The world blacked out for less than half a second, but it was more than enough to make my heart clench. I thought that I had died again the second before my foot hit the floor on the other side of the spell. It would have been such a depressing way to die, not even getting to fight back against whatever killed me. Thankfully, this was just my own paranoia in action as my senses quickly kicked back in and I could see that my location had indeed changed, but not to the same endlessly white void I had appeared in this morning.

“Guess that teleportation spell isn’t a joke…”

Before me was not the same coliseum-like fort we had stood in just a second ago, but a long corridor made entirely of stone. There was not a single light source in sight. Not a candle, not a lightbulb, not even the glowing backside of a firefly fluttering about. And yet the place somehow remained entirely visible. Guess there was no need for a torch after all.

And that was it. That was all there was to see.

I was expecting several things from the mention of a dungeon, but found none of it here. Asides from the grey stone plating of the floor and the greyer brick of the walls and the few steps leading to all of this, there was nothing down here. Except, if you chose to count it, there was a little bit of mold on some of the brickwork.

My first instinct was to wallow in disappointment. So far, most fantasy elements of this world came off as rather lack-luster to me. Magic was fun, but incredibly dangerous to use out in the open. Slavery is a thing that’s legal, and the people behind it are apparently just as evil as they were in my world. The apothecary shop did manage to put up what its name offered, but I ended up getting lectured then yelled at by someone half my size. It was my fault, but still. No fun.

The instinct that took over right after my self-pity was a soul shaking worry that very nearly became an outright panic. Yua mentioned the monsters that spawned today may have already been cleared, so that could be the reason why there was nothing in front of me now but stone, mold and a deep hallway that was almost uniform-enough to feel like the walls were just copied and pasted on repeat by some lazy game developer.

I could see no monsters and heard no fighting. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything except for my own heart beat when my eardrums were forced to search for any source of sound to replace the uneasy quiet surrounding me. It was pretty quiet in the forest, but this was completely different. There were no tree branches listing back and forth in the breeze, the leaves they carried flapping and tickling each other carelessly. No animals scurrying about, hiding in the brush. And no rabbits accidentally getting blasted by a fire ball. There was just, nothing.

I gulped down my worries, then gulped some more and just when I did, I felt something soft and squishy bare down on my back right before something heavy collided with me. There was a hefty, yet strikingly lady-like grunt and a force that sent me falling forwards. I managed to catch myself by grabbing at the wall, but only just barely.

“Ouch,” Yua said, pulling herself off of my back. “Don’t just stand in front of the entrance like that. You’re going to throw someone off their game or scare them into attacking you.”

“Sorry… Wait, can monsters reach the entrance up here?”

“Obviously,” she said, wrapping an arm over her bust with a grimace. It did wonders to amplify the effect her cleavage had on me, but I thought it best not to mention this as she seemed to be checking if the haphazardly placed buttons on her shirt had come undone. I respectfully looked away, just in case they did. “The monsters are trying to get out. Where else would they be?”

“Right… Then where are they?”

“The ones closest to the door are always the ones killed first,” she said, this time stretching her back by bending forward to touch her toes. The movement accidently provided me the perfect position to get a better look at the hole in the back of her leather pants. Although, the only thing worth seeing there was the cute, wriggling tail sticking out of it. Still, after watching her limber body actually manage to touch and hold onto her toes, her bare toes, a sudden realization struck me like a bolt of douchebag-colored lightning.

Did I really make her walk all the way here without any shoes? We might be in a rush, but maybe we should have stopped somewhere to buy her a pair, cheap as they might need to be. I really needed to get her some as soon as I could.

“Most new Adventurers don’t have the stamina to fight for too long,” she continued, leaning only her torso to the side in a stretch, arcing her arms over her head one at a time. “So, they tend to kill one or two monsters before they get tired and give up for the day.”

Yua turned to the side to bend one leg into a squat and stretched the other in a half-splits-like motion. The tightness of her pants screamed for me to look at her every curve as its leather creaked against her movements, but I shook my head and turned away. I really needed to focus, now more than ever. She was taking this seriously and prepping for strenuous physical activity. I can’t let my libido get the best of me here!

