Welcome to the Demon’s Cabin - Chapter 23

“……!”

Startled by Irene’s thunderous shout, Idris quickly lifted his foot and stepped backward.

Peeking past his broad back to inspect the inside of the cabin, she saw a large, distinct footprint stamped clearly on the floor. Irene despaired in a weak voice.

“Ah, no……”

“I am sorry. I will wipe it up immediately.”

Idris quickly grabbed the rag hanging by the entrance and brushed away the dirt and grass stuck to the floor. Watching him bend over and meticulously scrub the spot, Irene finally managed to regain her composure.

Trying to enter the house with shoes on. This was an unpardonable felony, a cardinal sin. She could not bring herself to say it was fine, even as an empty courtesy.

Fortunately, the dirt was dry, so the entryway was soon clean again. Irene let out a sigh of relief and took off her black boots that reached above her ankles. Swapping into tricolored slippers made of various shades of wool, she kept a sharp eye on Idris’s feet.

Fortunately, this time he took off his shoes and entered normally.

“Do people truly not take off their shoes in the Crescent Empire?”

Irene could still vividly remember the moment she heard that shocking fact a few days ago. Honestly, she still found it hard to believe.

It was a good thing Idris had been observant enough to take them off so far. If he had gone wandering through the rooms with his shoes on, regardless of how much fun she was having, she likely would have put him to sleep with a Siren’s song and then beaten him in secret.

“I find it harder to believe that one would take their shoes off to enter a house. Is it not natural to wear them in and out?”

“Why on earth would anyone do such a thing. Are you certain that everyone, young and old, does that?”

“At least, I have never seen a household that does otherwise. Unless they were a foreigner, they simply wouldn’t.”

What savages.

In Orihen, only the owners of grand mansions or high nobility did such things. Even then, they took them off in the bedroom.

“Surely you do not wear them into the bedroom as well?”

“Of course we do. We only take them off when getting into bed.”

Ugh. Irene shuddered in horror. Her usually pretty, smiling face crumpled without mercy.

Idris, who was carefully setting down the sacks brought from the storage shed, looked bewildered.

“Is it really something to be that repulsed by?”

“Ahem, well, if you do that, the house doesn’t feel like a true place of rest.”

Irene quickly smoothed her face and feigned ignorance. She felt embarrassed for getting so heated over a cultural difference.

‘Still, I can’t help hating it. If you want to look stylish indoors, you could just make a separate pair of indoor shoes that look the same.’

Irene had a separate pair of indoor boots for the times she wanted to feel perfectly dressed. The floors stayed clean, and her pretty outfit was complete. It was a “kill two birds with one stone” situation. In her mind, it was the perfect alternative.

Outdoor shoes. She could vividly picture her entire day wasting away while she brushed mud and snow off the carpets.

For a moment, the two of them were lost in their own separate states of agitation.

Irene soon helped Idris finish a rough tidying of the supplies.

When she washed her hands and headed toward the dressing room, she let out a sigh at the disastrous sight. The once neatly organized space was nowhere to be found, now cluttered with all sorts of fabrics, clothes, and shoes.

“Haaa. I turned the room upside down just to find some shoes.”

Irene knew how to make clothes, but she had no talent for making shoes. Slippers were her absolute limit. Consequently, Idris had been at risk of having to wander outside in nothing but the torn shoes he had arrived in. He hadn’t seemed to care, but Irene couldn’t tolerate it, so she had searched this place frantically.

‘It is a relief the original owner of this house and Mr. Idris have the same shoe size.’

Eventually, she had managed to find shoes for Idris to use among the former owner’s belongings that had been shoved into a corner. The clothes were far too small to be of any use, though.

“Wait a moment. This is a Runhark style pattern, so why is it sitting on the outside?”

It was something used only in winter, so it should have been stored deep inside. If even this had been pulled out. Estimating the time it would take to organize everything, Irene squeezed her eyes shut at the sheer distance of the task.

Finally finished with reclassifying everything by season and use, Irene massaged her shoulders. Given her constitution, they didn’t actually ache, but it was a habitual action.

Having stepped out without much thought, she was surprised and walked over with quick, short steps.

“Mr. Idris. Are you still counting those?”

“I thought I might have miscounted.”

Surprisingly, Idris had been clutching the meager food supplies and counting them until she finished her long session of tidying. He looked like a total social wreck as he peered into the sacks, looking as if he were about to dive face-first into them.

‘At this rate, has he perhaps experienced starving nearly to death before?’

“But this is the last one.”

“Good work. Did anything change after re-counting?”

Idris’s hands, which had been busily moving the sacks around, came to a dead stop. Sitting on the cold floor despite the perfectly good carpet nearby, he craned his neck to lock eyes with her.

“As a result of counting them one by one, the number of corn ears has increased by one.”

“Wow, that is great news!”

It was a positive development. Anything extra was good! Irene gave a small round of applause, both to celebrate and to encourage him. However, for some reason, the atmosphere felt incredibly chilly. Reading the room, she quickly lowered the corners of her mouth and lowered her hands to clasp them politely.