Completely fine

"Alright Citrinas, we're leaving." Tomoko says, Alka and Elmeria by her side as Citrinas drags you away in the opposite direction.

"Have fun. We're going to the alchemy guild." She says before walking to Ruya, the dragonkin still as disoriented and weak as ever in this blessed city. "Ruya, do you want anything while we're out?" She asks as the dragonkin weakly shakes her head.

"No, I'm fine." She mumbles with a tired voice, as though she hadn't slept a wink last night. At her answer, Citrinas banishes her into her domain with a flash of light before grabbing you by the hand and dragging you out of Mathias' estate. Rather than take a carriage, she forces your weakened body to walk to your destination, the frigid air not enough to kill you, but just enough to put you in a worse mood than usual.

"Why does she get to stay in your domain and I gotta walk?" You grumble as you traverse the packed city. Had you been human, you'd have been excited to travel in a foreign city and take in the architecture and culture alongside the other tourists. From an objective standpoint, there was a lot of history and art to take in, not to mention the street performers and local cuisine. This COULD have been very fun for you.

You could see carts packed with honeyed fruits roasted with white hot coals, skewers of piping hot meat, and even mugs filled with spiced liquor in every which direction, the sellers barely having enough of their product to sell for the day. There were vast marble sculptures depicting the world's rich and storied history carved by a mix of magic and hand, each one displaying a triumphant victory over the forces of darkness time and time again. You knew this was propaganda considering the forces of darkness were still around, but it was truly a fascinating scene to look in every direction and still find yet more cultural icons. You could even see souvenirs of this year's heroes and companions being sold as little plushies, the miniature Citrinas bearing the same blank expression the larger version held when staring at something she didn't find particularly interesting. If this city wasn't a testament to just how much a monster like you was despised, you'd have enjoyed the festivities.

"Punishment. Alka told me about what you did last night." Citrinas answered with an annoyed voice while squeezing your hand tighter. "I left you alone for one night Verdi. How did you cause so much trouble in that time?"

"What did I do?" You ask, still not fully remembering what happened last night. When you got drunk, the cores in your human body were abruptly cut off from the cores stored in your main body you on the mountain. Your next memory after drinking that glass of Colchik was waking up in bed with one shirt sleeve shorter than the other. Considering nobody's grabbed pitchforks to run you out of town, you probably didn't cause too much trouble or expose your cover story. Only thing that happened was that you saw Harvin lock up the Colchik cabinet.

"Drinking 6 bottles of the most toxic liquid in the continent!?" Citrinas said as you think fondly of the few events you did remember. Mathias truly knew how to choose his liquor. You should buy a few bottles of Colchik if you ever end up in the south.

"Mathias drank it too." You remind her.

"And he's lying in bed wishing he was dead right now." She says as you feel slightly bad for the swordsman. Seems you had more fun that night than he did. "You should be dead, comatose, or the very least hungover after drinking that much."

"You want me to go back to bed, throw up, or kill myself? Because I'm fine with all three at this point." You answer as Citrinas continued complaining to you.

"Picking a fight with the hero of the hunt?" She asked, completely off the mark with her accusation. "That was quite literally the one hero I told you to NOT mess with. At this point I think you're trying to get in dangerous situations to spite me."

"She started it, and I was just insulting her. Plus, Harvin would have protected me." You say as Citrinas lets out a sigh, rubbing her eyes as you continue to walk down the main roads, staring at the attractions. You spot a handful of street performers casting basic magic, the street performer themselves being a particularly acrobatic woman while the actual mage was hidden in the back muttering something under their breath to maintain the spell. Another performer was juggling knives and throwing them at a target 20 feet away with pinpoint precision. You even see a puppet show with an incredibly accurate puppet of Tomoko... Killing a tentacle monster... You decide to stop looking at the street performers.

"You need to learn how to act human. Someone's going to notice if you keep doing weird stuff like this." She muttered as you scoff at her complaint.

"I do act human. In fact, everything I do is human. You couldn't find a man more human than me." You protest, insulted by the mere notion. You might have the body of a monster, but you have the heart... Brain... You have experience as a human.

"Then prove it. We are going to be doing some tasks today. Don't do anything weird." Citrinas says as you feel a pair of eyes on you. Despite not having a direct line of sight, you detect someone about 30 meters away from you following the two of you.

"Citrinas, am I being strange right now?" You ask, maintaining your focus on the stalker.

"Why?" Citrinas asks with a raised eyebrow.