Not to mention I really didn’t want her to hate me more than she already did.

“Does that mean this floor might not be cleared yet?”

“Ahh,” she sighed, jumping straight back up into a standing position. “That’s right. I can still hear some monsters milling about.”

Her perky cat ears twitched atop her head, a sight I was already growing familiar with. I nodded in response, thankful that, if I was going to screw up so badly, that I at least managed to get partnered with a beast-kin. As long as she was with me, it was like having a sonar at the ready to find our enemies. We wouldn’t be delving into this dungeon blind, then.

“You should stretch while you can,” she said.

“Thanks, but I’ve never been one for stretching before or after exercise. It’s never done me any good. Anyway, you think we should have gotten a map for this place before coming here?”

The walls and floors looked almost identical as far down the dungeon as I could see. The only differences were the placement of the few patches of mold and the occasional gashes in the wall I only just realized were likely signs of a recent battle. I was sure we could easily get lost in here, even with her ears guiding us.

Yua shook her head.

“You can’t map the dungeons. Along with the monsters spawning every morning, the layout of each floor changes precisely at midnight. The only constant is the number of enemies that spawn each morning and the floor boss.”

“Then doesn’t that mean treasure chests might not respawn too?”

If someone already found a chest here, then our hopes for finding something pricey were pointless. This was the first floor, even if the layout magically changed every morning, someone had likely already found a chest here and looted it, assuming one even spawned here. But, if the chests respawn as well, then maybe…

“Probably, but don’t get your hopes up. From what I’ve heard, chests almost never spawn down on the lower levels.”

Yua looked at me, bemused. She seemed to be waiting for yet another question from her worthless master. When I was about to end the questioning right then and there and thank her for what she’s already shared, she asked a question of her own.

“How long are you planning on spending down here tonight?”

“As long as we can. Or until the monsters are all dead.”

Yua closed her eyes and sighed, though for some reason it sounded like a sigh of relief. I guess she really does enjoy fighting. If so, then at least this process won’t be too hard on her.

“Could you lead us, please?”

Her eyes shot open into a glare before spinning on her heel in a huff.

“Hmph. I knew I’d get thrown out as bait. Fine. I can’t do anything from the backline anyways.”

“I’m not using you as bait. I just don’t have a way to find monsters quickly enough. And I thought, if you were in front…”

With her ears, and maybe even her nose, she could in theory spot us targets at a distance and take us straight to them. The design of the dungeon seemed confusing even at a glance due to how uniform it was, so having her guide us straight to our targets would prevent us from wandering aimlessly. Or so I thought.

“Ha. Yea right. I’m not stupid. I know I’m a battle slave, too. Might as well act as your meat shield like I’m supposed to.”

“What? No!... Ugh, look, I need your cooperation on this. I know you’re upset with your position, but don’t you at least want to be rid of Alphonse? Because if we fail to earn enough money to pay off your contract, you’ll have to go right back to him.”

“Hmph.”

Yua’s only response to this was to cross her arms. I knew she might have heard his earlier threat to kill her, so maybe if she thought I was using her as a shield, she’d be risking death either way.

I sort of felt I had to admire her willingness to speak her mind even when she was a literal slave faced with two different forms of potential death, and against her new master who could easily start abusing her should he grow tired of her nonsense. Not that I would, but she didn’t know that.

It definitely wasn’t the sort of attitude I felt I could take. I would have been lost in my own little world of despair had I been put in her situation, but she’s somehow still so strong. She’s the slave, but she’s already so much more than me…

“… Yua,” I pressed my eyes to calm myself. “I know it might not seem like it, but I want to save you from Alphonse. But in order to do that, I need your help. I can’t promise you much, but… but I can promise to at least treat you better than he did.”

Yua’s glare didn’t budge. I don’t know why I thought it might. She had no reason to believe me. And I can’t deny that there was another, dirtier reason for buying her. Hell, she might have even heard about that too. That ruckus she caused did happen shortly after Alphonse made that comment on breeding between our races being impossible and I jumped straight into his clutches, so she was likely expecting to be abused more. I just had to show her that won’t be the case.

