In the few minutes it took us to walk to the guildhall all of the exhaustion from the events of the day decided to hit me at once. I realized that if I went in there, people would probably want to talk to me. I didn't want to talk to them. As friendly as most of them were, it was as if my thoughts were weighed down, I simply didn't think I could handle conversation anymore. I debated just going to my room. I didn't need more food, I'd eaten plenty, even if my stomach was more than willing to call for more.

I kept walking toward the guildhall though, because Torill was there, and I wanted to spend more time with her. By the time we were nearly to the entrance I had hatched a cunning plan to avoid having to act like a person, I simply would not be one.

Sure they knew I was fully capable of speaking in their heads, but they flinched ever so slightly every time I spoke that way. I pretended not to notice, and they all seemed to try to hide it, but no one other than Ivo seemed truly comfortable with being spoken to that way. I was willing to bet that they would be put off from being too chatty with me.

I looked at Krassus and decided to let him help me with one more thing. "Hey, thanks for the help today, can you do me one more favor? When they ask, can you tell them that I felt a strong need to shift? My class gets that way sometimes."

I was kind of happy that Honest didn't seem to push back when I tried to misdirect like that. It wasn't my class that was pushing me to shift at that point, and I knew it. But my class had done it in the past, and it was more kind than saying that there was only one person I felt up to dealing with at the moment.

I shifted to my strange altered version of the elemental squirrel, I made sure to omit the sky terror venom. I dashed up to the berzerker's shoulder before he had a chance to react.

"Sure Angel, I can do that." He said with a short laugh as he looked at me sitting there on his shoulder.

I was busily grooming myself, my fur was always in a slight disarray after I shifted. It was something I used to ignore, I remembered thinking engaging in such behavior was something to avoid. The part of me that was opposed to acting like an animal had fought such simple behaviors, I was happy that I was no longer burdened with those thoughts. I wanted to be presentable after all.

When Krassus opened the door to the guildhall my eyes darted around, taking in the people present. I was relieved to note the fact that Ivo and Pierce had recovered enough from the Concepts to make it to dinner. Nefen was also there, I hoped that my form would prevent him from questioning me too much about the day's hunt. I was sure he would want to, I knew he would want to see if he could offer any advice. It was somewhat rude of me to avoid it. Which made me feel vaguely guilty, but not guilty enough to change back.

After taking in the fact that everyone else who was normally there was present, I chirped a thanks to Krassus. Then I sprang from the man's shoulder and darted to Torill, dashing up my chair to jump on her lap.

Torill giggled, looking down at me as I curled up into a ball of black and white fluff. She stroked my back gently and asked me if I was okay under her breath.

I didn't send her words, but shared the feeling of mental exhaustion and physical drowsiness with her.

"Why didn't you just go to bed, silly?" She asked, slightly louder.

I moved to rub my head on her hand in response, before settling back down. I started to purr loudly enough that I knew the others could likely hear it from across the table, but I didn't care.

"Ah, you're so sweet, are you hungry? I know you already ate."

I sent her the idea that the food on the table smelled as good as always. My tired mind reflected for a moment on how strange my body was. Some day I wanted to take the time to figure out exactly how it worked. The System was strangely silent about it, but I'd recently come to the conclusion that I did not, in fact, just run on mana. There was another type of energy, I only became aware of it when I had to manually break down the Concepts in the monster cores.

It was not mana, it was a purified version of whatever Concepts were made of. Which, if I had the correct information, was a sort of psychic energy. I wasn't quite sure what it did for me, but something told me that trying to process the amount I had today was the reason I felt so wrung out. Things were happening to me because of it that I instinctively knew were beneficial, I just didn't know what they were. My instincts also told me that I needed to sleep to allow myself to process whatever it was, I could put it off, but my time was running out.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I was happy to be pulled out of speculating about what was happening by Torill offering me a bite of her food. I was far too exhausted to be pondering the nature of my existence.

I stood up to grab the piece of meat she offered me. I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth, causing her to giggle, and pat me on the head. It must have looked comical, the chunk should have been far too large for my little mouth, I felt my cheeks puff out as I struggled to contain it. I had to work quite hard to chew it, and get it down.

I mostly ignored the chatter at the dinner table that night, without consciously doing so I allowed my mind to slip. I fell into a sort of half asleep fugue state where I allowed my instincts to take over. It wasn't like I disagreed with anything they were calling for. All I and they wanted was to keep Torill company through the meal, and go to bed. When she offered me bits of food, I would take them, when she pet me, I would rub against her hand, otherwise I laid quietly.

