Reborn as the Psycho Villainess Who Ate Her Slave Beasts' Contracts-Chapter 58 --

They unloaded everything and entered the dusty, dark interior. Seventeen rooms for thirty-two people. Furniture covered in sheets. Cobwebs in corners. But structurally sound.

As everyone began hauling luggage inside and claiming rooms, Elara stood in the entrance hall calculating next steps.

The Verin family had distanced themselves. The house was barely habitable. They had limited funds.

But her people weren’t exhausted from hauling luggage for two kilometers. They were functional, ready to work, capable of tackling the massive cleaning project ahead.

Because she’d spent twelve silver on carts instead of status.

Practical decisions. Always practical decisions.

It would have to be enough.

.

.

Elara pushed open the front door of the mansion.

Immediately, a wave of dust exploded outward like they’d opened a tomb. Thick, choking, ancient dust that hit them in the face.

"Cough—cough—" Dimitri staggered back, covering his mouth.

Lisa was coughing so hard she doubled over. Mira had her sleeve pressed to her face. Even several of the beast knights were coughing and blinking dust out of their eyes.

Elara brushed dust off her face and stepped inside anyway. Standing outside wouldn’t improve the situation.

The interior was worse than the exterior. Much worse.

If the outside looked like a horror house, the inside looked like a literal trash heap. Dust covered every surface in thick layers. Cobwebs hung from corners like curtains. Broken furniture lay scattered. And there was trash—actual garbage—piled in corners.

"The merchants said this was used as a guild stay place?" Mira asked, her voice muffled through her sleeve. "This place isn’t eligible for animals to stay, let alone people."

Lisa took one step inside and immediately screamed.

Then jumped backward directly onto the hawk knight, who caught her on reflex.

"What—" he started.

"COCKROACH!" Lisa shrieked, pointing at the floor.

Everyone looked down. A large cockroach was crawling across the dusty floor, completely unbothered by the human invasion.

Then Petra, one of the female administrators, screamed too and jumped onto Dimitri, who nearly fell over from the sudden weight.

Mira backed up quickly into Soren, eyes wide.

Elara looked at the cockroach. Then at the screaming women clinging to various men like the insect was a deadly threat.

She walked over, bent down, and grabbed the cockroach with her bare hand.

Everyone went silent.

Elara straightened, walked to the wall, and threw the insect against it. It hit with a small splat and fell motionless.

The silence stretched.

"Did she just—" the hawk knight started.

"She grabbed it," Lisa whispered, still clinging to him. "With her hand. Her bare hand."

Elara looked at them. "It’s a cockroach. Not an assassin."

"But it’s—it’s disgusting," Petra said weakly.

"It’s an insect. A dead one now." Elara gestured. "If you’re done screaming, please get down so we can assess the space."

Lisa and Petra climbed down from their respective beast knights, both looking embarrassed.

Elara took two more steps into the main hall to survey the area.

Another scream. Then another.

"LIZARD!"

"SPIDER!"

"THERE’S ANOTHER COCKROACH!"

"SO MANY BUGS!"

Today the females were apparently determined to scream at every small creature in existence. Elara felt a headache forming. Not an emotional response to the noise—just a physical reaction to excessive sound.

Though honestly, it wasn’t entirely their fault. The mansion was infested. Cockroaches in multiple corners. Lizards on the walls. Spiders in webs everywhere. Bugs she couldn’t even identify crawling across floors and furniture.

The place hadn’t been cleaned in... years, probably. Maybe a decade.

The beast knights were already calculating. "At this rate of infestation, cleaning will take—"

"Five to six days minimum," Captain Lyra finished grimly. "Longer if we want it actually livable."

Elara looked around at the dust, the bugs, the filth. Looked at her household clearly overwhelmed by the scope of the problem.

Then she snapped her fingers.

A slight gust of wind started from nowhere. It grew stronger, swirling around the entrance hall. The dust began to move—not randomly, but with purpose. Gathering. Condensing. Pulling together into a concentrated mass in the center of the room.

Everyone stared.

The wind continued, pulling dust from surfaces, from corners, from furniture. The cobwebs tore loose and joined the growing ball of filth. Even some of the smaller bugs were caught in the current, pulled into the mass.

Elara moved her finger in a sweeping motion.

The windows burst open.

The concentrated mass of dust and debris shot out through the open windows like a projectile, dispersing into the air outside. The wind died down.

The entrance hall was... clean. Not spotless, but drastically improved. The thick coating of dust was gone. The major cobwebs were cleared. Surfaces were visible.

The entire process had taken about fifty seconds.

Complete silence.

Everyone stared at Elara.

"What?" she said. "I’m also a royal. Of course I know magic."

"You—" Dimitri’s mouth opened and closed. "You just cleaned an entire floor in fifty seconds."

"Approximately. Yes."

"That would have taken us six days!"

"Five to six days of manual cleaning. Yes. Magic is more efficient." Elara looked at the now-clean entrance hall. "Though I’ll need to rest before doing another room. Large-scale wind manipulation is draining."

"Your Highness," Marcus, one of the administrators, spoke up hesitantly. "What type of magic was that? The wind you used?"

Elara paused. "Attack magic. Wind element. Combat application."

The silence was immediate and absolute.

"Attack... magic," Dimitri repeated slowly.

"Yes. Wind-based offensive spell. Typically used to disperse enemies or create barriers in combat." Elara looked at them. "I repurposed it for cleaning."

"You used a fighting ability—an attack spell—as a sweeping tool," Mira said, sounding faint.

"Correct. Wind is wind. Whether it’s attacking or cleaning depends on application and intent." Elara gestured toward the stairs. "Now go and count how many rooms there are. We need accurate numbers for organizing sleeping arrangements."

Lisa immediately trembled. The other female administrators looked equally terrified.

Because even though Elara had cleaned this entrance space, the rest of the mansion was still untouched. Still filled with dust and insects and gods knew what else lurking in the upper floors.

"Your Highness," Petra said weakly, "do we have to go up there? Right now?"

"Someone needs to count rooms. We can’t organize without information."

"But there are probably more bugs," Lisa whispered. "And spiders. And—"

"I’ll go," one of the bear knights stepped forward. His voice was steady, matter-of-fact. "I’ll count the rooms, Your Highness."

Elara paused, looked at him. "Take eight of you. Go together."

"Eight?" He looked confused. "Your Highness, I’m sufficient alone. It’s just counting rooms."

"If eight of you go together and divide the floors between you, it will take approximately seventy to eighty seconds to finish the counting completely. One person would take significantly longer." She gestured. "Divide the floors. Count efficiently. Go."

The beast knight bowed, still looking slightly confused about why she was sending eight people to do one person’s job. But he gathered seven others and they headed upstairs in an organized group.

Just as Elara had calculated, they returned in thirty seconds.

Thirty. Not even the seventy to eighty she’d estimated. Their efficiency exceeded her projections.

"Report," Captain Lyra said.

The bear knight who’d volunteered spoke: "Seventeen rooms total in the mansion, Your Highness. That includes one kitchen—small, but functional enough. Eighteen spaces total counting the kitchen separately."

"Storage rooms?" Elara asked.