I bought her in a moment of weakness fueled by my libido and loneliness after meeting that dog-kin in the bath. Maybe, if I had dealt with my lust before leaving the inn, I might not have bought her and ended up in so much debt, but then her head would still likely end up on the chopping block. If today’s outburst was just the last straw for Alphonse, it was likely best that it happened while I was there and not someone with much less patience and a penchant for complaining, or she might have been “put down” on the spot.

“… Fine,” she said finally, though her expression still didn’t budge. “Which do you want to fight first? Wolf or slime?”

I was about to consider suggesting the slime, given my knowledge of what perverted antics they get up to in anime whenever they grab hold of a girl, but quickly shut that idea down.

“Wolf, if you don’t mind.”

I chose the option I felt I already knew how to deal with. They may be stronger here, but they are still wolves, right? They probably fight the same way the ones in the forest did.

“Sure. It’s up to you, after all, Master.”

The snarky way she called my name, or rather the title she picked out for me, was almost endearing as Yua started down the hall. While she still seemed annoyed at the notion of being forced to act as the vanguard of our two-person party, she was still visibly pumped to get a chance to fight.

I steeled myself one final time, drew my sword and followed her.

Starting from the first left turn in front of where the teleportation spell dumped us, Yua carefully guided the party through the corridors. Sticking close to her like my life depended on it, which it literally did, I kept my sword raised and readied myself for anything that might attempt to make a surprise attack. She, however, remained entirely calm for the duration of the walk. This despite how she complained about being made to act as the vanguard.

We continued through the silence for a few minutes, nothing to hear but the sounds of our own feet tapping against the stone floor. The whole way, there was nothing visually striking enough to act as landmarks we could breadcrumb together to find our way back out, just an endless path of stone walls. Though, the dungeon layout on this floor didn’t seem too complicated.

This is how it usually was on the first few levels where video games were concerned, just a narrow, straightforward path with barely a twist or turn to it to get the player to understand the basics of dungeon crawling. But we’d likely have to start actively mapping the lower floors once they became more difficult. Which meant we would have to stop a lot more often to plot things out. Which also meant less time to make coin.

Maybe I should have checked with the Adventurer’s Guild first. The name alone suggested that we’d get sent out on quests to do something the average person couldn’t or to fight and kill something before coming back to collect our reward. And with the sort of effort and time such quests would take, I could easily imagine those rewards were nice. But, unfortunately, my level wasn’t high enough and traveling between cities would also mean taking time we didn’t have to spare.

The utter lack of real possibilities to make some good coin was a distraction I really didn’t want to acknowledge right now.

After a brisk four-to-five-minute walk, Yua finally came to a stop. She pressed herself against a corner leading to yet another turn in the path and tilted her head. Her ear gave a small twitch and, assuming from this that she was listening for something, I kept myself as quiet as could be. She did not speak until her ears twitched again.

“There’s a wolf right around the corner,” she said in a whisper. “Only one. Do you want to take it or should I... Or should I?”

Far be it from me to say this girl still didn’t look beautiful when she turned a condescending smirk to me, but that definitely sounded like she was suggesting I couldn’t handle one of the weakest monsters in the dungeon. I’ve fought not only one wolf before, but two. And at the same time for that matter. This one may be stronger, but two on one was definitely the harder fight. It had to be.

She was challenging me. I couldn’t tell exactly why I thought so, but I chose to take it as her wanting to see what I could do since I promised to fight alongside her. She might have just wanted to see if I was capable of handling myself so that she didn’t have to act like a meat shield.

“I’ll take it,” I said, trying to sound confident. “You just watch my back.”

If worst came to worst, all I could do was hope she’d come to my aid if I needed it, but I was determined to put her smirk in its place and show that I could handle this much on my own.

She shrugged and moved behind me.

With barely a moment’s hesitation to psyche myself up, I stepped around the corner with my sword pointed at the wolf slowly approaching us, as if it already knew we were here. It probably heard us whispering and came to investigate the noise.

Scanning it showed it to be only level one, like the wolves in the forest, but I was careful to remember that this one would be stronger. It was about a third larger than those in the forest and its coat of fur was a much sleeker, almost metallic grey. I hoped that didn’t mean its hide was thicker than the ones I fought. And I pleaded with the Goddess above that it didn’t mean it was actually as tough as metal. It truly earned the name of monster.

