Once the discussion about the Giant Wolf—no, more precisely, the dissection of the monsters—was settled, Rei stored the Giant Wolf in his Misty Ring.
It was summer, not winter.
The warehouse did have a Magic Item for temperature control, so the corpse wouldn't spoil easily, but even so, to be safe, it was better to keep it in the Misty Ring where time stood still.
"Alright, next. This is provisionally called a Queen Bee. Though honestly, I'm a little iffy on whether it qualifies as an A-Rank Monster."
So saying, Rei pulled the Queen Bee out of his Misty Ring.
He also took out the worker hornets that had served the Queen Bee, as a supplement to his explanation.
'Ooh.'
While not as dramatic as with the Giant Wolf, it seemed the Queen Bee's corpse still packed a considerable impact.
However, since it was smaller than the Giant Wolf, the Guild Staff Members quickly recovered and began discussing how to go about the dissection.
Watching them, Rei once again found himself wondering whether the Queen Bee truly qualified as an A-Rank Monster.
"Hey, I'll ask just in case... from a Guild Staff Member's perspective, does this seem like it could be recognized as an A-Rank Monster?"
One of the staff members debating the dissection order nodded immediately.
"Let's see. There are a fair number of bee-type monsters, but generally speaking, their individual combat power isn't all that high. Oh, of course, that's compared to other A-Rank Monsters—on its own, as a monster, it's naturally strong. The tricky part is that the bees Rei-san brought... the fact that it commands a massive swarm of them. It fights as a group, not as an individual."
Rei could see the logic in that.
In fact, the worker hornets had only gone down so easily because it was him and Set. For Low-Rank Adventurers, getting killed by those worker hornets would have been a very real possibility.
"I see. By the way, is this Queen Bee also an unknown monster?"
"I can't say for certain without investigating, but it most likely is."
"Got it. Anyway, that settles the Queen Bee. Moving on."
'Ah...'
At Rei's words, the Guild Staff Members let out voices that clearly asked him to wait.
Even for Guild Staff Members, the opportunity to see an A-Rank Monster wasn't common.
That was precisely why they wanted to examine this one more closely if at all possible, but...
"There are still other A-Rank Monsters Rei has yet to bring out. Given that, we shouldn't waste time here... Rei, the next monster, please."
At Worker's words, the Guild Staff Members complied, albeit with visible reluctance.
Normally, that wouldn't be the proper attitude toward a Guild Master, but it was proof of just how rare A-Rank Monsters were.
"That said, dissecting the next one will be a little difficult. It's the Dark World Tree."
Saying so, Rei pulled the Dark World Tree from his Misty Ring.
Seeing the giant tree, half—no, more than half reduced to charcoal and ash, the Guild Staff Members stared in surprise.
(Ah... well, it fit inside, so I guess it's fine.)
If it hadn't been half-burned to ash and charcoal, the Dark World Tree might not have fit inside the warehouse at all.
The thought crossed his mind briefly, but fortunately the Dark World Tree in its current state posed no problem, so Rei decided to keep it to himself.
"This is the Dark World Tree. And this..."
He pulled out the Vampire's ash and Magic Stone.
"The Dark World Tree is a plant-type monster that this Vampire was cultivating inside a barrier in the Forest of Magic. Dissecting the Dark World Tree basically just comes down to cutting wood. And as for the Vampire, there's nothing to dissect."
"That's... well, true. But the Vampire's ash is something Alchemists are quite eager to get as material. And the Dark World Tree—its name implies it could be fashioned into weapons like staves or clubs, and if it bears the name World Tree even nominally, it should be a first-class material."
"It's a Dark World Tree, though. Emphasis on dark."
Rei knew exactly what kind of monster the Dark World Tree was.
A creature that lured in other monsters, killed them, and turned them into Vines sprouting from their severed heads.
If anything were crafted from this Dark World Tree as material, he couldn't help but feel it would come out cursed.
Then again, there were plenty of monster materials out there just as dubious as the Dark World Tree.
Such materials were used normally all the time, so this was probably more a case of Rei overthinking it than anything.
"It's probably fine. The Alchemists will sort that out."
"...I see."
Not every Alchemist in Gilm was like that, but thinking about the ones Rei knew—specifically, the ones applying magical treatments to the lumber logged from the Treant Forest—he could easily picture them jumping at the chance to research something like the Dark World Tree, cursed-sounding material and all.
"For that reason, leave the Dark World Tree to us," the Guild Staff Members declared.
Rei nodded and stored the Dark World Tree, along with the Vampire's remains, ash, charcoal, Magic Stone, and everything else, back into his Misty Ring before speaking again.
"Last one. A monster I fought in the Forest of Magic... though whether it qualifies as an A-Rank Monster is uncertain in a slightly different sense than the Queen Bee. In terms of pure strength, my impression was that it's above B-Rank but doesn't quite reach A-Rank."
Saying so, Rei pulled the Chimera out of his Misty Ring.
It had a massive frame roughly three meters tall, with a face that was unmistakably canine. And in place of a tail at its lower back, a Snake extended—such was this monster.
"For now, I'm calling it a Chimera, but that's a provisional name."
"Hmm... this is a rare one too. Anyone recognize it?"
