"Wow. She's a big one, huh?" Gilbert asked as he stroked his goatee and carefully examined the full corpse of the Manasilk Spider Queen. "She must have been at least a B-ranker already, maybe even an A-ranker. How on Altros did you kill the Primal-damned thing?"

Lone scratched the back of his head and laughed awkwardly. "Well, like I said, my Poison Resistance kept me alive. The fucker did manage to stab me a few times, but when she did that, I discovered that I could, uh, harden my tails. I pierced her body with my tails then shoved a Crude Fireball in her mouth."

"She stabbed you? You look fine to me," Gilbert said as he held his chin curiously. "Were it not for my own racial skill, I'd be certain that you were lying. How curious."

"Racial skill? You have one too?" Lone asked with both confusion and interest covering his expression.

Not a single one of the books that he had read thus far spoke about demihumans beyond the fact that in Milindo, they were believed to be an inferior collection of species when compared to the human species.

Even less information was publicly available in regards to skills. A saddening thing for Lone since he had quite a large vested interest in the subject.

This was the first time that he was hearing about Racial Skills from someone who seemed to know what he was talking about, so, of course, Lone was going to inquire about the topic.

Gilbert nodded proudly. "I'm not on the best of terms with my family, you see, but all White Dragonkin have the potential to learn the skill Eyes of the White Dragon. It's a glorified lie detector, but it has its uses. From my knowledge, every demihuman species has the potential to learn a racial skill. In fact, even the humans have one. It's related to their unnatural ability to procreate so quickly, but it's far rarer for them to unlock their racial skill than it is for us demihumans to unlock ours."

Lone began sweating as he smiled. 'Wow. Good thing I only told the truths that weren't very hard to explain... If I had lied about my Bone Armour or said I never got hurt, then I might have really dicked myself over...'

His interest in racial skills had been completely curbed by the mention of a natural lie detection ability.

Having watched plenty of shows and read many stories that featured such a power, he was aware of how ridiculously powerful it was.

‘For him to just reveal that to me must mean that White Dragonkin are well-known for this skill. Otherwise, it would make zero sense telling a nobody like me about such a significant ability,’ he thought.

Seeing Lone's silence, the guildmaster chose to change the subject. "Anyhoo, returning to my other question; you got stabbed? You don't seem injured as far as I can tell, though I’m not a specialist in any type of healing magic nor am I a doctor... I have some expertise in nature magic, but again, not in the healing aspect really. Not beyond a handful of skills." Gilbert didn't seem to be overly nosy and was just genuinely curious about how Lone was looking as fit as a fiddle.

He hadn’t even asked any incriminating questions really. Most of what he said was just an observation, making the pressure upon Lone’s shoulders lessen somewhat.

"Uh, well, let's just say I'm a fast healer?" Lone really didn't want to explain his Basic Regeneration to a stranger if he could avoid doing so.

This man seemed friendly thus far but who was to say he wasn’t a secret mad scientist who would happily kidnap Lone and experiment on him once he learned he was incredibly hard to kill?

It was a farfetched and somewhat paranoia-fuelled theory, but Lone wouldn’t be quick to dismiss it in this magical world he now called his home.

"Haha, fair, fair. I imagine you had a rare herb or a potion which you had to consume to save yourself, no? A shame if that was the case since this beauty of a monster won't be worth nearly as much as a medicine good enough to cure stab wounds from a Manasilk Spider Queen," Gilbert claimed with an apologetic look on his face.

Lone could see right through the man’s words. He didn’t believe a word of what he had said but the guildmaster choosing to respect his secrets had raised his standing in Lone’s mind as a tactful person.

‘You’d have to be, really. To be the guildmaster in a country that is distrustful of outsider organisations and also hosts potent systemic speciesism. The guy must have a pretty open mind,’ Lone concluded.

"Speaking of that," Lone said to move the conversation away from the fight, "how much will we get for killing it?" he asked.

"I was already preparing a first draft for a quest notice to help me subjugate the queen if she was reported to exist by the hero, but since you've already killed her, you can have the planned remuneration. The reward will be a single platinum coin, and the guild will buy the corpse off of you for an additional 50 gold coins if you'd let us have it," Gilbert offered.

