It was an absurd feeling, every limb being stretched akin to rubber. His face lengthened, and his teeth protruded even more as if he was getting sculpted by invisible ethereal hands. What he went through was basically a couple of years of human puberty in mere seconds; that explained the heat he felt. That didn’t ease the other two; the guildmaster was a move away from maiming him, and the kinky guy on the floor was ready to move on Kanade if it went south.

  “He’s my familiar! I thought you knew.” She sheathed the dagger in her ankle and stood beside Han. He was basically half her size.

  “Before we talk about this,” The guildmaster turned and kicked the receptionist’s leg. “Stop pretending, you scoundrel! Apologize!”

  “Ehhhh?! Why should I? You’re the one who made me do it?! Be rough, you said, go test her, you said.” He rambled on whilst he stood up uninjured, not even a mark on his chin where Kanade had kicked him to free herself.

  “I’m sorry… for my boss’s actions.” With a deep bow he apologized. “My full name’s a tad long, you can call me Wenn. I’m your direct supervisor.” He extended his hand, which she shook.

  “What you heard is true. I asked him to go hard on you; what he didn’t mention is that he’s C rank. There’s no way I was letting some kid rush into their death without me doing… something… That’s besides the point; I was wrong. You got a good head on your shoulders… and this… familiar.” He turns to stare into Han’s eyes. “No… never mind... though, do say, where was he all this time?” The question was followed by an abrupt silence in which Han could giggle entirely to himself.

  “Didn’t you see him? We came together, and he sat next to me in the room we were in.” That explanation caused more confusion in their faces than him appearing out of nowhere.

  “Hm? Interesting. But I’ve got to leave. Wenn will explain everything else. I forgot to mention, I’m Helmuth, the Guild-Master of Higelsdale’s Adventurer’s Guild branch. Welcome, I expect to see you get old.” He smiled and explained. His voice faded as he turned the corner, leaving the three of them in the arena. As the door closed.

  “…He’s a tender rock. You’ll get used to it. I’d instantly give you your plate, but I don’t have my documents with me. I’ll walk you to one of the rooms.” Wenn withheld his smile after seeing Helmuth acting like that. Nonetheless, he motioned to the door and with Kanade’s confirmation nod, they left the arena. Passed the vestibule and went upstairs, by chance choosing the same room they were in last time.

  After he let them in, he closed the door after saying he would be back in a minute. Presumably going to get the required papers. During that time, precisely the moment the door closed, Kanade jumped onto Han.

  “You’re so biiig! And fluffyyy! How did this even happen!?” She rubbed her face against his back; he couldn’t tell if his fur had changed, but she seemed to think so. While she would’ve smothered him before, now it was a tad weird. He was taking up the whole sofa by himself when a couple of minutes ago he could have comfortably rested on her shoulders. He had trouble concentrating already on his new state; her petting didn’t help either. His stats should’ve drastically increased, which was what he wanted. A thought irked him more than Kanade did.

  My passive is linked to my size.

  That meant the bigger he got, the less useful it would be, the juvenile tag meant that Pochirin’s still a “teenager” hound, per se. He’s heard of hounds specifically having varying evolutions in their adulthood, some becoming a 5-meters-tall tanks, some gaining wings, and some gaining elemental magic. The list was basically endless. The problem was.

  Who, or what, chooses the evolution?

  They are sharing a body after all. Han’s guess was that he was able to take over mindless or less cognizant beings. That still leaves a dozen variables to be considered; does the host have to be alive-alive? Zom was an undead, a corpse wouldn’t have the same capabilities, and would he need biological matter? Would an ethereal spirit or familiar work? There’s so much testing that needs to happen.

  “Fluffy…”

  However, what he hasn’t considered is; what if he died without a host? There’s literally no way to know. The moment he appeared on Pochirin, it was already a couple of minutes after Zom’s death. His mind was filled with this world’s knowledge to the point he’s ignorant about random facts. Assuming that in real life ticks do die without a host, how long would the period be for him? Han, a level—

  Didn’t I level up?

  “…Fluffy.” She whispered and jolted back when the door sprung open. It also interrupted Han’s menu browsing since this was an important conversation ahead of him.

  Wenn slid in with a couple of papers, not exactly the pile of documents that he mentioned. He pushes those papers to the side, though he grabbed one from the top; out of his pocket came an eerie antique. It was a metal finger guard that covered the entire pointer finger from knuckle to tip with what resembled lizard scales, although it was still unpolished, rough metal.

