"Did it work this time? Did you unlock the job?"

"No. I'm tired, can we stop?"

The exchange above happened a couple days after the properties of hareroot were discovered almost by accident. This plant grows only on the magic-rich dragon valley and has softening and moisturizing properties. Helen's hair felt fluffy and silky after washing on the hareroot water and her skin soft and elastic. They skipped the training session that day and at dawn, everyone went out to harvest more hareroot an entire day. The redhead mother-daughter duo was ecstatic at the discovery. Especially Mercy whose years living a hard life were already showing looked 'way younger', in her own words.

During that expedition, Alice reached level 13 of Apprentice Scout. As Alvus promised, she was having archery lessons with Marcy. They also found an ivy with frilled leaves and tasty red berries growing like a weed on an ancient tree grove guarded by a troop of whitebeard monkeys.

The ivy was named frillbush. It was a hit with the devil monkeys of Willow Hill, and negotiations began with the whitebeards to integrate them into the community.

They processed the second batch of hareroot leaves and found out that the round root could be planted like a potato. The conclusion they reached is that hareroot is a potato. Inedible, but a potato. They spent the second day making a garden to plant hareroot. Helen burned her entire MP for the day growing the stuff with plant magic and a couple of hours before sunset left dragging Alice into her training area while the devil monkeys were harvesting and replanting the hareroot.

She tried the visualization method Grendel used to make Marcy learn fire magic, but it didn't work on Alice.

The two girls were sitting on a rock watching the sun set behind the icespear peaks.

"Tell me why am I rich again?" Alice asked. She was not feeling that rich and didn't even think she deserved to be rich for just picking up some plant that looked funny to her.

"Even if you did not intend to, you made a discovery. And one every woman in this country, no, every woman in this world will want to have. That thing is worth gold. And you deserve a share of the profits."

Alice thought her special mental drawer was full, but it just sucked up one more thing.

The next day they went out gathering herbs again. Alice checked her available jobs. Alvus decided the other day that she will only advance on the apothecary/chirurgeon job tree when he feels she is able to. Depending on the System instead of one's own skills and expertise is dangerous when one is handling people's lives, like those treading the apothecary and chirurgeon paths. Besides, Alice still has two and a half years of apprenticeship to work on.

"Besides the previous apprentice jobs, there is monster tamer and scout available. What should I do?"

Helen pondered a bit before answering.

"Do you want to tame your own monsters like me? It is really nice, but carries a lot of responsibilities."

Alice was hooked when Helen said 'like me'. At this point, the girl's heart skipped a beat. Deceived by the big sister demeanor the blonde mage showed her, Alice was blind to all the problems and complexes lurking deep in Helen's mind. There were not many role models for the preteen girl to follow, and the two brides of the Hero were the closest to that she ever got.

"Tamer!" She let out immediately after. She was so excited she was puffing big steam clouds in the cold of winter.

"Good. Go for it. It is good that you have already learned some monster language, you are getting one free level.

Congratulations! You are now a [3] Monster Tamer. Skills Taming (monster) [c], Training (monster) (D), Whip (E), Appraise (monster) (E) level 1 awakened. Skill Monster Language (D) level 5 awakened.

Alice was not setting out to be the very best like no one ever was, but the thrill of having loyal companions to share her tribulations was there all the same.

"Done. What should I do now?"

"Taming a monster is almost like adopting a child," said the veteran tamer. "Once you pick one you are going to be with them for a long time, and they will be quirky."

She could speak of quirky with authority. Helen had tamed a fifteen-foot tall 'blood mantis', crimson red and with four foot long scythes that could cut a bear in half. The critter had developed a taste for human flesh before being tame and was quite the hothead both figuratively and literally, as it was a fire-element monster.

"So I should learn more before taming some monster, right?" The younger girl's enthusiasm deflated like a dead balloon. The western monster.

"No. The learning will happen when you are with your companions. But you should choose right. It is a partnership and you usually would like a strong monster or some other trait you want. Like a spellcasting monster. Grendel also chose his tame monsters after knowing them for a long time. There is also the problem of having enough MP to actually tame some strong monster. Maybe you should train more to get a bigger MP pool. But right now, we are setting your job back to villager."

