I wake up as the sunlight hits my face. The light feels so much nicer than it did before, I’m not sure if it’s due to the different sun or the different body, but it’s so warm and… wet? And heavy? Something’s not quite right. I look over my shoulder to see Adelheid, still asleep, drooling on my arm, and resting hers on my body. Do humans sleep with their mouths open? Must be very uncomfortable when they have to clean their bed.

I decide to stay like this a bit longer, as the warm feeling was quite enjoyable, although the drool felt kinda weird. After a couple of minutes, I carefully move Adelheid’s arm to her side, trying not to wake her up. I look around for a bit. The house feels empty, it almost reminds me of when I lived in my den. It’s relaxing, but also feels hollow, as if something was missing. It’s only been a couple weeks and yet I already act so much like a human…

Eventually, Adelheid wakes up. “Good morning, Vivienne” she says while yawning, “did you sleep well?”

“Certainly better than I did at the hospital”

She lets out a laugh, “I’m happy to hear that, Vivienne. Would you mind if I called Vivi or Viv? It’s just shorter than Vivienne. If you want, you can call me Adele, so we’re even”

Ah, yes, I’ve heard of these, they’re called “nicknames” if I’m not mistaken. I first heard about them after the TV had shown a famous actor who had been nicknamed “The Paper”. “I don’t mind”

She smiles at me as we head to the kitchen to eat breakfast. Once we’re done, she gets up and says “Alright, we’ll go clothes shopping once we’ve gotten you a job as a hunter, but the clothes they gave you are too ragged, so I’ll let you borrow some of mine, let’s head back to the bedroom and I’ll show you what I have.”

Once we’re in her room, Adelheid opens a closet and starts taking out various kinds of clothes. While in the hospital, I watched a couple of fashion shows, so I shouldn't have much issue choosing what to wear. Adele pulls out a couple of skirts, some pants, baggy shirts, as well as some coats. I'd like to avoid breaking the clothes she's lending me, so it's probably better to choose something that's not very tight, or my scales could come back and rip through them.

I start taking off my clothes, but as I bring my arm forward to grab the ones I chose, I notice Adelheid blushing a lot. "You're, uhm, not wearing any underwear, Vivienne..." Underwear? Is it a type of clothes I never saw before? Judging by the name, I assume you put the below your other clothes. But why is Adele blushing? Is it weird for humans to see each other naked? Plus, didn't she already see me without any clothes on when she first found me?

She hands over to me some clothes that seem to go on my erogenous areas, so I put them on before grabbing a medium length skirt, a loose shirt and a short, beige coat. We then get out of the house and start walking towards the Hunter Association.

The streets are full of people. I've never seen some many beings in such a small area. I suppose that's what happens when the apex predator of a region is a social animal. After a short while, we reach the Association's local office.

A tall woman greets us from behind the counter. "Hello! Welcome, how may I help you?" Adele then decides that she's going to be the one that does the talking. "Hi, my friend here would like to be registered as a hunter, but she just recently got discharged from the hospital and couldn't remember who she was, so we don't have any documents. Could you guys also take care of that? We've brought the medical papers." The lady smiles and says "Of course! I just need some information. First of all, What's your first and last name? Of course new ones, since you don't remember the old ones." Last names, I think I've heard of them before. They should be what humans use to recognize their relatives. Adelheid surely counts as my relative, right? I mean, we slept in the same bed. "Adele, what's your last name?" She looks at me stunned, before going "What?"

"Well, I figured I should use yours, no? Or do you not want me to?"

"N-no! I mean it's fine, it's just... Whatever, it's fine..." She looks a bit embarrassed, but oh well. "You can put down Vivienne for the first name and Lanzinger for the last name." Adelheid tells the woman.

"Great, and I'll also need a birth date?" Oh, I know that one! "I've been alive for 7893 days." I say to the receptionist. She looks at me worried. Why? I've given a very accurate number. "So, if I'm not mistaken, your birthday is on the 27th of February, and you're going to turn 22 soon, right?" I'm not sure if that's right, but might as well say yes, not like it makes a difference. I nod, upon which Adelheid exclaims "Really? I'm two years older than you? You looked at least a couple of years younger! OH, and if you'd like to know, mine's on the 15th of January." I'm not fully sure what that means, but I'll keep it in mind.

After a lot of other questions that I wasn't sure how to answer, but managed thanks to the help of Adelheid, we get brought in a big, white room. A man in a suit and tie enters through the door on the other side of the room and greets us. "Hello, and welcome to the hunter test. We'll release some monsters in the room in judge how you fair against them. If you can kill all of them without issue, then you'll be allowed to work as a hunter. You're expected to have brought your own equipment, but we're able to provide some low quality F Rank armor and weapons if you don't have anything. So, from my understanding, you're the one that's going to be tested today?" He says looking at me. I nod and show him the armor that Adelheid let me borrow. She also gave me a sort of glaive as well as a spiked mace, they reminds me of the tails of some of the monsters from my planet...

The man and Adelheid move to another room, but I can still see them through a glass. "Now," the man says, "you'll be fighting some Cobonto. Their armor may look impenetrable, but it has a weak spot, however we won't be telling you where said weak spot is, as we'd like to see how you fare against an unknown opponent. Don't worry, if anything starts going wrong, some of our C Rank hunters will intervene to save you. Very well then, release the monsters into the room."

As the walls open, I see 3 of these so called Cobonto enter the room. They have rocks all over their body, and walk on all fours. Their legs are ridiculously short compared to their bodies, and they're barely taller than a person, although they'd probably be twice as tall as me if they managed to stand on their hind legs. Lastly, their tail, it's long and about as thick as one of their legs, and they seem to be able to control it independently from the rest of the body.