One of the Guild Staff Members studied the Chimera and asked his colleagues, but everyone shook their heads.
"If I had to force a comparison, I'd say it's something along the lines of a Werewolf or similar... but even a Werewolf or a War Dog wouldn't have a body this massive. And more importantly, the fact that its tail is a Snake rather than a canine tail is a major difference."
The other Guild Staff Members murmured in agreement.
At the very least, none of them had ever seen a monster like this.
...That said, the staff members weren't showing that much surprise anymore.
After all the monsters Rei had brought out so far, they had apparently grown numb to it.
Whether that was proper behavior for a Guild Staff Member was debatable, but in terms of dissecting what Rei had brought, it was the right mindset.
(There are also A-Rank Monsters, and aside from the Crystal Dragon... quite a lot of B-Rank and below monsters too.)
Right now he was only pulling out monsters related to the Promotion Exam, but his Misty Ring held a fair number of other monster corpses as well.
Naturally, Rei planned to ask the Guild to dissect those too.
(Especially the bull and the Orc Naga... I want monsters that are literally delicious to be dissected by someone with proper technique, not my crude skills.)
How a monster was dissected could change the taste of the meat.
But more than that, the real problem was that poor dissection meant less edible meat.
A butcher's skill also affected the shape of the cut portions, which in turn affected the texture when eating.
Of course, misshapen cuts could always be trimmed and reshaped to eliminate texture differences, but that created a different problem—less meat to eat.
The trimmed-off portions could always be ground into Ground Meat or repurposed for other dishes, though.
"This Chimera has quite hard fur. I'd be careful about that when dissecting it."
"Mm... that's certainly going to be a nuisance."
A Guild Staff Member who'd heard Rei's warning touched the fur and frowned at its stiffness.
The Chimera was already dead, but apparently that didn't make the fur any easier to pluck or any softer.
Because of that, dissecting this Chimera would take considerable effort—they'd need to prepare special tools, something on the level of Rei's Mithril Knife.
The Giant Wolf Rei had brought out first also had tough fur, but this Chimera had even higher defense.
In that sense, even from the Guild Staff Members' perspective, it clearly possessed abilities befitting an A-Rank Monster.
"Still, from the looks of it, it's not that large, so for the dissection order... let's see. Would it be reasonable to do it after the Queen Bee?"
"Sounds right. We'll need special tools, not the usual ones, but that works."
The Guild Staff Members discussed with serious expressions.
They'd probably been itching to see the S-Rank Crystal Dragon as soon as possible, but with an A-Rank Monster's corpse right in front of them and the task of dissecting it... they naturally zeroed in on that instead.
That was the craftsman's nature at work, in a sense.
"The Vampire is only ash, so no dissection needed. The Dark World Tree will need some charcoal removal, but cutting it up won't be all that difficult. So that means... the order would be Dark World Tree, Queen Bee, Chimera, Giant Wolf... right?"
Everyone nodded at the voice of the man in his fifties who appeared to be the leader among the staff.
And once the order was settled... every single one of them turned to look at Rei in unison.
Their movements were so synchronized it looked rehearsed. Faced with the combined force of those stares, Rei actually took a few steps back from the sheer wordless pressure.
Even against the Crystal Dragon, Rei had stood his ground and fought.
For him to retreat spoke volumes about just how intense the Guild Staff Members' gazes were.
"W-What is it?"
"Rei, don't keep us in suspense. We've done a rough examination of the A-Rank Monsters. I won't say it's final yet, but there's almost no doubt—the monsters Rei brought in, Queen Bee and Chimera alike, are correctly classified as A-Rank Monsters."
"O-Oh. Glad to hear it."
Rei replied to the leader-like Guild Staff Member's words.
Guild Staff Members broadly fell into two categories: those hired as staff from the start, like Lenora and Kenny, and former Adventurers who'd been recruited by the Guild.
There were probably some who came in with letters of introduction from someone famous, but those were a tiny minority.
In that sense, Rei was certain that the staff members he was talking to now were former Adventurers—and not Low-Rank ones, but High-Rank Adventurers.
"Right? Then we've done our part. Given that, it's Rei's turn to do his job... though maybe that's not quite the right way to put it. Anyway, don't you think it's time you showed us what you promised?"
What the Guild Staff Member was getting at was perfectly clear to Rei.
But even so, the intensity of their fixation on the Crystal Dragon caught him off guard.
"Ah... yeah. Got it. No problem. You've done your work properly, so I'll hold up my end. Besides, the Crystal Dragon is a monster I defeated during this Promotion Exam, so it's part of your job too."
Several of the Guild Staff Members broke into somewhat sheepish expressions at Rei's words.
Having one's work acknowledged apparently felt that good.
And Rei was a famous Adventurer in more ways than one.
For Rei—who had just become an A-Rank Adventurer through this Promotion Exam—to recognize their work... it would've been impossible not to feel pleased.
The leader-like man seemed to feel the same, offering a small smile at Rei's words.
Worker observed the Guild Staff Members' behavior from a short distance away.
"Alright, here it comes. The Crystal Dragon."
Saying so, Rei stored the Chimera away and brought out the S-Rank Monster Crystal Dragon.