Richard’s POV:

“9999, 10000...”

I did my normal workout, as usual, the next morning. Charlotte was already back in town from last night, I slept at my spot in the forest though. She wanted to sleep here with me but I kicked her out from the sheer weirdness of her suggestion.

Boing

A rounded squishy object was bouncing around when I finished my workout as if congratulating me.

“Good morning too, Mizu.”

The cute squishy being was Mizu, a slime that hung around my secret playground. I found her bouncing around a few days ago within my territory. When I named her I came to realize that years of anime and manga consumption in my past life had made my naming sense to be centered around my mediocre Japanese knowledge. But Mizu is a cute name so I let it go. I had a strong urge to name Mizu based on a certain slime character but I want to have at least a tiny bit of creativity with it.

Anyways, Mizu was a special being since unless they were already within the area monsters and animals shouldn’t be able to enter my marked territory unless they’re strong enough. The aquatic animals that live in the small lake were part of the former. My territory was near the forest’s border too so I doubt there would be monsters strong enough to ignore my mana signature nearby. Besides, Mizu is just a slime.

The hypothesis that I came to was that Mizu was born within the territory, which would also explain why I felt a sense of familiarity with her mana signature and why she was so friendly towards me.

Today I decided to bring Mizu to town and register her as my familiar. I could have brought her earlier but I was too busy with the whole Black Rose thing.

And so I head back to town with the slime on my shoulders jiggling as if excited. I hid Mizu in my sling bag before entering though to not get questioned about her.

“Eh, Richard? Did you go out of town earlier?”

The guard got confused since I snuck out of town yesterday and suddenly came back. I just told him I got out earlier before his shift and he let the matter go. I proceeded to go to the Adventurer Guild to settle the matter about registering Mizu as my familiar.

“Good morning Richard! What brought you here?”

Rebecca greeted me cheerfully from the receptionist counter. I returned her greeting and got straight to the point.

“Did you found a familiar already? That’s amazing!”

“Yup, it’s nothing amazing though. She’s just a slime, come out Mizu.”

I opened my sling bag and Mizu jumped out of it onto the receptionist desk.

“A slime? Are you sure, Richard?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

Rebecca gave me a concerned look when I showed her Mizu for some reason.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s unusual. Adventurers usually got strong monsters as familiars to help them with battle. Even civilians that don’t fight would usually take in monsters that are useful to their work or daily life. For example, merchants would tame wild Forest Horses to pull their heavy carriages. Taming slimes that are practically useless is unheard of.”

“I see.”

It seems familiars are like Pokemons in this world. It’s different from pets since familiars are monsters, therefore a special permit would be needed for them to enter any town. I would still need to register Mizu as my familiar if I want to bring her around since slimes are still monsters.

“It’s fine, Mizu is a friend. I would like to register her as my familiar.”

“Okay then. Can I have your Adventurer ID please?”

A few minutes later, Rebecca came back with my updated ID; Mizu is listed as my familiar now.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, take care!”

I exited the guild and went back to the inn to find Harry and Chris competing in an eating contest at the dining hall. Do they have nothing to do? I find Harry becoming more like Chris now too; he would usually never do these sorts of stuff. I shook my head gently and joined their little contest. I won by a landslide despite my late entry.

“Damn it, how did you fit so much food inside that small body?”

Chris complained while leaning back on the chair with his protruded belly. Harry was in the same state too, it was a ridiculous sight. That said, I was also leaning back and couldn’t move from my full stomach. I might have just got back from training but the amount I ate to win was still too much.

“Young master... burp why did you bring back a slime?”

Harry finally asked the question nobody bothered to ask when I got back. Mizu was currently bouncing on my lap. It looked like she was cheering for me.

“This is Mizu, I just registered her as my familiar?”

“A slime as a familiar? Why do you keep doing weird stuff like this?” ridiculed Chris.

“What do you mean weird? Can I not even tame a slime?”

“No one tames slimes! I mean, aren’t they pretty much useless as familiars?”

“Who cares? Mizu is a cute slime! And what do you mean useless? Look, he’s cleaning the plates.”

I pointed at Mizu who was sliding around the plates used in our eating contest and cleaning them subsequently. I didn’t even put her there she did that on her own. I was pretty impressed.

“Oh? This slime did a good job.”

The innkeeper saw what was happening and inspected the clean plates.

“This is amazing! Can I keep this slime, Richard?”

“No!”

“Hahah~ I’m just kidding. But this slime is really amazing...”

That got me curious.

“Innkeeper, why haven’t you use slimes to do cleaning work for you?”

“You see, usually slimes aren’t intelligent enough to do those kinds of work. Your slime is a special one. Look at how meticulous it cleaned the plates, usually, other slimes would just eat the plate whole, you know?”

“Really?”

I shot a surprised look at the innkeeper’s explanation.

*Boing*

Mizu was jiggling lightly on the table after she finished cleaning the plates.

“Yup, you did a great job Mizu.”

Boing Boing

Mizu started bouncing around when I praised her. It looked like she was happy about it.

“What an intelligent slime...”

The innkeeper’s comment got me thinking about Mizu’s peculiarity. I wonder what’s different about Mizu compared to the other slimes. I would have never thought about the terrifying potential Mizu turned out to have at that moment, but that’s a story for another time.

***

“Ha!”

A group of children was swinging wooden swords uniformly under my instructions. Their stance was a bit unsteady but still solid and their focus didn’t waver despite the difficulty of the training. People would find it unbelievable that they have just started learning swordsmanship for a few months.

These kids are the reason I didn’t want to return home just yet. It’s already been 4 months since I disbanded Black Rose and I’ve been training them ever since. At first, I just wanted to train the five that stuck to the harsh training but some of the children I saved from the Black Rose hideout wanted me to train them.

I wanted to refuse at first but since they were determined I let them join the training. Although I told them to rest for 2 weeks to think about it some more.

Coincidentally, none of the 15 children I saved was older than me. When I asked them about it, all of the older ones died from the brutal training and the ones that are older than 16 became proper assassins. I felt bad for them so I gave the assassins a proper burial, other than the executives of course.

About 7 of them ended up training under me, which makes the number of people I’m training into 12. I contemplated whether I want to have them enroll at the Academy with Arthur and the others but after discussing with Mrs. Dorothy she decided that they should enroll too. Out of the 7, 3 of them were the same age as me so they would enroll at the same time as the others. The other 4 children were younger so I suggested that I would bring them to the Hale manor to train with the knights when I finally started my studies at the Academy. Mrs. Dorothy agreed to it too.

Well, since the whole issue with the Academy was taken care of I should just focus on training them. The younger kids had easier training but it was still harsh for them nonetheless since their body is weaker than the older kids. Every morning we would go for a run at the local field, and then I would make them do some workout and swordsmanship training. It was impressive that they could endure the training, although they did complain now and then. But the complaining was decreasing over time. It was only the beginning, but they are turning into fine warriors.