The eleven years old town girl Alice was giddily climbing a hill and touching her neck. Not exactly her neck, but a pretty amethyst and silver necklace strung around it. She was skipping and humming, a smile like a dozen Spring flowers on her face. She had just witnessed her friend Charmma craft two matching necklaces and both of them was using theirs. Unfortunately, the goblin artisan had rushed ahead because she was late for her shift as a jail guard.

The jail in question had only one prisoner, a town adventurer called Cloude, but to Alice, it was more like he was grounded for misbehaving than imprisoned. She had never been to a prison, but from what she knew prisoners should be chained to the walls, dressed in rags, and get daily whippings. The boy was treated like some rich family's child, sometimes he even went outside to get some sun. There were several goblin guardsmen around him when he did step out but the fact that she didn't think him as a prisoner stands.

She was not climbing the hill to meet that boy. She wanted to show her necklace to her master and everyone else in that place. Her friend deserved some compliments. They were best friends forever, she even got a 'Voice of the World' Box to prove that!

[Friend of Monsters]

Those that interacted with monsters without any prejudice.

Constantly decrease aggro of monsters as long as one is not aggressive towards them. Possible to tame some monsters.

Anyway, enough daydreaming. She arrived at the house her master was using.

"Master, master! Look my new necklace!" She barged in without knocking. She wouldn't usually raise her voice at her master's place, but they were not at home right now.

Her master, the middle-aged apothecary and chirurgeon Alvus was processing some herbs for drying on a table by the window when she entered.

"What is it, Alice? It is unusual for you to be this excited. Did something good happen?"

The happy girl held her hands on her back and did a full turn, her chin propped up.

"We finished our necklaces. Isn't it pretty?"

Alvus took some time to look at the necklace and mumbled something. He opened his mouth slightly in surprise but quickly composed himself. Not quick enough for the girl to miss his reaction.

"It is a very beautiful and valuable necklace. I can see you are very happy. Treasure it." And he meant every word.

He had just appraised the necklace and it was worth twelve gold coins. It was enough money for a family of six to live a good life for four years including the yearly poll tax everyone except active merchants had to pay. But the absurd value of the girl's was pale in comparison with their situation. After the hero's insurrection against the local lord, they had to flee from the town of Mirfield and take shelter in this secret monster settlement deep in the dragon valley. The hero teleported them to the place, but Alvus knew they were about a day and half of hiking through the forest away from the human town. There were around three hundred monsters but only six humans in this place. And one angel, probably the only one in the entire world.

Monsters and humans do not mingle, and they kill each other on sight. This was the law of the world until last summer when the hero appeared from nowhere and turned everything upside down during his travels. His origins uncertain. He was clearly a former human and claimed to be from another world but in this nameless planet, he was a troll. Yes, the very first thing the hero subverted was the hero's identity. A former human rebirthed as a monster disguised as a human. He gathered the monsters, created this settlement and rescued every one of the creatures living here from some sort of persecution, imprisonment or exile.

Alice liked the Hero. Not in the romantic sense as she had not yet awakened to that kind of feelings. To her that lost her parents to the orc invasion, the one that freed the town from that predicament was an object of admiration.

"Do you want me to take over with these herbs, master?"

"Yes, yes. Take care not to pinch or bend these leaves. They have to be as spread out as possible to dry evenly. But can help you take your necklace off? It is something to wear at a party, not for work."

"Yes, master, if you please." Alvus took the necklace off with ease.

"You don't have to hurry with these herbs, take your time. I am going to take this necklace to a craftsmen to get a box built for it."

"Thank you, master." The girl turned to the leaves and got to work humming a traditional folk song.

The next day Alice had a special assignment. She was going out of the settlement into the woods to hunt some monsters with four companions. Her master Alvus, Mercy the midwife and a mage called Helen. Mercy was a guardian to Alice. After her parents were killed by an orc invasion that happened during the Autumn equinox it was Mercy that took the orphan girl in and convinced Alvus to take her as an apprentice.

It was both tragic and lucky. Education was an expensive thing for a farmer family and her parents never gave Alice any besides basic language skills. She wasn't even literate by the time the orcs attacked Mirfield. And even when a family could afford education for their children, the boys were favored and the girls were just trained to become good housewives. Cleaning, cooking, sewing and how to behave and serve their husbands. In a world where humanity was forced to retreat into fortified towns to defend against hordes of bloodthirsty monsters, a high value was placed in the ability to bear children. Women were viewed more like baby factories than individuals. There was no chance for Alice to be picked by the town's only apothecary as an apprentice and she knew it. Alvus refused to take on apprentices even from merchant families that offered bags of silver as tuition. But one word from Mercy and there she was, learning his trade. Robbed of her past but granted a future.

The brown-haired girl looked at the people gathered behind the palisade's gate leading out of the monster settlement of Willow Hill and focused on the blonde mage in front of her. She knew Helen from way before the orc invasion, she was very infamous. First, her hair color and second, she was too small. Even with a four-year gap in age between the two girls, Helen was only six inches taller than Alice. She was also the only daughter of a wealthy merchant from the town and a mage, a very rare occupation as less than one in every twenty people had the aptitude for magic and even less than that could develop magical abilities. If Alvus refused bags of silver as tuition, it was rumored that Helen's father spent bags of gold to get the town's wizard to take her as an apprentice. Alice could not help but feel a bit envious.

