"I'm... full," said Cluma, head tilted in confusion, with a third of her giant meat skewer still left on the plate in front of her. "I think?"

"What do you mean, you think?"

"I don't know. I still feel hungry, but looking at this meat, I can't face eating any more of it. It's weird."

Strange indeed. It's not like she normally makes a habit of overeating, but she does tend to make the most of things when eating out. Doubly so when I was paying. I'd seen her eat lumps of meat that must have weighed a considerable fraction of her own body mass without a problem. This was far from the largest meal I'd watched her devour.

"Well, I have heard it said that people have a separate stomach for dessert."

Cluma scoffed. "Dessert is a human thing. You keep your sugar, and I'll keep my meat."

A human thing? That was a good point. "Maybe your species change makes a difference?"

Cluma looked thoughtful for a moment, before leaning away from me and sniffing. "Now that you mention it, something does smell tempting."

"Something other than me?"

Cluma threw the remains of her skewer at my face, then blew a raspberry. By the time I'd safely put down the skewer, taking a bite out of it myself in the process, she'd leapt from her chair and was wandering around the room, still sniffing. We were in the delvers' tavern, since I didn't really know anywhere else in Synklisi and it was right next door to my teleport point, so there was a wide variety of people and food around. I just hoped that whatever she was smelling wasn't the food of a fairy.

My fear spiked when she stopped to chat in front of a table at which a fairy was indeed sat, but on inspection, the fairy was only drinking and not eating. The only other occupants of the table were a couple of demons, who didn't eat food to start with. Was it alcohol she was tracking down? Was drunk Cluma going to become a regular occurrence?

She dawdled back to our table, looking thoughtful. "Find anything?" I asked.

"Maybe. Can you get out one of the monster cores we collected today?"

Monster cores? One of the demons at that table had been snacking on one, so was that what Cluma was smelling? She hadn't commented on them in the dungeon, though.

Given that we'd teleported here from inside the dungeon, I hadn't sold any of our loot yet. We hadn't really been putting any effort into collecting cores, given our low floor, so there weren't that many, but there would be plenty for snacking. I took out one of the giant grass snake cores. Cluma sniffed at it, then shook her head and handed it back. "What about one of the small ones from the springy snakes?"

I handed one of them over, which elicited a longer sniff, followed by a look of confusion. "I don't think so, but the one that demon had smelt really nice. But monster cores aren't edible, so why does it smell so appetising?"

"Kari said demon bodies are part mana, and now yours is too. Maybe you can eat cores."

She peered the core for a bit longer, before waving and attracting the attention of a human waiter.

"Excuse me!" she called. "Can I have one of whatever they're eating on that table, please?"

"I don't believe they've ordered food," said the waiter. "If you want to try something unusual, I can make some suggestions."

"Umm, no, I mean the monster core. Can I try one, please?"

"They aren't edible to anyone other than the demons," explained the waiter politely. "If you want to try food from other cultures, might I suggest something dwarven?"

"They smell really nice, though, and I'm... not a normal catkin anymore."

A brief look of surprise crossed the face of the otherwise professional waiter. "Well, if you're sure."

"Yeah, we'll give it a go," I interjected. "Worst that happens is that it's not edible and we waste a few coppers."

"That table ordered level fifteen cores; they're two large copper each. Is that satisfactory?"

"Oh! Are higher level cores tastier?!" asked Cluma, potentially solving her mini mystery. "So that's why the ones we collected didn't smell so nice."

"It's certainly true that demons prefer cores containing greater quantities of mana," agreed the waiter.

"Right, one level fifteen core, then! And if it's tasty, we can harvest our own when we get that deep."

"It's nice to have plans for the future," chuckled the waiter, leaving to fetch Cluma's order. I didn't have the heart to tell him that in this case, that future was probably only a few days away.

When he returned to deliver it, he wasn't alone. A group of staff turned up, hanging back to watch surreptitiously. Come to think of it, our table had been attracting more than the usual share of glances ever since we'd arrived. We were still in our Dawnhold black leather, but this place was full of delvers, and half the patrons were still armoured, so that hardly stood out.

Oh, right. My ears. I'd taken my helmet off to eat. How did I get so used to them so quickly that I kept forgetting they exist? The first night, they tickled so much that I couldn't even sleep!

"Please be careful not to hurt yourself," said the waiter, placing a monster core in a bowl in front of Cluma. "When they shatter, some of the pieces can be sharp."

"But the demons just crunch them up?" said Cluma, picking it up and sniffing at it. "Mmm! It smells really nice!"

Under the watchful eyes of half the room, of which she was either oblivious or simply didn't care about, she carefully inspected the core. There wasn't really much there to inspect; it was just a faintly glowing sphere. Happy that it was indeed a completely ordinary monster core, she gingerly brought it up to her open mouth and bit down.

