Hm.

People are looking at me-,

"We can do that?" Todd asked, meeting my gaze if only to share his pleasant surprise. The guildmaster nodded again, absently pouring up a brew to swish it down to some fella down the counter. The fella in question missed, causing the beer to crash to floor, but nobody reacted.

"Oh, yes, certainly! Tamed monsters are usually given a name, and consider you called the feller Johnny just some time ago, I wouldn't put it past ya. Just command the little bugger ta put some mana in the rock, and if he ain't got any, he isn't strong enough to be any real issue," the guildmaster explained, pushing the stone closer to us.

Todd grinned. Oh boy.

Hey, uh, before we do this, maybe we should think about this for a second-? So far, sure, being a "tamed monster" is generally accepted, but did you see how they reacted to my being a C+ rank monster?? We got me off by saying I wouldn't hurt a thing and was totally tame, but... I'm just thinking, if that old man in the woods had a register of fairies and could tell I was some child-stealing sharp-toothed bloke just off of that, can't they tell that too-?

This is a horrible idea. Let's not.

"Let's do it!" Todd exclaimed, clearly not having listened to my internal monologue at all. Daft bastard. Take my fist of fury! Maybe I'm too weak to defeat a human, maybe I wasn't actually trying to hit him too part and only actually poked him in the neck, but he took it to mean something completely different. He just... He just up and grabbed my body, one hand on either side like I was an oversized cockroach, and placed me in front of the stone.

I turned back to him.

He did a thumbs up.

...Fuck it. Mana in stone let's go!

Once I put just about two points of raw mana into it, a screen popped up, much like it had for Mal.

Johnny Fowl(Lv. 98/100) Species Moonlight Faerie (C+) Title(s) Monster, David Health 710/710 Mana 978/980 Status Strength 240 Magic 589 Speed 345 Defence 160(+12) Skills(...)

...And there it is.

Level 98, huh? Guess defeating two other C-rank monsters really shot it up, huh... For some reason, what with these people reacting like they did, I kind of don't want to evolve. I'm curious about what I'll become, yes, but... Maybe it won't be too fun to look at, y'know? Also, considering the thing I had to do to be allowed to evolve into this form was to literally kill a man, I just really don't want to think about what I'll have to do for the evolution.

"..."

"..."

"..."

...What, cat got your tongue-?

"Dude. That-,, that's a lot. Right-?" Todd asked, turning to Mal and the guildmaster. Is-,, is Mal turning blue?... The guildmaster took a look at Todd, and then at me.

"...Sir returner, may I see the screen?" the Guildmaster asked, and I realized that he can't really see the screen from that angle. Todd was about to turn the stone around when I poked his arm. He looked down at me, and I shook my head. No. I-,, I don't think he'd take it that well. Just,, let's keep it to ourselves, okay?

Todd pressed his lips into a thin line. Then, he slid the stone over to the Guildmaster and twisted it around so he could see the screen.

Saying he turned pale would be an entirely truthful way of describing his shift in countenance, but somehow, it wasn't enough. His eyes widened, his eyelids fluttered, his loper lips quivered strangely, and when he looked back up at us, he seemed two decades older. "T-,his is..." he glanced down at me, fear evident in his eyes, "join me in my office, and-,, Charles?"

A man emerged from a backroom I hadn't noticed before, "yeah boss?"

"Keep... keep the counter. I'll be back in a jiffy," the Guildmaster said, snapping his fingers to make the stone disappear in a poof of magical blue smoke. Then, he stepped out from behind the counter and lumbered over to a staircase in the far left corner of the bar. Todd, Mal and I exchanged a look before following him up the stairs.

Mal seemed to be mumbling something odd and repetitive, but I couldn't catch any of it.

Well up the stairs, we went through a hallway lined with numbered doors and pretty paintings of forests and streams and mountains. I was able to catch the view from one of the many windows, and from way up here, the sight was actually quite similar to a painting.

At the end of the hallway, we found an especially ornate door, made of... wait, is that rock-? No, that isn't just... That can't be a slab of stone. Once we got close enough to the door, I was able to poke it, and... It was stone. Just pure rock. Someone had grabbed a slab of rock, put it on hinges, and made a door out of it. What the fuck. What is it with this place and rocks??

Despite the door being made of rock, the Guildmaster was able to open it quite easily, proving that the SRI was indeed correct in that he had probably been an adventurer before all this.

Maybe being able to open a door made of solid rock was a passing rite for Guildmasters? Either way, he was kind enough to hold it open for the rest of us, so that was quite nice of him.

The office was, well, chaotic. Piles of paper and piles of... of rocks. Rectangular, smooth-ish rocks. Goddamnit. Other than all those piles, there was a nice-looking (WOODEN) desk, and (WOODEN) bookcases lining the sides of the rooms, filled with books, and... and rocks. I hate this city.

The Guildmaster quickly sat down behind the desk, dabbing at his forehead with a (non-rock) napkin he'd kept in his back pocket.

"Take a seat," he said, gesturing to a pile of stools in a corner of the room. Chaotic. Todd grabbed a pair, one for him and one for Mal and turned back around to place them by the desk, when the Guildmaster suddenly said "ah, and one for your friend-, Johnny, isn't that so?" I turned to him, we exchanged a glance, and I nodded. Yup, that's my name. Todd had both his hands occupied, so I simply flew off his shoulder and grabbed a stool myself.

We all sit down, everybody on one stool, facing the Guildmaster.

"...Right. Do you three know what it means to be a C-rank monster?"