Wealth (2)

My eyes began to get watery, discovering the reason I was unwelcome here. If the former overseer didn't take away my identity, I would easily be accepted by the rest of my relatives. Since my parents never showed any adverse reactions to my appearance, I assumed everyone else would be the same. Instead, I found my grandma to be hostile, searching for our faults, and always studying the three of us.

"Rika is really my daughter, mom," my mom shot me an apologetic look.

"I told you we should return to the first district," Alex tried to convince me, using this chance.

"I'll make sure to take care of this," my mom didn't want me to leave.

I rarely got the chance to visit my parents, making this opportunity more precious. My mom urged grandma to rise with her, trying to have a private conversation with her. The table loomed into awkward silence, only sounds of cutlery remaining.

Honestly, it was easier to eavesdrop on their conversation, my ears perking when I could start to hear them. It was one of the rare times something from school actually seemed useful, which was learning how to manipulate your senses all the way back in kindergarten.

"Here's the photos sent by her school when she was younger," my mom brought out the albums.

"She only had the same shade of your husband's hair and eyes," grandma couldn't disagree.

"I didn't know a person could change this much because their hair color changed," her voice was slightly guilty.

"It was her illness, the medicine was the cause," my mom believed Luke's explanation.

"Of course she would be frail if she always eats this little," grandma blamed me.

"Can you give me some advice on how you managed to perfect those dance moves during the competition the previous year?" Evan attempted to start a conversation.

"We have trained since kindergarten and have tutors to assist us," Alex coldly responded.

"You competed in the same arena?" My dad didn't seem to know.

"Their team won first place," Evan revealed.

"I would really like to watch it again," he admired us.

"I can prepare a small routine," Luke offered.

I stiffened from Luke's plan, using this chance so I wouldn't forget my accumulated skills. Unfortunately, both Evan and my dad agreed, excitedly telling grandma and my mom who joined us. I came here to escape from these kinds of things, but I found myself doing the same things in a different place. However, I had some hopes, knowing there wasn't a place to practice here.

This was why I was shocked when Evan managed to convince grandma to clear the living room for us, creating space. He enthusiastically gathered all the tall mirrors around the house, and placed them against the walls. My forehead irked with irritation as Luke chose a hard routine for the three of us to perform. Desperately trying to recall the old steps, I slid into the first position, pretending not to notice the audience watching us.

"Your arm and head," Luke whispered during the routine.

Constantly pointing out my faults, I instantly fixed them while he was being generous. I didn't want it to escalate to the yelling stage or give him chances to continue this into the next day. Although I was suffering under many warnings, my family enjoyed the brief practice, not believing it was in the rough stages.

"This is beautiful," my mom was touched.

"I'm taking a video," my dad took a camera out.

"They're performing extremely hard techniques," Evan noticed.

"They come from the first district," my grandma was stricter.

None of them knew these were the easy parts. When I was tossed in the air, doing straining pirouettes and flips, they were too easily impressed. Approaching the more difficult moves, I was creating the illusion I wasn't touching the floor. But in reality, I was always getting lifted or tearing apart my poor muscles to do splits and make other use of my flexibility.

It was more than unfair that my moves seemed harder than the male counterpart. More like, why wasn't anyone going to sleep and letting this torture- I mean practice continue for hours?

A few minutes later, Luke turned to my family, "we plan to continue practicing into the night. We will be ready around the next afternoon."

"Isn't this already perfect?" Evan was confused.

"It's not to them," I groaned.

"You have been practicing like this for over ten years," my mom respected us.

As soon as they left us, Alex placed a sound-proof barrier, and immediately started to yell, "I let you know multiple times the angle was off by one degree. Your arms slightly shook in the middle of this move, something we always mentioned as your weakness."

My shoulders slumped as both of them harshly lectured me on all the mistakes I made. I knew this would happen! It was hard not to make Evan join the list of people I had grudges against. Maybe my family didn't believe we would actually practice for the entire night, they were startled when stepping into the living room in the morning.

"What would their actual performance be like?" Evan wondered.

My family didn't know this was the usual length of the practices, especially when using the time-space rooms. This was where the convenient feature backfired on me. Around the afternoon, they watched the perfected routine, appearing absolutely spellbound.

"Are you sure they're not professional dancers?" Grandma asked.

