SIAW Vol. 2 Chapter 13 Part 2
by nellstewartAfter eating with Misha, I put the temporary familiar tag in Sil’s collar and headed back into town.
Apparently, Jorn wasn’t on gate guarding duty that day.
The guard was wary of Sil at first, but let us through with a smile after checking the collar and familiar tag.
On the way to the Adventurers’ Guild, Sil’s presence attracted the attention and curiosity of most of the people we crossed.
The collar likely gave them the impression that there was no danger, so I didn’t mind.
Being in town was a new experience for Sil too: he was busy glancing everywhere.
After a couple minutes, we arrived at the guild.
Before going to the reception, I took a guinea fowl capture request from the board.
I saw Luka and Tina behind the counter, so I headed to Luka’s space.
“You don’t look so well, Miss Luka, is everything okay?”
I looked to the side, and noticed that Tina too seemed unwell.
I wonder what happened?
Luka sluggishly opened her mouth and explained.
“That jerky…like thing we had yesterday…was just too good with ale, so…we had a bit too much.”
Tina then chimed in too.
“I can’t believe it’s really Forest Wolf meat…that’s the devil’s food….”
I see, they’re both hungover.
Hearing that, mischievous thoughts formed in my head…and I took out about ten pieces of jerky out of Storage.
“I see…since you seemed to like it so much, I wanted to give you some more as a gift, but…I suppose it’s best not to.”
The next instant, Luka snatched the jerky from my hands.
It was hard to believe that she could produce such explosive power, in her weakened state…
“Since Tina doesn’t want any, I guess I’ll have to take it all!”
Tina immediately rushed towards Luka and they started bickering over the jerky. The rest of the staff of the guild looked at them surprised, wondering what was going on.
Satisfied after seeing the amusing scene, I took out ten more pieces of jerky.
“Since you both liked it so much, here’s some more so you can share. Give some to the rest of the guild staff too, please.”
Luka then finally realized that she had been fighting in public over jerky, and got all red in the face.
“You’re so nice, Tenma. I’m really sorry for the misunderstanding last night. Anyway, today you came to get the reward for that request and registered your familiar, right?”
I nodded, then took out three guinea fowls plus three Forest Wolves’ hide and Mana Stones.
Luka sounded ecstatic.
“You’re really good at hunting guinea fowls, aren’t you! Gust said that he had some at the village, I was so jealous!”
“I’ll have some for you too soon, don’t worry.”
The moment I said that, I felt all eyes in the guild turn towards me.
What? Why? You’re scaring me, people! Is guinea fowl that popular!?
I have to make sure I don’t give it to her while we’re inside the guild!
I was there fearing for my safety, but Luka smiled warmly.
“Hehehe, thank you so much. Okay then, let’s get done with the registration while they’re checking your loot.”
Luka then picked up a magic tool and came out from behind the reception.
“A white Wolf, that’s pretty rare. So cute and fluffy…I wonder if it’s a mutated specimen?”
Luka inserted the tag in the magic tool.
(“Hm? I’m cute?”)
(“Absolutely cute.”)
I replied to Sil mentally and he started wagging his tail happily.
Luka looked at him, then turned towards me.
“To complete the registration, I need to touch the familiar’s body with this magic tool. Will he get angry if I do?”
I turned to Sil.
(“Don’t bite her, okay?”)
(“I don’t do bad things like that!”)
“No problem, go ahead.”
Luka slowly and gently pressed the magic tool against Sil’s body.
“Don’t worry, it’s not going to hurt…okay, registration complete. Take this familiar tag and…”
Luka’s words trailed off: she was frozen in place.
“Tenma, I’m sorry, you’ll have to come to the conference room with me.”
“Eh? Er, that’s okay, but…”
Unable to understand what was going on, we were taken to the conference room again.
Soon enough, the guildmaster showed up.
“Always up to something new, aren’t you, Tenma…”
The guildmaster sighed, looking somewhat drained. This time, though, I really had no idea what the problem could be.
Looking at me and my perplexity, the guildmaster sighed again.
“I just got the report that your familiar is a Silver Wolf cub. Is that right?”
“Ehm, I don’t think I know what you are talking about, Sir…”
I couldn’t help but look away: I was this close to start whistling too.
The tag probably displayed Sil’s species…
“Silver Wolf cubs are always together with their parents: Wolf-type monsters have strong pack instincts, after all. If you happened, by pure chance, to find this cub by himself and make him your familiar, his parents are going to track your smell and attack you, so they might come to this town too.”
The guildmaster shot me a sharp glare.
“Oh, is that so, Sir…”
Crap! I messed up big this time.
“So? Have you seen his parents, Tenma?”
Oof…if I don’t tell the truth, I might even get in a bigger mess here…
“Well, you see, Sir, I think his parents are gone…”
“Does that mean that you have taken them down?”
“Yes, actually…”
“Can you prove it?”
My words weren’t enough proof, apparently. There was no other way out: I took out two Mana Stones from my Storage.
(“Those smell like mom and dad!”)
Sil reacted to the stones and wagged his tail.
“Phew…okay, you can put them back…”
The guildmaster looked relieved and told me to put away the Mana Stones immediately.
“Let me warn you, Tenma: keeping this cub as your familiar is likely to get you in trouble. Silver Wolves are rank B monsters, but two acting together are treated as rank A. And Wolf-type monsters usually move in large packs.”
Yeah, it was a pretty big pack, if I recall correctly.
“A Silver Wolf cub can surely be a great help in battle once he’s grown up. If you let him gather other Wolf-type monsters and become the leader of his own pack, you’d have tremendous fighting power in your hands. Something that plenty of people would do anything to have…so I think you should keep the fact that this cub is a Silver Wolf a secret, as much as you can.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Since you have managed to take down two Silver Wolves on your own, your abilities are at rank A, or even higher. On paper, though, your rank is still F. Some fools might get cocky because of that, and try to attack you. I hope you will keep this in mind.”
Yeah, I really need to keep Sil’s species a secret!
Once I made such a decision, I started thinking about creating a magic tool that could mask my familiar’s details.