  “Since Li recommended you; my colleague had already finished up the paperwork that needed to be done beforehand, except this. It imprints, well, you into your profile.” He placed it facing himself and urged her to put it on via a beckoning hand motion. And she did, although the finger guard was a tad over-sized, it didn’t seem to matter to Wenn. He slid the blank paper under where her finger was floating.

  “Now. Near your thumb, there’s a button. It will extract a drop of blood and infuse it with your mana. Combining those two makes a signature that nobody can falsify.” As he finished explaining, she pressed the button. Her finger didn’t flinch as the finger guard ever-so-slightly punctured the fingertip’s skin. The blood pooled and dripped upwards according to the scales until making its way back to the antique’s sharp edge. The droplets bundled until the surface tension broke and trickled on the paper.

  “Let’s let it settle. About your familiar… uh,” He paused, to which Kanade said his name. “Pochirin, alright… Pochirin’s ability is unique. I’ve never seen anything like that. Since then, I’ve been able to see him with regular reminders to myself that he’s here.” He turned back to Kanade. “Sadly, we don’t have any stealth-based missions currently.”

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  Han did notice him glancing a couple of times, though he remembers the description clearly stating that an enemy will have trouble perceiving him. What even was an enemy to the system? Han assumed that his tense state was the flip; basically the system seemed to rely on the player’s perception, at least that’s what he thinks. If that is correct, that did mean that he could even hide from Li, whilst with Kanade, it would be hard since they have that link connecting them.

  “I don’t know… he’s been able to hide; that’s why I chose to be a dungeon-scout.”

  Guessed so.

  “Yeah, Li mentioned that you were working in that field. That’s commendable. I do have to warn you, low mission ranks don’t mean that they’re a breeze. We obtain information about accidents, and or, minor things from the citizens. Then use our oracle to gather a rough assessment. They’re not omniscient after all.”

  “Mm.” She sat there listening, probably noting everything down. And Han, Han was staring at the paper until something grabbed his attention.

  “Nowadays it’s a bit chaotic. A couple of years ago we barely had any incidents. There’s something bad happening every day it seems.” He said, his voice fading as he grabbed the paper. “Let’s see…”

  Han immediately harped on the “couple of years ago” comment, and if that’s by chance when Nira was released, that would explain that; more players at the launch equals more missions completed. Higelsdale is relatively close to the capital, that’s a good location for citizens that might want to travel, but not for players. It’s understandable they would go to the human capital where major events happen constantly and where the city itself is absurdly huge with most of it still unexplored by dedicated players.

  Anyhow, he was interested in what the paper will show; Stats? Class? He carefully jumped off the sofa and walked around to the other side, where Wenn was reading it. However, he couldn’t actually read it; normally the human language always got translated, yet here there wasn’t anything to even translate. The wiggly lines and runic symbols kept shifting around without any order or pattern from what he could tell.

  “Hm… you’re an archer from the felid family. The identification worked. It shows that you’re an F-rank already. If you’d prefer following Li’s path; the partymate system is good, but you’d need to be desirable,” He chuckles after taking a glance at a large black wolf and a cat girl. “Which I don’t think will be hard for you. Alas, your rank will turn down a lot of potential customers, and it’s bad for your marketability and profit. As a bigger rank allows for a bigger price for your service.” He paused, catching on that Kanade wants to say something.

  “Everything is surrounded by what rank you are…” She muttered, and Han walked back to sit down beside her.

  “Precisely. In Higelsdale, for example, we don’t have anyone higher than B-rank. While sure, there’s an argument that not every person has identified themselves, or are strong regardless of the set rules. Helmuth is technically F-rank, yet he’s the guildmaster. But his renown comes from the knightly order that he served most of his life, so nobody dares to question his authority. So imagine all the powerful beings out there who just don’t bother coming here.” He motioned his hands around, even tapping the table multiple times, basically nailing his point into both of them.

  Han’s mind went to that elf, Henris. Since rank isn’t tied to level and on the content one has access to. By that metric, Henris would easily have access to B-rank missions if there were any in Higelsdale. But he wasn’t the only one thinking about a reference.

  “What about Li?” She said avoiding using any pronouns.

