O Month X Day

Today one person visited me, a young man. Cause of death: sacrificed himself to save a child from a starving Rookie Killer. Upon meeting me, he said "Where's the real Eris?" When I asked him what he meant, he replied, "Everyone knows the real Eris has a bountiful chest full of divine benevolence. With that pitiful chest of yours, there's no way you're Eris." To think that this rude person died a hero. People really are complicated, aren't they. … This is troubling, though. While he's the first to say it so bluntly, I've seen others glancing at my chest with an expression of disbelief. How did my image get so distorted? … Perhaps I should wear pads or something, so that my believers aren't disappointed when they meet me. I don't like the idea of deceiving them, but the only other option would be to send a divine revelation to the Archpriests of my churches telling them to reduce my bust size on all depictions of me.

…

I'll get some pads. As for that young man, he chose to be reincarnated. For his heroic actions, I blessed him to be born into a noble family. For divine retribution for his sexual harassment, I cursed him to never be able to reach a toilet when he's about to vomit.

I took a moment to breathe in the fresh air around me, and felt the warm sun on my face. So this is the mortal world. It might sound wrong coming from a goddess, but I think it's far more beautiful than heaven. I turned my gaze forward. In front of me is the city of Accelia, founded 30 years ago to nurture novice adventurers in a relatively safe environment. If you ask me though, Accelia is a rather ostentatious name for what is supposed to be a place meant for beginners. They should probably shorten it.

I walked up to the gate, introducing myself as a traveler to the guards, and proceeded into the city. Neither the guards nor the citizens walking around the city seemed to think there was anything conspicuous about me. The vessel I'm using is physically identical to my real body, since I wasn't able to make any significant changes to it; therefore, to help disguise it, I relied on more subtle methods. I cut the hair of this body short, and dressed it in uninteresting clothes. I also decided not to give it pads. Of course this helps to make this body more unlike the people's image of "Eris," but mostly, I'm just happy to finally have a chance to be free of them. Ever since Aqua-senpai found out, she wouldn't stop teasing me about them. It feels liberating to be free of that, even if just for a short time.

I made my way to the Adventurer's Guild to register myself. Before I get started on hunting relics, I need to establish a living here. Getting money for food and shelter, making connections and allies, there's a lot to do before I jump headfirst into my mission. As I walked down the street, however, I noticed that the atmosphere was rather subdued. People walked with their heads down, and the chatter I'd normally expect from a public place was absent. I entered the guild, only to meet the same nervous atmosphere. I had always imagined the Adventurer's Guild as a rowdy, excitable place. Instead, people were sitting quietly at tables, looking for safe, low-risk quests, or speaking to each other in hushed whispers.

It's understandable, of course. In this world, it's only been a year since the country of Noise was destroyed by its own creation, the Mobile Fortress Destroyer. As the most technologically advanced country in the world collapsed, the demon king's army took the chance to renew their attacks. It's only thanks to a group of mages calling themselves the Crimson Demon Clan that the demons were kept at bay.

I headed over to the registration desk, where an elderly woman was working as the receptionist.

"Hello there! I'd like to register as an adventurer!"

"Certainly, young lady. Do you have the registration fee? It's 300 eris."

I froze. Crap. My plan had been to raise any funds I needed through adventurer work, since if I just magically created any money I needed, it would disrupt the economy. But to think there'd be a fee just to get started. Thankfully, I did set aside a small amount of emergency funds, but I hadn't expected to dip into it so quickly. I need to learn more about life in this world as soon as possible. By the way, though I already knew about it, it's a bit embarrassing to hear my name being used as currency.

After paying the registration fee, the receptionist asked for my name and my intended job.

"My name is Chris, and I'd like to become a Thief."

While a job like Archpriest would feel most natural for me, the Thief job is the obvious choice for my mission. The relics could be in all kinds of dangerous places, and may be held by people who might not willingly part with them. The woman brought out the scanning device used to create adventurer's card, and input the information I gave her. I pricked my finger using the needle and dropped my blood onto the crystal. It glowed for about half a minute, before the machine printed out my card. The woman took it and read it over to make sure there weren't any mistakes.

"Let's see… Strength and vitality are average. Magic, agility, speed, and intelligence are quite good. And your luck… huh?"

"What's the matter?"

"… Sorry missy, but I think there must've been an error in the machine. This can't possibly be correct."

Damn. When I created this vessel, I made it as a regular human, without any divinity. As a result, its stats should've been scaled down to human levels. It seems like despite that, my luck still managed to reach absurd levels. I know I'm the goddess of luck, but isn't this still a bit ridiculous?

After that was sorted out, it was time to do a quick quest to break in this body and earn some funds. While I tried to avoid giving myself excess wealth, I did equip this body with a pair of high-quality daggers. After all, my intention was to avoid disrupting the economy, not to make things unnecessarily difficult for myself. From the quest list, I took the quest "Giant Toad Hunting (5)." It's a straightforward quest with relatively high payout, and low-level enemies like toads should be safe to practice on.