"There's some weirdo following us." You answer.

"How do you know?" Citrinas asks, puzzled while turning around and seeing the stalker. Upon being spotted, the man backs off, disappearing as quickly as he appeared.

"I can detect him." You answer.

"How?" Citrinas asks.

"I don't know. I can just know someone is following us." You answer, still unsure just why you could detect them. You couldn't see him with your eyes, but you could more or less feel the area out. Perhaps your hybrid body had some new senses your old human body lacked.

"Probably a mugger. Stay near the main streets." Citrinas answered.

"Can't take a mugger on?" You ask, half amused. Maybe she was scared she might blow half the city up trying to deal with a mugger.

"I'm not a freak like Mathias. I can't cast magic while I'm being stabbed." She answers as you frown at her words. At this very moment, your main body was fending off several dozen massive spiders spitting acid that dissolved your body on contact, and you were hitting them with dark type magic. What was she talking about?

You try to think of reasons why you couldn't just fire magic while being assaulted as the two of you stop before a massive building with the insignia of a cauldron placed atop it. Probably the alchemist's guild she talked about. Surprisingly enough, the people entering and leaving the alchemy guild didn't appear to be the thin scholars you expected, but gruff adventurers and knights carrying massive bags of coins with expectant looks on their faces, as though they were gambling rather than purchasing medicine. Entering the building with Citrinas, you're greeted by a legion of tired looking secretaries jotting down orders and taking down payments for future orders.

You don't have any real idea about the cost of a potion, but you see a lot of silver coins being exchanged at the counters by some rather powerful looking adventurers. Surprisingly, some of the secretaries even take payment in the form of potion reagents from the adventurers, placing them on a higher priority than the customers paying for the potions with conventional currency. Making her way to one of the counters, Citrinas reaches to her neck and holds up a pendant with a silver tag. Taking it off, she places it on the table and lets the teller behind the desk inspect it. Upon reading what was inscribed upon the tag, the teller's eyes go wide as her previous fatigue disappears, smiling while returning the tag to Citrinas.

"Arch imago! It's an honor." She says with a weary, but excited voice. Seems Citrinas was famous around here.

"Hello. Do we have any orders for today?" Citrinas asks while pocketing the silver tag.

"Yes, there's been a huge surge for mediocre quality potions. Seems the hero of commerce placed a massive order for them while she's in town." The teller answers as Citrinas nods, a smile forming on her face.

"Good to hear. A room for two please." She says as the teller stops and stares at you expectantly. You stare back, confused as to just what she wanted.

"Your tags?" She asks as you look to Citrinas. She brought you here. She must have orchestrated something in the background. There was no way she... Oh right. This was Citrinas. She probably forgot you weren't just an accessory she could carry around like a handbag. You can tell she had no plan because she looked like somebody just poured cold water down her back.

"He's... He's my apprentice." She says after a moment of thinking. "He'll be helping me today." She says, giving a surprisingly good answer as the teller smiles and nods in understanding.

"I see! So I'll assume he isn't registered with the Black Cauldron guild?" She asks as Citrinas nods eagerly.

"He's a foreigner, so he isn't in our registry. I'll vouch for him." She answers as the teller thinks for a second. Eventually, she relents and gives a nod of approval.

"Can I at least get what noble house he hails from?" The teller asks with a genial voice as Citrinas begins sweating again. Oh no.

"Relative of mine. Rather touchy subject." Citrinas answers as you glare at her. Relative? What was she thinking!? The teller looks at you, then at Citrinas before sighing in defeat. She knew Citrinas was lying, but she was probably not paid enough to deal with this shit.

"I see. Well, don't let me get in the way." She says as you throw her an apologetic look. Once the two of you leave the teller's earshot, you grab Citrinas and mutter under your breath to her.

"Why would you even say that stupid story?" You ask.

"Easier cover story." Citrinas answers. "Besides, she believed it." She says, unable to read the teller's expression of complete and utter apathy.

"Citrinas, I don't know your family situation, but I think selling me as both foreign nobility AND your relative while saying it's a touchy subject at the same time was pushing it." You say as she bites her lip.

"Think she noticed?" She asked as you glare at her.

"She noticed. She might even think you're a weird tentacle monster in a human meat suit now." You say as she walks over to a storage room defended by a pair of heavily armed knights. Flashing her guild tag, they let her walk through as you make your way to a seedy old man. Citrinas orders several herbal reagents as the old man writes them down. He leaves for a moment before returning, handing Citrinas two separate baskets full of dried out plants that smelled similar to you. She hands one basket to you before grabbing your free hand, unwilling to let you roam freely after last night.

