I don't wanna say something like 'I don't believe your story,' given how sad their situation is. So for now, let's get something in between,
"I don't have many questions. For the couple that I have, let's start with, what are your plans to do from now on?"
"Survive. Get strong. Earn enough to live a proper life. Those are the basics that we follow. Other than that, we try to find the solution to our problems as much as we can," Leena answered my question.
"Anna. How did you come to hear about me?" I asked Anna next. From what I remember, she already knew about me before we met.
"Heard about Arrays. People praised." She answered in simple words that were explainable enough.
"All right. Last question. What do you think of humans and witches?" I asked.
"Scums and Traitors." Anna answered as she looked at me.
"Bastards and Hypocrites." Leena followed the same.
"So you both hate them all, don't you?" I asked with a smile, and they nodded. Then, after giving a bit of a thought, I looked at them,
"I can't exactly solve your problems and neither can I give you the secret to my Arrays, but…" I began speaking as I grabbed their attention before continuing,
"...I can provide you a shelter to grow and survive."
Before they could ask anything, I immediately added,
"But I want something in return. Or to be exact, I have a few conditions."
Leena shut her mouth as she looked at me. Her eyes concentrated while I stood up and began slowly walking around the area.
"First is that you both will work for me at a fixed wage. I will be the sole manager of increasing or decreasing the wage. You won't have any say in that wage," I began speaking to them, making them dumbfounded a little.
"Second is that sometimes when I am not here, you both still have to work here. Only when I am here, you can take your leave," I spoke, looking at their silent expression.
"Third is that certain customers are different, so I will give you a set of instructions to repeat in front of them. You have to comply with that."
Players need proper NPCs.
"Fourth is that sometime when I need you both or any of you for anything, you need to accompany me. I promise I or anyone won't harm you in any way, but I would like you to follow me without uttering any words.'
I will be needing their presence in the auctions and other places within the city. If I am going to take someone in with me, might as well help them develop some communication skills.
From there onwards, I gave 5 or 6 miscellaneous clauses that weren't that hard to comply with. And once everything was done,
"Huh?"
Leena's expression widened as she looked at me. Anna, too, observed me with a surprised expression.
"Is that all?" Leena asked as she observed my face, trying to read my expression. But not finding any changes, she couldn't help but ask,
"You are not gonna ask us to sleep with you or perform anything… nasty?"
"Hmmm? Why would I do that?" I asked as I looked at them with slight confusion. Do I give that sort of image or something?
"No… it's nothing," Leena spoke as she looked at me with the confusion still instilled on her face.
I let them clear their thoughts while I picked up a random book from the shelf and moved behind the reception. Placing that book on the desk, I picked up the one that I had half finished yesterday.
Silence covered the area as both the sisters were lost in their thoughts. It was peaceful in its own way, so I got immersed in the reading pretty quickly. Though before I could finish a couple of pages,
"Ummm… is the Shop open? I know it's written closed outside, but I kind of urgently need some arrays."
It was a random customer who appeared in the shop. And once he mentioned that, I realised why I only had one customer until now.
Apologising to him and then immediately turning the sign to 'Open' I began showing the arrays to the man.
An influx of people occurred within the store for the next few hours, and only when the Afternoon break time came, I closed the shop, before helping the other customers through it.
And once the last customer was done, Anna and Leena finally came forward.
"We have decided to stay here and watch. We will comply with all your wishes, but we won't get involved in anything dangerous for you until we have enough trust in you," Leena spoke determinedly.
"Fair enough. Anything else?" I asked them and they pondered before asking,
"Other than normal working, what else will we be doing? Is there anything special or we can do whatever we want?"
For a second I pondered before speaking," Nothing for now. But during the next week somewhere, I will be taking you both to show a couple of things. Your work would be to observe only."
"As long as it's nothing dangerous or harmful," Leena answered.
"Now that's out of the way. I am getting hungry. Let's get some lunch, shall we?" I smiled awkwardly, cutting them off and taking out a bunch of arrays. Seriously with some arrays, you can do anything. Sadly, they are one time use.
Anna and Leena joined me for lunch before I explained to them both regarding their duties. Leena would be a guard for the shop, while Anna would be the receptionist.
They both were fine with Anna being the receptionist, but were confused why someone as strong as me would require a guard. Though I just told them I have my reasons, for which they asked nothing further.
While I was happily chatting and eating with them, I had not even the slightest idea that this decision would create a storm bigger than both the Ghost world and Mirag Town Incident combined.