The town hall was larger than it appeared on the outside.
There was a large center hall from where they just entered, about two stories high, where a small line of people were gathered around a series of booths. However it appeared that the building was not strictly for governmental purposes, as there were signs directing to places such as a gym, pool and cafeteria as well. What stood out for them was the large sign with an arrow pointing towards a lone booth clearly labelled 'REGISTRATION'.
"Oi, over here," Kazuma waved at Aqua, who appeared to have her eyes lingering towards the cafeteria sign, "We gotta do this first."
The booth in question was manned by a young lady who appeared to be busy stamping some paperwork. She was blonde, and appeared to be quite buxom as her dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top, revealing some cleavage. A short 'ahem' from Kazuma turned her attention to them
"Ah, here for the registration?" The secretary smiled, to which Kazuma nodded, "In that case, please pay the registration fee first, and then we'll get started on the paperwork."
"Yes, yes…" Kazuma stated, looking for his currency bundle, "How much…?"
"1500 Ks(1)" the receptionist informed.
Kazuma did a quick flip through the bundle, noting that the amount he had was about 35,000Ks, but they were only in dividends of 1000, "Do you have change?" The secretary nodded and returned a 500K bill.
Aqua on the other hand fumbled with her pockets, and after half a minute of this she was able to produce one crumpled up 500 and glanced at Kazuma with a despondent look, "This is all I have… Kazuma-san, please lend me some money!"
'What a hopeless goddess…' Kazuma fumed as he produced another 1000 from his stack whilst pushing the ex-goddess off of him to prevent another scene from starting. Luckily she settled down again as she realised she was able to pay the registration fees.
"Great, now please follow me," the blonde gestured down the hall as she joined them outside the booth, "We'll have you fill out some paperwork and write a test before sending you off."
"Wait, test?" both Aqua and Kazuma blurted out in worry. First thing in this world and they were off to write a test with no preparation? It reminded Kazuma of the entrance exams during his school days, something which he wasn't too keen on repeating for a while…
"Don't worry, we get that a lot," the secretary smiled as they stopped before a plain door, "You don't need to study for it- that basically defeats the whole point."
Kazuma was perplexed. What type of a test was this? Sure testing you off the bat was the most accurate way of seeing if someone actually knew something for good, but aren't tests meant to be studied and conquered since the dawn of time? Sure he wasn't going to question this, as he didn't want to needlessly complicate himself when it was already explained to him in the simplest terms.
"Anyways, please take a seat inside," the secretary continued, leading them through the door into what appeared to be a small classroom, "I have to return to my post, so I'll get someone to hand out the exams and answer your questions during the examination."
With that she left, leaving the two inside the room looking for a seat. Granted this wasn't too hard as they were the only ones within the room- Aqua immediately took a back row seat in the corner farthest from the front desk, while Kazuma took a row in front of her.
"Hey, aren't you going to sit next to me?" Aqua asked, tapping on the boy's shoulder.
Kazuma was confused initially but quickly caught up to her gist on trying some 'unofficial aid'.
"How are we going to-" he started before the door opened.
A brunette entered the room, carrying with her two large stacks of paper. She laid a package in front of Kazuma and Aqua both, along with a few extra sheets of paper separate from the test package.
"Alright, just fill out the forums here and we can get started on with the test," the lady explained, "You don't have a time limit for the test but the recommended completion time would be around 4.5 hours."
"You can't finish this in 4.5 hours!" Kazuma blurted out as he examined the test package provided to him. To say it was huge would be an understatement- it rivalled some of the textbooks he bought in highschool by terms of thickness, not to mention all of these pages were going to be exam questions!
"Once again, don't worry about that," she sighed but returned a smile, "You don't have a time limit, and trust me, its not what it looks."
"Well, alright," Kazuma stated reluctantly, taking a pen and started to fill out the forums. Aqua was already done the paperwork at this time, given that she didn't ask any questions about the integrity of the test.
"…"
The test instructor looked blankly at the paperwork that was just filled in. 'Satou Kazuma' and 'Aqua'? Great, another bunch of people that were just sent from some faraway land she probably couldn't even pronounce, even without considering the fact that these two may just be delusional. Nonetheless she gave them a smile out of courtesy, "Alright, you may begin your tests now!"
