Horse-drawn carriages rattled along the stone-paved streets of a town.

“It’s...it’s a parallel universe. Look around! We’re in an actual other world! Am | really here? Am | really gonna get to learn magic and go adventuring?!”

| took in the scene before me, quivering with excitement.

Brick buildings stood eave to eave, like a scene straight from Middle Ages Europe.

There were no cars or motorcycles, no utility poles, no cell phone towers. “Oh man! Ohhh man! Ohmanohmanohman!” My eyes darted everywhere, watching the people passing by.

“He’s got animal ears—real ones! And there’s an elf! A real elf! She’s gotta be an elf—she’s so beautiful! Good-bye, modern-day hermit life! Hello, fantasy world! Now, this is a place where | could see actually going outside...getting a job and stop being a NEET—”

“Waaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” | looked at Aqua, who was on her knees beside me, head in her hands.

“Hey, keep it down. What’ll happen if everyone thinks I’m friends with a crazy lady? Anyway, don’t you have something to give me right about now? | mean, look how I’m dressed. I’m wearing a tracksuit! In a fantasy world! If this was a game, I’d at least get some kind of basic starting equipment.”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaadaaaaaaaaadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!” The goddess grabbed hold of me as she cried.

“Wh-whoa! What’re you doing?! Stop it! | get it; I’ll handle the starter gear myself! | mean—l’m sorry! If you hate it that much here, then fine—go home. l’ll manage somehow.”

My hands brushed Aqua’s as | tried to free my neck from her grip. To my surprise, her hands were shaking.

“What are you talking about?!” She wept, holding her head and dancing back and forth. “I can’t go home—that’s the problem! What am | gonna do? Arrrgh, come on! What am | supposed to do now?!”

She shook her waist-length hair, and | realized she would be a real beauty if she’d just shut up...but as it was, she came across as a diva. Frankly, | could barely bring myself to look at her.

“Hey, goddess, calm down. At times like this, you have to find the tavern. Start there, gather information. That’s how role-playing games work.”

“Wh—? | thought you were supposed to be some shut-in video game otaku. When did you get so reliable? By the way, Kazuma, my name is Aqua. It’s sweet of you to call me ‘goddess,’ but you should probably use my name while we’re here. If people knew who | really am, we might attract a crowd, and then how would we get to the Demon King? This may be a different world, but | am actually worshipped here.”

With that, Aqua pattered along behind me. |, for my part, was feeling quite confident.

Now, there had to be a group of adventurers resisting the Demon King, or an Adventurers Guild that handled fighting monsters, or something.

Actually, come to think of it—Aqua’s a goddess. Why not ask her?

“Aqua, how about an Adventurers Guild? Know where it is?” | said, but she just stared at me blankly.

“Sorry? I’m sure | don’t know. | know only the most basic things about this world, not every little detail of its towns. Think about it—this is just one world among millions, and this town is just one insignificant settlement out of all the towns in this world. Why should | know anything about it?”

This girl is totally useless.

The conversation wasn’t getting us anywhere, so | stopped a middle-aged woman on the street. It was better than asking a guy, who might’ve turned out to be trouble, or asking a young girl—my anxiety would’ve driven the difficulty of that “quest” through the roof.

“Excuse me, ma’am. May | ask you something? Is there anything like an Adventurers Guild around?”

“A guild? You mean you don’t know? You must be new here.” | relaxed at her words, knowing there had to be a guild here somewhere.

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve come from quite a ways off. We just arrived a little while ago.

“Oh my... If you’ve come to this town, you must be looking to become adventurers. Welcome to Axel, the town for novice adventurers. If you follow that street and turn right, you'll see a sign.”

 

“Straight, then right. Thank you very much, ma’am! ...Okay, we’re off The town for novice adventurers, huh?

A starter town. The ideal starting point for new, freshly dead arrivals from some other world.

After thanking the woman and heading down the road she’d pointed out, | could feel Aqua looking at me with new respect as she darted along behind me.

“Hey,” she said with a hint of astonishment, “how’d you come up with that story on the spot? You actually seem quite capable. So then why were you a hermit of an otaku who'd never had a girlfriend or really any friends at all? Why spend your days as a hikiNEET?”

“Not having friends or a girlfriend isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can’t judge  a person’s worth by how many friends they have or if they’re in a relationship. And don’t call me a hikiNEET, you dumb bimbo. Don’t assume all hikikomori are NEETs. | was just sixteen. That’s too young for society to assume I'll be a member of the workforce... Ah, there it is.”

Aqua made to strangle me at the words dumb bimbo, but | ignored her and went into the Adventurers Guild.

—Adventurers Guild—

You’ll find an Adventurers Guild in every video game. It’s an organization that helps adventurers find work or otherwise supports them. It’s basically a fantasyworld version of Hello Work, that government employment service.

The Guild was housed in a fairly large building, and the smell of food drifted from within.

There was a rough lot inside, no doubt. People who might not think twice about jumping some newcomers.

| steeled myself for conflict as | entered...

..and was greeted by a waitress with short red hair, who said sweetly, “Oh, welcome! If you’re looking for work, go to the counter inside. If you’re here for a meal, please take any open seat.”

