Don't I have nothing to do for the time being?

The oni village was building a house just for our group.

It was subtly more like a normal house than any of our previous bases, which was nice… felt like getting a vacation home.

I'll gratefully accept it as our reward this time around.

… However, the exterior was unmistakably a shrine. Wait, what? A Priestess Princess Shrine? Complete with an offering box for socks instead of coins?

Nice. I'll stock up on brand-new socks and leave them there, so please make good use of them.

Oh! And everyone working on construction right now gets socks too, so wear them! Don't you dare wash them!

Once the shrine is complete, every last pair is going in that offering box!!

"Hello～, this is your Goddess speaking. Regarding the sock offering box, please incorporate some mechanism that stirs up feelings of shame. Perhaps a stage where devotees strip off their socks while everyone watches!"

… Goddess? Are you trying to turn my vacation home into a brothel?

"It's a sacred ritual! A sacred ritual! You can call yourself Karina-chan, the Sock Goddess of the Sock Religion! Please devise some suitably suspicious ritual for offering socks! Glory to the Sock Shrine!"

Absolutely not!? And what's with this "Sock Goddess" nonsense? That's supposed to be YOU, Goddess!!

Don't go appointing me as some bizarre deity without permission!? Besides, it's the Priestess Princess Shrine! Dea-kun is the one being enshrined here!?

Anyway.

Helping rescue the oni who'd already been sold off, as Youki-chan had asked.

We'd secured the village's safety, but I thought maybe I should do a little more, so I decided to consult with Dea-kun.

"Doing more than this might be overstepping, but… let's see. In that case, let's release the merchant and let them run free for a while."

"Oho?"

What on earth is Dea-kun scheming, I wonder?

"Yes. It was the most effective medicine, right? In that case, the merchant will gather up the enslaved oni on their own. We simply wait for the right moment and snatch them all."

"… Is that really how it works?"

"Indeed."

Hmm. Dea-kun's so smart that I can't even follow how she reached that conclusion.

I don't really get it, but if Dea-kun says so with that much confidence, it'll probably work out.

I shall simply follow my princess's words.

"In that case…"

I mulled over what needed doing. Keeping tabs on the merchants, obviously, but I could just pop in and check on them now and then.

I'd also set up a gate from the oni village to the Empire's interior (a torii that's invisible and impassable to anyone unauthorized), so…

Wait. Don't I have nothing to do for the time being?

The sock aging and collection had to wait until Youki-chan got things sorted on her end, too.

"… Hm? What exactly should I be doing now?"

"Um… For now, shall we return to Terarialbee? Your merchant residence records are there, aren't they?"

"Oh, right, right."

And so we decided to head back to Terarialbee.

… That said, unlike the journey there, the return trip was instantaneous. Spatial Magic really is something else.

Since I could drop by the village anytime (or rather, since the village itself was stored inside my Spatial Magic), there was no need to say goodbye to Youki-chan or Gyaldra and the others every time. It felt no different from going for a walk.

"Fnyaa… It really is Teraria-Wan, nya. Karina's magic is absolutely bonkers, nya."

"Hm? Did you want to walk back on your own, Misha?"

"I never said that, nya!! Ahh, the air here really is different, nya!"

Misha took pointlessly exaggerated deep breaths.

"The thing is, I told my old man 'I'm going out to play for a bit' and ended up gone for days, nya. Karina, back me up? Say we got too caught up in something or whatever?"

"Sure, no problem. Let's tell him we were playing stuck-in-the-wall with your butt poking out and you couldn't get unstuck for several days."

"Oh? You picking a fight, nya?"

"Actually, I think claiming we ran into some non-life-threatening accident makes for a pretty solid excuse."

"… That's true, nya."

And so, we returned to Teraria-Wan. Officially, at least.

Alrighty, time to stock up on socks for the Sock Shrine… I mean, the Priestess Princess Shrine. I've got gold coins piling up from all my tournament winnings, after all!