Skeletons protected the dungeon, Gray managed it all as its master and Aria went out with her new slave slash companion. Troy, controlled by the contract he signed, had no choice but to do as she asked. The first place they went was back to the adventurer’s guild. The entire guild was shocked to see she was back, but more importantly, shocked to see such a dangerous looking figure — the armor-clad warrior, Troy.

The secretary stared at the towering figure, Troy, then down to Aria, the tiny child alchemist.

“Well, who is this? Your older brother?” the secretary asked, and Aria smiled.

“He is my slave. His name is —” but before she could speak, Troy covered her mouth.

“I am the Stone Wall, companion of Lady Aria. I am her trusty knight.”

He acted all cool and suave, as if he were taking on a new identity, one he probably made up on the spot. Aria allowed it to slide, and with that, the secretary smiled.

“I see. So, Lady Aria, I suppose you’re here to take on another quest, hmm? Why don’t you go to the board and pick one out?”

“Already have.” and she slapped down a quest sheet. Judging from Troy’s reaction, it seemed like he hadn’t noticed that she took one.

The secretary read it over, then paused.

“This quest… you’re planning on killing a demon in Veridion City?”

“A — A demon!?” Troy cried. “Demons are quite tough, Lady Aria. Are you sure you want to hunt one down?”

“I need to, and besides — you’re the Stone Wall. You can take on a demon, can’t you?”

Troy regretted his new identity, and with a dejected look, he lowered his head and submitted to her orders. Before they left to hunt down the demon, however, the secretary stopped them to hand them a bundle of items.

Inside of a bag was a handful of healing potions and mana restoring medicine.

“Take them with you,” she said. “You’ll need them if you want to defeat a demon.”

With those new potions in tow, the two stepped out of the guild, ready to slay a demon. The demon was quite far, but thankfully the adventurer’s guild of East Tide had a caravan that both transported the goods of merchants and hired adventurers as bodyguards. Becoming a temporary bodyguard also meant free transportation for the duration of the trip.

With that, Aria signed Troy up to become a bodyguard. The two left East Tide via caravan towards their destination — the demon of Vera City.

Troy and Aria sat in the back caravan where goods were kept, and under the privacy of closed flaps and doors, Troy could take off his helm to reveal his slime face.

“Vera City,” he said. “It’s awfully close to here. Lady Aria — are you sure I can handle something like this?”

“You may be a slime, but I noticed something different about you. You’re creative — flexible enough to use your slime body in unorthodox ways.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment, Lady Aria, but there’s one issue.”

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“An issue?”

With that, Troy swiped a finger down his body, opening up a menu. There, he revealed he was level 12 with fourteen skill points to his name.

“Before, I was an adventurer who dumped all my skill points into attack, but now I have a problem. Slimes can’t learn skills, so all these skill points are just sitting there, doing nothing.”

“Oh my.” and she opened up her menu — lvl 6 — with all her skill points dumped into a magic tree. She had speedrun the tree, making her way to basic alchemy in the blink of an eye. She had a few skill points left, which she hadn’t yet allocated.

Troy looked through her tree, then found something of use.

“Lady Aria — look at this. The beast tamer skill. With that, you’ll be able to tame beasts.”

“Why tame beasts when I can make them submit to a contract?”

“Sure, contracts are unbreakable by the Goddess’ decree, but the beast tamer skill — however — has a perk, the ability to teach skills to beasts.” and he pointed to himself and his twelve points, saying, “You could unlock the beast tamer skill, then teach me skills! Slimes normally can’t teach themself skills, but a beast tamer could fix that!”

Hearing that, she gave in and unlocked the beast tamer skill. With that, she opened up his tree and poked and prodded at the warrior related skills. After all, he took on the mantle of a swordsman, and thus, needed to learn sword skills.

Slimes were strange creatures. They couldn’t learn skills normally by themselves because they were brainless monsters, and also, they couldn’t be tamed for the same reason. Troy, however, was a different case. He had access to an incredibly wide range of skills, all of which were unlocked by the presence of a beast tamer and a brain in his slime core.

She couldn’t quite grasp her head around the thought of a slime having the skills of a warrior. Imagining a wild slime running around with a battle axe, terrorizing villages was a thought to behold. Seeing as Troy carried a sword and shield, she went ahead and pumped his SP into swords and shields — but mostly shields.

“You will live up to your name, the Stone Wall,” she announced, and with that, he became a de facto shield. All his skill points poured into the shield, allowing him a few fancy abilities.

First, the shield bash — the classic dizzying attack.

Second, the shield parry, an attack that would knock foes off their feet and their weapons out of their hands. In the face of projectiles, if timed right, a parry could send said projectile back, dealing double the damage. Stuff like impact bombs, when parried, would have their explosion timers reset and returned to sender.

And of course, the third skill, a shield toss. Like a disk, he could throw the shield with the Goddess’ guarantee that the shield would return like a boomerang.

“I’m all in on shields, eh?” Troy said, and he pumped his fist with his shield attached to his forearm. “Alright. I will be your shield. Lady Aria — you can stand back and leave combat to me. I’ll block all of the demon’s attacks.”

“Not so fast.” and she pulled out a bomb potion. Seeing that, Troy shuddered at the thought of it blasting a hole in the caravan.

The two trekked along with the caravan, making their way out of East Tide and towards Vera City. It was a day’s trip, and past a pair of stone gates, she left her forest home for the first time and made her way to a big city.

“It’s good to be back in a city,” Troy announced, and he got off the caravan to stretch his limbs. A bit of slime spilled out the cracks, though it was watery enough to be mistaken for sweat.

Aria peeked her head out the caravan’s flaps, shyly, and let out a soft meep.

“Big city… I’ve never been to one before.”

“You haven’t, Lady Aria?” and with that, he extended a hand, helping her off the caravan and onto the stone path of the city streets.

The city was semi modernized, with street lamps and little old-timey cars rolling about, fueled by fire crystals. The people wore suits and coats and it seemed like top hats and fancy dresses were in fashion that era. The caravan they rode rolled by a shop where they unloaded their goods, exchanging them for paper credit they could cash in at the nation’s biggest banks.

People of all races and species roamed the street, from regular humans to stocky dwarves and elves. Some of the more ‘beastly’ folks were there too, like feathered harpies and scale covered lizard folk. Animal eared beastfolk were there too, with rabbit and fox ears poking out of top hats and tails peeking out of dresses.

It was far different from the sleepy village of East Tide, and there, she saw three spectacular buildings. A governor’s hall, a church and an adventurer’s guild.

“The adventurer’s guild! Come on, Lady Aria! Let’s hurry!” and with that, Troy dragged her over despite the fact she had her eyes on the church.