You have a normal day with Citrinas

"M'kay dearies, two orders of our soup and salad." A waitress says, handing two steaming bowls of soup and a bowl of salad for you and Citrinas. Though you looked at the meal with disdain, Citrinas seemed happy enough to eat the same thing over and over again for a week. Her fixation on routines was starting to get on your nerves, but at least you'd be leaving this cursed city after the spellcraft event was over. You were also quite proud to have hit the 4 minute mark in ice magic casting thanks to Citrinas' help.

"Hey Citrinas, quick question." You ask while Citrinas blew gently on the bowl of soup to cool it while you decided to have a little bit of fun, calculating a minor ice spell to lower the temperature of the soup without making it too cold to enjoy. You could blow on it, and it was less likely for you to spend the day eating a duck slushy instead of duck soup, but it was fun toying around with magic.

"Yeah?" She asks, spooning a small amount of broth into her mouth before making a squeak as she burned her tongue.

"Where are we going next, and what are we doing?" You ask, realizing that this was probably your last chance to brace yourself for what life threw at you next. Supposedly, the heroes summit was coming to a close, with spell crafting as the last event. You knew wherever you'd go next would make you even more miserable, but you at least want to know what you were in for instead of being hit out of nowhere like with the hero summit and Kolderia.

"Oh, you're gonna love it. We're going to Alka's homeland. Since Alka's got some tribal meeting, we'll have free time to go clearing out the local dungeons." She says cheerily as you stab your soup with a fork and grab a chunk of meat from the bowl.

"Why would I love it?" You ask while taking out a duck leg and eating the meat around the bone. Instead of setting the bone aside once you've cleaned all the meat off, you pop the bone into your mouth and chew on it while Citrinas answers you.

"Alka's homeland is a humid jungle down south with lush soil and limited civilization, so I'm betting you'll have fun there." Citrinas answers as you kept your guard up. You did enjoy humidity and lush soil, but you also knew your new life usually sucked. There was always a catch.

"Is there holy magic in the land?" You ask.

"Nope. Just normal soil." Citrinas answers.

"Any other heroes?" You ask.

"Nope. Diplomatic stuff. Only Tomoko's allowed on amazonian land."

"Any scary monsters that might kill me?"

"Plenty, but they're way weaker than me." Citrinas said as you continue eating. It sounded like a good deal, but you knew being optimistic usually punished you severely. Regardless, anything was better than life in a frozen city full of holy magic.

"That's the second best thing that's come out of your mouth since we've met." You say while finishing your ice spell, chilling your soup without freezing it as you grab your spoon and test out the results. Ah, damn, too cold, you added too many magicos to the spell.

"What's the best thing that's come out of my mouth?" Citrinas asks curiously.

"My cock." You answer as she punches your shoulder. When she finishes scolding you, she calms down and returns to her meal, pretending as though you never said a word.

"Anyway, there's a lot of relatively strong verdure monsters we can wipe out while travelling between dungeons, so you'll probably gain a few levels pretty easily when we first arrive since ice magic's your specialty." She said cheerily as you stop and glare at her.

"You're having me commit fratricide?" You ask with a surprised voice.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Citrinas asks in turn, equally surprised.

"A little. You don't?" You ask.

"Why? Not like they're sentient."

"Citrinas, how would you feel killing stupid humans to level up?" You ask as she shrugs indifferently.

"It's a bit disturbing at first, but you get used to it after a while."

"What?"

"What?"

"... I just think killing other members of my species might cost me what little morality I have." You say while stabbing your salad with your fork and popping a thick stem into your mouth to chew on.

"I don't think fratricide is that drastic of a leap from cannibalism." She says as you chew, the stem somehow both meaty and fibrous at the same time. It was less like chewing on a plant pretending to be meat, and more like meat pretending to be a plant, having the rich umami flavor interspersed with the sweetness of sap and honey within it. It was too meaty to be considered an appetizer, but too sweet to be a main dish. Despite the odd disparity, you enjoyed eating the salad, scarfing it down the entire week Citrinas brought you to this restaurant. Now, you were having second thoughts on it.