-break-
For Kazuma, it was one of the worst and most confusing tests he had ever laid his eyes on (and written, for that matter).
Granted many of the questions were exceedingly easy, such as basic math, hours of the day, basic language phrases and the such, others were so difficult that he wasn't even able to guess- they either involved experimental sciences or just things that he had never even heard of before. That wasn't even including the headscratchers, such as the questions asking 'Rock, paper, scissors- pick one?', 'Which is the correct color?', or 'Smack the left side of this page as hard as you can'. Much of his time was spent on asking why the questions were so hard/wondering what to do, and why were there so many questions that seemingly made no sense- the only answer was not to worry and that it was only a 'basic competency test' and that passing was based on a different criteria rather than how many questions were answered 'correctly'.
Oh, and Aqua's plan of cheating didn't materialize either- considering that they were the only two in the exam room, the invigilator sat right in front of them watching in real time, not to mention Kazuma never switched his seat. Surprisingly enough Aqua didn't ask any questions about the exam, not even at the outlandish questions given- as a result, she was able to finish a whole half hour earlier than Kazuma (who took 4 hours).
Both of them were now in a waiting lounge, where Kazuma was flipping through some magazines, while Aqua was trying to work the remote for the box television set which was displaying and sounding off static. Eventually Kazuma noticed her frustrations and looked at the remote himself before telling her that it was actually for a CD player, and the said player wasn't even plugged in. Fiddling around with the channel knobs and re-adjusting the antenna yielded a channel that was actually discernable from the static, but was still hard to identify the on screen action. Kazuma sighed, there was only one thing left to do…
SMACK
At this, the TV screen jumped around a bit and made a screeching static noise before finally settling down- most of the static was gone and the audio was actually audible and not just whirred out noise.
"Huh, I wasn't expecting that to work," Kazuma scratched his head sheepishly as he made his way back to a seat.
"Impressive for a shut-in…"
"Oi, stop calling me that," Kazuma refuted in an annoyed voice, "Besides my magic actually worked in fixing the TV."
"That's a tragic story Robert," the news reporter on screen stated, shuffling around some papers, "Now back to our story unfolding in Chernarus."
Both Kazuma and Aqua piped up at that statement- they were informed that their currency was the Chernarussian Koruna in the note received, and doing a one plus one calculation figures that they were probably in Chernarus, the country/region in question on the evening news.
"In a series of new offensives, the Chernarussian movement of the Red Star, otherwise known as the 'chedaki', has gained more and more ground in the province of South Zagoria and are now approaching the major port city of Elektrozavodsk. The government is rushing reinforcements into the city, but it seems unlikely that the city would hold out at the current pace the fight is going."
The scene switches to a military truck carrying tanks, and soldiers set up in sandbagged positions before switching to a scene with seemingly ordinary civilians wearing black vests and carrying futuristic looking rifles walking through a village.
"While major countries have not yet entered the conflict, the private sector has- Private Military Companies from around the world have been hired by the Chernarussian government to take care of matters the government is finding its hands full in- catching arms smugglers, security for government installations, and even security for international organizations as they inspect the state of affairs in the country. However this is not without its downsides- a recent clash in Chernogorsk has led to several civilian fatalities and the death of one police officer sparking much outrage amongst the civilian population."
The scene swaps again, this time in low resolution, of what appears to be a blonde haired woman escorting two children and a babushka looking woman into a black SUV. She looks around a bit before hanging up her rifle and getting into the driver's seat, quickly peeling away.
"What you just saw was the only footage covered in the incident. While the circumstances are not clear, the police and government are conducting an investigation over this matter as we speak. Representative for the company involved, ION,inc. has made a statement that the individual may be a rouge and can be dangerous, and all members will be thoroughly screened and debriefed to ensure that such incidents will not happen again. Coming up next: Could there be a reason to hold onto your toenail clippings now? This is Marian Quandt, AAN. Back to you guys at-"
"Ah, you got it working again? Wonderful!" a familiar secretary entered the room, breaking the two out of their daze with the television, "The results of your tests are in- we're just going to review your results and hand you official identification before sending you off on your way."
The two followed her into another classroom just down the hall, where she produced two large stacks in the form of their exams, followed by two pieces of plastic, which was probably their official credentials.