Her eyes open wide, her pupils dilated and her ears perked straight upright. Even her tail shot up into the air. Then she froze in position.

I could see her canines had penetrated the core, but beyond that, nothing seemed to be happening. No—I shouldn't expect to see anything with my eyes. This was a mana thing. I looked again with [Mana Sight], and sure enough, could see her draining the core.

It took her a full minute before the core ran completely dry, at which point it cracked and crumbled into dust, which soon evaporated into nothing. Cluma remained unmoving for a further handful of seconds, before giving a massive sigh and flopping forward, landing face-first in the bowl.

"I take back everything I said about meat," she mumbled, her voice muffled by her impromptu face decoration. "Peter, I completely and utterly forgive you for giving me this weird trait. Totally worth it, just for that."

That had certainly been interesting to watch. She hadn't crunched it up like demons did, but had sucked it completely dry of mana, like a cute little vampire. The most important question was whether she had to eat cores like that, or if normal food was sufficient. It had been almost a week since her change. Would that be long enough to have noticed any ill effects? It would take longer than that for something like scurvy to set in on a human, should vital vitamins vanish from their diet.

It wasn't as if we couldn't get more cores to feed her, but I had no idea as to the quantity she'd need. I'd heard demons describe eating monster cores as the equivalent of a human eating a sugar cube, in which case not only could she forego them without suffering malnourishment, but overconsumption would cause issues of its own. We needed to find out if Cluma was the first of her kind, or if there was information out there somewhere. If not, I'd just have to keep a close eye on her.

A more immediate problem was our crowd of spectators. Even with my insensitive human hearing, I could hear the whispers.

"[Analysis] doesn't work on either of them."

"What's up with his ears? They're obviously fake, but they're twitching."

"[Inspection] says they're human and beastkin."

"Was there a type of beastkin that can eat mana cores?"

"She drained all the mana out of it. I've never seen anything like that before."

"Wow, so foodgasms are real. Do you think I can try one of those cores?"

"I recognise the human from the Emerald Caverns incident. He's pretty strong."

"She called him Peter. Is it that Peter?"

It would be nice if I could go out for a simple meal without attracting attention. "Does that mean I'm allowed to take these fake ears off?" I asked hopefully.

"No," came the muffled but immediate response.

"You have a strange idea of forgiveness," I complained, continuing to munch at her skewer. No point in wasting it.

It took her a few more minutes before she lifted her head back out of the bowl and grabbed the menu. "They sell them all the way up to level forty!" she exclaimed. "But I'm full... We need to come back here!"

I giggled at the way she switched from food coma to excitement to sadness and back to excitement as if someone was flipping a switch, while sneaking a peek at the menu myself. They didn't have anything below level ten, so it was no surprise she wasn't tempted by the cores I had on me. On the other hand, given her reaction to the core she just ate, I wasn't sure giving her anything even better would be a good idea. She was liable to forget to breathe.

"We'll have plenty of time. Now, let's get you home."

"Mmm, I suppose," she answered, obviously wishing that she was still hungry.

I paid up, doing my best to ignore all the attention. Cluma embraced it, running off to the demons' table and hugging the pair of them, along with the fairy. She waved a big cheery goodbye to everyone before running out to meet me at the door.

"Doesn't all the attention bother you?" I asked.

"Hmm? Why would it? It's not my fault if we're interesting. Besides, more friends are always good."

Yeah, of course that would be her answer. With a sigh, I sent her back to Dawnhold before teleporting myself back to the village. Our first day of delving on Serpent Isle had been a complete success. Tomorrow, we'd face the first boss and get down to floor eight or so. Hopefully. Given the way we'd left the dungeon, in the middle of the floor with a storm going on, reorientating ourselves when we got back would be tough. I needed a compass skill to go along with [Clock].

"Peter's home," called Darren, the moment I arrived.

"Shouldn't you be in bed by now?" I responded, walking into our living room.

"No!"

"Yes," contradicted dad. "But good luck convincing him of that. So, how was the new dungeon?"

"Muddy and full of snakes, but we did okay."

"Glad to hear it," he answered.

"I finished your stuff while you were out," added mum. It took me a few seconds to remember what stuff she was referring to. "You'll have to take it to Grover to get the enchanting finished," she added, pointing at a pile on the table, on top of which was a small but highly intricate pile of black lace.

And to repeat myself, tomorrow we'd face the first boss. Which was inside a dungeon, and definitely nowhere near the research institute. That was somewhere I was going to be very careful not to go.

"I look forward to seeing it all completed," added mum. "It's just a shame about the tail."