The caravan paused its travels for a moment. The line of merchants had crossed the territorial boundaries between the autumnal world and the winter world. The world, being so full of elemental influence, fitted itself into different seasonal realms. In some places it was summer forever and other places had perma-permafrost in the most literal sense.

The merchants spent the morning tending to their carriage pulling animals, which mostly consisted of horses and giant oxen armed with spiraling horns, both of which were easy to tend and keep, seeing as they only ate grass. They prepared the winter clothing for their animals and greased the wheels of their carriages to protect against winter tricksters.

Everything was in preparation for winter and what came with it. They rationed fire crystals and flame spirits kept in jars, both of which were used in little portable stoves designed to keep the caravans warm enough to live in.

Some merchants knew fire magic, and thus, had little need for crystals or wisps. Aria, luckily, had Isabelle and her flame salamanders who’d keep their quarters nice and warm.

Troy, being a rainbow slime, had no issues with the cold. He stood out in the snow in his thick armor, which the merchants were kind enough to line with furs, and watched as the snowflakes fell from the sky.

He stared up and through the slits of his helm, he watched the world.

“You’ll catch a cold, standing out here like that.”

He turned to see Isabelle wrapped in a fur coat. Her red hair combined with the grizzled, almost beastly look of her clothes gave her an aura of both danger and undeniable beauty. It was made of bear, with the claws still attached to the back of her sleeves — claws that rested above her gauntlets.

“Don’t worry about me,” Troy said. “I’m just spending my morning relaxing under the snow.”

“Relaxing under the snow, huh? Well — I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the first time I’ve ever witnessed… snowfall.”

“The underworld doesn’t get much snow, eh?”

She nodded. Being a demon from the pits of the underworld, seeing snow was an awe inspiring sight for her. She reached out a hand and caught a snowflake, one that rested on her fingertips before melting away into a single droplet.

“So small, so ephemeral,” she whispered. “The snow falls, lands, melts and disappears. When that teardrop of water falls off my fingertips, who’s to say where it goes from there?”

“The snow falls from Goddess knows where, and when that snow touches the ground, it eventually vanishes — as if it never existed in the first place. That’s what I’m getting at, is that right?” Troy asked in an attempt to connect with his fellow servant.

Isabelle, in response, simply smiled.

“I’m wondering, if that snow falls from nowhere and disappears to nowhere, did it even exist in the first place?”

“I’m not much of a philosopher, but if I had to guess, then I’d say it did.”

Isabelle turned towards the carriage and watched as the people worked tirelessly in preparations for winter travel.

“Humans and monsters,” she said. “Everyone wants to level up and grow strong, and in a world like this, where the strong eat the weak, would it be right to say that the weak don’t have the right to exist?”

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“What sort of question is that?”

“You want to grow strong, don’t you?” she asked. “If that’s the case — then who are you willing to sacrifice to get there? It’s not like you can level up without killing anything or anyone. You’re level sixteen or so, aren’t you? You had your fair share of monster slaying, did you not?”

Troy put a hand to his chin, then simply nodded.

“Yes. Yes I have. When I was a child, I hunted slimes with a sword and a slingshot. When I was a teen, I ran out with friends into the woods hunting stronger monsters, monsters that were tough but still manageable. We worked together and were forced to share the EXP. Sometimes, it made me feel jealous of the prodigious lone wolves who could go out and farm alone — grinding up to higher and higher levels.”

“You had fun killing monsters, didn’t you?”

Troy paused.

“I never thought of it like that — whether or not it’s wrong to kill monsters.”

“But if it was people you were hunting —”

Troy shook his head.

“Killing people is wrong. It’s natural for a human to value the life of another human more than something like… say, a slime. It’s why I went out of my way to save the old man during the hostage situation. If he was a monster and not human, I’d probably have ignored him.” and he turned to her to ask, “To a demoness like you, do human lives have value?”

She simply smirked.

“None at all.”

“None whatsoever? How cold.”

Her smirk turned to a wide, proud, prideful smile.

“I am a demoness after all. If I valued human lives like you did, then I couldn’t get anywhere — now could I?” and she flashed a flame wisp, one that danced around Troy’s head, sending shivers when it neared his back.

“I’ve killed my fair share of humans,” Isabelle confessed. “I used my fire magic to turn them to ashes before stealing their EXP for myself.”

“If you hunted humans, then that means you went after the easiest targets, did you not?”

“Easiest targets?”

“The sick, the elderly, the wounded — and the easiest target, children.”

Isabelle froze. Her shock was genuine. Seeing that look of surprise filled Troy with relief.

“Thank goodness. I’d have had to reassess our relationship if it turned out you hunted children, Isabelle,” Troy said. “It seems that despite everything you said, you still seem to value human life.”

She paused, and allowed her look of shock to settle like sand in a river falling down into the riverbed, allowing it to settle down to an expression of warmth.

“I suppose killing children is too much, even for a demoness as evil as me.”

With that, she felt a thud. She felt something cold hit the back of her head. Troy turned, then let out a laugh.

“Lady Aria! Brilliant shot! That’s a hundred points from me!”

Aria stood behind her, and with a snowball in hand, she smirked.

“Ku ku ku... Isabelle, let’s play.”

Hearing that, Isabelle couldn’t help but smirk back, for she knew Aria’s weakness. Aria knew no magic. Meanwhile, Isabelle had her mind steeped in tomes and grimoires. With a snap of her fingers, she revealed she not only was proficient in fire magic, but also ice.

Aria let out a yelp and fled, hiding behind the carriage from Isabelle’s snowball storm. Surrounding her arm was an army of snow wisps that created snowballs in rapid succession — firing them off like a machine gun.

Isabelle circled around the carriage like a terminating monster. That’s when she found Aria hiding, crouched with her hands over her head. It was as if Aria had genuinely believed that if she couldn’t see Isabelle, Isabelle couldn’t see her.

Isabelle smirked, saying, “Lady Aria, this is revenge for forcing me to sign that contract.” and with a hail of snowballs, she got even with Aria.

Aria truly was weak. With no magical prowess, no physical abilities and no real combative skills, she was nothing but a child in the face of a harsh and brutal world where EXP reigned supreme. But so long as she could live, Isabelle promised her — promise that she’d let no one steal her life away and take her EXP for themselves.

She wouldn’t let the selfish and cruel world get the better of the young child.