“Ok, so let me see if I got it right. Lilfira is a half dragonkin woman who is a daughter of a dragonkin who also is one of the biggest dragonkin clan leaders out there, aaand… who also wants to kill her?” I made a pause before finishing my question, in addition to making the weirdest grimace on my face I had ever made.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Savirei told me with a bright smile.

“Cool,” I said, crinkling my nose before scratching the side of it with my right finger.

“So happy we have such understanding, darling,” Savirei added, looking rather pleased.

Are they serious?! Who in their right mind would believe that?! Some huge ass… tail… whatever dragonkin who’s a leader of a widely known clan, and who is clearly waaay above my level and strength too, wants to kill his own daughter?! Are you freaking kidding me?! I was biting on my bottom lip to keep myself from bursting and telling them what I really thought about the matter.

“Listen, well… aah… can I get something to eat? I need to think it through. Oh, and Ranalaiya and Sylfrin would need to eat too. What are they… Ah, right… Voras,” I turned to check where my two beautiful companions were only to find a bunch of people, Tarrion and Krisel included, gathered around Ranalaiya and Sylfrin to look at Sylfrin’s pet from up close.

Obviously, seeing a Halluspider run around the diner made people curious. It was probably frightening to see it at first, but once they’ve realized Voras was quite harmless, unless Sylfrin ordered it to attack of course, people became very curious to learn more about it. Sylfrin didn’t mind the attention which wasn’t a big surprise for me, but I wanted both Ranalaiya and Sylfrin to eat and we had some business to take care of too, so I called them over, with Sylfrin unsummoning her spiderling pet before joining me at the table.

“Yes, of course. So sorry, Rockin. What would you like to eat?” Savirei asked with the sweetest smile on her face.

“Three portions of Tarkee wings, please. And that… green leaves dish for Sylfrin too,” I told her. I still couldn’t remember what those leaves that Sylfrin loved to eat so much were called. It was Arbarbrus or something, but I chose not to try saying it out loud.

“Tarkee wings for all of you?” Savirei was a little surprised I didn’t order Rhaki’s meat for myself this time.

“Yeah. I can’t cook Tarkee wings myself and we eat enough Carnabbit and Rhaki’s meat in the dungeon,” I explained.

“Ah, yes. That’s understandable. Right away, Rockin,” Savirei said before turning to Lilfira. “Could you give me a hand here, Lilfira?”

“Ah, yes, Miss Savirei. Please, excuse me, Mister Rockin,” Lilfira bowed her head in front of me before going after Savirei.

“Do you mind if we join you too, Rockin?” Krisel asked me, Tarrion standing by her side.

“Ah, yes, sure,” I had no reason to refuse. “I’ve ordered Tarkee wings for all of us and those Arba… rabrus leaves for you too, Sylfrin.”

“You mean Rabarbrus leaves, Master Rockin?” Sylfrin corrected me.

“Yes, that…” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “You guys hungry?”

“No, not really. We ate right before… the incident happened,” Krisel told me.

“Ah, yeah. The one where a father wants to kill his own daughter. Talk about the biggest nonsense I have ever heard,” I frown, shaking my head.

“That’s no nonsense. Dragonkins abhor having half-breeds as their kin,” Tarrion told me in a very serious tone of his voice.

“Eh?” I raised an eyebrow while looking at him with a scowl on my face. “Hold on. So, dragonkins having sex with other races is ok, but having a child with the same person they had sex with is a no go? How does that work?” I blurted out loud.

“Beats me,” Tarrion shrugged, his facial expression telling me he neither knew nor cared about it.

“Seriously?” I dropped my head with a heavy sigh.

“Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something else,” Tarrion addressed me, forcing me to lift my head up to look at him again.

“Yes?” I asked with a half frown.

“I have a few people who want to join the Rockstars Clan,” he told me.

“Don’t tell me it is also someone who is running away from someone else who wants to kill them?” I blurted without thinking.

“Ghm, no,” Tarrion frowned.

“Ah, sorry,” I said, realizing I needed to cool off. “Who are they?”

“It’s the people sitting over there,” Tarrion said, turning his head to show where those people were sitting, the woman waving at us when she noticed us looking at them.

“Oh, right. Emmy’s group?” Only then I remembered them being here. I’ve noticed them being here when Emmy and Arny helped Savirei after the big dragonkin released her from his grip.

“You know them?” Tarrion was surprised I knew her name.

“Not… exactly,” I rubbed the back of my head, remembering how we’ve met. “I’ve had an encounter with Emmy and her group in the dungeon quite a while ago, but I haven’t seen them since.”