Alice flinched. The common sense of the world dictated that only prisoners would be sent back to the villager job. It meant the loss of all stats gained from other jobs and going back to the physical level of a young child. Not that she was that far ahead of that level, but still.

"Why?" Alice's mental drawer was about to file one new thing. Probably by now, it was the only thing keeping her worldviews sane.

"You are going to need the super villager job. And it means getting to villager level thirty-five. While you are at it, maybe even cap it." Okay, maybe two new things to file.

"Maybe we should use the slime pit. There is nobody going there today," suggested Marcy. As the place's guild master, she had the schedule of the slime pit, a place nearby that spawned tons of slimes. "It is safer to power level her villager job there and then head out on a tier 3 job than otherwise. The dragon valley is no place for villagers."

Villager was the easiest job to master. With the same Exp amount required to level a villager all the way from level 1 to 40, a tier four job like wizard or knight would be at a lowly 17. It still took all morning, but both objectives were met. Alice capped the villager job and changed to 'super villager'.

Congratulations, you are now a [3] Super Villager. Skills Skill Awakening Rate UP [c], Status Conversion UP [c], Max HP Increased (E), Max Stamina Increased (E) level 1 awakened. Skill Max MP Increase (E) level 4 awakened.

"You should have enough Skill Points to put both Status Conversion and Max HP at level eight. Do that now."

"Okay. Just a moment, the windows are bigger now." As one's status grew and skills accumulated, the windows would grow. Alice wondered how the Hero managed his windows. She would be shocked to know that the answer was 'badly'. After fiddling a little, she reported. "Done."

"Nice, there are some slimes coming out to eat the cores of the last ones we killed. Let's farm a bit more before we set out," Marcy released a volley of magic arrows. They left right after, Alice was a tamer level 5.

They left the slime pit straight east to check the forests at the foot of the dragonspine mountains. Helen walked next to Alice.

"How many HP and MP do you have now?"

Alice checked her basic stats.

Prowess: 23 (207 HP) +5/h Agility: 22 (33 Stamina) +2/h Magic: 21 (84 MP) +15/h

"Two hundred and seven HP and eighty-four MP," She proudly trumpeted. It was less than forty when they decided to send her back to the villager job.

"You can put some SP on the Max MP skill. It is level five?"

"No, four."

"Raise it to six. It should put you over a hundred MP. Enough to tame a D-rank monster with some luck. MP recovery too, increase it to six as well. Read the line after 'magic' after you are done."

"Magic: 21 (105 MP) +63/h - is it good enough?"

"Superb for someone eleven years old. Now you should be able to cast healing four or five times."

They walked for a couple of hours, without finding any new herbs. Nonetheless, they were still harvesting lots of uncommon and rare herbs.

A sharp and coarse raptorial cry stirred them from their gathering mission.

"Something big is coming," The veteran woodsman Marcy raised the alarm. "I think it is a wyvern."

Wyvern. A dreaded A-rank sub-dragon with a scorpion's stinger at the end of the tail. Getting hit by the stinger means death unless you are a very lucky troll.

They assumed combat positions. Alvus rose his shield and covered Alice. Marcy and Mercy readied their bows while Helen made some translucid barrier.

The huge wyvern crashed down through the treetops, knocking a few trees down with its sheer weight. From wingtip to wingtip it should have around fifty or sixty feet. As soon as the monster came into sight, A volley of light arrows, a swarm of firebolts and a single arrow flew in the direction of the beast. All the attacks the women launched on the wyvern hit home but the dragon scales covering its body were too thick and resistant. Except for Mercy's arrow that pierced one of his eyes, it shrugged most of the damage from the other two.

The wyvern thrashed and made a beeline for the one that took its eye, the long tail dangling a few feet above its snout.

"Marcy, get the left knee!" She shouted to her daughter. Nocking another arrow, both mother and daughter used a bow technique.

"Joint-locking shot."

Different from dragons that have six limbs, a wyvern only has four. Its forelegs evolved into wings. The arrows hit the knee joints and without a knee-cap bone to provide protection they lodged in the joint, locking its movement. The wyvern took a nose-dive on the rocky ground, lifting a dust cloud and tossing gravel aside. It still tried to launch its venon stinger in the direction of the elder archer, but she dodged it with a grace one would not expect to find in a middle-aged midwife.

