Disclaimer: I don't own Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekaisaikyou just like Isekai manga/light novels.
Last chapter before I have to juggle how I'm going to continue from there. Thank you for reading these first three chapters of mine.
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Most adventures who wear this armor would put a cape on, but Razi believed it would get in his way. The clerk, a tall light brown blacksmith with a lighter brown apron on with three lined pockets of tools crossed his arms and smiled.
"I'm surprised you are skilled enough to even wear that." He said, "Most adventures need to be level 22 before they can wear that, but only level 12 and you are capable of wearing it."
"I already bought this armor, don't try to give me a sales speech." Razi replied. With that, he walked out the door. He did everything he needed to, so he walked off towards the town gates.
A few people eyed him on the way there, but thankfully, none of them tried anything. Razi was almost at the gates, but then he saw the silhouette of a person there. He couldn't tell who it was, but he mostly ignored it.
He finally returned outside. Now he just needed one thing that would be crucial for his adventure: something to ride. He couldn't just walk everywhere, it would be utterly painful trying to get somewhere while wearing armor.
He was about to give up and just walk since horse's were hard to buy unless you were a good adventurer, but he was touched by the long nose of something he was waiting for: a horse.
It wasn't a normal horse he found as he turned around to look at it. This horse was made out of scrap like the pile he found when he met the scrap girl. Come to think of it, there she was riding on a steed also made out of scrap. Her hands were on the reins, which were really a metal wire with trash the copper sewed through.
"I wanted to thank you." She said handing out the reins to him.
"Too much baggage." Razi replied. "I like to kill monsters and eat them, but how can I do that when I'm on a horse? The likeliness of a monster showing up while on a horse is nearly impossible."
"Please, get on the horse." She insisted.
Razi finally gave in and hopped on the horse. It smelled something on him, a miasma it feared. The horse should be afraid, there was goblin flesh in his gut. However, one touch of Razi's hand against his face-the hands of a woodworker and stable boy-and the horse moved like it was supposed to.
"I've given it some thought and I think we should be in an adventure party." Teresa said.
"I'm on a mission that involves divine beasts and a man who killed a god. You'll just slow me down." Razi bluntly replied.
Razi didn't know of any other ride's to help him move faster since he was a native-born of Tortus. He walked a few steps, eight clamping hoofs closely behind him. Razi's goal was to walk slowly until he made it up a hill, then he could escape into the woods where the horses wouldn't be able to follow him so audaciously forward.
What Razi didn't know was Teresa had cold feet. She was in deep thought of something, a warning maybe of the Divine Beast.
"When a human wants to see the Divine Beast, it's our duty to take them to our one true Divine Beast."
Knowing this about them and saying them were two sides of a different coin. Even if being around Razi didn't give off the aura of a leader who would drag her to her death if she misspoke, she didn't want to be a bother.
They camped together-or rather Razi told her to leave three times but she didn't so he took some mittens he carried and put them on a tree as a pillow for his nap against the bark of a tree.
"I didn't know you had those." Teresa said.
"I kept them in a bottom of a satchel along with my lunch bag and watched back when I was a common man preparing people their furniture. Now, I keep them in my sleeves so I can have a little wool on my wrists." He said without opening his eyes.
Teresa couldn't help but want to touch these mittens, just so she could feel how warm the back of his head was. Although she knew her hands were cold, he didn't react to her touch. His head was kind of warm in one spot, but something strange was in his backhead.
She was slapped in the head by the very mitten the axe wielder was sleeping against. Before that slap, she felt an insidious presence where Razi was.
"I'm not too sure about you. If you hurt him, you'll have hell to pay." A random voice spoke from no discernable direction. It was clearly hostile, but also seemed hesitant. It did say it wasn't sure about her.
"I'm merely curious about Razi's mittens. If they were warm." She turned her gaze upward, and she heard a grunt.
"Okay… If that's it, I don't mind. Just, try not to make him mad. Or hurt him. He and I are searching for revenge against a certain individual."
"Revenge? Why didn't he just say so? I can totally get on board with someone looking for revenge on someone. I'm a machine after all with the emotions of a young adult woman."
Even though the person talking to her wasn't feasible to see-saying not as all easy to see-she could hear its voice snickering out loud.
Since no bastard in their right mind was paying Teresa any attention she so fucking deserved, she just walked around Razi to get her mechanical but still hot as shit ass to the other side of the tree and she laid her metal head down.
Although she was mechanical she still has a cognitive thinking, or in layman's terms she can sleep. Every night she had the same dream, she was sinking into an abyss of trash with each night her screams getting lower and lower-a simple whimper being choked down her throat so no one can hear it-until she either died or being rescued in her dream.
This time, she dreamed of herself in a very large temple, and on her throne in this temple she was waiting for an unknown person. Why was she there, and why was she more golden than silver?
Finally, someone was walking in.
Through the entrance was Razi with his axe hand, stoic demeanor, yet his eyes were red and glaring at her. He never looked at her in a friendly way, but this glare was full of killing intent.