“Humph, they sounded like they knew you too,” Tarrion said. “They all are low levels, really. Emmy and Arny both are level eight, and Luise and Ronnie are level seven. They said they didn’t even try to apply to join the big clans, but weren’t accepted by the other clans either, so I thought we could have them join ours. We need more people in our clan if we want to do raids in the future. Of course, they’d have to level up, but…”

Oh, wow. Tarrion is thinking about doing raids already? I was surprised to know he was thinking that far ahead. Yeah, I guess he’s right. I don’t mind Emmy’s group joining, but I still haven’t figured out what our recruitment process would be. Speaking of which, Savirei got Lilfira join our clan just like that. Well, if I wasn’t drooling over her the way I did I probably wouldn’t have agreed to it on the spot. Speaking about drooling… Normal human women are beautiful, but those half-human half-insert whatever race women are simply drop dead gorgeous. Well, Meribel might be the only one who would come at the top no matter what race any other woman is, but she’s an exception and way out of my league too. Damn, she’s really…

“So, what do you say?” Tarrion’s question interrupted my daydreaming all of a sudden.

“Huh? What?” I blinked a few times, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Do you mind Emmy and her group joining the Rockstars Clan?” Tarrion asked, his tone of voice telling me it wasn’t the first time he asked that question.

“Ah, right. I… sort of don’t mind, but I need to figure out the proper process for people to need to apply to join our clan. That’s… what I was thinking about just now,” I tried coming up with an excuse of me dozing off. I wasn’t lying, really. Part of my daydreaming involved thinking about other people joining my clan, even if it was a very tiny part of it all.

“Oh… Yes, we need to… have a proper process put in place,” Tarrion agreed with me. “So, what do I tell them?”

“Tell them…” I rubbed my chin, thinking about it. “Can you… they… can they wait at least until I finish eating? I’m really hungry right now.” I had no idea what to tell him, so used me being hungry as an excuse to avoid giving him a concrete answer.

“Right, sure,” Tarrion agreed. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Enjoy your meal, all of you,” Krisel wished us.

“It is so wonderful that more people want to join your clan, Master Rockin,” Ranalaiya clapped her hands excitedly.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, thinking about something.

“Is something wrong, Master Rockin?” Sylfrin asked me.

“Ah, no. Not really. I was just thinking about the application process and how we should go about it,” I said, wondering if I should apply a similar recruitment process like the one they had at the company I used to work back in my home world.

“Here are your orders,” suddenly, Lilfira appeared at our table, carrying our food. She served the dishes and was about to leave when I stopped.

“Lilfira,” I spoke to her.

“Ah, yes, Mister Rockin,” she turned to face me, showing a kind smile.

“Can you… get me a piece of a paper and a pen? Or I mean, could you ask Savirei if she could get me those, please?” I corrected myself.

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“Yes, of course,” Lilfira said before adding. “If you excuse me.”

“Why do you need a paper and a pen, Master Rockin?” Ranalaiya was curious to know.

“I need to draft some sort of application form for new people who want to join our clan to fill out,” I explained.

“What kind of application form will it be, Master?” Sylfrin asked next.

“I don’t know yet. Let’s eat first, ok?” I said, putting my attention on the food in front of me, with Ranalaiya and Sylfrin doing the same thing, all three of us thoroughly enjoying the grilled Tarkee wings that Savirei has prepared for us. After we ate, I asked for Ranalaiya and Sylfrin to leave me be for a short while, so I could focus on drafting the application form without being disturbed.

Ok, so… maybe I should follow the regular CV form from my previous world? Well, I will need to tweak it, so it makes sense for the people here. I was holding onto my chin while thinking about it. Right. Let’s start writing it down just to have it on paper first. So, name, current level, adventurer’s rank, skills… Oh, wait, do I need them to list their skills? I wouldn’t want to list my own skills when applying. At least I wouldn’t want to tell anyone I have my Unique Overgrowth skill. Let’s change it to profession skills. What else? Ah, yes. Achievements and… Humph? Have they been part of another clan? If yes, which clan and why not in that clan anymore? Oh, right, what class they are. That’s important. Hmm… Should I put a minimum level requirement too? If I don’t, we might get a lot of newbies with no experience. I suppose if they need to tell what class they are, that makes them level five too, so minimum requirement is level five. Anything else? I know: why do they want to join the Rockstars Clan? What will you bring to the clan in order to make it better? What is/are your future goals? Goals, huh? Wouldn’t that be too cheesy? Maybe not. What else? Hmm…

I leaned back in my chair to read through what I have written so far. It looked ok, but something was lacking. I knew from my experience when I was attending and later on interviewing people for potential job positions within our company, the majority of the people who applied were not serious and had no long-term goals either. Of course, having some dream and making it come true were two different things. But if I wanted for the Rockstars Clan to grow and become a strong clan in the future, I had to take it seriously from the beginning. Therefor I had to put in something to know if people who wanted to apply were serious without any guarantee they would be accepted.

