Elise smiled as she pulled Olivia into a hug. “Thank you for trusting us. Don’t force yourself if you don’t want to, take it slowly, okay? Alisha and I are always here for you, remember that okay?”

Olivia nodded, a nervous expression on her face. “W-when do I join them?”

“I’ll speak with them and arrange a time for you to meet the leader. Her name is Jasmine, she is a very sweet and caring person. Then we’ll introduce you to her party, a young boy named Han and an evolved monster girl called Willow. I'll get you to meet them in a week, then go to a dungeon a week after that so you have time to get to know them.”

“Elise?” I spoke while Elise turned to me. “Remember the compensation for a weapon? Could you use one of those two weapons to make Olivia a new bow? Her bow is fairly old, I have an image of her wearing it far back in the past, I think it was in Crater.”

“Ah, Alisha, you don’t need to do that!” Olivia looked panicked as Elise chuckled.

“Olivia, I use my fist to punch monsters and people. At most I’ll request a rapier, but I still haven’t even trained for it. Take it, it’ll do you well, don’t worry about me.”

Olivia looked unsure but still nodded. “Thank you…”

“Right, we’ll get it sorted for you. I’ll take your measurements first, then I’ll need to know your Stats, Race, Class and all of that. I’ll also need a vial of your blood, some soul energy and a few strains of your hair. Since you use a bow, we’ll make it so it’s enchanted with a skill that lets you use mana to form arrows so if you ever run out you will be fine. Come, we’ll do it all in the testing room.”

Elise leads Olivia out of the room, oddly excited, while Alice, Coffee and I stay behind. Coffee jumps up and sits next to me and not being able to resist I hug him and ruffle his fur. Alice joins me. It truly was nice and soft. Coffee loved the attention as well.

I wanted Olivia to be able to be able to start opening up to others without me or Elizabeth around. To an extent, she trusted Summer and Xeno because they had helped rescue her and because they were in a party with me, as well as my friends. When it came to Bloom, Amelia and Leon while at the hunting zone she had been afraid of them, but slowly started to trust them with me around. She’d been terrified of Amelia because she was an elf, but after Amelia opened up to her and told her she would be considered a Deviant along with the fact she wasn’t related to noble elves, Olivia had slowly trusted them, only to the extent of being near them if they had come back first, though for her sake Bloom’s team waited until our team came back.

Sighing as the thoughts of Bloom and Amelia came to mind, I turned to Alice and started to try to teach her how to use her words properly. I had been doing this for the last few days of our trip back, though the most she’d shown was to call Xia smelly when Xia attempted to stop her eating all of the monster cores. I had to wonder who she picked that up from, I had no clue.

Soon, Elise returned with Olivia, and she started to talk about my duties for leading this new party. Aubrey had been the ‘guide’ for me before, and she had paired us up because Aubrey had been used by other parties before and figured pairing Aubrey up with another person with monster traits would help. Now, she wanted me to assist.

The Guild would pay one Mithril coin each time I helped a group and my main duties was to ensure they fought well, rested at the correct times and knew when to retreat or continue. They would be exploring a level 20 Dimensional Dungeon called Orth’s Mutiny. I was not to interfere in their fights unless either they were on the verge of death or something completely unexpected occurred. When I asked, Elise said that Dungeons could at times have an enemy far too powerful for a party appear, or for the Dungeon to mutate while it was being explored. This would affect all of those that entered. When a group entered and the doors closed, any new parties that entered would not join them, instead going to their own Dimensional Dungeon, which is what happened to Battlefield of Eternity.

There was also a list that Elise wanted me to check off, as well as using a memory stone so she could check on how the party performs. She explained that an advisor would usually select a Gold Grade underneath them to help guide new parties like this since it will help both the Gold Grade and those they guided. Only those an advisor truly trusted would be assigned to do this, so not all adventurers would act as guides. It also allowed one to prepare for Platinum Grade, as they would often help Gold Grades in missions by acting as their guide.

I asked Elise about Alice and the problem with gaining experience for her. Elise came up with a possible solution very quickly.

“Darkness based magic spells are frequent in hunts or dungeons and most times medical clients have no choice but to wait the spell out. It’s fairly common, at most times there will be a fair amount of people afflicted by some type of Dark magic. If she gains experience from any source of Darkness, it’s possible for her to help people out as well. We’ve lost people in the past due to being unable to do anything about Darkness magic.”

“They can’t heal it?”

“I don’t know the specifics, most I know is that if it’s above the strength of level 50 then it's nearly impossible to remove it. Most adventurers can’t afford expensive care and we’re limited on what we can provide as well. It took a favour from Alexander to regrow your leg after all.”

Thinking about it, the idea was good. Agreeing with trying it out to see if it worked, we left the Guild and headed to a nearby medical facility that is commonly used by adventurers. Elise spoke to one of the staff, a nurse, who agreed to test it with some uncertainty and we walked into one of the rooms. An older man laid there, unconscious but with a pained face.