Thinking back, I don’t remember the skin of the wolves in the forest putting up much resistance when I cut them, so maybe this sword might be enough here too.

It growled and I tightened my grip on my sword.

I probably looked tensed up to Yua, and I probably was, but something inside me told me that I needed to limber up. With the beast staring me down, fangs already bared, I didn’t have the leeway to take a minute to stretch. So, I took a long breath and slowly exhaled it through my nostrils. If I couldn’t be calm, I could at least pretend that I was.

Showing much less caution than the forest wolves did, this one charged at me almost as soon as it decided I looked tasty enough to warrant the effort it’d take to kill me.

Without thinking, I widened my stance and turned my body to the side to minimize the number of areas the wolf could target, but also to keep my blade hidden behind my back so it could approach unhindered by the thoughts of danger. While the corridor was wide enough for me to be able to swing my sword freely from this position, if this larger wolf tried to circle around me, it would end up using its size and the force of its charge to pin me against the wall. Or it might even work its way around me to get at Yua. So, I kept my feet rooted in the middle of the path, keeping its gaze squarely on me.

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I waited, thinking that this felt like the best option, but I had no idea how I knew that. This knowhow, this internal advice felt just like it did when fighting the forest wolves. Maybe my Swordsman class was trying to take over my actions the same way the Merchant one did when I bought Yua.

If true, I needed to be cautious. That feeling likely wasn’t infallible. Thanks to the failure of my Merchant class and my naivete, I fell for a scheme anyone with more than an iota of common sense would have seen through if given a half a second to think it over. Which meant this might not be the best course of action, either.

I couldn’t be too rigid with how I stood. I needed to be able to react to however this wolf chose to attack.

Then like a mad beast, the wolf blew past my earlier thought that it might go for Yua, whose thinner body no doubt made her look the easier target, and continued straight at me. I readied my sword imagined the limited number of ways this wolf could attack me. Unlike in the forest, it couldn’t circle around me in a wide arc, nor could it leap out of a bush in a surprise attack. A slash with its claws or a bite was all I could expect from it. So, which was it going to be?

Before it got within fifteen feet of me, I already chose how to act out my counter attack regardless of the wolf’s choice.

Growling madly and foaming at the teeth as if rabid, the wolf jumped into the air and two rows of sharpened fangs bared down on me. It attempted to barrel into my chest, likely aiming its bite for my throat and for an easy kill.

I leapt backwards and, using its own momentum along with the power of my thrust, jabbed the pointed tip of my sword straight down its throat, skewering it. Its weight carried it forward still, sliding down my blade until its nose slammed into the cross guard.

The wolf kicked and thrashed, only realizing all too late that it needed to run away. Before the sheer weight of the thing could cause me to drop my weapon, it let out the loud, sad whimper of a dog in pain before it vanished in a burst of light.

Wait… Was that it? Were these things really weak enough to die in one hit? I’d question if I was over-leveled for this area, if I wasn’t still level 1. No, that’s probably got nothing to do with it anyways. If this world functioned on true physics and biology just as much as it did on video game logic, then anyone would die after having a sword shoved down their esophagus.

At my feet was another pelt. This time it was labeled as a “Proud Wolf’s Pelt.” I let out the breath I had been holding and picked it up.

“Hmm. Was it proud because it kept such good care of its fur?”

I was a little hesitant at first, thinking its metallic-looking fur might slice up my hand, but when I ran my fingers over it, it felt just as soft as any other fur would. Not that I had an abundance of knowledge on the subject. I guess the metallic sheen was just a trick of the light. No need to aim for its weak spots, then? A critical hit was always nice, but in hindsight, I think aiming for such a small target like that was more dangerous. What if I missed and it managed to latch onto me? It’d be game over for sure.

“Oooh?~ Good job, Master,” Yua hummed, clapping her hands together. “I didn’t think you knew to avoid slashing at its fur.”

“Wait, its fur really was tougher than a regular wolf’s then? No, wait, you knew that and didn’t bother to tell me? I could have died!”

“Hahaha! No, you wouldn’t, Master. I wouldn’t have let it come to that. If it looked like you were going to fail, I would have stepped in. These pups can’t hope to stand up against my fists!”