No grandma, that's what I thought before I entered the first district. Inside that hell, I had barely passed elementary school dance lessons by becoming an acrobatic.

"Those are stretches?" Evan watched me.

"You do this before and after you dance," I sighed.

My stomach was growling from skipping both breakfast and lunch for this. While Luke and Alex helped place the mirrors away, I noticed there were some leftovers on the table, perfectly edible food. I always felt abnormally hungry after exhausting dance routines, especially when not using the time-space rooms. The features inside those rooms manipulated our bodies to make us seamlessly blend back into the original time outside.

My eyes landed on the piece of apple pie, lightly sprinkled by raw sugar. Carefully scanning my surroundings, I slowly stepped closer to the table and stopped when I was right in front of the plate with a spoon from my inventory.

Opening my mouth in anticipation, I was shocked when my hand was hit into dropping my spoon onto the table. I raised my head, and unsurprisingly ended up facing Luke.

Ugh! Why? How? Instead of holding it in, I exploded, "it's perfectly safe. No one else got sick."

"I told you multiple times, your body is not used to crude food like these," he insulted my grandma's food.

"The crusts are slightly uncooked, look at this section. This will cause a stomach ache later," he pointed out.

"I can avoid the crusts then," I found him petty.

"I can give you more cake for dessert, wait a few minutes," he confiscated my spoons.

I nearly flopped onto the floor in frustration, finding him equally controlling as back in the first district. Studying the ground, there didn't seem to be any tiny bugs, making it safe to lay down.

I didn't mind the old wood, warm from the sunlight drowning into the house. When I almost faced the ceiling, I found myself leaning against Alex, stopping me from falling onto the ground. What did he want now?

"You know this house is dirty. If you want to roll around like usual, go to our room," Alex urged me to sit properly.

I puffed my cheeks, "there isn't that much dust on the floor. The bugs are gone too."

"It's because we lightly cleaned this place while you were practicing," he revealed.

When Luke finished setting the table, placing the old leftovers to the side, I sighed while taking a seat. It took Luke a long time to trust the table, wiping the surface for over ten minutes, thoroughly sanitizing it. My eyes had to pretend not to notice my grandma appearing slightly offended.

A tall invisible wall separated the three of us and the rest of my family. Near the end, my family was surprised to the extent they didn't trust anything inside the house.

Luke brought out the brilliant tea set, pouring beautiful shimmering tea to go along with my cake. The light aroma spread inside the entire house, making it seem we were surrounded by a field of overflowing roses. Meanwhile, Alex had cleaned our dishes with the portable washer from the second district and neatly placed them into his suitcase. A special suitcase dedicated to storing all the cutlery, plates, cups and other categorized items.

"We don't know what to offer you," my dad commented.

"It's fine, we brought everything we could need," Alex declined his hospitality.

"Look at their clothes, it's like they're about to attend a fancy party," grandma pointed out.

Unfortunately, this was our normal semi-casual clothes, something I had no choice but to wear. After I finished my dessert, I began to yawn, and my eyes had gone slightly droopy.

However, I needed to take a bath first. When my mom led us to the one that we were given to use, I couldn't hide my devastation. The bathtub was tiny with signs of scratches and dark spots covering its surface. There was mold around the corners of the wall, making me rethink my decision.

"We can bathe outside, we have a portable bathtub and everything else we need," Alex instantly abandoned the bathroom.

I understood my curious family becoming speechless when they joined to stare at the final results. My feet stepped on stable marble tiles, the new floor on top of the original dirt ground. The large jacuzzi instantly swept their attention, around five times the size of the bathtub they offered us. Modern shelves were placed near the tub, providing the room to place our cleansing products. Tall panels surrounded the area, giving us more privacy as they acted as walls.

"You really brought everything," my dad was impressed.

"I told you people from the first district are different. It's nothing new," grandma was convinced.

However, they didn't know nearly everything had to be spelled in the end. Luke had to maintain the temperature and add water using his mana, amounting to merely a place to wash. After I took the first turn, getting some help in the process, I slipped into my bathrobe.

Although I had no privacy from them, they preferred to bathe on their own, and sent me away to our room. Drying my hair on my own, I began to get annoyed by its long length.

I really wanted to cut my hair as it slipped through my hands. But as usual, my appearance wasn't really mine, and halfway through the drying, Luke instantly took over the task after frowning as he entered the room.