After resting for ten minutes, the guy and girl began gathering for the journey again. Aya showed not a drop of discontent, completely obeying Kenshin, following him without a second thought, not thinking about how they would survive in the mountains. The young man, in turn, promised himself that no matter what, he would take care of her and not let her go hungry.
An hour and a half later they reached the foot of the first mountain, but Kenshin didn't like the terrain, so they went a little deeper into the mountains, and about fifteen minutes later they found a large network of caves, and the young man decided that this was exactly what he needed.
Leaving Aya outside, he grabbed a pre-prepared torch, lit it, and entered the cave. Twenty metres from the entrance the tunnel split into two passages; Kenshin decided to check both. He reached the end of the left tunnel in about two minutes, and the passage split again into two parts. Deciding not to risk going deep into unknown caves, Kenshin returned and checked the second tunnel, discovering that after about fifty metres it ended in a dead end.
Deciding that this place would do, he focused on the ability about which he had superficial information. The young man mentally activated "Create Refuge", and his consciousness seemed to leave his head. He saw the surrounding area within a radius of about 150 metres and experienced shock. Although he roughly knew how "Create Refuge" worked, knowing and experiencing were not the same thing.
For the next hour the young man built "blueprints" in the allocated area; having finished "setting up", he mentally confirmed everything and approved the creation of the refuge, then collapsed exhausted against the nearest wall. Sweat poured from his face, and his head was splitting unbearably.
The dead end in front of him glowed with blue light, and this continued for about five minutes, then everything calmed down. Kenshin approached the "dead end" wall on shaky legs and placed his hand in a small, almost imperceptible recess. A second later the wall rumbled and slowly moved aside, ceasing to be a wall and becoming a door. The door to his new home.
"It worked! It really worked!" Kenshin thought and couldn't restrain a smile. All his fatigue instantly vanished, and he quickly entered and quickly inspected his new "home". Making sure everything was as he had planned, the young man hurried outside, where Aya was waiting for him.
Hearing footsteps coming from the depths of the cave, Aya became alert, and as soon as Kenshin emerged into the light, the fragile blue-eyed brunette threw herself into his arms and began kissing him.
"Oh god, Kenshin, thank goodness you're all right! I was so worried…" the girl said in a trembling voice, two streaks of tears framing her tender face.
"Shh, everything's fine, I'm all right, see?" he said with a smile, hugging her and pressing her to him.
"Where were you? I managed to imagine such things…" Aya said, sobbing, afraid to return to what she had been thinking while Kenshin was gone.
"Building our new home," he answered with a smile.
"Home? Building?" Aya asked, not understanding.
"Come on, I'll show you everything!" Kenshin said cheerfully, smacking her on the lips, then grabbed the bags of things.
When they reached the "dead end" Aya looked sceptically at Kenshin, not understanding how a damp cave could be called a home, but then Kenshin opened the door, and the girl's jaw almost dropped. The young man pulled the frozen girl by the hand, and they entered inside.
Inside their new "home" there was no lighting yet, but Kenshin planned to fix that soon. The "Create Refuge" ability was only level one, so the resulting "home" was not as vast and magnificent. But it wasn't small either.
The prototype for the "refuge" was partly a rather prestigious four-room apartment, but he added some changes of his own and created an almost exact copy of an apartment from his previous world. The system was very generous with the possibilities for furnishing the refuge and allowed Kenshin to create parquet flooring, carpets, beautiful concrete walls, varnished wood, and more. As a result, the young man felt as if he had returned to his own world. The only things reminding him where he was were his village attire and the homemade torch in his hand, mercilessly sooting the beautiful ceiling of his new apartment.
Kenshin was upset at first, but then remembered that for the convenience of the "Patriarch" his refuge would self-clean every two days and return to its original state, restoring some damaged parts, but if more than 40% of the refuge was damaged it would become unusable and stop restoring its integrity.
Kenshin looked at the "Create Refuge" ability and saw a timer on the right counting down until the ability could be used again, and realised that he would not be able to remodel this refuge or create a new one sooner than in seven days, and creating two refuges at the same time was impossible—the old one would immediately become unusable and turn into an unremarkable cave.
Kenshin's "new home" had four rooms: one large living room and three bedrooms. The bathroom and toilet were separate, there was also a kitchen and one large training room the size of a school gym. It was made in a completely different style: thick concrete walls, thick bare floor, a small tatami in the far end of the training room, several makiwara, two punching bags, and a corner with "iron"—a barbell with a set of plates and several different dumbbells. Kenshin didn't know what shinobi needed for training but considered this equipment quite useful for the time being, at least for himself.
The only thing the system did not allow to create was electronics or any other technological items, so the "gas" stove Kenshin made was only vaguely similar to those from his home world, wanting in the future to draw the necessary formation for heating. The system created pipes and a water reservoir, but refused to heat the water, and Kenshin had to figure that out himself.
The reservoir from which water was supplied filled itself, apparently from a mountain river, and passed filtration by the system itself, eliminating the possibility of poisoning. The sewer drain went deep down.