'A platinum coin? Awesome! With that, I can melt it down and learn more about the texture, taste, smell, feel, and general make-up of the metal, resulting in the creation of the coins becoming cheaper,’ was his immediate plan.

‘So far, only copper is easy to make since Grimsley refuses to teach me about decorative metals like silver and gold until I'm good enough with the basics... At least with a platinum coin, it'll be worth the insane mana cost to whip some into existence with Creation Magic since one of them is worth 100 gold coins,' Lone thought as he struggled to hide his building greed.

"Uh, yeah. That sounds fine. Is 50 gold a good price for the corpse? I don't really have any other options since I don't want people to know that we killed it, but yeah, I hope we're not being short-changed here," Lone admitted.

"A valid concern," Gilbert replied with a nod of his head. "The Adventurer's Guild offers the best prices continent-wide for monster materials. That’s what makes us the most popular place for budding mercenaries and adventurous souls to come to – even if only to sell loot.”

That made sense to both Lone and Sophie, so the two of them nodded.

The dragonkin continued, “If any other store or independent merchant is offering more than us, then they simply wish to never turn a profit on any monster parts purchased. Over the many ages that the guild has existed, it has just recently become socially accepted that the only place to sell monster goods is here, at the guild. Oddly enough, it takes quite a long time to set a continent-wide social norm when the top percentile live to be tens to hundreds of thousands of years old."

'Hundreds of thousands of years old? Here's hoping that's an exaggeration, or here's hoping that Growth Accelerator makes it so I don't have to wait too long before I can punch those shitty gods in the face.' Regardless of his crude thoughts, Lone was in awe of what Gilbert had said.

"Why does that sound like a genuinely decent monopoly? If the guild is offering more money than everyone else, then no one can be discriminated against when trying to sell any valuable herbs or monster parts, right?" he inquired.

"Exactly. A lot of people ask how we can afford this from just our ten percent cut of all commission rewards and standardised fees, so I'll just tell you now that the guild is mostly funded directly out of Grand Guildmaster Sarah's pocket. Ah, if you don't know who she is, she's the founder and owner of The Adventurer's Guild," Gilbert explained.

'What? Founder? But isn't the guild, like, a million years old? I get that lifespans can be extended, but isn't that a bit insane? Is she a ghost or something?' Lone privately thought then smiled and asked, "So, um, are we good to go now? I know you're a busy man, so I don't want to waste any more of your time, if possible."

"Haha, don't worry about it. My mortal enemy, paperwork, can wait a bit longer. It's rare that I get to converse with such a unique person. Anyway, no, we're not quite done yet. I need to confirm if Sophie here contributed during your fight with the queen," Gilbert replied with a friendly chuckle.

'Ah, I can't lie about this unless I want him to poke holes in my story, which could potentially lead to a shitshow... Hmm...' Lone chose his next words very carefully. "Sophie is very skilled at running away and at swordsmanship, but she has no standard magic and has a weaker body than I do, so we quickly decided that she should hide when the queen showed up."

After pausing for a brief moment, Lone added, "The plan was for her to grab me and flee if I was losing, and to help heal me if I won but got mortally wounded. Thankfully, I won, so she helped me remove the queen's legs from my guts and then carried me to a safe spot where I could heal up via a secret method of mine."

'That should be vague but accurate enough to satisfy him as well as hide Sophie's Teleportation and my Summoning Room, right? It's normal for people to be secretive with their skills, isn't it? The books seemed to indicate that that was true...' Lone sincerely hoped.

The last thing he wanted to do right now, was to draw even more attention to him and Sophie by revealing their unique skills.

"I see..." Guildmaster Gilbert stroked his goatee in thought for a moment before he nodded his head. "Lone, I'll be raising your plate rank by one, and Sophie shall be awarded five gold coins for saving your life."

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Persuasion] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 3.

'Cool. He bought that,' Lone mentally sighed in relief before he replied, "Sure. Thank you very much, you didn't need to upgrade my rank or give us more gold."

"It's the least you two deserve for killing such a colossal problem before it got to the point that it could threaten all of northern Milindo,” Gilbert happily stated.

Lone smiled. “Even if it nearly killed me, it was an enlightening fight.”

“I’m sure it was. Anyway, I should get back to my paperwork now. I'll inform someone to change your plate from copper to bronze, so please give me your plate now, and you can collect it from the front desk in about 20 minutes," Gilbert said very professionally.