"Well, the story I made up is still better than what you would have made up. Alchemy's only possible for the nobility or for state sanctioned adventurers who are approved to enter dungeons to collect reagents. A mountain alchemist would be unbelievable." She continues after collecting her supplies, startling you at the abrupt statement. Damn she holds a grudge.

"Why would you restrict alchemy to nobility and state sanctioned adventurers?" You ask, confused as to why the forces of light would kneecap themselves by restricting alchemy.

"It's not illegal, but to become a sorcerer you need years of training. To evolve into an alchemist, you need to brew several thousand potions, so the costs would add up." Citrinas explains.

"Wouldn't it be easier for peasants if they live in rural areas full of alchemical ingredients?" You ask, your words causing Citrinas to chuckle at you.

"You can't just pluck a weed and turn it into a recovery potion. Alchemical reagents need a constant source of magic power to grow. Dungeons are the only places where this occurs, and the few verdure dungeons in the world are owned by noble houses. You'd either have to be immensely wealthy or influential to afford training to be an alchemist." She says as your backstory just became that much more complicated to explain.

"Are verdure dungeons rare?" You ask, hoping to find out how deep in shit you were.

"There's 14 of them in the entire continent. Monsters of your family rarely get strong enough to evolve into dungeons, and the few dungeons that do end up appearing are usually assassinated by the current demon king to limit our potion production." Citrinas answers as you flinch at her words. Great, so, forces of light will either kill you on sight or abduct you as a potion ****. The forces of darkness will outright kill you on sight. You literally are surrounded on all sides by enemies.

"Are these dungeons really that valuable?" You ask nervously, thinking about your current status. Your goal was to be obscure and unknown to the world. If it turned out you were a literal gold mine, then it was that much more important you get away from these girls and maintain a low profile.

"The dream of every alchemist is to find a verdure dungeon to claim as their own. Just reporting a verdure dungeon is enough for an adventurer to become nobility. Even the royal family has to share their dungeon with the noble houses." Citrinas says as you realize something.

"Wait. If there's word of me being an alchemist on a mountain and reagents only grow in verdure dungeons, are people going to my mountain searching for a verdure dungeon that doesn't exist?" You ask, suddenly realizing how much danger your main body was in.

"Probably, but the border region's technically on demon territory, so I doubt many people will go looking." Citrinas answered as you breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God for the demon king. If only she wasn't sending assassins out to kill your main body. Considering how your journey has been since being spawned here, you decide to make a decoy dungeon away from your main dungeon and fill it with a decoy body for the inevitable demon invasion. The second the decoy body died, you'd sever the roots and let the second body die on its own to feign a ****. You're a genius, but this is also thanks to Citrinas helping out.

"Why do you look so happy all of a sudden?" Citrinas asks as you realize playing nice with these heroines was a smart move. It was painful, traumatic, and outright terrifying, but you finally got your hands on some decent intel and could make a counter play against the malevolent god going out of its way to ruin your life. You should maintain this charade a bit longer. It might pay off later.

"No reason. I'm just happy to be with you right now." You say cheerily as Citrinas suddenly turns red. You feel her hand warm up as her grip on your hand loosens. Not wanting to get lost in this maze of a building, you hold her hand tighter as her movements tense up.

"D-don't say weird things out of the blue." She mumbles as the two of you climb a flight of stairs to find a legion of frantic alchemists running around trying to complete orders in a timely fashion. Making her way to a private room, Citrinas signs her name on a clip board next to the door before dragging you inside where a large, intricate alchemy lab was waiting for the two of you. As you stare at the equipment, you can't help but notice how fascinating the tech of this world was compared to your own home world.

You recognize glass distillers, bunsen burners, extraction columns, separatory funnels, and charcoal filters within the room, but you can also see some equipment that used the same laws of physics as earth but used magic to function. The rotary evaporator had no pumps to lower air pressure, while the fridges one would use to chill samples were merely boxes of water with thin coils to circulate chilled water through. The fume hood one would use to vent out volatile gases in a chemistry lab was nothing more than a hole in the ceiling with a metal vent leading outside the guild building, requiring wind magic to create a draft to avoid suffocating in the tiny room.

