A Goddess Candidate and an Underling
Summary: Linda was no one special, an orphan who was born in the slums, grew up to be a thug. Linda was an underling, she would do anything so long as it paid well. If saving a Goddess Candidate would get her rich for life, why not?
"Filthy rat! This will teach you to not steal again!"
-Fat otaku
Linda's very first theft has been towards a bag of convenient store snacks from an oversized brute. That guy was so large that his shirt couldn't even cover his belly button. His arms and legs were chummy with fat, jiggling with every slow step he took. No matter how you looked at him, he must be one of those useless otaku, the kind of people who were so obsessed with fantasy that they refused to work.
She had thought they would be easy targets, that she would be able to outrun him and that would be it.
She was proven horribly wrong. She had been even weaker than an otaku. A hand had shoved Linda on to the ground. She had tried to get up, but her focus blurred when a strong force impacted her face.
She cried. She said sorry.
The kicking didn't stop. He kicked her in the stomach, stomped on her fingers and spit on her face.
Perhaps it had been mercy on her to pass out at some point. When she did open her eyes again, she couldn't move. Her mind registered new parts of pain that wasn't there before she passed out. Her body ached from her first set of bruises. It hurt too much to think properly.
Why must everything be painful? I don't hate pain.
Why must she suffer just to eat dinner?
These slackers actually leeched off their parents' money while she had to gamble her life just to get the bare necessity of food to fill her stomach. How is this fair?
The answer was simple to her, the world was simply not fair. There were people who were born rich and loved, and there's Linda, an accident.
The old thug who knew her parents told her she wasn't welcomed into this world.
Screw the world. Screw the Goddesses who were supposed to protect her. Screw men who beat her up. Screw the parents who didn't want her. Screw them all!
On that day, Linda knew to hate and who to hate. Hate drove her past pain, past humiliation. It gave her the resilience to handle pain and bring her back to the slums. If she had stayed on the ground, she would have eventually starved to death and died.
But she returned back to the trash and found a half full bottle of potion. It saved her, gave her enough energy to search for more food and attempt another steal. Chivalry wouldn't bring her food, hate and humiliating methods did.
It was because of those two thoughts that she survived until today.
Nothing was too low for her. If the situation called...
"WHERE IS THAT RAT! I KNOW YOU ARE HERE!"
She would even play the dead.
With a frustrated roar, the giant robot that had been pursuing Linda swung his axe and smashed into a mountain of trash. The mountain of remnants of old technology toppled over, burying the corpses that laid under it as a makeshift grave. Seeing no response, the robot punched another pile of junk again, wreaking chaos over the place.
As the robot continued his tantrum, Linda watched motionlessly. Her breath barely audio for she was under a pile of the dead.
Even though she could claim to be the fastest of the slums, it had been quickly apparent that was her AGI stats were for naught here. While she had to jump over many foot-tripping obstacles with precision, the giant had just bulldozed through them with brute force. All that needed to happen was a single trip and she would undoubtedly be cleaved in two.
If that giant wanted to play dirty, Linda would do the same too.
Using one of her precious smuggled smoke grenades (that she would charge Planeptune's basilicom for), she managed to blind the giant for a few seconds. It was just enough time for her to dive into the pile of corpses and shapeshift into one of them. Now that the giant was preoccupied with his own tantrum, she finally has time to think about the shit she has gotten herself into.
Linda had been condemned straight to hell without even a solid explanation and was tasked to save some VIPs. As if the location wasn't obnoxious enough, she was now hiding from a rampaging giant in a pile of corpses that not-so-proudly represented the soldiers of Planeptune. This was no mere errand she thought she was running for Planeptune's basilicom.
She may be a thug, but she wasn't stupid. You would have to actually use that muscle in your head to survive through the conspiracies of the underworld.
A bunch of people who were significant enough to be locked up in hell. Valuable enough that the basilicom would actually track down Linda and offer a reward of a million credits to save them.
Who was she kidding? She was living in a world ran by tyrants. Compare to them, these soldiers were expendable, one million credits were expendable.
That's why the basilicom hired her, wasn't it? If she succeeded in bring them back then a million credits was a cheap price to pay. If she doesn't, no one would bat an eye and Planeptune would be better off without her.
She, a thug was now on a suicide mission to save the Goddesses who have been missing for the past two years.
The same Goddesses she had once worshipped, the same Goddesses who never once extended their protection to her. The ones indirectly responsible for her dirty way of life.
All because they couldn't govern their countries right, Linda suffered. And now she was on her way to save them.
The stench of corpses didn't affect her, but the thought of her mission almost made her puke.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews again. This came out a bit late but longer than usual. I might have to pause this because of finals but I really want to get to saving Nepgear...we will see.