Usually, I’m the one confusing people, but this girl confuses me.

“What do you mean you’re going to become my new trainer?” I ask trying to grasp the situation.

“I mean just what I said. I told ya’ I was going to prepare something for you to learn more ‘bout taming didn’ I? Oh, don’t worry about your “little secret” you're too fun of a toy to share so I'll keep it to myself.“ she says throwing an arm around my neck, in a way to show comradery.

Is this girl serious?

“Or if ya’ want, you can continue broadcastin’ 'I’m really strange!' to every tamer, you come across until one that isn’ as nice as me and your cover's blown.” She says while giving me a “You're mine” glare.

Sigh “Fine, tell me what it is that you want,” I say as I resign myself.

I’m far too tired mentally and physically to keep up with her anymore.

“I already told ya’ what I want. I want to go with ya’ and be your new trainer.” She said while loosening her grip and turning to face me.

Seriously? She just wants to travel with us? She would certainly be helpful, considering she knows a lot about monsters, taming, and those weird gadgets of hers. Her knowledge of monsters even seems to surpass Gero’s.

“Why would you want to travel with us? Don’t you have a shop to look after in town?” Kiel asks.

“Man, you two just don’t know how ta listin’ do ya’? I want to go with you cause its intrestin’, and she looks like fun to play with. Don’t concern yourself with my shop either, this is this and that is that.” She says walking over to Kiel and pushing his chest with her index finger.

“Plus ain’t ya’ happy to have another pretty girl in the party?” she says throwing her arm around his neck while twirling her finger on his chest rather than pushing on it.

Kiel’s face lights up like a Christmas light, turning a stark red.

“N-n-n-n-n-n-NOOOOO!” He yells running back in the direction of camp.

What was that about?

“Bwahahahahaha! I take it back you all look like you're gonna be fun to play with!” Kera says buckling over in laughter.

Sigh

My goodness I don’t think I have the energy to deal with her right now

“Ah!”

How could I forget!?

Sigh

“I suppose sleeping in a bed tonight is totally out of the picture. I completely forgot about the fact that we needed to head back before the sun went down.”

We were already treading the time we needed to head back when the goblin showed up. Between restoring Gero, and the time I spent passed out we are already far too late into the night to head all the way to town to sleep. I suppose I should tell Tea.

I take Tea’s communication stone out of my inventory, completely ignoring Kera. She looks slightly surprised by me practically materializing the stone… but for some reason, she’s smiling like she found yet another toy to play with.

“How do I use one of these anyways? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you I’ve never used one before.” I ask, my voice finally devoid of energy

“Not wastin’ a moment for your first lesson? Well, whatever. All ya’ got to do is pool some magic in your hand while you hold the stone.” She says baiting a response.

“Then you do it.” I say tossing the stone over to her.

“Aww, you were suppose’ to go “How do I use magic” then I was-“

“No. I’m tired. You can teach me something later; I just want to tell Tea about our circumstances so I can get some sleep.” I say glaring at her.

“Fiiiiine.” She says disappointment showing on her face.

You would figure with how tired she always looks she would appreciate the desire to sleep.

She holds the stone out in front of her, and it begins to glow with a soft blue.

“Okay, you're on. Its kinda late, but I guess he may still answer.” Kera says closing her eyes, her head nodding occasionally.

Is she already falling asleep? Is she only awake when she’s teasing someone?

“Tea are you there? Got a small problem here and I wanted t-“

“Is Kiel alright?!” I’m cut off by a voice that emits from the stone.

It’s pretty clearly Tea, but much like over a phone the voice is rather distorted. Also, he really has that whole “Mother bird” thing down pat, doesn’t he?

“No no, Kiel is fine. We got a bit caught up while training so we won’t be in town in time to pick up our stuff tomorrow. Any chance you could hold our order for a little while?” I say, it seems a lot easier not to get caught up in his rhythm when I’m this tired.

“Oh good… I was worried for a mome~t there. I don’t mind holding the order, but if you’re in a hurry I don’t mind sending someone to deliver it. You can’t be too far away from town in just one day. “Tea says, a small interference can be heard as if the signal became too weak part way through.

“Tell your guy to travel 6 hours down the main path headed to central and stop,” Kera said suddenly.

I regret to say it made me jump, as she seemed like she was hardly able to keep stranding a moment before.

“Wait, the capital? Haven’t you heard about the goblins up that way?! Also is that the Kera I hear?!” Tea responds energetically.

Seriously where does he get all this energy from, I can’t imagine he was still awake when I called… but with how energetic he is it's quite hard to imagine he was asleep moments ago as well.

“Ya, we got contracted to take care of the goblins. If you wouldn't mind delivering the gear, it would help save us a trip as well. Oh and Kera decided to come with us for some reason… I seem to be stuck with her, so I guess I have no choice.” I say scratching my head.

She’s going to help me seem like a more natural resident of this world for sure… but I’m not sure how the people of this particular town are going to think I’m normal after she joined my party within a day of us even meeting.

“Miss… you are amazing in quite a few ways… Well anyways, I will have y~ur gear delivered where you requested. The paths are a bit dangerous so I might send someone along to protect the cart.” Tea said sounding astonished.

Yawn “That will be fine. I’m going to go sleep now, update me if there’s anything new.” I say as I motion for Kera to give me the stone back.

“Okay! Go easy on Ki-“Tea managed to get off before the blue glow faded from the stone and Kera tossed it back to me.