"Alright Kazuma," the secretary started, pointing at the front cover of the exam, "It appears that you're generally average in most areas, but you exhibit decently high intelligence and extremely high luck- so far you're the only one that has never lost a single round of rock-paper-scissors, and only got one guessing question wrong."
The gears in Kazuma's head began to click upon hearing those words- the test was basically stat-checking in the game world, just presented in a different form.
"You also appear to be highschool educated, making you eligible for college or university entrance exam right off the bat," she continued before turning to Aqua.
"Unfortunately for you (2)Ms. Aqua your intelligence appears to be relatively low, and your luck is some of the poorest I have ever seen," the secretary said with some concern, "However you appear to have incredible knowledge about how the human body works, along with water-related sciences, and your one of the strongest I have seen physically, ever"
Aqua puffs out her chest triumphantly, "Are you impressed at how powerful the god-"
"Huh?"
"Sorry, she tends to get carried away sometimes with online roleplay," Kazuma quickly blurted out as he covered Aqua's mouth, "Please, carry on."
'She has absolutely no life experience does she' Kazuma thought as he took his hand back.
"…But unfortunately you do not appear to be qualified in any sort of education, meaning that your jobs are solely restricted to the most basic ones, and most of them do not pay incredibly well," the secretary continued.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Aqua wailed, grabbing the secretary by the collar, "There's got to be some other way around this, because I'm not spending four years of my life in school with a bunch of brats!(3)"
'Takes one to say one', Kazuma mentally facepalmed.
"…please relax, Ms. Aqua," the office worker raised her hands, with Aqua releasing her at that, "You can take a highschool equivalency test, and if you score well enough, you can get a highschool diploma, or only take a few courses you need compared to doing a whole four years"
"…this isn't how a goddess should be treated" Aqua grumbled in discontent.
"…sorry?"
"Yeah don't mind her, she was just grumbling to herself," Kazuma tried to patch up quickly.
'What a hopeless basketcase'
"…anyways here's your Identification Numbers and government issued IDs," the office worker continued on with a smile, passing two pieces of plastic to both Kazuma and Aqua "We just need to take your picture before-"
"What is the meaning of THIS?" Aqua shrieked, grabbing the office worker by the collar again with one hand while pointing to her ID cards with another.
"I-I don't see what the problem is," the bureaucrat raised her hands up again while glancing down at the cards.
Kazuma looked over in interest. His ID was as standard as anything he'd expected, with name, birthday, date issued/expired, and so on- what could possibly be the problem with Aqua-
'Aqua Švábová(4)'
"Why did you name me after a freaking cockroach?!"
"…I'm very sorry, Ms. Aqua," the panicked office worker explained, "You never placed a surname in your registration forums, and legally you are to have a surname in your government ID, so we used a computer generated name as a placeholder"
"…can you at least change the name?" Aqua stated with a more reasonable tone.
"Yes, but you can't do that right now," the secretary stated bashfully but with sympathy, "You can after three months of residency within the country, however"
"…hmmph"
Kazuma on the other hand was trying not to laugh- as much as he sympathized with being named something that outlandish, he almost agreed with how fitting it was with the type of behavior Aqua was dishing out- was this some form of indirect retribution, or just Aqua's bad luck playing out? Additionally, whose idea was it to make their family name after a household pest…?
"…anyhow please stand against the whiteboard and look directly at the camera," the secretary regained her composure again, placing the cards into a printer as both applicants had their pictures taken.
"Whew, we're almost finished here," she chuckled, handing back their now photo ID cards, a stamped note and a set of keys, "Here's the keys to your apartment- you'll find the unit number and address attached to the keychain. The first month has already been paid for"
Kazuma's eyes widened, "Awesome! But is there a reason for this?"
"Yes, mainly due to the massive brain drain our country is experiencing," she explained, "We're trying to incentivize people into staying given that they have an adequate amount of education/potential, as you have seen in the tests you wrote."
"Fair enough," Kazuma remarked, remembering the news report, "Also, how much is the rent?"
"6,000Ks a month"
'So we have enough for three months, given living costs' Kazuma calculated roughly.
"Also, what's the paper for?" Kazuma gestured towards the stamped note.
"That's your qualifications, to help you find your first jobs," she explained, "You can apply at the office right across from here. Additionally there are many 'informal' jobs going around here, but most of them don't pay as well"
'Employment assistance? Not bad'
"Anyways, is that all?" the office worker asked.
