Their caravan rolled through the night. Troy, Aria and Isabelle traveled in a pack, making their way out of East Tide and towards the south. Troy, keeping his secret identity as a slime, slept in his armor, meanwhile Aria and Isabelle sat next to one another on sacks of milled wheat.

Isabelle spent the night staring at her gauntlets — weapons that were usually reserved for martial artists. They didn’t fit a mage like her, and yet, they complimented her fighting style perfectly. The flame salamanders she summoned crawled on the surface of the inner caravan around her, acting like a squad of pets who clung onto the walls.

They glowed softly in the night like lanterns, and with a tome in hand, Isabelle quietly conducted her studies into the dark arts.

She read, with each page flipping on its own. That was when she noticed Aria who was peeking into her tome.

“Aria?” she asked, and Aria wagged her finger no.

“I am Lady Aria. You must address your master with the appropriate language.”

“Lady Aria — what are you doing?”

“What are you doing?”

Isabelle brought the tome up to Aria’s face to say, “Studying. Dark magic. I’m a demoness, after all. By the way — Lady Aria — what sort of magic do you study?”

“Magic?” Aria asked, and she put a hand to her chin, answering, “I don’t know any magic.”

Isabelle fell silent.

“You… don’t know magic? But that explosion —”

“It was an explosion-in-a-bottle. I know alchemy, but I don’t know magic or any other combat-related skills, to be honest. I’m only level six.”

“Level six!? How in the world did a little shrimp like you defeat me!?”

Aria simply shrugged and smiled — her smile both radiant and smug.

“Well, even if I can’t use magic, I can still use potions and elemental bombs. If you’re crafty enough, even a level one adventurer can defeat a demon king.”

“Lady Aria, there’s a limit to craftiness. Troy is level sixteen and I am level eighteen. You, a level six child, need to catch up to us. What sort of master is weaker than her servants?”

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Aria, hearing that, wore a sad expression. She pressed her fingers together nervously.

“I want to level up and become strong… but I don’t want to kill. Kids like me are supposed to hunt easy monsters for EXP, but I feel bad for the little critters. How am I supposed to go around, killing cute little slimes?”

Aria’s face warmed at the thought of the cute smiles. Seeing that, Isabelle couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

“You’ll never survive in this world with that kind of attitude, you know that? In this world, the strong eat the weak. Strong monsters kill the weak, reaping them of their EXP. If you keep this up, someday some monster is gonna come and gobble you up, understand?”

“When that day comes, I’ll come up with a crafty plan and recruit them, just like I recruited you, Isabelle.”

Aria’s smile was radiant. She truly believed in herself — in her ingenuity, her ability to trap, trick and topple giants with their own towering weight. That’s when she realized there was absolutely no malice in her master’s heart, a rare sight to a demoness’ eyes.

Thinking about it now… maybe, just maybe, life under her leadership might be better than the life she left behind — the debt with it, too.

“When the big bad monsters come to gobble you up, I suppose I’ll lend a hand to you,” she said with a harumph, “but please — for everyone’s sake — level up and become as strong as you are crafty.”

So long as Aria surrounded herself with servants who were as powerful as they were loyal, Isabelle could sleep well knowing no harm would come her way. They’d be the proxy shield protecting her from the harshness of the world. Of course, that meant building up that protective shield and so far, only Troy fit that role — but only barely.

They’d either need someone tougher or need to toughen Troy up. Seeing the gauntlets she wielded, Isabelle knew both Troy and Aria needed weapons. Troy had his crummy looking sword that looked like it came off a skeleton minion’s arsenal. Meanwhile, Aria didn’t even have weapons, choosing to rely on self-made potions.

Isabelle was brought onto their team, and thus, she had a duty to arm her master properly. At least, that’s how she felt.

“Aria,” she asked. “How about it? How about I teach you some magic? It doesn’t have to be for killing. You can use it to defend yourself instead.”

Aria put a hand to her chin, then simply smiled.

“I’ll think about it.”

With that, Isabelle shrugged and left things alone. While she couldn’t quite understand Aria’s desires, she gave the kid the space she needed to grow and mature properly.

Isabelle watched as Aria dozed off on a sack of barley. She curled up on her side like a cat and if she had a tail, she’d have tucked it around herself. The coldhearted negotiator Isabelle saw when she first met Aria was nothing but a farce, an image she propped up to get her targets to sign the dotted line.

Isabelle felt a little stupid for falling for her tricks, but there was no going back now. Even if Aria went back on her word and let Isabelle go, on the grounds of pacifism, things would be no better than they were now.

She took it upon herself to take her cloak and set it over Aria’s body like a blanket, and with that, she allowed her demonic parts to show. A pair of bat wings unfolded, appearing hidden under her cloak, and she flew up onto the top of the caravan for a better, more appropriate sleeping spot.

There, she watched as the moon crawled above, forming silver trails in the sky that led them to their next location — the winter world.