"... I'm eating a verdure monster right now?" You ask, looking closer to your salad. There were more thick stems and the leaves were finely chopped compared to salads you ate as a human. The vegetables all had a rich, meaty aftertaste that just burst in your mouth. You'd chalked off the exciting new plants to just being in a different world with different plants. Now that you looked closer, most of this stuff looked like it wouldn't be out of place on your body.

"What else would you be eating?"

"A normal vegetable salad!?"

"It is a normal salad." Citrinas said as you find yourself surprisingly calm after committing a crime against nature. It was a bit weird knowing that you were no longer the top of the food chain in this world, but you couldn't really judge anyone for using verdure monsters as a food source now that you thought about it. A crop or animal that regenerated 20% of its biomass within an hour AND tasted this good raw would revolutionize any food industry. It also explained why the population of Kolderia was so high despite lacking modern agricultural practices or fertilizer to maintain such a population.

"You know, I'd be horrified if this didn't taste so good." You grumble, still eating your salad and enjoying the addictive meaty-sweet plant. Well, it seems you were either becoming more monstrous by the day, or you were becoming more like Citrinas. You weren't sure which one was worse. "Hey, are erosarkics also used as food?"

"Why? You wanna try that out next?" Citrinas asks as you shrug.

"Kinda." You admit.

"Some people do, but erosarkic meat isn't that popular since the texture's a bit weird. It's kind of like chewing on raw fish even when you cook it. I personally don't like eating it." Citrinas answered after a moment of thinking. She suddenly stared at you while squinting her eyes, realizing something while shifting nervously in her seat. "Verdi, I just want to make sure, you're not interested in eating humans, right?" She asked cautiously.

"Unless you count eating pussy, no, I'm not interested in eating people nor have I ever ate a person." You answer, retaining your human sensibilities and tastes. If anything, what little changes in your taste in food were quite mundane. As far as you could tell, the only noticeable difference in your diet was that you now seemed to enjoy gnawing on bones and had an unquenchable thirst for breast milk.

"Good to know you have some ethics." Citrinas said with a breath of relief as you continued talking.

"Technically speaking though, human meat would be the most ethical meat for me to eat out of the three choices we talked about." You say as Citrinas jolts in her seat and bops you on the head.

"What!? No! Bad! Eating humans is immoral!" She says as you shake your head.

"See, if you ate a human, that's immoral and unethical since it's cannibalism. If I ate a human, that's just nature since I'm not human." You counter.

"No, eating people is a crime against humanity. It's not ethical or natural." Citrinas scolds.

"Crime against humanity and unethical aren't the same thing." You counter as the two of you debate on where the line for eating monsters and befriending them was drawn. The two of you continued to debate even as you finished eating and made your way back to the alchemy guild. Though some people threw the two of you strange looks from your topic of conversation, most of the locals just ignored you, your daily conversations on odd topics now routine for them. It was hard to tell if Citrinas was the unhinged one or if you were at times, but it was nice to know you weren't the most batshit insane thing in the city.

"All I'm saying is that it's hypocritical to say eating verdure, erosarkic, and dragonkin monsters are fine, but somehow Ruya and I aren't on the menu."

"Do you want to be on the menu?"

"No, but I'm just saying your ethics are far more flexible than mine." You say as you spot a rather heavily armed group walk past you, their wolf masks focused on the two of you as they march in sync. You'd been seeing more and more shady folks wandering around and following the two of you around for the past few days, but for some odd reason the Kolderia guard seemed to ignore them. Eventually, you gave up on bothering Citrinas about them and ignored them in turn, focusing more on staying on the main roads near the guards than avoiding the odd stalkers.

Just when you reach the alchemy guild, you sense something was amiss. A half second later, an explosion rings through the city, illuminating the night sky with a blinding orange flame. Several dozen more explosions ring out as you hear screams throughout the city, the local guards drawing their swords as they finally spotted the legions of armed men that were wandering the city all week. Even Citrinas seemed shocked to see them, startled as she took a step backwards.

"W-where did these guys come from!?" She stumbled out, confusing you as the two of sprint towards the alchemy guild where most of the Kolderia guard and privately hired guild mercenaries were standing in formation, easily identifying and fending off the strange wolf masked men while allowing civilians through. Recognizing the two of you, the guards allow you to slip past their formation and enter the alchemy guild, reaching relative safety as you hear the sounds of combat harmonize with the explosions outside.