Something caused my mind to shoot back into focus some time later, I took stock of the situation through half lidded eyes.

Torill was standing holding me in her arms, Ivo and Pierce were next to her, and a very stern Nefen was glaring at us. I had no idea what he'd said up to this point, but I certainly heard him loud and clear now. I blinked my eyes, finding it somewhat hard to focus on the half-goblin man.

"Why, pray tell, did I have to hear about your mission today from Torill. I understand that this was not a guild job, and that it was tiring for all three of you, but I expect a debrief to either Samuel or myself any time a guild member has contact with a monster." Nefen's foot tapped on the ground, my two adventuring partners looked guilty.

I didn't feel particularly guilty. No one had told me that there was some sort of rule like that. I met the exasperated mage guildmaster's eyes, and sent him as much in a muddy mix of thoughts and feelings.

Nefen's eyes softened when he looked at me, and spoke softly. "I'm sorry we failed to adequately introduce you to the way adventurers usually behave. We have been far too distracted with that damned undead beast, that is no excuse however. We should have assigned you a temporary mentor when we failed to be available."

The mage narrowed his eyes as he looked at Torill. "I would usually not consider this assignment in light of your relationship. But given Angel's advancement, I believe you are the only guild member who qualifies to be his mentor. It seems you have already partially taken that burden upon yourself. So I would like you to see that the information on how things are meant to run gets into his head."

I looked up in time to see Torill nod with her ever present beaming smile aimed at Nefen.

Nefen nodded back. "Good, now you two may go, I doubt I'll get anything coherent out of Angel right now. Do make sure he finds the time to see me sometime soon. There are a few things that we should discuss. Though from what you've told me, he did seem to perform admirably during the combat itself this time.

Not long after the door to the guildhall closed behind us, and I was alone in Torill's arms, I couldn't hold back anymore, and drifted off to sleep.

When my eyes opened in Belua's realm, I found myself sitting in the palm of the goddess' hand. I was confused by the size of her, before remembering that I had fallen asleep as a squirrel. I shook my head, the combined events of the day still left me feeling like I needed rest, even the influence of the realm barely seemed to take the edge off.

Belua hummed, her white tiger beastkin form that looked so welcoming most of the time was intimidating to the part of me that was influenced by my squirrel form. It seemed to at least partly counter the effects of her Concepts. She was staring at me, like she was trying to dissect me with her eyes.

The part of me that couldn't quite let go of my anger at her wondered for a moment if that was how she always looked at me. If I just couldn't see it with all the influences working on me when I was around her. I stared back at her, trying to decide if I should say something.

The lady purred out a question before I had a chance to decide. "You've done something interesting today, haven't you, little one? You feel different, every part of you is more realized."

I hadn't the foggiest what she meant by that, I wished I didn't feel so exhausted. Then I realized that I shouldn't feel exhausted, any more than I should feel intimidated, or suspicious of Belua. That realization did not help me come to any conclusion.

I scratched the side of my head, and narrowed my eyes. Belua did terrible things to my mind, but from what I could gather, she hadn't done so out of malice. I would be on her world, working for her for the rest of this life, and I wasn't sure when or if I would personally be living again any time soon. As much as my newfound ability to look at her differently all of a sudden might allow me to think of her that way, Belua wasn't my enemy. I sent her a short sensation of how spent I was feeling.

"Oh! Oh my, you poor dear. You need rest and quiet don't you? I see what you've done. No idea how you did it though. I may have to see if I can send a message to that Administrator, he seemed to like you quite a bit."

The world flickered around us, and I pulled my eyes away from the goddess that was holding me long enough to see that we had appeared inside what seemed to be a nicely appointed living room. If it wasn't for the complete lack of modern technology, the room wouldn't look out of place on earth.

Belua set me down on what appeared to be a recliner, and gestured vaguely at the fireplace it was facing, a fire flared to life. My instincts reacted for a moment, before I reminded myself that fires like that one were meant to be comforting.

"You can stay here and relax, little one. I hope you can trust me to find out what's going on."

The goddess started to walk away, then turned and looked at me. I saw regret in her eyes.

"I... I have been made aware of my failings. I would be lying if I tried to say I won't get carried away again. I hope you'll understand. It's no excuse, I should be more than my Authorities, but for your age, you have more experience than most how such things can be. For what it's worth, I am sorry, and I wish I could fix what has been done."

Belua walked out of the room, and I let out a sigh. I was too tired to unpack the apology, but it was nice to receive it. I found out quite quickly that despite being a place that was not quite real, a place where I went when I was already asleep. I could sleep in the godly realm. I sank into the first dreamless slumber that I had experienced in several days.