Keylynn and Eugene kept their distance as her team approached the giant who posed as the shepherd of the island's giant golden cows. They were close enough to keep an eye on things, just in case they were needed, but were far enough away not to distract from their assessment. She wasn’t going to deprive her team of the comfort that her fungal colonies gave them.

  The island for the most part was bathed in illusionary magic, ensuring that there wasn’t a single blade of grass out of place. The giant golden cows were entirely illusionary creatures. Keylynn was hoping that they were cows that had been enlarged, but they weren’t. None of the giant golden cows were dairy cows, to her disappointment.

  The shepherd was no exception to the illusionary nature of the island. The giant was covered in layers of illusion that blinded her eyes. Their size was increased, and their skin was transformed to emit a bright golden light. Like the cows, the giant appeared to be born from the sun itself.

  “Why do they treat you like you’re invincible?” Eugene whispered in her ear.

  “During Call of Sirens, my corpse flower mushroom grew in size, enveloping me in mushroom armour. That and my colonies are very adept at digesting illusionary creatures.” She shrugged. She didn’t think they saw her as invincible. They looked at her as if she were a valued member of the team and their leader.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  She smiled. “You haven’t needed me to.” Eugene didn’t need to know that it was a new ability yet. She didn’t have answers to questions he would likely ask.

  Demetra approached the giant with Ragna standing to her left with his clipboard ready to take notes. The rest of the team stood behind them, letting Deemtra make their introductions. She cleared her throat and introduced herself and her team as Royal Assessment Department and Adventurer Welfare employees smoothly. Keylynn let out a sigh when the giant nodded and knelt to talk to her easier. Her team was finally going to get to conduct a proper practice assessment.

  “Serce scared you, huh?”

  Keylynn looked away from her team; they didn’t need her to save them this time. “It wasn’t what she did. It was the potential. She turned my entire team into pigs, and with one wrong move I would have joined them. How long would it have taken for anyone to know that something was wrong? I would have failed my team and would have been powerless to protect them.” She watched her father refuse to let anything stand in his way from protecting his people. He always led his warriors into battle. He used to say that he had no right to ask anything of his warriors that he wouldn’t do himself.

  “I’ve heard that she’s grown unpredictable these days. All staff were forbidden from stepping foot on her island, and no adventurers are directed to her island. I think Ody is scared of her.” Eugene leaned against her, trying to give her comfort. If they weren’t supervising her team, he would have hugged her.

  “Your failed wine aside, you have grown.” She meant it. He has grown. She only wished she didn’t have to move to a different floor to see it sooner. “Why were you spending so much time in the seventh-floor break room?”

  He chuckled. "Oh, that. I owed Turnip a favour after my sentient yogurt ruined the break room. She agreed not to tell Grief as long as I helped her. She wanted Gil’s best coffee drinks delivered so she could figure out how he does it. Well, as it turns out, Gil wanted to know the secret of Turnip’s compost pile. I planned a trade between the two.” He kept his eyes on her team, and she was grateful for it.

  “I remember that yogurt. And I remember warning that it could gain sentience, but you refused to listen. I’m glad you found a way to make amends with Turnip.” She was surprised her part in Turnip’s compost wasn’t mentioned. It was Keylynn who helped her get the compost started with her worm friends. She kept one of the worms, Wyrm, as a friend because she couldn’t part with him.

  “You miss me,” he teased.

  “I’ll admit you would liven up floor seven,” she replied with a small smile.

  He smirked and nudged her gently. “See, you have missed me.”

  “I don’t know, I have slime Eugene, who caused misery the entirety of floor seven. It’s almost the same as having you there,” she teased him.

  Zukyov joined Demetra in questioning the giant. He cast a look at the cows disappointed.

  “I refuse to believe that my little buddy is capable of causing misery. Besides, you can’t be mad at him. He’s just a little guy,” he crooned at slime Eugene, who had migrated over to human Eugene again.

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  “As I’ve told you before, there are many genders of fungi. You know better than to assume gender,” she gently chided.

  “But you named them slime Eugene,” he stated, looking up from the ball of slime in his hand.

  “Yes, because they were the colour of your nasal discharge. And as it turns out, your energy drinks.” She gently explained.

  It seemed as though they were done with their questions for the giant as Inferno and Tsunami started to stretch. Ragna put his clipboard away and joined Zukyov in examining the cows.

  “You named your slime after my snot?” Eugene asked, mystified.

  “If you don’t like it, I can change it,” she offered. She didn’t think about the possible implications of giving her slime mould the name Eugene. She needed a way to differentiate them from her brown slime mould. It was probably too late to change their name, as they seem attached to it by now. She should give her brown slime mould the same joy of having a name.

