscles slightly strained against the reinforced leather harnesses connecting to the black carriage behind them as the carriage started out with a fast walking pace before it gradually sped up into a jogging speed and no more than that because the men wouldn't have been able to stop the speeding carriage otherwise.
And despite the slow traveling speed, Kars doesn't really mind it since he will only use a human-drawn carriage to travel around Jinkai City and its vicinity, as well as reinforce his fearsome image to the people of Jinkai so they don't think of him as just another bandit boss occupying the slum of their city.
But the real reason why Kars doesn't use animals to pull his carriage like a normal person is because Kars simply doesn't like animals and their foul stench...
With a relaxed sigh, Kars leaned back against the backrest of the seat, watching the view of poorly built houses and maze-like slum streets pass by outside the window. He watches as some stalls close as soon as his carriage approaches, children in ragged clothes scatter into alleyways to hide, and the slum people make a wide berth for his carriage to pass; it's the usual sight when Kars is out and about in public.
"..." Sophia placed her hands on Kars's thigh, her concerned gaze glancing at Kars's seemingly amused face as he looked out of the carriage window and only saw how people were quite fearful of him, so she moved closer to him before she leaned her head on his shoulder, trying to give him comfort, as Kars grunted before he moved his arm up and placed it around his concubine's shoulders, feeling her warmth against his body.
Sophia's concern for his feelings is appreciated, but Kars is not such a weakling that he is going to get his adamantium heart hurt from something like this, especially something he did willingly knowing the consequences.
÷×÷×÷×÷×÷
The black carriage rattled over the neatly arranged cobblestones as Kars and Sophia finally passed through the eastern gate of Jinkai City, where city guards in navy blue uniforms and cuirasses stiffened at the sight of Kars' golden emblem of an intimidating-looking human skull inside a swirling vortex on the carriage door before they hastily waved them through the gate as if they wanted to quickly get rid of them.
Beyond the walls of the city, the road widened into a dusty thoroughfare flanked by scaffolding and piles of quarried stone. The Kolosseum's skeletal frame loomed near the road, its curved outer walls already towering three stories high despite the construction having barely begun six months ago.
The carriage rolled to a halt near the construction site's makeshift command tent, its wheels kicking up a thin cloud of dust as the former mercs who pulled it here panted and sweated with tired faces.
Kars stepped out of the carriage first, his boots crunching gravel as he surveyed the swarm of hired laborers and his legally enslaved men hauling limestone blocks under the watchful eyes of armed overseers, which is one of the many contributions from the council members to the construction effort.
Then Sophia emerged from the carriage behind him, her black skirt brushing against the carriage door slightly while her fingers briefly brushed her silver bangs before she settled into Kars's shadow as she followed behind him and observed everything quietly like usual.
After half an hour of walking around and inspecting the construction site, Kars finally strode toward the foreman's tent with Sophia as the foreman, a bald, fat, middle-aged man, flinched at their approach before hurrying to bow his head to Kars in greeting.
"Boss! The eastern archway's foundation is laid, but the quarried stone for the upper tiers won't arrive until—" And the first thing coming out of the foreman's mouth is a status report, not some flattering words, as he tells Kars everything about the current construction progress of the Kolosseum. The foreman had already seen Kars kick too many people flying for wasting his time with their nonsense and flattery to end up repeating such foolishness.
"Anything more you lack? People, material, or coin?" Kars listens to the foreman report with half interest before he asks the man if he needs anything more for the construction of the Kolosseum, as Kars could get him those things for him pretty easily.
"A-Ah-hahaha, no, no, Boss, we have everything! You made sure of that!" The foreman quickly denied it with a furious wave of his hands, as another memory of Kars brutally ripping the previous foreman in two was still fresh in his mind, and he still can't figure out to this day where the courage of that guy is coming from for trying to lie and steal from Kars, a powerful mage that can casually rip your soul out.
That day Kars really reminded everyone that while he is seemingly very generous and easygoing, he is also equally brutal and savage.