In this dream sequence Teresa couldn't talk. She just sat-being forced to keep her eyes on him and not look away-when he pulled his arm back and flung his axe towards her!
Then she was somewhere else. And she was...slimy. This some other place was outside where plenty of foliage was, greener than the forest she was sleeping in. This place brought out her curiosity, she had to look in the pond also in this place to see if she was...herself.
Her worst fears came to light when she saw a pink, tall, had three slimy cow tails sticking out of her head, and a slender figure showing her whole naked body all the way from her breasts to her belly button and then her nether regions...all in the appearance of a woman but also not showing as a normal womans parts would.
She waved at the pond seeing her reflection. This wasn't the freaky part; a reflection doesn't talk when the person staring at it was tight lipped.
"It's his power or the four of us. Revenge is like a forest, and in that forest there are vicious animals. They can stay, but they shouldn't be approached. Tell him...PLEASE!"
Then Teresa awoke.
This was a first kind of dream so of course she was freaked out, also she was freaked about waking up after Razi. But, he was still at the campsite, roasting a monster tail.
She didn't know what kind of monster it was but the tip of the tail had an arrowhead shape. When he believed the tail was properly roasted, he unslung it from the cooking rack and slurped it into his mouth.
When he finished, he said something that reminded her he was a man of verve. "It still tastes like shit, but at least tastes better than the last monster shit."
She didn't know if he meant monster meat or if he actually ate monster...excrement. Then she had an idea: why doesn't she try a piece of this monster meat too?
She walked up to him and stared at some of the other remains. For a while, Razi ignored her. But when he finished his tail and saw how much his stats grew, he walked off to practice his aim a bit. He couldn't depend on Atlas all the time, after all.
Teresa reached for some of the remains, and picked it up. She roasted it over the fire, and looked at the finished product curiously. She took a bite, and tasted nothing. No flavor or pain whatsoever. Suddenly, the voice from before spoke up.
"Weird, I kinda thought that would affect you somehow. I can tell you got stronger, but it's marginal. What exactly are you?" That last part was probably a question to itself. "Ah, where are my manners? Well, probably in Razi's head, but regardless, it's nice to properly meet you. Call me Atlas."
"It is nice to meet you, Atlas. Was it you who restored my voice, perhaps?" she asked the voice, still deciding on where to look.
"Yeah, I saw into the head of Razi's 'target' and saw a lot about robots. It seems you are semi-mechanical, like those robots he built before fighting that god I forgot the name of."
"Ehit?"
"Yeah, that was part of it. I forget the rest, it was pretty dumb. Anywho, you and I can talk now. I'm more than just a voice, but I'm still not physical. I can influence his actions, but that's my limit right now."
"Right now? Will you get stronger later on?"
"Basically. Odds are, you will be able to see me clearly. As to what I look like, who knows?" Atlas chuckled. Razi came back from target practice with a giant frog.
"I'm going to make sure this giant thing doesn't go to waste, you can watch me cook it. I'm also now below sharing this thing if that's what you want. But please, shut the hell up while I'm devouring its meat."
Amphibians technically didn't have meat in their bodies, except maybe organs inside of them. Yet, Razi roasted the giant frog the same as he did the tail and ate it, starting with the eyeballs since there is no difference in taste between monster meat or eyes. They all tasted like crap regardless.
Eating the amphibian was too filling for Razi to think of. He got up and walked to his horse. The horse was neighing its mouth in defiance of Razi coming closer to him, his mouth stained with the guts of the giant frog. But Razi was a wood cutter and if there's one thing they were good at it was convincing animals to act the way they wanted them to.
"Who is a good horse that is getting extra oats for letting a human no better than a cannibal ride you? Yes you are, my horse that deserves a name but I'm too lazy to think of one."
Teresa found everything he was slurring to be very weird. At last, Razi climbed on his horse. She expected him to gallop away on that horse, but he kept the horse steady looking down on Teresa.
"What are you waiting for? Ride with me girl."
Even though she was an automaton, she was very happy to hear him letting her saddle behind him.
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Hajime was glad he never had to work at some desk job. He was also glad he had an adorable daughter without having to impregnate his lover first.
Although he tried to make this world more peaceful becoming the new god of it, he couldn't resist the thrill of hunting monsters. He couldn't put his guns away from his holster. To put it simply, he was a hunter.
Hajime just got to the hunting ground, when he saw a tall boy who had the look of wrath in his eyes. Although, all he was doing was riding a horse and carrying an axe on his hand, and a girl had her arms wrapped around his waist which in his experience didn't make a person that bad…
Hajime could smell holy water in his mouth with the same miasma as someone chugging down alcohol.
"L8ft." The metal woman said.
The boy's horse turned left and trotted left.
Just when he was getting tired of all this moving, his horse finally reached what looked like an abandoned ruin. His horse sounded exhausted getting here, and who could blame him?
Razi finally unsaddled himself from the horse and climbed down. His automaton sidekick got off and walked behind him. She either wanted to be close or she was cowering behind a being made of flesh.
Either way she was just there and Razi paid little heed to her.