Oh-kay. How about… a five silver coins non-refundable application fee with no guarantee of being accepted. That should be enough to separate the wheat form the chaff. I thought that’d be a good breaking point to learn how serious someone is about joining my clan. I couldn’t remember if any clans had any fees attached upon filling an application form, but I knew many clans had monthly fees you had to pay in order to stay in the clan after you joined it. I didn’t want people to pay monthly fees, because that just sounded ridiculous to me, but paying an application fee sounded reasonable. Looks good… I guess. Now I need to rewrite it to make it look clean and then photocopy it to have… Ah? Photocopy? Yeah, right… I frowned to myself while feeling dumb when I remembered that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find a photocopy machine not only around here but anywhere in this world. I suppose we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Only… I’d need someone who has a muuuch better handwriting than I do to prepare these application forms.

“Is everything ok, Rockin?” Savirei came to ask me when she saw me sitting there all by myself for a longer period of time.

“Ah, yes. Sort of,” I said, looking at the soon to be my clan’s application form.

“Lilfira told me you needed a paper and a pen, so I became curious what were you writing down so intently. If you don’t mind me asking that is?” Savirei slid in a question, feeling and looking very curious.

“An application form to join the Rockstars Clan,” I told her.

“Oh, my. An application form. Will I need to fill one out myself too?” Savirei asked cheekily.

“No. You are already a member of the clan. It’s only for new people to fill out,” I said.

“Will Lilfira need to fill it out as well?” Savirei kept asking the questions.

“Ahh… Y… yes. Probably…” I squirmed in my seat. “I mean… you caught me off guard when you told me about Lilfira wanting to join our clan, and I wasn’t thinking straight at the time, because… well, because I was thinking about something else…”

“She’s quite a beauty, isn’t she?” Savirei asked in a casual tone of her voice.

“Oh yeah, that’s for sure,” I said without thinking and only then caught myself I should’ve kept my mouth shut. “Damn it…” I closed my eyes before dropping my head down.

“You look so adorable when you act like that, Rockin,” Savirei chuckled. “But yes, I agree that everyone should fill out an application form. Do you mind me taking a look at it?”

“Sure,” I passed the paper for Savirei to read through. “It’s still only a draft, so…” I added, knowing how messy my handwriting was.

“Oh my, you have really thought it through, haven’t you, Rockin?” Savirei exclaimed, sounding like she was very impressed with it after reading what I wrote down.

“Well, I just wrote whatever came to my mind,” I said, not thinking it was that great of an application form.

“Huh? My future goals? Wow…” Savirei gasped before removing her eyes from the paper to look at me, also giving me a sly smile when I looked back at her. “I do have one goal in mind. Can I tell you it, Rockin?”

“Ah, you don’t need to fill out an application form remember?” I made up an excuse for her to not tell me about it, having a pretty good idea what that kind of look in her eyes meant.

“But I really want to tell you what I want, Rockin,” Savirei insisted.

I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking about right now, Savirei. I didn’t say it out loud, though.

“That’s right, I would need someone to write it all down, so it looks like a proper application form. And we’ll need to have multiple copies of it done too,” I changed the topic to avoid going down the embarrassment lane.

“Oh, I know someone, actually. It wouldn’t cost much either. I’d say they would charge maybe three bronze coins to make ten copies of it,” Savirei told me.

“Really? Cool, let’s have them make twenty copies to start with,” I instantly agreed.

“So, about my future goals…” Savirei went back to the topic I wanted to avoid us talking about.

“Can we… leave that for later?” I squirmed in my seat. “I need to go talk to Emmy and her group about them joining our clan.”

“But of course, darling. That reminds me… Please, don’t leave before I come back, ok?” Savirei asked, her eyes glowing suspiciously.

“Ok,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

“Wonderful. It shouldn’t take long,” Savirei said before walking away.

Phew… I let out a sigh of relief. Right, I need to go talk to Emmy.

“Hi, Emmy,” I spoke to her after coming to her table, raising my hand up for extra emphasis. “Arny, Luise, Ronnie.”

“Hello, Rockin,” Emmy stood up and so the rest of her group.

“Greetings,” Arny dipped his head.

“Uhm… hello,” Luise was a little timid for some reason.

“Hello, Mister Rockin,” Ronnie was very polite.

“Sorry for keeping you wait. I had to… sort out a few things,” I apologized.

“It’s ok. I’m ah… glad to see you again,” Emmy said, a mild blush jumping on her cheeks.

“Yeah, good to see you all as well. How have you been?” I spoke back casually.

“Oh, we’ve been… doing ok,” Emmy said, but she didn’t sound too confident about it.

“That’s good to hear. Did you get your Tank class, Arny?” I asked him next.

“Yes, I did,” Arny told me before adding. “I’m surprised you remembered our talk from back then.”