"Hm? That's so?" Kars nods, and then he just walks away with a lazy farewell wave of his hand to the foreman who signed in relief.
"Shall we inspect inside the building next?" Sophia suggested to him as Kars stopped and looked up at the unfinished Kolosseum.
"Nah, inside that is probably too dusty right now," Kars said, shaking his head. "Let's go check out the market instead; maybe we could find something interesting there."
"As you wish." Sophia smiles as she and Kars then leave the construction site by the carriage. While on the top of the Kolosseum, there is a single crow that was watching the two of them with unnatural interest.
÷×÷×÷×÷×÷
At the central plaza in the center of Jinkai City, where the biggest marketplace is located, Kars and Sophia could be seen walking through the crowd of people and various shops and stalls quite peacefully, as there are a lot of foreigners here who don't know what Kars looks like or about his infamy at all, so they didn't overreact and treat him like a dangerous beast walking among them.
And there is the crow that followed the two of them from the construction site, watching from the rooftop of the tall building outside of the plaza as Kars and Sophia vanished into the market's bustling crowd. It perches unnaturally still, like a statue, before taking flight, its destination unknown.
"Sir! Sir! Would you like to buy some exotic spices from the southern islands? They have a special property that makes a man stand proud for days even if he is out of juice!" While they were looking around the market, a merchant waved enthusiastically at Kars, oblivious to the way nearby locals edged away from him.
"Hehe..." Sophia stifled a laugh behind her hand as Kars paused by the call of the merchant, his amber eyes glancing at the man with brown skin and a thick mustache who dressed in garish Arabian-style attire behind the stall with many kinds of exotic merchandise on display with curiosity.
"Oh? What else do you have to sell?" Kars turns to the merchant as he is walking to the stall, interested in the exotic items on sale while ignoring the suggested dubious spices he definitely doesn't need.
"Yes, yes, I have many things on sale, rare and exotic items you will find nowhere in this land!" The merchant boasted, as his stall was a rainbow of colors and smells with many glass vials of colorful powders, strange dried herbs bundled with twine, and small wooden boxes carved with intricate patterns that opened with many unknown objects and minerals inside.
"What is this?" Kars asked as he spotted something intriguing and picked up one vial of deep blue powder from the table as he felt magic energy from it.
"Ah, excellent choice, honored sir!" The merchant clapped his hands together, his fingers filled with silver rings. "That thing in your hand is a rare alchemy product; they call it the 'Metal Enhancer,' as when you use it in forging, it makes the metal five times stronger and more durable!"
"Ah, really? What's the catch, though? Kars snorted, holding the vial up to the sunlight where the powder shimmered unnaturally. His fingers twitched, feeling the faint buzz of magic clinging to the substance. Kars knows that merchants wouldn't ever sell something that valuable here in the stall markets like this unless there was some serious flaw in the product.
And just like Kars thought...
"Hahaha, sir, there's nothing wrong with this metal enhancer effect itself," the merchant said despite hearing Kars's doubtful tone, with an enthusiastic smile still on his face as he continued to explain. "Only that it will make your metal five times heavier, and the powder might also poison you and give you serious magical cancer during the forging process!"
After the explanation ended, the nearby people who also gathered at the merchant stall as they heard the merchant talking about the metal enhancer to Kars instantly lost their intrigue about the merchandise and left with an obscene word about the loose-hole behavior of the man's mother as soon as they heard the words about cancer and poison.
"How much is it?" But Kars isn't deterred at all by the side effects as his lips turn into a predatory grin, already thinking about potential applications that are not just for tools and equipment but also for construction while Sophia looks at him with concern.
"Hohoh?" Seeing Kars not losing his interest in the metal enhancer like other people, the merchant's eyes gleamed with greed as he rubbed his hands together. "For such a discerning customer like yourself, honored sir, I offer you only fifty gold coins per vial!"
"Heh, you got yourself a deal." Kars smirks as he keeps pulling out a bunch of gold coins from his pockets under the ecstatic eyes of the merchant...