I quickly place the stone back into my inventory and make my way to the camp. My eyes are already beginning to feel quite heavy and my head is having trouble keeping upright. This fatigue is abnormal, isn’t it? Only a couple minutes ago I couldn’t feel it at all, and now it’s about the only thing I can think about. Also didn’t I just wake up from a nap?

“Ah Maou-sama, I have prepared a bed for you,” Gero says as he greets me back to the camp with a bow.

He indicates what looks to be a sleeping bag and a pillow. It seems to be made out of the blankets I set aside earlier. The plan was for those to be used for everybody… but the damage is done, and all I can think about is sleep. I take out the last two blankets I had in my inventory and snuggle into the bedding. It is very warm and soft… making my consciousness fade even quicker. It seems to be stuffed to the brim with feathers... I wanted to sell those off.

“Please enjoy your rest Maou-sa-" I hear Gero say in the moments before I fall asleep.

The bed has never felt so warm or soft to me before… it feels like I could continue to sleep for a week. I feel like I’m going to have to wrench myself from sleep if I’m to wake up at all.

To my surprise though, all of a sudden I lost all sense of fatigue. It was as if energy flooded my body and mind, and begged me to get out of bed.

“Ah Mano-sama I see you’ve awakened,” Gero says as I sit up and look around.

The sun has just barely come up on the horizon, the sky is a brilliant purple with touches of orange.

“Gero, does the Maou have any peculiarities when it comes to sleeping?” I ask as I stand and stretch.

This is completely unnatural. I feel like I could fight at full strength right away, despite the fact that I only woke up moments ago.

gero “Yes, Mano-sama. The Maou restores power, and draws from the environment nearby during sleep. Healing is accelerated by a fair amount, and any recent growth in power becomes slated. Sleep is when a Maou will most likely be able to gain new abilities, such as new magic and techniques.” Gero says while he rolls the bedding I was sleeping in into what looks to be a recently fashioned sack.

I look around and see the rest of the group still sleeping. Kera has an entire blanket and what looks like some clothes for a pillow, The imps are all sharing what looked like half a blanket, and Kiel is… just lying on the ground without a blanket or anything... guess the pecking orders already established itself among them while I was asleep.

“Oh ya! Last night I was dealing with some serious sudden exhaustion. Is that also related?” As I ask I notice the sack Gero is using once more… that wasn’t made when I went to sleep last night.

…Poor Kiel.

gero “No, Mano-sama. The fatigue you experienced yesterday was due to you exhausting your mana supply. A normal human would have immediately passed out after doing so once. It is a show of your strength to have been able to do so twice in a single day without damage to your health.” Gero begins to emanate a serious “I told you not to” vibe as he tells me this.

Again the expressionless Gero manages to make his feelings well known somehow. I seriously feel like I’m getting lectured by a parent right now… I do deserve it though. Gero tried to warn me not to do so many times yesterday, and I ignored his protest completely.

I never did look to see if I got any new skills, or how much stronger I had gotten yesterday so I’m rather excited about it. I decide to save the skills for last again and look at my status tab first.

Level: 5 Self: 88%

Attack: 545 Ailments: None

Defense: 520 Occupation: Traveler

Intellect: 700

Wisdom: 650

Speed: 600

Dexterity: 510

…The demon lord is a bit overpowered no? What in the world is up with these stats?! Am I meant to be able to smash a bolder with my bare hands or something? …It seems like I leveled once more somehow yesterday, after the goblin incident. I wonder if using skills also gains exp? Also, there are some serious oddities with this. One this is the growth rate of the stats, yesterday I had 80’s across the board and now some stats have a difference of over double that. Do my stats grow based on my actions? Also, what’s with the new items on my menu? I understand “Ailments” and “Occupation” they were pretty common RPG elements, but what is “Self”? For that matter why are they suddenly on my menu?... I ponder for a short time but don’t come up with an answer. I decide to check my skills.

Skills:

Bind: The earth entangles a target for a short duration.

Earth manipulation: The earth bends to the will of the user.

Fireball (S): Creates a ball of fire proportional to the amount of magical power of the owner.

Fireball (M): Three balls of fire are created and moved by the will of the user.

Haste: Makes target 10% faster. (Caution advised)

Restore: Restores an object to a previous state by undoing the ravages of time.

Restora: Uses magic to restore something to its preferred state.

Perception (Passive): Grants further knowledge of one’s self and of what exist around them.

Born leader (Passive): Raises growth and stats of monsters and allies.

Natures Knowledge: Ability to communicate with any intelligent monster/animal.

I happily look at my new skills until I notice “Haste: Makes target 10% faster. (Caution advised)” Screw that! What in the world is up with these descriptions anyways?! Who gave my menus permission to antagonize me?!

In my frustration, I kick a rock that’s at my feet rather hard. It flies at a rather incredible speed cratcht!... and nails a tree. As it does a large portion of the impact zone splinters and a large crater is left in the tree with the stone at the center.

“Wha- huh, what in the world was that?!” Kiel says jumping from his sleep and drawing his sword obviously not fully awake yet.

“Oh… uh, it was no-“ I begin… but unfortunately am interrupted.

“Seems the princess lost ‘er temper on something and kicked a stone. Scary, scary.” Kera says in a calm voice.

Was she awake this entire time?

Kiel turns to the origin of the sound, and his face turns visibly blue at the sight of the tree.

“…What have I gotten myself into…” is all he says as he droops his head and body depressed.