“Yes, well. Listen, Tarrion said you want to join my clan?” I went straight to the point with my next question.

“Yes, we do. Can we?” Emmy asked, feeling hopeful.

“I’m gonna be honest with you. Our clan is still very small and we don’t have much to offer at this point,” I wanted them to know that in advance.

“That’s ok. We understand. Tarrion has told us your clan was created not that long ago,” Emmy said.

“He did, eh?” I said, scratching my cheek with my right hand’s finger. “Here’s the thing, I don’t mind you joining, but I would need people to fill out an application form before they can join. Unfortunately, we don’t have application forms ready yet. So, if you really want to join my clan, you’ll have to wait a little. Savirei said she has someone who can prepare application forms, but I assume it will take a day or two.”

“That’s no problem. We can wait, can’t we?” Emmy spoke, more to her group members than to me.

“Ok, great. Now, I’d love to chat and learn more about what you guys been up to, but I’ve just got back from the dungeon and I still have a lot of things to take care of, so I’m really sorry, but I will have to go,” I wanted to excuse myself sooner rather than later.

“Yes, we understand. Thank you, Rockin,” Emmy said.

“Thank you, friend,” added Arny.

“No problem. Why don’t you come back tomorrow and ask Savirei about the application forms? She might have some ready by then,” I told them.

“Ok, will do,” Emmy acknowledged it.

“Right then, I will be going now. See you later,” I said before leaving their table to go get Ranalaiya and Sylfrin.

“Master Rockin,” Ranalaiya perked up, seeing me finally come to where the two of them were.

“Hey, so sorry about taking so long. Everyone decided they needed me for something,” I felt a little bad for leaving them alone for so long.

“It’s ok, Master Rockin. You’re our clan’s leader,” Sylfrin added in an understanding tone of her voice.

“Savirei said Alragus wanted something with me, and we need to get our gear checked and probably fixed, so we’ll go visit him next. Ah, right, Savirei said she still wanted something of me before I leave,” I was about to leave when I remembered Savirei asking me to wait for her for whatever reason.

“Maybe she wants some Lesser Trent Wood?” Ranalaiya wondered.

“Yeah, maybe. How many pieces did we get?” I asked Ranalaiya since she was the one who was carrying it.

“One moment, Master,” she said, quickly opening her storage to check. “We have seven pieces in total.”

“Ok. I’ll let her know we have that much when she comes back,” I said.

It didn’t take long for Savirei to show up, but what surprised me the most was she wasn’t by herself. Lilfira was with her too yet she wasn’t wearing her waitress uniform for some reason.

“Thank you for waiting, Rockin. Here you go,” Savirei said, extending a piece of paper towards me.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking it up.

“It’s the application form that Lilfira has filled out,” Savirei told me.

“Oh, ok,” I said, giving a quick glance at what was written on the paper.

“Here you go, Mister Rockin,” Lilfira interrupted my reading by extending her hand towards me too.

“Huh?” I was surprised to see her place several coins into my palm. “What’s this?”

“This is the five silver coins application fee,” Lilfira said.

“Right, ok,” I said, it finally dawning on me why Savirei asked me to wait. Savirei went to have Lilfira fill out the application form to make her joining my clan official. “Thank you for filling out the application form and for the payment. I suppose you are an official clan member now, Lilfira. Welcome to the Rockstars Clan.” I thought an official greeting would be in order.

“Wonderful. Well then, I will leave Lilfira in your care, darling,” Savirei said, smiling so wide she had to squint her eyes.

“Wait, what?” I gave Savirei a confused look.

“You look rather surprised, my dear. Is something the matter?” Savirei asked, tilting her head to the side just slightly.

“Yes…” I said, turning my head to look at Lilfira before looking back at Savirei again. “What… did you mean… you’re leaving Lilfira in my care?”

“What else could it mean, darling? You should know it would not be safe for Lilfira to stay here in my diner now that those bad dragonkins know she’s here,” Savirei explained her reasoning in a way as if it should’ve been obvious.

“Yes, but…” I sort of knew where she was going with it yet I was still hoping I was wrong.

“Lilfira staying with you would be the safest option for her, wouldn’t you agree?” Savirei said, sounding like she was making a statement instead of asking a question.

“Thank you so much for accepting me into your clan. I promise I will serve you well, Master Rockin,” Lilfira said, a smile and a blush dressing her face.

“What?” I gasped, thinking my ears have tricked me just now.

Did she just call me ‘Master Rockin’? What’s going on here? I couldn’t believe it.

“So sorry, but I have customers to serve. Bye, Rockin,” Savirei said, quickly disappearing from my sight and leaving me speechless.

“Hey, wait…” I tried to stop her, but Savirei was already gone.

Eh? What… just happened? I was standing there with my mouth open wide, not knowing what to think.