"Pretty much"
"Great!" she smiled, handing another booklet to Kazuma and Aqua, "Please enjoy your new life in Chernarus, and stay safe. Here is a booklet to get you started on the essentials. Otherwise, best of luck out there!"
"Thank you very much miss"
"You can call me Luna," the office worker revealed, "We're not just a strictly government institution- we serve as a community center as well, so I hope to see you all again!"
"Thank you Luna," Kazuma stated again before glaring at Aqua "And I'm sorry for all the commotion we caused-"
"Kazuma!" Aqua quipped
"Don't worry about it," Luna returned with a bashful smile, "Once we had individual come in without pants asking if we have cocaine, and when the security took him out he proceeded to defecate on the floor"
Kazuma just returned with a deadpanned look. It was one of the few moments where he truly had no comment. He decided to ignore what was just said and turned his attention back to a pouting Aqua
"-why are you so mean, you damn shut in?" Aqua continued, "You should treat your goddesses with more respect"
"I hate to burst your bubble, Cockroach-san," Kazuma teased, trying not to snicker, "But you're no longer a goddess anymore, so-"
"Kazuma!"
-break-
Aqua was asleep by the time Kazuma arrived at their apartment.
Luckily there were two bedrooms in the unit. Kazuma just plopped the ex-goddess into the bed of the smaller room before he continued exploring his surroundings.
The apartment was pretty typical, with the standard living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. It was pretty spartan but had a few pieces of furniture included such as a table, chairs and a couch along with the beds in the bedroom. They were on the fifth floor, a good floor above the apartments in the immediate vicinity, giving them a good view of the ocean. In other words, a perfectly livable apartment.
Kazuma then got into studying the packet he was given, because god forbid if he let Aqua do it. Apparently they were in the town of Miroslavl, a mere thirty kilometers away from Chernogorsk, which in turn was only a few kilometers from Elektrozavodsk, the city which was mentioned in the news. Apparently the 'chedaki' mentioned was the militant communist party in Chernarus, trying to overthrow the current government and installing a totalitarian regime. They were responsible for a series of assassinations and were frequently involved in extortion and illegal trafficking, and as such, citizens were advised to stay far away from them. Also mentioned was the National Party- while also somewhat anti-government, they were nowhere near as violent as their communist counterparts, but citizens were still advised to keep their distance.
On the brighter side, Kazuma learned that the average wage was around 30,000Ks monthly, and the price of a bread loaf was merely 20Ks, meaning that the costs of living were quite low if they stuck to the basics.
'Man… what a day!' Kazuma thought. The wallclock told him that it was already 11:30PM and he should go to bed early to get himself ready, but part of that was why he couldn't get to sleep- In one day, he had died, gotten revived and given a new identity, with an useless goddess tossed into the fray nonetheless. It was a hell of a story to believe.
Throwing open the balcony window, Kazuma walked outside. Even though he was allegedly a mere thirty kilometers from a warzone, it still felt as peaceful as ever- ocean waves, a clear night sky and crickets chirping- a departure from the busy metropolis centers of Japan, but a welcome one indeed.
"…osion!" a voice echoed across the buildings, snapping Kazuma out of his dreamy state.
"Huh-"
BOOM
(1): Proper term is Kč in Czech, I'm just writing it as Ks for simplicity.
(2): Yes I am aware of the Japanese honorifics, I'm only having explicitly non-Japanese characters use this
(3): I figured Aqua would be more disappointed in the ego sense, so I had her act this way.
(4): Šváb means cockroach in Czech, and believe it or not it is a surname. Švábová is the female version of it (-ová prefix added to nouns in order to feminize a surname, please correct me if I'm wrong). However it is more likely to refer to Swabians (a German minority)
Other Notes: Not too much happening here, but I promise there will be more action in the later chapters- I'm just trying to do some world building without creating a huge info-dump (as I know how much people hates those). As you can note Chernarus has some elements Czech republic/Czechoslovakia (obviously not an accurate portrayal of Czech culture, lol), the same country as the creators of the original game, Arma 2. Either way please leave a review, as they will help a lot in improving the overall quality of the story, or you can just flame me (I find them entertaining).