If it wasn't enough, Helen was charged with the crime of becoming a monster bride and imprisoned in the town's stockades a few days before the orc invasion and during the commotion was considered dead. The stockades were destroyed and invaded by orcs, there was no way a lone girl would have survived. But to Alice's surprise right at the beginning of winter she showed up in town, not only alive and healthy but as a companion to the Hero Beowulf. Along with them came Marcy the archer, daughter of Mercy and Zahariel the angel. And they had tons of adventures! Delving into ancient forgotten dungeons, traveling abroad, fighting demons, even curing the people her master was unable to treat. Alice could not help but feel a lot envious.

"Alice, did you listen to what I just said?" Helen asked her all of a sudden.

"Huh, what?" The little girl was actually unaware of the conversation that the four adults were having, absorbed in her thoughts.

"What jobs do you have available. Use your guild card." A guild card was proof of identification for a person, and usually only issued when one reached majority at the age of fifteen years. But it seems the guild at the monster settlement was not part of the main adventurer's guild. It was a rival organization founded by the Hero and his companions and followed almost none of the guidelines of the former. Considering that the main guild's primary mission was exterminating monsters and the majority of the members of this one here were monsters themselves, it is easy to see why not.

Alice focused on her guild card and opened her job list.

[1] Villager: 7 [2] Apprentice Apothecary: 3 [2] Apprentice Scout [2] Apprentice Warrior [2] Apprentice Merchant [2] Apprentice Acolyte

She told Helen her available jobs and earned quite some raised eyebrows.

"Apprentice Acolyte? Are you sure?" Alice had no idea what that job did or what an 'Acolyte' was. "Can you change into it? Use your card again to bring up the list and select it."

She did as asked. Another window popped up.

Congratulations. You are now a level 1 Apprentice Acolyte. Skills Healing Magic (D), Blessing Magic (D), Faith (E) level 1 unlocked.

"I got some new skills and two spells. Healing and Turn Undead. What is an 'undead'?"

"Zahariel told us," Marcy answered, "that back in the ancient times there were monsters made of animated corpses that loathed the living. These were the undead. But now there is none because the laws of the world changed. You can ignore that one. Healing is an important one. You can now restore HP. Congratulations."

Alice was left without words when she figured out what it meant. She was able to use magic now! Isn't it a really difficult and rare thing? Why her? The little girl's agitation was obvious to the people around her.

"Don't worry," Helen comforted her. "This is your own accomplishment. It means you have in yourself the power to believe. Now, we should get going, or we won't meet our quota. I want to cross all the way near the foot of the dragonclaws and back today."

"Some other things," Marcy the guild master told her. "During our expedition, you are to keep casting healing on yourself every time you have enough MP to do so without going into exhaustion. Use the lowest power setting. And do not spend your Skill Points. You will have to train the skills the hard way. It is better that way. Open the party status window and keep it at all times on the corner of your field of vision. You can wave your hand to drag it around and after you get the knack for it you will be able to do it only by willing it. It is important to keep an eye at the status of your party members at all times."

"Right, got it. Keep the party window on, cast healing at the lowest setting as often as possible and do not spend the Skill Points. Leave it to me." It took a few tries, but she was able to drag the invisible-to-everyone-else window to a corner of her sight. There were seven entries. Grendel, Helen, Marcy, Zahariel, Mercy, Alvus, and Alice.

Alice remembered how shocked she was when she learned that Grendel was the real name of the Hero Beowulf. And he was a troll to boot.

They left on their expedition. Marcy and Mercy would scout and hunt dangerous monsters around with their bows leaving the two skilled herbalists and Alice to harvest herbs and gather monster materials. Alvus took the opportunity to teach Alice how to identify and gather the herbs and mushrooms. What puzzled her was how Helen was able to find the herbs with pinpoint accuracy.

During the day, Alice ended up pulling the wrong herb and found a strange root.

"Master, master. What is this weird root? It looks like a bunny, look!" The root in her hands looked like ginger in texture but was round like a potato. A single, thick, and short stalk forked into two long, succulent, and broad leaves side by side. If you looked at it from a distance, it sure looked like a rabbit's head. The leaves were glistening like they were oiled. At the tip of the leaves, there was a bud each, this bud would probably bloom into a flower when Spring came.

"I don't know, I've never seen this herb before. Helen, hey Helen! Come over here for a while, check out what Alice found."

Helen looked at the plant, chanted a couple spells on it and gave her opinion. "It is a new one. It is not poisonous, but not very edible either. We would need to take it back and check what properties it has. Humm... There are other like this growing in shaded and humid areas. Alice, you found the herb, you get to name it."

"This is hareroot. Because it looks like a wild rabbit."

In a world where farming space was defended with the blood of the farmers, crop-devastating rabbits and moles were loathed even more than rats. The adults were surprised at the name, but given the plant's appearance, there was not much to say. It really looked like a rabbit.

After that, they focused on getting as many samples of 'hareroot' as possible before coming back. Alice earned 16 levels of Apprentice Acolyte and 48 skill points that day. She had also learned two new skills related to MP, one to increase her maximum and another to speed up her MP recovery.