Lone nodded and unclipped the piece of copper from the basic steel chain he had made for it. "It was good meeting you, Guildmaster Gilbert."

Grinning, the horned man with one scaly tail replied, "Likewise."

Lone held his new bronze plate up to his face and grinned a bit stupidly as he flopped down onto his and his lover’s bed.

Sophie stared at him as she was carefully taking her armour off. "It's just a lump of smelted bronze. Why are you infatuated with it? Soph would be jealous were she in our shoes right now watching you look at that thing like... that."

Lone turned his head and smirked at her. "You mean to say that you're not jealous? I'll do any one thing that you want me to if you admit that you're jealous as well."

"W-We are not!" Sophie protested as she failed to hide the rising blush on her face.

'So easy to read, and so cute...' Lone thought. "Haha, well, anyway, to answer you, it may just be a 'lump of smelted bronze', sure, but it's also a sign of my progression as an adventurer. Remember, before we came to this world, I was just your average everyday teacher with a gaming addiction and a shitty childhood, but now I'm a badassed foxkin who can kill a car-sized spider with his tails and a fuckin' fireball. So yeah, forgive me if I'm a little bit giddy at seeing my adventurer rank rise."

"How childish..." Sophie grumbled.

A few seconds later, she was done changing out of her armour, so she swapped personalities with Soph who immediately jumped on Lone's fluffy tails and cuddled them tightly.

"Like night and day, you two. So different, yet so intricately linked and similar," Lone muttered as he petted Soph's long golden-blonde hair.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Blacksmithing] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 1.

A day had passed and Lone was now slaving away in Grimsley's forge. He shoved the sword blade that he'd just hammered into shape straight in a trough of water and wiped away the sweat from his brow as he looked at Blacksmithing's newly updated information.

Passive Skill: Blacksmithing A skill that allows the host to craft with metal 15% [+10%] faster and 15% [+10%] more skilfully. Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 1

'Ah, another bust... Well, it ain't horrible, but there's certainly something lacking when there isn't a new effect...' Lone thought as he cracked his neck and slowly stood up.

Grimsley raised his head and said, "Sick ah it fae the day awready, laddie?"

Lone shook his head. "It's already getting pretty late, and I just ranked up Blacksmithing to Intermediate, so I think it's time to call it quits for today regardless of if I'm fed-up or not."

Grimsley reached into one of his pockets and pulled out something that Lone had a lot of interest in - a watch. It was needlessly bulky, and it was covered in gears, but much like the dwarf's steamforged glasses, this little gizmo sent Lone's heart wild.

"Ah, ya fookin' cunt! Aye, ye'r right! Okay, wake up the little missy an' get tae fook. Ah've shite tae dae, ya ken? If ye'r nae gone by the time ah count tae five, then my boot'll be introducing itself tae yer fookin' arse cheeks!" the short and bearded man shouted.

Lone smiled wryly and picked up Soph in a princess carry, startling her awake. "I'll see you tomorrow, Grimsley."

"One! Two! Three! Foor! F-" Seeing the foxkin flee the smithy as he laughed faintly, Grimsley poked his head out of the door and yelled, "Aye, the morrow, laddie!"

Certain of his apprentice now being long gone, Grimsley slunk back into his smithy - his home - and sighed deeply as he made his way to the back room.

He pulled the sole bed that hugged the north-facing wall with one heavy tug, revealing a very intricate and well-reinforced trapdoor. An incredibly sad and sorry look covered the man's expression.

"I'm sorry, Shana." He muttered as he unlocked the hatch and began descending a ladder that was concealed beneath it. "If only 'at cunt's fookin' contract magic wasnae keepin' ya asleep, if ‘at werenae there, then we could leave this Stone forsak'n land..."

Sighing again, he continued with his daily afternoon routine, albeit, slightly later than usual today.

The foxkin boy was growing on him like fungus on his feet. He could be irritating at the best of times with all of his questions and strange fascination with Steamforged tools, but he was a nice lad with a good heart.

It was probably a mistake to take the risk of signing him on. For all he knew, it could be a trap to reclaim Shana. Only time would tell if his whimsical fancy would come back to bite him in the arse or not, however.