Then again, before the Hero took her for a justified night of slaughter at the Mirfield barracks during his insurrection a few days ago she was just a middle-aged midwife. What left that place before the sun even dared to rise up was that killing machine that not even a sub-dragon could intimidate. But at least that absurdity was one of the first to be safely filed in Alice's 'a Hero did it' mental drawer.

"And now the other one!" Mercy showed the wyvern no leniency. She herself-lessly used again her bow technique on the other side of the wyvern's head.

"Eagle peck."

Drawing on the raptor bird's favorite spot to attack, the arrow flew straight into last good eye of the wyvern, blinding the creature. It swung the stinger wildly and roared in pain.

The roar was answered by an even louder roar coming from the mountains.

"Shit, a real dragon. And it is going to kill steal us. Run away!"

They had no choice but to run away from the thrashing wyvern the fastest they could. Ignoring the tall trees of the forest like they were mere twigs, a dragon with dull scales going from a pale green to a deep gray dove straight to get the wyvern. It fired a big wind blade that distorted the winter air like a blurred image and severed the venomous stinger before he bit the head of its lesser cousin.

The people scattered. Mercy ran on her own, Helen and Marcy went together and Alice stuck with her master. She ran holding Alvus' right hand but neither was an experienced adventurer. Without looking back, they just kept going forward. They were panicking.

They were not doing a good job of looking forward, because in their hurry they didn't see a crevice. Alvus had a large stride and jumped over it, but Alice slipped and fell in. She bounced on some rocks on the way down and lost consciousness. Thanks to her recently improved HP pool and status she managed to avoid a grim fate.

It was no rabbit hole.

Alice woke up and the light of the sun was already weakening its grasp overnight. Her head was throbbing and she had purple bruises all over her legs and arms. Focusing a little, she cast her healing spell on herself twice. The pain reduced to bearable levels and she looked around. She was at the bottom of the narrow crevice and heard howls and hisses coming from one of the sides. She put her scout skills to work and focused on detecting presences around her. She had the skill at level 4, enough to cover most of the crevice.

Her equipment was scattered around. She was carrying a short bow and a short sword but her quiver was not covered and the arrows scattered around. The bow was not broken and she decided to gather the arrows. She glanced at the party status window and all of her party members were just fine. The only wounded one was her. She used healing a third time and put her HP bar over the 80% mark.

She decided to go away from the noise of a fight between monsters, but a rumble ahead of her chosen path made her stop on her tracks. A rock mole erupted from the ground fifty feet ahead of her and hissed, attempting to scare the girl away from its territory or make her a 'guest' for dinner. Either way, she turned and fled to the other side of the crevice. The rock mole didn't chase her.

She heard more howls and barks and right by the crevice's exit she slowed her pace and used stealth to tiptoe and see what was happening. There were obviously wolves ahead, but what else? She inched forward and saw that the wolves were fighting a pack of elemental drake-geckos.

These lizards have vestigial wings and colored scales depending on their elemental affinity. They can use a mild elemental breath too and are rated E-rank. One can tell the element by the scale's color. Red for fire, brown for earth, light green for wind, blue for water. Some rarer colors also exist.

Like silver. A silver gecko launched a spark of lightning from its fangs into a wolf, making the carnivore jump back and twitch with electricity induced seizures. The wolf landed a few feet away from the girl and remained there, paralyzed.

"Poor thing," Alice muttered. The wolf glanced in the girl's direction and their eyes met. Touched by the pain the wolf was feeling, she approached the monster.

The wolf growled to try and scare the new intruder away. It was in no fighting condition, however. A little away from them the fight between the rest of the wolf pack and the geckos was still raging.

"Don't be scared, I won't hurt you. Here, here. Want some bird meat?" She asked the wolf using the monster language. Alice took a chunk of smoked roc meat from her backpack, a leftover from her lunch. "Good, good, take it."