  “No!” He exclaimed loud enough to turn everyone’s heads towards them. The giant stared for a long moment before returning to Tsunami and Inferno. Human Eugene cleared his throat. ““I mean no, don’t put them through that. I’m just shocked, is all.”

  Demetra left Tsunami and Inferno with the giant as she walked towards them. As soon as she was out of range, the brothers began to test the combat that the giant had to offer. Keylynn could hear their questions once in a while as they maintained their smooth, flowing movements. The two of them could be adventurers if they wanted to or be high-level enemies for adventurers.

  “There is an office on the island, but I don’t see a point in going to it when Dauven and his team are in the main office. He also doesn’t like wearing the illusions all day because they itch,” Demetra said, sounding bored, standing beside her. “I don’t even think this is necessary, but they really wanted to fight a giant.”

  “Will you be waiting for them to finish here or returning back to the ship?”

  Demetra scowled. “The last thing I want to do is spend even more time on that cursed ship than I have to. I think I’ll have a walk and enjoy the fake nature.” She watched the giant fight for a moment. “They are going to milk this for as long as possible.” Before turning away. She let out a deep breath and walked away at a slow, meandering pace.

  Keylynn didn’t know what milk Demetra was referring to, but it was clear that the brothers were holding back against the giant as if they wanted to prolong the fight as long as possible. They were doing a lot of running and dodging and not a lot of hitting, and the hits they did get on the giant were light.

  “Is the real quest trapping adventurers on a ship? I can see that. In my experience it's the waiting that has been the challenge of the quest,” she said thoughtfully. It was an interesting idea for a quest testing the mental fortitude of an adventuring party.

  “That’s devious. Next you’ll suggest corporate retreats as a quest.” Eugene shuddered.

  “Anyone who fails to survive a corporate retreat guarded by corporate paladins and corporate cleric sing-alongs has no right to the title of hero,” she stated confidently. Even Gwen considered the level of singing in a corporate retreat as too much. Keylynn still regretted not releasing the bees during their last one.

  “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  The giant toppled over, creating a large dust cloud. Tsunami and Inferno both had massive grins on their faces as they cheered before helping the giant.

  They returned to the ship and prepared for the next quest, not that they really needed to. The next quest started with dozens of whirlpools appearing around their ship. Control of the ship was granted to the party for the quest. The quest was simple: they had to find which whirlpool would transport them to Ithika Island.

  The whirlpools were large enough to tear apart their ship, and their currents looked strong enough to pull an unsuspecting ship to their doom. One touch of her magic to the water told her the currents weren’t strong enough to pull a ship into the whirlpool.

  “Wait, it can’t be that easy, can it?” Ragna asked.

  Keylynn released her focus on the sea and looked up confused. “What can’t be that easy?”

  “The centre of the whirlpools glows red or green,” he stated incredulously. “There is only one green one.” He pointed to a whirlpool that was off in the distance.

  Keylynn turned her gaze to the nearest whirlpool doubtfully. The idea that the penultimate test had a colour-coded solution was ridiculous.

  After a long moment a red glow emanated from the whirlpool’s centre.

  She glanced at human Eugene incredulously. There was no way that she would believe that the quest was really that easy.

  “Too many adventurers got lost, destroyed the ship, and failed right before the final showdown. Of course it’s that simple,” he answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “Seriously? So we sail to the green whirlpool, and that’s it?” Ragna asked incredulously.

  Eugene let out a sigh. “Welcome to quest assessment. Sometimes you read or hear something that is just so stupid you refuse to believe it, but it is what it is. Once I had to explain to a guild master that if he didn’t open his guild, adventurers wouldn’t come.”

  Keylynn remembered that assessment. It ate away at human Eugene for weeks on end. He would start ranting about how stupid one man can be and still run a business. One day after a very long rant, she asked him what he told the guild master during his assessment. After a moment he answered that he told the guild master to open the guild. She explained that he did his job, and what the guild master does after that is out of his hands, and no amount of ranting about it around the office will fix anything. That was why there was an entire department dedicated to assessing such establishments. She then told him if he didn’t cease his endless screeching about it, she would feed bread goop to her fungal colonies. At that time he was obsessed with making bread goop that made the best bread anyone had ever tasted. She hated to admit that it was pretty good for bread.

  “And we just ignore the idiocy?” Ragna asked.

  “The idiocy is why we have a job. We advise the morons on how to fix it and hope they listen,” Eugene answered with a casual shrug.

  “It seems you have managed to learn a thing or two.” That was the closest she would get to saying that she’s proud of him. The others are wrong; Eugene wasn’t her human pet, he was her friend.