Yua shadow-boxed the air with a fierce smile while I stood there dumfounded and blankly watched.

If she was my slave and knowingly allowed me to walk towards injury or a possible death, the spell binding her soul to mine should have caused her pain, right? Unless, if she was so sure of herself being able to come to my rescue before I actually got hurt, then maybe it just didn’t trigger? Was the spell’s trigger actually only effective if she didn’t expect to be able to save me? Alphonse said she’d still feel a less severe pain if she did something to me by accident, but nothing seemed to have happened. Sure, I didn’t get hurt in the first place, but she didn’t seem to worry about the potential of her getting hurt in the event that I did.

If this were true and if she truly thought I was in no danger due to her own abilities, then she wouldn’t be punished if she failed.

I can’t say I’d want her to suffer the same end that came to me, but a little bit of payback for a screw up born of her own cockiness would have been nice. Only a little bit, though.

“Next time just tell me if you know a monster’s weaknesses or strengths. Don’t leave it to luck that I might figure it out on my own.”

“Okay!~”

That kind of loophole in the slavery spell could lead to problems if she ends up overestimating our abilities. Or the monsters’ lack thereof.

I left her alone to brag about her strength as she patted her thin bicep and silently used the Appraisal skill on the wolf pelt to see if it would show how much it was worth and thankfully, it did. Apparently, this one was worth 10 silver pieces. That unfortunately wasn’t much of an improvement from the forest wolves and what’s worse, that isn’t necessarily the price it would go for at the market. The actual price may depend on my Merchant’s class. Because of the game logic running this world, it was possible that, at the low level of 2, I might get less than its full value. But at the same time, if I raised that class’s level, I might even be able to successfully ask for more than the listed price. Maybe then my bartering skill would improve and I wouldn’t blunder like I did at the Apothecary’s place. Maybe, if I worked it hard enough, I could get so good at it that I could actually sell things for twice their real worth. Although, from the looks of how I leveled the class to begin with, I would need to trade quite a bit to level it up before that could ever be a thing.

“I’ll take that. I’m pretty sure I’d have an easier time moving with the loot than you would.”

Yua quit her boxing to pluck the wolf pelt out of my hands. She threw it over her shoulder and straight into her bag in a trained sort of motion that suggested she held a fair bit more experience than she let on. I considered telling her the truth about my item box when I thought that the added weight of all the future items we were going to find would end up slowing her down, but now that the actual fighting had begun, she seemed raring to go and didn’t give me the chance.

Were all beast-kin this hungry for battle when it was presented to them or was it just her?

“Master, which would you like to fight next?”

“Hmm. Well, I know I can handle the wolves now, since they seem a bit dumber than the ones in the forest.”

I already thought lunging like that was foolish, but doing so when you didn’t have the backup of your pack nearby was just plain stupid.

“Yea. The ones down here are all bark and no brain.”

Cockiness aside, she was probably right. Unlike those in the forest, who had to sneak about and plan how they were going to pounce on their skittish prey, all while coordinating with their pack, the wolves here had nothing to do but to walk down the corridors and fight whatever came their way. Maybe they relied too much on their power and never developed the intellect the ones in the wild needed to survive.

“How about we try a slime next?”

I thought it best to try a little variety to see what sort of fight the slimes could put up against us so we could plan accordingly. Yua offered me a brief shrug and a “follow me,” before walking off down the path the wolf had come from. Once again, I had to force myself to look away from her swaying ass and tail as she moved through the dungeon, but some of the tension in me released itself when I saw how happy she looked.

This time, she took us much further into the dungeon than before. After continuing to walk past more and more walls that looked exactly the same, it didn’t take me long to figure out I’d be entirely lost without her. I did hear the occasional tapping of a wolfs claws against the stone floor, but because Yua seemed to ignore their existence entirely, I guessed we weren’t in any danger of them heading for us.

Using her cool demeanor as the backbone I should’ve already had, I felt safe enough to open my status menu and checked how much EXP I got from proud wolf. Much to my surprise, my Adventurer and Swordsman classes both jumped up quite a bit. The Adventurer class jumped from 250 EXP out of a needed 500 to level up, to 450. And with only one kill. The Swordsman class gained the same and put it close to 250. Meaning both got a boost of 200 EXP. That’s twice what the regular wolf gave me.

