She can hear Alice laughing as she goes down the stairs and.
"You fell for it master" She was barely standing on her feet because of how funny it was to her.
"Alice. What happend to you ?" Monika couldn't believe her eyes. Just the previous day Alice was almost a head shorter and had a body of a small girl. Now she looked all grown up like Tania.
"It seems that I'm now half human half dryad. The second tear got fully absorbed into my core. I can't even deactivate the dryad form even if I wanted to" Alice explained. "But its fine. I don't mind that at all. And just like Tania said. I look way better this way don't I?" Alice struck a pose for Monika, radiating positive energy.
"I guess you are right~" She smirked. She had her eyes glued to Alice, looking at how her body has changed in just a day, she touched her silky smooth hair and the moss growing on her shoulder. "Anyway you have an errand to run at the end of this month. You will go alone since Tania doesn't have an adventurers guild id or the skills." Monika said.
"I will have to separate from Alice ?" Tania said. Not very happy about the fact.
"Yes. You can't forget that she is my student before she is your friend" Monika giggled. "And I'm quiet jealous that she spends so much more time with you rather than me~" She added.
[Meet me when she falls asleep] It was a while since Alice felt Monika's telepathy. It gave her goosebumps but she answered with "Yes master" in hear head.
...
During their training later that day Tania couldn't stop thinking about.
"I don't like it one bit" She said.
"Well I think it will do both of us some good. Spending all day long together for almost a month straight really burns through your social battery" Alice said
Tania didn't like how nonchalant Alice was about this topic."Won't you miss me ?"
"Ofcourse I will. But when I became master's student i promised to run her errands from time to time in exchange for help with getting stronger" She told Tania the story of her training under Monika.
"Oh so it was kind off thanks to miss Monika that both of us met" She hit her fist on a palm of her hand.
"You could say so. Also its only a one week mission so I will be back in no time" Alice reasured her. "And its not like we can always be together. If it wasn't this month it could be the next one." She added. "Okay. Now back to training. I will help you with utilizing air for your benefit"
...
It was already evening when Alice let Tania rest "That was good training" She tried to wipe the sweat off of her forehead but there was none "Oh right. I'm a dryad now. I don't sweat" She thought to herself.
"Alice... why did you push me so hard" Tania was laying on the ground. Panting heavily "Did you really train so much yourself when you started out ?" She couldn't believe how much harder this was than their magic class.
"No no no I didn't" She chuckled "Mine was much harder. I'm just going easy on you because I don't like watching you struggling so much" She looked at the dryad who could barely stand up from the extreme training she was put through.
"Even harder ? I doubt I will enjoy those" the dryad said. She almost fell over so Alice helped her walk to the mansion.
"If you complain more I will double the intensity next time" Alice chuckled. Enjoying the whole situation. She walked Tania to bed and waited for her to fall asleep. Luckily she was so tired that it didn't take long.
She snuck out as to not wake Tania up. Alice knocked on the doors of Monika's office.
[Come in] She heard those words echo in her head. She opened the doors to see Monika sitting on her desk.
"So why did you want to see me master" Alice asked. Looking around at Monika's office. It was full of books and documents. Almost like a office workers cubicle. there were two different stacks of documents on her desk. There were easily hundreds of different pieces of paper.
"I wanted to talk about a few things. Let's start with the easy ones. Tell me exactly what happend to cause a sudden change in your body" She stared at Alice. Waiting for an answer.
"So the dryad tear that was on my core got absorbed into it fully. Which altered my anatomy to that of a dryad. And because dryads go back to their prime age when they come in contact with water i grew after taking a bath"Alice took advantage of the fact that Monika might not know that its not supposed to speed up dryads growth but revert it.
"Oh okay. I guess that makes sense. So you can no longer feel the second rend at all ?" She asked further. Curious about the subject.
"No. I can't feel it at all. You can't even see the glow from my rend" She stretched her clothes a little to show that her temple is not glowing at all.
"I see. Another thing. How was first day of school ?" Her face turned into a caring smile.
"It was great. I doubt I would have ever been able to get this far without your help. Thank you master" She bowed to show her respect.
"I'm very glad to hear so. Now for the most important topic. The topic of your mission..." She got very serious all of sudden "Its a very dangerous one. So dangerous in fact that it might take longer than two days... it might even end up in your death" The weight of her words hit Alice.
"Wait. Do I really need to go master? Can't you find someone else to do it ?" She started to panic. She could feel her heartbeat rising. A mission that could end up in death ? Why would Monika want her to go on it? All of those question going through her head.
"You wanted to get stronger right ? I never said it will be easy. And I believe that you won't die." She reasured her. "The reason its at the end of the month is so you have time to get more proficient at all of your skills. But you will have to do this mission alone since its top secret and not even the guild can know about it"