Alice's Morning

Alice rubbed her eyes sleepily after waking up. Looking across the room, she noted that the other girl she shared a room with had already gotten up for the day. The family they were staying with tended to get up rather early to complete farm chores. However, none of them ever woke Alice up, allowing her to sleep in as late as she wanted.

It was strange sharing a room with two other girls, but Alice still felt lucky. When they had been invited to live with another family, she had worried that she would have to sleep on the floor or in a barn. Such things weren't uncommon since it wasn't like most families had the extra space to house guests. However, Alice had gotten lucky and even had her own bed to sleep in.

Apparently, the father of this family, a kind man named Gregory, had many kids of varying ages. One of which had recently moved out when she came of age and married another local. Her bed still remained and now Alice was occupying it.

David had gotten less lucky and had to sleep on the floor in the family room. There were only three bedrooms in this farmhouse. One bedroom was for the parents, one for the boy children, and one for the girl children. As a farming family, Gregory couldn't afford to buy a better house to give his children their own spaces. 

Alice's father didn't seem unhappy about sleeping on the floor, nor did he complain about getting up at the crack of dawn every day to teach swordsmanship to a boy named Henry. If anything, Alice felt like her father seemed happier and almost relieved. He had seemed stressed when they were staying at the local inn and Alice always had to work hard to collect flowers and herbs for them every night.

Her father had allowed Alice to keep the iced carrot bread from her first successful completion of the slime jigsaw puzzle. However, other attempts had seen him regretfully asking her to allow him to have it to sell to the merchants that visited the town. Alice did her best to make that first loaf of bread last her as long as she could. It was a real luxury to have something sweet and so the carrot bread truly felt like a reward.

Thankfully, they had moved in with Gregory's family not long after that. Now that things were easier, David promised to let Alice keep one of each reward she earned that week. Anything else, he had explained, would be sold so that they could save up enough money for her to go to an adventurer school when she came of age.

This made Alice very happy as she had always wanted to attend an adventurer school. Her mother used to tell her about her days in a similar school and so it had been Alice's dream to go as well. In fact, Alice was very similar to her mother. They were both beast tamers and Luna had even been the child of two of her mother's tames. As such, not only was Luna her best friend and first tame, but she was also one of the few reminders Alice had of her deceased mother.

After changing out of her pajamas and into her day clothes, Alice shoved her luggage back under her bed. It was fortunate that they had been planning on staying here for a few weeks initially. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had as many changes of clothes and belongings. Alice still missed home and being surrounded by her things.

However, she had also had it explained to her that they'd be living here from now on. She would have to wait an entire year before they could collect their belongings and then her dad would try to buy them a new house here. That had been hard for Alice to accept, especially since she'd be leaving behind the house she had been living in with her mother. It was easier to accept that she'd have to leave behind her friends and that she'd even have to start going to school here in the spring.

When Alice walked out to the kitchen, she was greeted by Gregory's wife, Edith.

"Good morning, sweetie! I saved some bread and jam for you. It's not much, but it should be enough to tide you over until later."

"Thank you, Mrs. Edith."

It wasn't exactly proper to call someone by their first name, but most humans didn't actually have last names. Only the aristocracy and others of higher birth tended to have last names. Things were different with some of the other races, but that was neither here nor there. Alice just wanted to show her respect for the people who were housing her and were kind enough to even offer her food.

The jam was good and had actually been made from some of the berries Alice had brought back from the dungeon. As she ate, she wandered outside to watch Henry and her dad practice. Apparently, the young boy was jealous of Alice since she got to freely explore the dungeon. However, even if his father was more willing to allow it now, thanks to her father, the town leader had forbidden the townsfolk from entering until it was confirmed that it was safe to do so.

This hadn't been the case, at first, but a recent town meeting had changed that. Too many children and young adults wanted to go explore the dungeon, but their parents were worried about the danger. So, it was agreed that the dungeon would be closed to the locals until the group that was currently surveying the dungeon gave the go-ahead. There was also, supposedly, a group of locals who would take a look as well, but Alice hadn't been informed very well on the details of that.

Alice quite liked to watch her daddy fight and duel against others. However, the Henry boy wasn't quite as skilled as Miss Violet. He wasn't strong enough and had a difficult time even going through the motions for training. So, she had to steal glances at her father at night when he dueled with Violet. That had made it difficult to finish her tasks in a timely manner, at first, but it was easier now that she knew what she was doing.

As part of the morning training, Henry had to run laps, do pushups and sit-ups, and swing his wooden sword around for a long time. Most of the training was, usually, over by the time Alice got up for the day. Henry only had the stamina to do the training for so long, but her father had explained that it was just because he was young and inexperienced. Even if he didn't unlock a swordsman class, he was likely to improve so long as he continued to work hard and practice every day.