I walked slowly across the field, sneaking up on the first giant toad I encountered. It's a bit bigger than I had expected, but it shouldn't be a problem. Worst comes to worst, I should be able to outrun it. I think.

As I drew closer, I used the Lurk skill to erase my presence. The skill works best when there is cover to hide behind, so in this open field it loses a lot of its effectiveness. However, like most Thief skills, it also scales with luck, so I'm not too worried. Speaking of skills, I only had enough skill points to get a few of them. Making this body like that of an ordinary human had its downsides. Aside from Lurk, I currently have Steal for utility and Assassinate for damage output. Activating the second of those skills, I lunged at the toad.

I miscalculated. Horribly. My initial attack failed to pierce all the way through the toad's blubbery exterior, and my daggers got stuck. While I struggled to pull them out, the toad lashed its tongue around and nearly caught me. It took 10 minutes of dashing and dodging around before I could retrieve both my weapons, and then another half hour of rapid attacks before the toad finally bled out. Seriously, why is a mere toad so resilient!? My body also got covered in the toad's slime as I was attempting to pull my weapons out. I started to question my obsession with the adventurer life.

As I washed myself in the bathhouse, I thought about my main weakness: firepower. My Assassinate skill allows for a single strong strike, but as I found out today, it's not enough to offset my low level and base strength. If I give up on this quest, thought, it'll mean failing my very first quest. Aside from the penalties from the guild, it'd be a moral defeat for me. …Since long ago, I'd dreamed of experiencing an adventurer's life like this, so running away now would just be too pitiful. I'm a goddess, dammit! I'm not going to let some dumb amphibian get the best of me! I need to improve my strength and… no, wait, what am I doing? I'm not here to play around, I'm here to find relics! I took a deep breath to cool my head. The money from that one toad should be enough for the next day, so I'll shelve this matter for now and work on collecting information tomorrow.

I rented a room in the inn, and went straight to bed. Strictly speaking, I could just return to heaven to sleep, but it would mean a lot of time passing down here. More than that, I just really want to experience an adventurer's life in every aspect. The bed was decently soft, and the sounds of drunk singing came up from below. It seems that even in times like these, alcohol can still help people to relax and enjoy themselves. Which reminds me, I've never had a drink before. Maybe I'll try some after... zzzzz...

The next day, I asked some people in the guild about any strange happenings in the area.

"Strange happenings, huh? Well, a local noble named Feldus is complaining about break-ins in his castle up on the hill to the north. Apparently nothing has been taken yet, but they can't catch the thief. Even though he sets off every alarm in the castle, they can never catch sight of him."

An invisible thief you say.

"You wanna know what's strange? That fellow Terry taking down all those high level monsters is strange! Don't get me wrong, the dude's not a bad fighter, but the things he's killing should be way too tough for him to even scratch, and yet he's killing them by the boatload, alone. I'm telling you, there's something fishy going on there."

Could just be a guy jealous of someone else's success. I need more information to say for sure.

"The cabbage migration is late this year. It should've been here last week, yet we haven't seen head nor leaf of them!"

I doubt this is relevant to any relics.

"Strange? Lemme tell you what's strange! Not a single girl I've asked out in the last month has said yes! Like, come on, what's not to like!? I'm strong, handsome, decently well off, I can speak two languages, and you know, I…"

Can I go back to heaven now?

The castle break-ins seem like the best lead, since I have an idea which relic might be responsible. That being said, if I'm to catch this unseen intruder, I'm going to need some more skills, namely Enemy Detection and Bind. And to do that, I need more skill points. Which means I need to level up. Which brings me back to that damn quest.

As I paced around the guild trying to think of a better strategy for fighting those toads, my eyes fell upon the bulletin board. It contained quests, notices, and… a couple party recruitment ads. Of course! If I need more attack power, I should find other adventurers to work with! This could also help in my goal of making connections, so it's two birds with one stone, right?

I quickly wrote up my own ad:

"Thief looking for a powerful frontline fighter!"

and posted it and went to a table to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

…

Why isn't anyone showing up? I looked around the guild, taking in the nervous atmosphere. Hm. Perhaps people are still scared, and want to stick with those they know they can trust. After all, there have been incidents of demons that can disguise themselves as humans.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it, and my ad just wasn't enticing enough. Perhaps I need to add some catchy lines or incentives? Maybe some pictures.

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a voice.

"Hey, I saw your ad. You're looking for a frontline warrior, right?"

The voice belonged to a young man. I looked up. His gold hair and blue eyes, along with his expensive looking greatsword, instantly identified him as a noble. The unusual part was his armor. He had none. He was wearing regular clothes. His bearing seemed like that of an experienced fighter, though he couldn't be older than 20. I'm guessing he was trained from a young age? Oh right, he's waiting for an answer.

"Yes, that's my ad. I'm Chris, what's your name?"

"Pleased to meet you, Chris. My name is Dustiness Ford Sirius. Please take care of me."