“Alice, what do you think?” Crouching and asking Alice, she tilted her head.

“Yummy!” After a moment, she pointed at the old man and gave me a large smile. I heard the nurse who had brought us here mutter “She doesn’t mean the patient, right?!”

Alice approaches and places a hand on the man’s forehead. Darkness seeped out from here, being absorbed by Alice.

Alice has gained 50,000xp

“It worked.” I turned to Elise and the nurse. The nurse frowned and approached the man, hovering a hand above him. A light came out, covering him before the nurse gasped.

“It worked!” Repeating my words, the nurse turned to Elise before looking at Alice. “Amazing, she can help so many people, we might be able to save lives!”

“This won’t be a full time job for her. It’s the only way for Alice here to gain experience and she is limited to when she may come down. She may need to head out with her mum, Alisha, or perhaps she wants to play all day.”

“Oh, I understand.” The nurse looked deflated slightly, causing me to lightly smile. Seems she cared for her patients.

“How about this? Your team provide the Guild with information on your patients, and if there are severe cases that could lead to permanent damage or death we’ll get Alice down to the facility with that patient as soon as possible, granted she is in Vale. Otherwise I’m sure Alisha here can bring her down every now and then to assist.”

“That would be wonderful! I’ll let the doctor know about this as well. Who do I address at the Guild?”

“That would be me, Elise. You can inform Tails as well, she will be able to pass on a message for me if I am unavailable.” I hadn’t heard the name Tails before.

“Very well, in the meantime, we do have other patients if you wish to help them, young Alice.”

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Over the next hour, Alice spent the time to absorb Darkness and while the xp received was small, it added up. Looking at her Status, I smiled and wondered what would happen when she reached level 2? The strange thing with her since her evolution is that while I can see her Status, I couldn’t see anything else like her Stats. It’s like I could only see the amount of experience she got and that was it. We still didn’t understand what she is either, which only served to worry me further.

Status

Alice

Bound by a Blood Oath with Alisha 'Starcaller' Nocturne

Race: Raven of Erebus Level: 1 Experience: 768,500/1,000,000

Occupations:

Adventurer Grade: Gold Rank: E

As we left, many of those Alice helped had thanked her. Alice unexpectedly seemed to be unsure how to react, instead reverting to hiding behind my leg looking shy. I felt my heart melt at her cute flustered face. The staff insisted they paid for her help and after a quick discussion they would pay the Guild directly who then directed the money to us.

Deciding to use this as a chance to get a request done, I spoke with Elise on our way to the Guild about a request for Alice to get high level Darkness monster cores. Elise readily agreed and parted ways with us as Olivia, Alice, Coffee and I headed towards the Royal Guard building. I had decided to speak with Alexander later once I had some more time to myself…and Alice and Olivia.

After waiting for a bit of time, I met with Roland while Olivia and Alice waited in a separate room with Coffee. He passed me a slim, small box and opening it I found a knife that was rather plain except for the handle, that had a beautiful pattern carved into the wood. Picking it up, I immediately felt like it was a part of me.

Starcaller’s Chef Knife.

Grows with you. Has the sharpest edge when used to prepare food. Increases the quality of all food cut by this knife by 50% and assists in imbuing mana, increasing the efficiency of that mana by 30%.

Current Grade: Junior Chef

“Is it good?”

“A lot stronger than I thought…”

“Soulbound weapons are like that. They grow along with you, are self-repairing and you can store it within your mana realm, like your Spirit Beast, and it’ll gradually become more empowered.”

Frowning, I sent a mental command and the knife disappeared. Looking in my Mana Realm, I could see it floating there. Looking up at the blue gem, it hadn’t reacted for some time but still shone brightly. Wondering what it was for the umpteenth time, I left my mana realm and thanked Roland.

We spoke about my plan to open a restaurant as well as the food I had recently started being able to make. While he was shocked, he remained calm. After we talked, he said he knew of one he trusted highly that would be suitable to help me manage the restaurant and also assist in hiring helpers and coordinating with the Guild or shops for ingredients. Thanking him once again, he nodded.

“Don’t mention it. Did you need anything else? Otherwise I must return to my duties, I’ve been rather busy recently.”

“Ah, what are Gastron Points?”

Roland sighs and he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Right, that stupid system of his. Gastron has hundreds of Blessed, so to ensure they all work hard He awards them with ‘Gastron Points’. You can use these points to purchase recipes, ingredients or even private lessons with Him. You’ll receive a list of what you can buy once you finish that task, there is surprisingly a lot that you can purchase. He’ll send it through the System once you’ve decided on an item and prayed to Him. You’re not allowed to share anything he gives either, except for the ingredients, you can use those to cook and share the food.”