Alphonse and Yua both stressed that the monsters here were stronger than their wild counterparts, but if I only gained twice the EXP from fighting them, did that mean they were only twice as strong?

Not bad. With this, I’m already close to leveling up both classes. At least my attempts to improve myself via these numbers didn’t get saddled with a giant set back.

Out of curiosity, I checked Yua’s stats as well. Apparently, both her Beast-Warrior and Monk classes increased by 100 EXP as well, landing the first at an even 200 and the second at 100. This must mean that, even if she didn’t participate in the fight, because we are partied together, she gets experience too. Whether or not that was just how the world worked or if it was a side-effect of my EXP-boosting trait, I couldn’t know just yet. More testing was required for a concrete answer.

The only questions left here were whether or not she got the same amount everyone else did while I got a boosted figure, because the system this world runs on favors whoever landed the killing blow. Or if the total EXP was simply divided amongst everyone in the party. Say, if the wolf actually gave 300 EXP in total after my boost affected it, then she only got a third of the EXP because she didn’t actually help in the fight. That would be a fair trade off, though it obviously favored the lone Adventurer approach to things.

Either way, I believe that means that, at least for the foreseeable future, as long as I get the final blow on each monster, then I should be able to catch up to Yua’s level soon. My confidence boost wasn’t helping me much when it came to her, if it was even doing anything at all, but leveling above her might do the trick.

Although, the smile she wore while gearing up for the fight ahead was the best I’d seen from her all day. Considering that, I wasn’t sure if I should prioritize leveling or making her happy.

I suppose it didn’t really matter all that much just yet. As long as both of us got stronger in the process and we could kill more of these monsters, we could build on our stock of loot to build up our finances. And do so faster. Becoming closer, close enough for her to at least put a stopper on the casual insults every time I made mistake, was going to have to take a backseat to the order in which we needed to tackle our problems.

Money first, interpersonal relationships second. That seemed like it should be the other way around, but time wasn’t on our side.

We walked for a minute or two in silence after I came to this conclusion before she suddenly stopped again. Her ears twitched and she pointed to the bend in the path ahead.

“It’s around this corner,” she said then turned her head back to whisper some advice this time. “Slimes bodies absorb physical attacks even better than the hide of those wolves. So don’t expect to kill it in one hit. We should fight it together to save time.”

I nodded rather than speak my understanding. I hadn’t seen it yet, so I had no idea if slimes in this world had ears, but gaming experience suggested that slimes weren’t known for their excellent hearing.

Sword drawn and fists clenched, we both rounded the corner while I worried about how I was going to swing my weapon without hitting her, but that thought came to an abrupt halt when she shrieked.

“Wah!”

Before I knew what happened to her, Yua fell backwards. She tried to reclaim her balance mid-flight by stomping her feet as fast as she could, trying to grab onto the traction that was supposed to be offered by the stone flooring, but she failed. On pure instinct, I reached out my hands to catch her and her body collided with mine, knocking us both down. We both landed on our butts, her landing between my legs.

“Ow…”

While I reeled from the literal pain in the ass she’d just become, I realized that my hand was groping something alluringly soft and springy. Something whose touch seemed to inexplicably soothe my very soul. But more so, I noticed that Yua had gone oddly quiet.

The blood coursing through my veins froze in place when I realized that my hand had accidently cupped her breast when I tried to catch her.

“S-S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to!” I said, ripping my hand away from her chest before I could allow myself to enjoy the sensation.

Trembling, hopefully from embarrassment rather than anger, she quietly bent forwards and protectively covered her chest with her arms, as if she expected me to go for another feel now that I got a taste.

I apologized again and looked in front of her to see why she fell in the first place. What I found was a large trail of what looked like a thick green goo smeared all over the floor in front of us. In her eagerness to fight, Yua must have failed to notice this and the smooth bottoms of her unprotected feet weren’t capable of correcting her mistake. So, she slipped.