"Alright. Use these to mix mediocre quality recovery potions. I'll be back to check your work." She orders, giving you a portion of the lab to work in while she carried her own basket to another section of the lab. Though you could have told her to pound sand, the guild building was warmer than the estate, and you were curious as to how your potions stacked up to professionals. Sitting in a chair, you grab a Valharn root and pop it into your mouth, chewing on the bitter plant before swallowing it. You continue to dig through the basket, eating the contents while your body processed the plants into their basal components. Eventually, you tap on Citrinas' shoulder after a few minutes, your body placing the finishing touches on the recovery potion in a mere 20 minutes.

"Citrinas, where are the glass bottles?" You ask as she points to a shelf in the corner of the room, her eyes fixated on the separatory funnel she was using to separate ether from water.

"Shelf in the corner." She answers as you grab a dozen bottles and set them on top of the table. Opening one bottle, you stick your tongue out and drool into it, your saliva coming out as watery green recovery potion instead of the normal clear slime it usually was. Corking the bottle, you repeat the process, finishing 2 dozen potions within the hour. Wiping your mouth with your sleeve, you walk back to the mage and tap on her shoulder

"Citrinas, I'm done." You say as you watch her mumble calculations under her breath, using wind magic to lower the air pressure in a rotary evaporator while casting a weak fire spell to help evaporate the solvent in her flask. At your words, she stops her work and looks at you, surprised as you hand her one of your potions.

"Already?" She asked, looking at your pristine lab area before inspecting your potion. She shakes it around before uncorking it, a faint herbal scent filling the room as she tastes it. She seems surprised before looking to you with approval. "Good work. Honestly, I was worried you wouldn't have had enough reagents to finish the order." She notes as you gesture to the still full basket of herbs with your head.

"I had a lot. I only needed an eighth of what you gave me." You say as she studies each of your potions, surprised at your efficiency. She studies each one, tasting them and finding that there was nothing abnormal about them. "See? I blend in perfectly with humans."

"I guess I owe you an apology." She says with a surprised voice. "Job was going to be cutting it close, but it looks like we'll finish the hero of commerce's order with extra to spare now." Citrinas says with a happy voice while gesturing to your basket. "Go finish up everything in the basket. We'll have a nice lunch after this." She says cheerily as you grin. See, you blended in perfectly with humans. Citrinas was worrying over nothing.

"Great. I'm starving." You say, popping a root into your mouth and chewing on it. Upon seeing you eat the herb, Citrinas glares at you while gently bopping you on the head, more annoyed than angry at you.

"What did I say about acting human?" She asks as you continue to chew on the root.

"What is it now?" You ask, annoyed while she sighs in exasperation, rubbing her eyes.

"I told you, I'll take you out to lunch later. If you're hungry, please just bear with it." She says, her tone more advisory than scolding. It sounded less like you screwed up and more like she was talking to a dog chewing on a sock.

"What?" You ask, confused at her words.

"Don't eat the herbs. This stuff might be cheap for you, but it's expensive for humans." She says you frown and tilt your head, trying to make sense of her bipolar attitude. First she tells you to mix potions, then she tells you to not mix potions. She needs to pick a command and stick with it.

"You told me to make potions." You say angrily as Citrinas raises a confused eyebrow at you.

"How is that relevant to you eating the herbs?" She asks as you blink several times, suddenly realized how insane your actions were. You'd been munching on weird herbs and spitting out potions like some overgrown cat hacking a hairball for the past hour. How did you even know how to do this? The fact that you didn't realize just how odd this was until she pointed it out scared you. Were the monster cores actually messing with your common sense?

"Citrinas, you're right, I'm wrong. I need help on acting human." You concede as Citrinas stares at you, puzzled by the sudden change in tone. She seems to wait for a moment, expecting a punch line to a joke as you grab an empty bottle and open your mouth, drooling into it to show just what you meant. As you finish, you hand the bottle to her as she sniffs it and tastes it, albeit with more hesitation than before. Confirming that it was, in fact, a mediocre level potion, she corks it and looks at you.

"Well, this is partly my fault. I forgot this was how you mixed potions." She concedes with a sigh, disappointed in herself rather than in you. "Good news is that you're better than I thought at acting human. I actually forgot you weren't a monster until now."

"So what now?" You ask.

"Three things Verdi. One, stop eating poisonous stuff in public. Two, you're taking classes on how to do human alchemy." Citrinas says as she returns to her portion of the lab.

"And three?" You ask.

"Finish the order, but don't EVER tell anyone how you made these." She says with a sigh. All things considered, she took it well. You're honestly surprised she still drank the potion in the end considering it came out of your mouth.