Thanking him for a third time, I left with Olivia, Alice and Coffee and we walked home once again. Xia had been waiting for us inside, and leaving Olivia with the other two, Xia and I sat down in the kitchen, and started talking about the plots of land she had found and what I had received from Roland. While we were talking, Elizabeth returned and sat down with us.

“Found a place yet?”

“Mm, I’ve found a few so I’m just going to sleep on it first and wait till we get the money from the hunting zone. I’ve been walking all night so I’m quite tired. Are you guys looking for a plot of land?”

“Alisha and I are looking at plots since she wishes to build a new house and a restaurant on it, as well as a garden.”

“Ah, I’ve decided to just go with a separate location. Elise said it would be best to have it near the Guild, since my food would benefit adventurers. It’s also likely we’ll be asked to make orders for the Royal Guard as well according to Roland, so we don’t want our own home swarmed by people.”

“Is the scale of people going to really be that high?” Elizabeth tilts her head to look at me. Explaining the shock both Elise and Roland had when I told them about the new food I had made, Elizabeth laughed. “So you’ll be rich? That’s good news.”

Sitting back, I shook my head. “Isn’t it a bit too easy to earn money? We can just go to the hunting zone.”

Leaning back, Elizabeth shook her head. “I spoke to Claire about that a bit ago actually. For adventurers, we earn a lot because of the dangers we go through and the items we bring back. Because the population depends on monsters for food, materials and in some cases training, we get paid a fair amount. So for adventurers, it's easy to earn but at the same time, it's easy to spend because everything becomes more expensive. I looked at buying a bag of high level dark-type monster cores for Alice earlier, it cost 2 Mithril coins for a large bag. But only 10 Silver coins for a bag of the same size, but lower level cores.

“Not only that, but once we start earning Diamond coins, the money we start earning slows way down. Executives only get four or five Diamond coins per mission they earn. Nobles have net worths counted by the amount of Jade coins, which is 100 Diamond coins, they have and the Royal Family uses Emerald coins. That wasn’t even the highest form of coins either. Since most cities and countries use the same form of payment there are coins with more worth. So it’s best to save up and find ways to make more, because if we have to walk back to Crater Hell, we’re going to need a lot of money.”

Leaning back, thoughts ran through my mind about Crater Hell. I no longer held any desire to return there, except to try and get my memories back but even then, is it really necessary to remember? I’ve found happiness here, people I want to protect were here. I knew though, at some point I’d have to go there, whether it would be to pass the Crossroads, explore my origins or to meet those that were said to be my friends.

My memories seem to come back when I see anything related to them, but only of the memories associated with what I saw. I knew the story of my past, Elizabeth had told me in full detail as well as recounts of stories I had apparently told her about, but when I try and recall, it’s like something was blocking me from doing so, just like in Zalus. Those memories I had gotten at that time only involved the time I had spent with Ash, and I know someone had been there by my side for some of the time I had with Ash, but everytime I try to recall their face, I can’t.

As we talked, we came up with many ideas for different rooms, like the mana gathering room there was also the training hall, which we could have various functions for, like increasing gravity which Xia suggested, removing mana, removing all light and so on. We could also have self-repairing training dummies, weapon storage and much more.

Other ideas were a library to story the tomes and books we had accumulated, a crafting room for Olivia, a storage room for our valuables with high security enchantments, a large kitchen with everything I would need and room to improve and as suggested by Elizabeth, a large heated outside bath since the plot of land would be walled off.

Elizabeth smiled and looked at me. “After everything that has happened, now we’re looking to really settle into Vale. Are you sure this is what you want, Alisha?”

Closing my eyes and thinking for a moment, I nod and open my eyes. “If there is ever a time I do remember those in Crater Hell, and from what you’ve told me, then at that time I’ll consider what to do. I don’t want to leave Vale right now and from what you’ve told me the conditions in Crater Hell aren’t the best, so perhaps it’ll be best to see if we can bring everyone here. The best option is probably to become stronger and make our way there, then we could bring them back here.

“I’ll be going there in the near future as I told you Ellie. If I find my memories at that time, then I’ll talk to this Sally and Grey. Maybe they have some ideas on what we can do, if they could make their way here or if we go to them. I just have a lot in Vale now, and I hold no desire to go to Crater Hell, but that can change and we’ll simply figure it out when the time comes.”

Elizabeth simply smiles. “You’ve grown so strong, Alisha. I want to help them too, I made a promise to you three that day and I will keep it. I intend to eventually head there, even if it is to bring them back here. I’ll wait for you to make a decision before I do anything.”

“Thanks, Ellie.” We continued talking about ideas of what to do with a house, about how I would be guiding Olivia’s new party through a dungeon and what we all planned for the future. And like that, Xia, Elizabeth and I talked for the rest of the day, a new chapter to our lives opening to us.