Just as I expected, these monsters also come from where I do. I never paid much attention to them specifically, but I've seen them fighting other beasts, which not only means I know how to deal with them, but I also know what they're afraid of.

They already seem to be afraid of me, maybe their instincts are telling them what I was before, but I doubt that alone will be enough to scare them off.

As expected, one of them starts charging at me, probably aiming to crush me between its rocky forehead and the wall, but I swiftly dodge to the side. I then take out my glaive and point it at the other two, slowly spinning and rotating it. First clockwise, then counter-clockwise, over and over again.

They aren't moving anymore, paralyzed by fear, wondering if it's just their eyes deceiving them or if this is truly happening, and trying to figure out my next move. I remember seeing this scenario from above many times, another monster, which had a tail with a blade just like the one of the glaive attached to its end, spun the blade around, trying to confuse the Cobonto.

And just like that monster, right before switching direction again, as my glaive is on my right, I thrust the blade into the left side of the Cobonto's belly, before slicing it open. I then flip the other one on its back, stand on its to get a clearer view and stab it in the head through the throat. As for the third one, still stunned after hitting the room's reinforced wall, I kill it with little to no effort.

As Adelheid and the man walk back into the room, they both look stunned and worried. "What exactly were you doing, by spinning your glaive like that? How did you know they'd react that way?" I forgot they never saw these monsters in their natural habitat! How am I going to explain this? What if they find out I'm also a monster? What will Adele think of me? I quickly scramble to find a realistic excuse. "Oh, well, you see, I saw some hunters use this same technique against some other monsters on TV and I thought I'd also give it a try." The man looks at me suspiciously before telling us to go back to the waiting room until we're given my documents.

Me and Adelheid oblige, and after a couple of hours, we finally get my documents, as well as confirmation that I've been accepted as a hunter. I have a job now, great! It shouldn't prove too hard, as long as I can avoid being spotted whenever I use techniques I'm not supposed to know.

"We had to wait so long, it's almost lunch time! Let's finally go clothes shopping, so we can get back home and eat." Adelheid grabs me by the wrist and starts heading towards the nearest clothes shop. Once we get there, we take look around trying to find something that would suit me. Again, I'd like to avoid ruining any clothes, so I have to buy either something that's very loose or that leaves a lot of skin exposed. I grab a tight black crop top, a maroon skirt, some hazel boots and a coat exactly like the one I'm already wearing. Adele also hands me some underwear, since the one I'm using is also currently hers.

Adelheid brings me to a dressing room. So I guess I was right, it is weird for humans to see each other naked. I'll have to remember this in the future. I get changed, and as I come out of the booth I see Adelheid blushing. Does this mean I chose good clothes? Well, if she likes them then it must be so. We walk up to the counter and pay before heading back home.

I closely observe Adelheid while she cooks, as I also need to learn how to do it. After we eat, we sit on the couch and watch some TV. Nothing too interesting is going on, so I ask her "Adele, how does hunting work?" I passed the test, but I never bothered to look into when we're actually allowed to go on hunts. Adelheid looks at me perplexed. "You don't know? You chose to sustain the test without actually looking into the job?" I nod. "Sigh. Alright. Every so often, monsters fall out of the sky from inside some weird crystals, this is called a Drop. Once the monster break free, they start roaming undisturbed if not by other monsters. This started happening so long ago that most monsters have just become part of the ecosystem now. However, the issue arises when monsters Drop or roam too close to the city walls, and although rare, some have even Dropped inside the city. To make sure this event happens rarely, cities avoid spreading out too much and are also quite far from each other. Anyways, if a monster gets too close to a city, then it's the hunter's job to take care of it before can cause any trouble. Both monsters and hunters are classified through a rank system, which goes from F, the weakest monsters, to A the strongest. After A Rank, there's S Rank, and some other special ranks, but it is very unlikely that we'll ever encounter those kinds of monsters, so don't worry about it. Oh, and there's also a rank below F, reserved for monsters that are smaller than a human. We call those Pests. When a hunter slays a monster, they bring the body back inside the city with them and use its parts to craft new equipment, sadly though the parts aren't always usable, so you may end up like me, stuck as a low rank for a long while. The last thing you need to know about are Guilds. They are companies made up of hunters which work together to eradicate stronger threats. Due to fighting strong monsters, they also make a lot of money, which means people that work there usually have higher salaries. Sadly I'm not part of any Guild, as my rank is too low for the bigger ones to seriously consider me, and I'd rather be on my own than give away my freedom by working for the smaller ones that would barely pay me more than what I earn now. Anyways, to accept a monster hunting mission, we can use the Hunter Association's official phone up, we just need to make a party so that we can be assigned to the same Drop and-" I assume she just remembered I don't have a phone... Does this mean I'll have to buy one? "... you can use my old phone until you get one for yourself. Let me go grab it and I'll help you set up your account."

Adelheid disappears into another room and comes back shortly after. She shows me how to set up various things like a profile picture, a "bio" and others, as this is what other hunters will see when they want to recruit us to join their party for a mission. She then "scans" my documents through the app to allow me to actually access its functions.

We finally finish setting up my account, and not even 10 minutes later we get a notification about a Drop of E Rank monsters near the city. I'd love to take care of it, but Adele said I should start with F Ranks... Uh, weird, I just got a notification saying we accepted the Drop, why could that be? I see Adelheid on my right, entering the room while tying her hair in a ponytail. "So? Get changed, we have a Drop to clear."

"I though you said I should've started with E Ranks."

"I said that before you defeated three F Ranks with little to no difficulty. I don't think you'll be in danger against E Ranks either." I suppose that makes sense. I get up change into my armor, grab my weapons, and head with Adelheid towards the gate closest to the Drop, ready to go on my first hunt.