Fascination

"You would like to… register that with the guild as a familiar?" The receptionist paused every few words trying to make heads from tails.

I had a snake on my shoulder. It was large, it was long and it was pretty alive. But it wasn't biting me or doing anything. It just stayed there.

"That is correct," I said.

"Umm sir, you need to turn in the snake for your rewards and," and the reception still tried to understand.

I removed my helmet.

"Lord Sean!" She almost squeaked.

"Shh…" I blew once and then put the helmet back in; I did catch some attention but most people weren't paying attention. "As for the snake," I pulled out the corpse from Spacia. Both the mother and the child as well.

The snake on my neck almost squeaked and squeezed my neck a little tighter but it didn't jump around.

Both the receptionist and the guild were in shock.

People were really marveling at the corpse… and the stench. I was of course not bothered by stench in the least.

"Our hunter will confirm and then we can proceed with your rewards, sir." She cleared her throat. "As for your familiar… I'm sure the guild master would like to have a word beforehand."

I wasn't really bothered. This was my pet now. And I had no qualms fighting to keep it with me. I suppose it was technically manipulating me into doing this, by acting cute but I didn't really care. It was cute… like a cat.

We were led to the guildmaster's room. It was just him. Aloglass.

"My lord," he offered a nod, I did as well. "You would like to keep that snake?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain you can keep it under control?"

"Pretty much, yes." My speech had gotten fairly decent these days. I still sounded like someone using an old man plus alien filter though.

"Alright." He seemed like a chill dude but even he was a little afraid of the snake.

Apparently, adult enchanted cobras could level a city, so it wasn't necessarily a shock. But the fact that the dude was trusting me, was proof enough of how screwed this world really was.

"Why don't you just keep your ears?" I whispered.

And the snake nodded, growing kitty ears anew.

"It listens and understands you," Aloglass paused. "Quite intelligent for its age."

"Yes. And because it's intelligent, it won't harm anyone. Since it knows I'll be ripping out the spine if it does."

The snake almost squealed, ears flapping.

Aloglass chuckled, albeit a little forced. Sweating even. "So, you didn't name it, yet?"

"No. As a matter of fact, I haven't."

Actually, now that I thought about it, How do you even tell what gender a snake is?

Who cared. "Snol." I spoke the first word that came to find.

I could have sworn I heard Vivia sigh but oh well.

That said, we were done.

Or at least I thought we were done. But the guildmaster had more to say. "We're looking for a strong warrior."

"And?" I stared back, one foot out the door.

"And there's an issue with our borders. Random sighting of knights and monster corpses."

"Holy knights," I said.

"You knew…." He sighed in relief. "Normally we'd want you on the case, but given how my lord is still inexperienced and weak to holy knights, it would be best if you were to lend us your warrior slave for a day." He chose his words rather carefully.

"No," I said.

He opened his mouth but then paused. "In that case, it can't be helped. Please forget what I said." And he was giving up way too easily too.

"I won't," I said. "But I will look into this case. I'm quite interested, you see."

"Why? They can very well kill you, if you're not careful."

"I'm aware of that."

In fact, holy knights were the first thing I checked after coming back.

Knights vested with holy powers. They were humans mostly and came from the human kingdom of Varnia which happened to be part of Sondar empire, the empire of men. But humans in this world were mostly just weak and unable to stand against undead. Yet, these ones could. Who or what gave them that power? A god? What god?

I was quite curious to say the least.

"I see, in that case I won't stop you. However, you will have to work with us on this. You are technically our face; we can't lose you."

I was their bargaining chip with the local government. And they were mine. We were using each other, and we didn't really hide that fact from day one. However- "Alright." I didn't have any reason to refuse.

I still had no clue how strong the holy knights actually were. The scripts claimed they were stronger than a typical tiger beastman and could easily kill halfdeads but weren't enough to kill any undead one-on-one. The only people who could, were higher ranked Holy knights called Paladins but there were about 10 in the whole world and they had their own problems.

And of course, I wasn't stupid enough to just go and find out myself but, I had a different reason to find them.

I always had this fascination with knights. Particularly… Dullahans.