The dim interior looked to be home to a tavern.

People in armor wandered here and there, but no one seemed especially out to cause trouble.

We did seem to be getting a lot of attention, though. At first | thought maybe they didn’t get many newcomers here.

Then it dawned on me.

“Hey, | don’t like the way they’re looking at me,” Aqua said. “I know! It’s the goddess aura | exude—they’ve figured out who | really am!”

Everyone was checking out the goddess who stood beside me, spewing inanities. It made sense that she would attract attention. After all, she would be really beautiful, if she could keep her mouth shut.

| decided to ignore the stares and pursue my original objective.

“Listen, Aqua. Once we register, the Guild will give us some tutorials, teaching us how to survive as new adventurers. They should lend us enough money to go on an adventure and get us work that’ll keep food on the table even though we’re just starting out. Maybe they'll let us know where the best inns are. Most games start this way. Normally I’d say it was your job to make sure we had the basic necessities for life in this world, but...never mind. Today, let’s just get registered, make sure we’ve got enough money for starter equipment, and find somewhere to sleep.”

“| don’t know what you’re talking about. My job is to send dead people to this world. But, fine. | don’t know anything about video games, but | take it this is how you get started in this kind of world. | just have to register as an adventurer, right?”

“That’s right. Let’s go!”

| pulled Aqua along toward the counter. There were four receptionists.

Two were women.

| went to the prettier of the two.

“Hey, we could’ve gone to any of the other three and not had to wait in line,” Aqua said from behind me. “Why’d you pick this one? Wait, | get it. It’s because she’s the prettiest, isn’t it? Sheesh, just when | think maybe | can count on you for something...”

She doesn’t know anything. | turned to her and said in a whisper, “Lesson one, be on good terms with the girl at the Guild. Lesson two, the pretty ones always have a backstory. There’s gotta be an event flag waiting. Someday we'll find out that girl used to be a renowned hunter or something.”

“Come to think of it, I’ve seen that sort of thing in comic books, too. Sorry. I'll just stand in line here.”

The receptionists at the open windows all glared at us for deliberately lining up at this one, but | ignored them.

Finally it was our turn.

“Hello, how can | help you today?” The receptionist seemed very gentle and was certainly very beautiful. Her wavy hair and generous bosom gave her a mature look.

“Um, we’d like to become adventurers, but we just got here from the countryside and don’t have any idea what to do...”

If | dropped in a bit about being from the sticks or some other land, the receptionist would presumably take the initiative to tell us what we needed to know.

“| see... Well, a registration fee is required. Will that be all right?” There you go. A tutorial, just like that.

Now we just had to do what she’d told us, and...

...Registration fee?

“...Hey, Aqua, you got any cash?”

“What do you think? As if | had time to grab my wallet when you dragged me off here

What were we going to do? Maybe we could get a loan for starters, or postpone the fee?

Aqua and | stepped away from the window to plan our strategy.

“What’re we gonna do now? We've been at this for five minutes and we’ve already hit a roadblock! In a game, you usually just start with some basic equipment, or at least a little money.”

“Gosh, what happened to that manly confidence you had a few minutes ago? Oh well, | guess it can’t be helped. You are a hikikomori. Fine, my turn. You just watch. |’ll show you what it means to be a goddess.”

A man was sitting nearby in what seemed to be priest’s vestments, ratty and worn though they were. Aqua boldly strode up to him.

“You, priest! State your denomination! | am Aqua! Yes, Aqua, she who is venerated by the Church of Axis! If you be among my followers......it would... really help if you could...lend me some money.” | couldn’t tell if she was commanding or begging. “I’m afraid I’m of the Eris sect...” “Oh, is that so? Sorry to bother you, then...” | guess he wasn’t one of her followers. Aqua turned dejectedly and made to leave, but the priest called out to her.

“Oh, miss...! You’re a follower of the Axis sect? In the old stories, the goddesses Aqua and Eris were said to be senior and junior to each other. It must be fate that brought you to me. | saw you didn’t have enough money to pay the registration fee. Here, let me give you enough for that. Call it Eris’s blessing. But, miss—however devoted a follower you may be, you shouldn’t call yourself a goddess “Oh...right. Sorry. Thank you very much...”

Aqua took the money and came back, wearing a look that reminded me of a dead fish.

“Ha-ha... He didn’t even believe | was a goddess... You know, Eris is my junior. | got money because the follower of an under-goddess of mine took pity on me...

“W-well, hey—all’s well that ends well, right? It would’ve been a problem if he had believed you, wouldn’t it?” Aqua looked like she’d lost something important, and | wanted to say something encouraging.

“Um, ma’am, we’ve...got the registration fee.” “Uh...huh. That will be one thousand eris each, please.”

The priest had given Aqua three thousand eris. According to Aqua, one eris was roughly equal to one yen, so he’d basically given her three thousand yen.

The girl at the window hadn’t said anything about our little display with the priest. In fact, she seemed to hardly want to look at us. So much for lesson one.