I apologized a third time when she remained quiet. I expected to be berated as a pervert, but she said nothing. She just tried to get to her feet again, but ended up slipping on the goo a second time. For fear of accidentally touching something I shouldn’t, I purposely avoided trying to help her and let her fall. She clenched her teeth, probably not from the further staining of her already shabby clothing with the goo, but maybe from the pain or the inelegant display of the skills she’d been bragging about this entire time. Without so much as a word to wound her ego, I offered her a hand and she took it. Reluctantly, she took it.

Just as she did and I started to lift her, her ears twitched and she let go of my hand to plop back down on the stone floor.

“It’s here!”

She shouted and pointed ahead of us, towards a slime racing down the hall at full speed. It wasn’t as fast as the wolf, but it was moving faster than how slimes in video games typically did. Looking at how the slime’s gelatinous body moved sort of like a slug’s and that it too left a trail behind it, I realized it had to be responsible for the goo on the floor. More importantly, moving back over the now slick floor might have increased its speed.

It raced towards us, seemingly eager to make a move now that our best fighter was indisposed. I had no idea how a slime might actually try to hurt us, but after seeing how Yua’s skin wasn’t burning where the goo touched her, my thoughts fell on the possibility that it would try to wrap itself around my head, rendering me incapable of breathing and forcing me to effectively drown on solid land.

Wanting very much to avoid this slow death for the both of us, and careful to avoid wasting time with a physical attack that might hurt Yua, I raised my hand and silently cast the Fire Ball spell.

Unlike with the branch and the rabbit, I didn’t sit there and revel in the light burning in front of my palm and let the mana burst out all on its own. The ball of flames flew with all the speed of an amateur pitcher’s thrown baseball and collided with the slime’s body. It immediately stopped its charge and reeled forward, sort of like a man that just received a well-thrown punch to the gut.

Just when it looked like the slime’s inner goo was about to boil under the intense heat, it melted into a large green puddle before disappearing altogether in a burst of light. The trail it left behind disappeared right along with it, as did the slime coating Yua’s clothes and feet. All that was left was a small bottle of green liquid that inexplicably appeared where the slime died.

“Wow… That was easy,” I said, checking my stats again. “I guess it was just a slime after all.”

My Mage class gained 100 EXP, placing it at 150 out of 500. But more importantly, it was enough for my Adventurer class to level up. Yua too gained some EXP, but since she only got 50 for her Beast-Warrior class and nothing for Monk again, I guessed that that meant that she not only gets half of whatever I get, but that if she doesn’t participate in the fight directly, only her birth class gets the reward. That must have meant the 100 EXP in her Monk class had been there before I even met her.

I offered her a hand up again and once more, she reluctantly took it. Still covering her chest, she glared at me as she got back to her feet. Apparently, saving her from the slime wasn’t enough to erase the sin of accidentally groping her.

“Sorry,” I pleaded. “I really didn’t do it on purpose.”

Yua clenched the fist not covering her chest, spun around, and walked.

“From now on, Master, I think it would be best if you take care of the slimes. I’ll handle the wolves myself… I really need to punch something right now.”

Terribly happy that that something wasn’t going to be me, I agreed without hesitation.

I was about to chase after her, but when I stopped to pick up what the slime dropped and appraised it, along with the usual information detailing it as a vial of “Living Slime Goo” and that it was priced at 1 silver per bottle, it said that the goo was apparently poisonous. After reading this, I got a notification from the Apothecary class telling me that, if ingested, the slime goo could cure injuries and this confused me greatly. How the hell could something heal you and still be considered poisonous?

Unable to parse out this discrepancy before we were separated, I tucked it away into my item box via the pouch on my belt and ran after Yua before we could get separated.

“So, after all that complaining about me keeping secrets about monsters, why didn’t you tell me you could use fire magic? I would have let you take the front against the slime if I’d known.”

“Again, sorry. I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Stop apologizing already and tell me why you planned on fighting the slime with me if you could use non-physical magic? Shouldn’t you have thought to tell me when I said that it was strong against physical attacks? Are you stupid? Or did you just forget you knew the spell and all the effort it took to learn it?”

Effort? I learned it instantly at the press of a button and only used it once.

