Those fire crystals were put to good use. The first thing they were to do was expand the dungeon, and with the fire crystals used as a fuel source, they turned the stone and dirt of the earth into hollow rooms. It was easy to do, but resource intensive. Additionally, they had to extend the power lines with chalk and connect torches to the main energy source.

Gray went out of his way to build a hallway towards a small room. There, he laid out a mattress that furnished Aria’s bedroom. She had herself a bedroom, a bathroom and a storage room that became the foundation of her vault. He went out of his way to carefully carve the walls with alchemy, doing his best to make the room look somewhat hospitable. Slapping the dust off his hands, he turned to her with a smile.

“Well, that does it. Because of your hard work, you now have your own room and bed. How does it feel to rise up in this world, little lady?”

Aria looked it all over, then peeked into her storage room.

“There’s no treasure. A dungeon needs treasure.”

“Indeed, a dungeon does need treasure, but at the moment we have bigger issues to solve.” and with that, Gray pulled out a notepad. Reading off the list, he brought to her attention all the issues they have.

“First things first, we need a consistent stream of fire crystals to upkeep the dungeon’s power system. Same thing with water and air crystals for water and ventilation respectively. Then, we need anti-alchemy measures.”

“Anti alchemy?”

“Anyone could come and use alchemy to transmute the walls into rubble. We need anti-alchemy measures to prevent that. The best solution is to set an absolute field.”

“What’s that?”

“Absolute fields are divine statuses. We’ll need either a demigod to bless our dungeon with an absolute field or make a pact with a high tier demon.”

She turned to him with a curious look in her eyes, as if she were asking him to make the pact. Gray, however, brushed it aside.

“The absolute field can come later. Noone’s coming to raid our dungeon, as of yet. For now, we need to build up our defenses.” and with that, he pulled out a spellbook and summoned forth a swarm of monsters — mindless skeletons.

“Skeleton knights? That should do,” Aria said, and he nodded.

“They make for an alright defense, but they’re just not enough.” and Gray tapped on their armor which was made of flimsy steel. They carried short swords with shields and frankly weren’t scary in the least.

The soldiers were no good. They were about as good as furniture in the face of a warrior looking for gold in their dungeon. The skeletons all went down the hall to guard the entrance, and down the hall they heard a scream.

It was Troy, their trusty slime. He had returned from the surface after being sent off on a mission. Troy was, essentially, a gatherer servant. He carried on his back a sack full of random crystals — but most importantly, a few fire crystals. It was a small number of them, but enough to tide them on for a few days.

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“Welcome back, Troy. It seems like you’ve brought some goodies,” Gray said, and Troy pointed a slime finger at him to accuse.

“You! You told me it would be a simple mission — to go out and forage fire crystals!” Troy cried, and Gray tilted his head to the side.

“Yes, I did. It was an easy mission, was it not?”

“Why would you send me — a delicate slime — out to forage when you have all these skeleton soldiers to do this job for you? I almost got killed multiple times!”

“Well, we can’t have skeletons roaming around near the village, now, can we? What if the villagers notice them? Then that’ll attract the attention of adventurers and soldiers.”

Hearing that, Troy let out a sigh, then slumped down into a rainbow puddle. He had a lot less volume than Aria remembered him having, and with his slime hand, he poured himself some water — reinvigorating the poor slime. He must’ve been slinging slime at monsters that chased after him, wanting to eat his delicious core.

“Lady Aria,” Troy said. “Please, don’t send me out on a mission. I don’t think I could survive another second out there with my soft, gelatinous body. Oh, how I miss my human body with all the limbs and skin and all that. This slime body is completely worthless.”

“Worthless, hmm?” Aria said, and she turned to one of the skeletons, then pointed to it.

“What is it?” Gray asked, and she tugged on the skeleton servant’s bone arm.

“Slimes aren’t very smart, so no slime in the past must’ve tried this, but have you considered… absorbing a skeleton?”

“Absorb? Absorb! That’s it!”

Troy’s eyes lit up, and with a smile, he leapt onto the skeleton — enveloping the bony servant and incorporating the bony frame into his body. Troy had gained a proper body, with the smile acting like the flesh surrounding a normal skeleton’s bones. He spat out the skull in favor of his core. He even had armor to protect him.

“This is perfect! Oh, Lady Aria, you’re a genius!”

Troy lifted his sword and swung it left and right, then pointed it at Gray with a smirk on his slime face.

“Well, how do you like that? I can stand with my own two feet now! Now you can’t bully me anymore!”

“I am your master. I do as I please.”

“Lady Aria is my master, not you. I didn’t sign a contract with you, now, did I?”

Gray frowned, then let out a sigh.

“Then I suppose you are under her employment. Troy — do take care of the skeleton you are possessing.”

Troy now had a body with armor to boot. Aria, looking at that, had an idea pop into her head. Troy couldn’t go into town, seeing as he was a slime and would be quickly killed, but with a body, he could do so much more. She went ahead and clad him in armor, covering him entirely, and slapped on a helmet over his head.

“It’s perfect,” Aria said. “Now, Troy, you are the perfect servant. You could even blend into human society like that.”

“Back into human society? So you’re saying I could live the normal life I lived before again? So I can go back to being an adventurer?”

“Adventurer, eh?” Gray said, and he patted Troy on the back. “Congratulations. You’ve been promoted from collector.”

“Promoted? On my first day?”

“Promoted from collector to quest slave.”

Quest slave. The word rang in Troy’s head, and with that, Gray let out a cackle of a laugh.

“For the rest of your slime life, you’ll be spending every second grinding quests and bringing back the rewards to the dungeon’s vaults. Why — this is far better than having you gather from the wild!”

“Gah!? Quest slave!? Lady Aria — you can’t be serious!”

“Slave,” she whispered. “It has a nice ring to it.”

“Lady Aria!”