“Now, you’ve said you want to become adventurers, so | assume you have some idea of what’s involved. But just in case, please allow me to explain. First of all, adventurers are those who fight the monsters—that is, creatures who do harm to people—outside town. However, they are also jacks-of-all-trades. Adventurer is simply a generic term for those who have accepted this life as their vocation. Each one also has an occupation.”

There it was! Finally!

This was what defined an adventurer. Call it an occupation, a job, a class—this was where we got to choose our fighting style.

Forget being some run-of-the-mill warrior. A good, flashy spell-caster class was in my future.

The receptionist set a card in front of me and another in front of Aqua. It was about the size of a driver’s license—presumably some kind of identification.

“You see the line marked /evel? As you know, every creature in this world has a soul within it. Whenever we eat or kill or otherwise end the life of another living thing, we absorb some portion of its memories. The memories we absorb are widely known as experience points. Typically, you can’t see them. However...”

She pointed to another part of the card.

“..this section will show an adventurer how many experience points he or she has gained. The corresponding level will be shown, too. So the card’s a guidepost to an adventurer’s strength and also indicates how many monsters he or she has defeated. Any living thing, once it gains enough experience, will suddenly and dramatically grow in its abilities. People often describe this as reaching a new plateau or, in a word, leveling up... At any rate, when your level goes up, you gain points, which you can spend on new skills as well as a variety of other benefits. So make sure to work hard and raise your level.”

That reminded me of what Aqua had said. You like video games, right?

Now it made sense. Everything the girl just explained was straight out of an RPG.

“I’d like you both to fill out this form. Please give your height, weight, age, 

and distinctive physical features.”

| began to write on the form she handed me. Height, five foot four; weight, a hundred and twenty pounds. Sixteen years old, brown hair, brown eyes...

“All right, thank you. Now, each of you—please touch these cards. They will show your stats so you can pick a class that matches your abilities. Based on that class, you may also be able to learn specialized skills at higher levels, so consider that when deciding on your occupation.”

Ooh, that was quick.

This was where my incredible latent abilities would become evident—no doubt the entire Guild Hall would be in an uproar. | touched the card with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

“All right, thank you. Mr....Kazuma Satou, is that right? Let’s see... Strength, Vitality, Magic, Agility...all average. Your Intelligence is on the high side... Huh? Your Luck is extremely high. Though Luck isn’t a very useful stat for adventurers, I’m afraid... What should we do? With these stats, you can’t actually specialize. You'll have to choose the basic Adventurer class. With your Luck, | might even recommend you give up adventuring and become a merchant instead... Would you like to do that?”

Wait, did | just get rejected as an adventurer? What’s this about?

It was all | could do not to smack the snickering goddess beside me. If | was weak, it would be as much a problem for her as for me. “F-fine, just...Adventurer then, please.”

“W-well,” the girl said with a worried look, “as your level goes up, your stats will improve, and you can eventually change jobs! And—notice how the Adventurer class shares its name with the word that refers to everyone who goes on adventures? It’s a sort of general occupation. Just because it’s a starter class doesn’t mean it’s bad. People with the Adventurer job can learn and use skills from any class

“The trade-off is that skills take tons of points to learn, and you can’t expect them to be anywhere near as effective as when someone of the proper class uses them. Jack-of-all-trades, master of none!” Leave it to Aqua to rain on my parade.

| wondered if | could just lose her somewhere.

Anyway, starter class or “general occupation,” it looked like | was stuck as an Adventurer. The weakest class of all.

But it didn’t matter. The weakest adventurer was still an adventurer, and | was just as poised to take on a world out of my video games. It was with no small stirring of my heart that | took the card with my name and the word

ADVENTURER...

“Wh—whaaaat?! Where did these numbers come from?! Besides your belowaverage Intelligence and your abysmal Luck, all your stats are vastly above average! Your Magic is the most amazing of all! Who or what are you, ma’am?!” The receptionist could barely contain herself as she looked at Aqua’s card.

The building filled with excited murmurs.

Wait, wasn’t that supposed to happen for me?

“R-really? S-so I’m amazing or something? Well, | guess |am me, after all...” She might be obnoxious, but she was still a goddess.

Even so, it was hard not to hate her as she grew more and more pleased with her stats.

“A-amazing doesn’t begin to cover it! You can’t pick the Wizard class, which requires high Intelligence, but...you can be anything else at all! You could be a Crusader—a Knight famed for impenetrable defense—or you could be a Sword Master, with unparalleled attack power! You could be an Arch-priest, the most advanced of the Priest classes. You can start in some of the most advanced occupations available!”

Aqua seemed to mull that over.

“| see, | see... It’s just a shame goddess isn’t a class. Well, maybe Arch-priest would be right for me, then.”

“Arch-priest it is! A very versatile class, with all types of healing and support spells, but also strong enough to stand fearlessly at the front line! Let’s see...

Arch-priest... There. Welcome to the Adventurers Guild, honored Aqua! | and the entire staff look forward to your future exploits!”

The girl at the desk had a huge smile on her face. ...What is going on here? Seriously, am | the main character or not? Well, never mind.

And this was how my life as an adventurer in a new world began.