Under her barrage of questions as we continued to walk the dungeon, I started to feel like she was the master and I the slave. I did not reprimand her for it, though. She was right and I’m not just saying that because I left my spine back at the inn. It’s life or death down here and not only should I have been fully aware of all of my own abilities and used them the best I could, but I should have told her.

“Like I said, I just didn’t think about it.”

“Hmph.”

Finally giving up on covering her chest, Yua stormed off towards the next enemy without consulting me this time. I guessed that she was headed towards the nearest wolf to vent her frustration.

She found one not too long after she started looking and before the wolf itself even noticed us, she adopted a fighting stance that felt like a mixture between that of a professional boxer and of a martial artist.

Her legs were spaced far apart, but were noticeably sturdy despite this. Her fists were balled up protectively in front of her chest and face. Despite her slender frame, she looked strong. She looked capable of either lashing out with a vicious punch at the slightest provocation, but was equally capable of dashing in any direction she’d feel she need to when the enemy approached.

But the wolf hadn’t seen her yet. Maybe, having extra sensitive ears herself, Yua knew how to sneak up on such a creature. Perhaps because of this, she bent her knees slightly before taking off in a mad dash straight for the wolf.

“Iron Fist!”

She shouted, or rather incanted, as she ran and her right fist began to glow with a silvery light. Before I could take in the spectacle of it, she slammed her fist straight into the side of the large wolf’s head the moment it turned to face her, throwing its entire body against the nearby wall. Exactly like she did the thugs that tried to reign her in back at the slave house. With the wall behind pinning it in place, the wolf was forced to take the full brunt of her attack. Its skull crunched and snapped before its face imploded under the sheer force of her strike.

I was suddenly very aware of how terrified those earlier thugs must have felt when facing off against her. And I now fully understood why they trembled at the thought of fighting just this one girl. She was holding back the whole time. And now she was supposed to be on my side. At least, I hoped so.

The beast-kin truly were amazing fighters. Thinking back, Yua, as a level 3 girl just barely out of her teens, was able to handle at least ten armed thugs all by herself. And with her bare hands to boot. If I wasn’t there to distract her, I could only imagine the damage she could have caused before Alphonse was able to cast that sleep spell on her.

Or, rather, I was seeing it now. The force of the punches and kicks she continued to throw at the wolf and the growls she made as she did, made the walls themselves quake. Again and again, she pummeled the beast without ever letting it touch the floor. It felt like her continued barrage was actually keeping the monster from dying, despite having shattered its skull already.

All I could do was stand there and watch, feeling as though the gusts of air resulting from the excess force of her punches might actually blow me away.

Oh, that poor wolf.

Hopefully satisfied, Yua gave the wolf one last kick that shot it up into the air and bounced it off of the ceiling before letting it hit the ground. Finally, the wolf burst into light and died. Breathing heavily, she turned back to me with a smile I could only hope was genuinely a happy one, but I couldn’t escape the glint of her canines glaring at me from beneath her lips.

“Master, shall I find us another wolf?”

“S-Sure…”

After she collected the wolf’s pelt, Yua stomped off down the hall again in search of another fight. I hoped that the first one had calmed her down and that it was just the thrill of the fight propelling her forward, but I doubted it. Despite the terror she beaten into the wolf, she hadn’t even broken a sweat yet.

I hurried to follow and checked our stats again to see if my earlier hunch was right and I was surprised to find that I was actually dead wrong.

Doing the math, I found that I still gained the full 200 EXP for my Adventurer class, whereas she still only received an even 100 for her Beast-Warrior class. While I didn’t gain anything for my Swordsman or Mage classes, I still got more than she did, despite doing nothing.

I was about to say that that was unfair for me to benefit so much from her effort, but realized that it had to be the EPX-boosting trait that did it, not the world itself. That, or her being my slave somehow forced me to siphon off some of what she earned.

Not that I would actually want to, but if this were true, I could easily sit back and let her power level me until I caught up to her. Although, watching her beat down the next wolf she found kind of turned me away from that line of thought altogether. The thought of what she might do to me if she found out I was using her like that was more than compelling enough to stop the idea in its tracks.

Besides, I didn’t want to take the easy way out and let myself grow complacent. Not again.