She waved the meat in front of the wounded wolf and the smoky scent made it flare its nostrils. A foot or so from the wolf's snout, she tossed the meat. She was not a fool to let her hand get closer to the monster, paralysis or not. And the abnormal condition was wearing off, as the wolf was able to move forward a bit and snatch the meat that fell close to its mouth. It went to its stomach without even chewing.

"Do you want more? You can have it but let me touch you." She took another chunk of meat and dangled it in front of the wolf. It climbed back on its still wobbling feet and sniffed in the girl's direction. It tried to bite the meat, but Alice pulled it back and released the meat, making it fall a little behind her. The wolf went past the girl, and she brushed its fur.

"Healing." She chanted. The wolf's wounds were partially healed and it regained full control of its legs.

It gobbled the second chunk of meat and came back to get more from the girl.

"I can give you more, but you shouldn't fight on a full stomach. Don't you want to get back at that mean gecko that shocked you?"

The wolf tilted its head. By that time, any hostility it might have felt toward Alice was long gone, courtesy of her 'Friend of Monsters' title.

"Say, I like you. Do you want my help against the geckos?"

"Woof!" Its tail wagged slightly.

She reached with a closed fist and let the wolf sniff her hand. She tried to caress its head and the wolf did not flinch or resist. Holding her breath, she tried to use her tamer skill.

"Monster taming."

A tendril of light left her hand and wrapped around the wolf's head. Without any resistance, the wolf allowed the bond between the two of them to form.

Congratulations. You have tamed a female specimen of [2] Wolf. Do you want to give it a name?

"You will be called Aura. I'm Alice, pleased to meet you."

"Can you fight the geckos, Alice?" Aura spoke in Alice's mind. It startled the girl but she already knew it would happen.

"Yes. I can use the bow. You are still wounded, let me heal you one more time."

Alice and Aura joined the fight. The girl's presence was enough to break the stalemate between mammal and reptile. There were several casualties on both sides, but the mammals won by a thin margin. Only three wild wolves remained, all of them badly wounded.

"Aura, are these your friends?"

"Yes. They are my pack. Can you heal them too?"

"I need to rest for a while to recover my magic. But I can make some medicine for their wounds."

The nurse job granted Alice knowledge of herbalism and basic medicine compounding. She took some herbs from her bag and using some stones and a piece of her skirt she made poultices for the wolves. She also fed them roc meat.

"Alice is a good alpha. Make the pack strong." Aura congratulated her over the telepathic bond.

"Do you want to come with me like Aura?"

The wolves didn't nod, but Alice tried to tame them. Two male and another female wolf.

"You are now called Dash, Chase, and Nova. I'm Alice."

It got noisy on the telepathic channel. It was a thing every tamer had to learn to live with.

They sat moved away from the combat site because that much blood and corpses would surely attract some predator and none of the five were at their peak. The wolves were wounded and Alice was critically low on MP.

"Can any of you feel the scent of others like me?"

"I think I felt a scent like yours. You smell of herbs. Follow me." Chase took the lead.

It was probably the smell of hareroot. The women were almost bathing in the stuff.

On the way, Alice halted. There were some vines with velvety leaves dangling from some trees.

"Wait for a little while. I want to take some of this plant."

"This is a plant the geckos like to eat. They climb it and spend hours up there." Commented Dash.

"I think some drakes come down from the mountains to eat it too." Added Nova.

"This is no good eating. I tried once. Terrible and bitter." Remembered Aura.

"Let me cut just a few branches."

She filled her bag with the vine. Its leaves were soft and covered in fine hairs.

"Herb smelling creatures ahead! Watch out!" Alerted Chase.

"Is it the same herb smell as mine?"

"Yes."

Alice cupped her hands around her mouth and despite not being the best idea to do in these woods at the twilight, she shouted.

"I'm over here!"

The shout was answered a few minutes later on Marcy's voice.

"Alice, stay where you are. We are going to rescue you."

She looked at her wolves and they were with the scruff already puffed.

"The four of you, get behind me and sit. Let me talk to my friends and do not growl at them."

"Yes, alpha!"

That night, Willow Hill got four new inhabitants. And Alice a little less than a dozen tamer levels. The vine was named Drakeweed and according to Shraaizar the crested naga was really a treat for reptiles in general, not only dragon-kind.

The girl and her four wolves will one day become known in the entire world.