  “…He’s a weird case.” He said. Han and Kanade both noted him down referring to Li as a man. “He’s a registered D-rank, but that’s because he avoids taking the rank-ups we give him. And we can’t forcefully change people’s ranks for them.” He finally turned to the three papers he brought with him, spreading them out in front of Kanade.

  “The missions always have a minimum payout for your rank; it’s 1 silver-per. The system overall shouldn’t be too unfamiliar for you; anything looted during them is yours. If the difficulty increases, which it usually does, so will the pay. If you’re able to read, please do. Else, I can interpret them.”

  “That’s fine.” She shook before her reading the mission profiles. And Han, at least these one, could read. It’s a tad weirder to read them in person, as usually the menu would just pop up and make you choose there. Anyhow, the missions seemed rather troublesome.

  The leftmost one is; taking out a Hanma Bear. Which was simple enough, a boss-type mission that should give quite a lot of EXP. It’s the least of their worries among the three, but alas it had its own problem; how were they supposed to take it down? They can’t apply anything that they used against the hog. Its hide isn’t comparable, also, due to being a hanma-infused bear, it’s highly resistant to regular magic, and they have no way to inflict lethal damage to it. However, that would be solved if there weren’t only two of them.

  “What’s a hanma?” Her innocent question caused Wenn to lean in.

  “You know mana, right? The essence that courses through nearly everything bla bla bla, that’s the… opposite of it? Or lack thereof? It’s hard to explain in layman’s terms; it’s the lack of it that breeds the antithetic type of mana—hanma.” Whilst he was explaining, Han glanced over to the other one.

  The middle one; Gryogens Grave, a D-Rank dungeon expedition. He’s never been there personally, but in regard to dungeons; it was a bad idea, simply because it’s dangerous for the sake of arduousness. The rewards would be quite phenomenal, though. His eyes gloss over the page that mentioned some lore he instantly forgot the moment his eyes laid on it, aside from the fact that they’re supposedly moving tomorrow morning.

  “You wouldn’t be going there alone, I might add.” Noticing her eyes read the dungeon profile. “We sent parties out to avoid accidents, at least we try and group people up. So, there are a couple of people signed up already; three, last time I checked, two adventurers and one partymate.” He pauses, giving time for her to respond; then continued.

  “If you don’t want my opinion, you can stop me; I don’t think you should be eyeing that offer too much. It’s good money, yes. But they require investment and time. Days of travel, needing a lot of preparation beforehand, and that still might not be enough. Dungeons, even the supposed easy ones; aren’t so. Keep in mind, you’d spend days inside at the minimum.”

  The last offer stuck out like a red herring. Unlike the others, it seemed to be a “we’re hiring” sign. It’s some business called Pleasant Valley. The mission was a protection one that looks to be just a regular bouncer job with a note that said it can turn into a full-time job. And it included a weird inclusion; nobody except women.

  “That’s a business in the red-light district. We don’t have a lot of knowledge about why they posted this request; but they need some extra hands.” He added.

  To note, the payout per night was already bigger than the guild’s minimum of a silver, theirs was two. However, it’s horrid. They would remain stagnant, with no EXP sources at all. This would be a one-time thing, if anything, for him.

  Personally, he’s split as well. All of them had their own advantages and disadvantages, he was yearning to be strong as soon as possible. Knowing that, he’s leaning to the dungeon. Alas, he’s the only one who was perfect for a dungeon run; he can hide, now he can actually attempt to fight, and he doesn’t need to eat. His mind lingered on something; for a while they haven’t taken risks, and he knows that’s what’s keeping them weak; however, forcing it will only make it worse.

  Although he can say that without worry since he knows himself, he’s still not exactly sure what’s driving Kanade. Those idiots in the morning mentioned that she has to keep paying someone, so he already assumed that she’s more likely to take the bouncer job. Safe and easy money, and he couldn’t blame her for whatever happened in the past.

  “Can I take these?” She points to the papers, to which he nods and stands up.

  “…Yes, we’ve got copies. Also, I forgot to give you this; your plate.” Out of his vest he takes out a copper emblem and hands it to her. “I’ll be in the back if you ever need some new missions or to finish your old ones. Ask the front-desk receptionist for me.” He said while leaving. Kanade folded up the papers, stuffing them inside along with the emblem.

  Before they could even leave the room, since they got ready in a mere moment and the door was still open from when Wenn left; they could see Li standing outside. Waiting for them silently. She entered, closing the door behind her quietly, then locked it. Before she could even speak up, she saw the new Pochirin.