“It is true we are beings that greatly differ from your species. We have no defined physical body, the appearance of myself and the being in charge of Earth being nothing more than a temporary form to match that of you humans. In addition, our mental processes and the speed at which we think are vastly different than those of your race. Not only are we long-lived, our perception of time differs as well. For that reason, the being you see before you is the consciousness of only one of the numerous parallel thought processes from my true body. This consciousness, which has been given the role of watching over this world, has had its thought processing slowed down to the bare minimum and its intelligence lowered to the extreme for the purpose of interacting with your species.
“But, to be completely honest, this is all quite enjoyable. If I were to explain it in a way you would understand, it would be a sensation similar to watching an infant crawl around, or watching a small child play some silly game, one where you don’t have the slightest clue as to why they find it to be entertaining... Something along those lines.
“I don’t know if I got the point across well enough or not... Rather, my other, much more intelligent parallel thought processes are enjoying the emotion I am feeling right now. The sense of respect I feel toward the being in charge of Earth is genuine. I, or rather, the foundation that makes up my real body, has a profound respect for that being’s true form, which would most likely be the cause of why I hold such strong feelings for them. My current body and real body are one and the same, after all. Just like myself, the supervisor in charge of Earth is only an extremely small portion of the foundation of that being’s consciousness, so they seem like a person worthy of my respect for them... Or something like that. And so, considering the situation that being found themselves in, they approached you in earnest and did what they thought was right for you. To be honest, I think they may be a bit excessive in their approach...but that is very much like that being, which is wonderful in and of itself. That is why I want to respect their intentions as much as possible. Was that clear enough?”
As she finished talking, the intense expression on her face reverted back to the happy-go-lucky feeling she had before. Did she boost her level of intelligence just for that conversation? I felt like that was probably the case. If she didn’t, then the difference in how she talked up till now would be too immense. If that was how she normally was, I would’ve never gotten my Item Box, let alone the other “services” she would provide me. Or maybe all that was the “service” she was talking about?
Well, no matter. All I could do now was give it my all in taking on this girl in front of me!
“Yes, I understand... Well, it’s not like I understood everything, actually, but I feel like I have a handle on most of it. So, thank you very much. With that, I’ve asked everything I wanted to. All I have left is one final request.”
Swallowing my spit with a gulp, I asked the question:
“Please, um... Please be my friend!”
The goddess froze up, her mouth hanging open.
It’s fine, right?! I don’t have a single friend in this world! I only had two in the last one, even!
I went woozy for just a moment, but I planted my feet firmly on the ground and waited it out. All right, I’ve gotten the hang of this now! ...But even though I was finally used to it, I’d never get another chance to put that experience to use. Probably.
Well, here I was in one of those “other worlds” I’d heard so much about. It was supposed to be called “Verny” or something.
After Celes came out of her cosmic entity mode, she happily agreed to be my friend and threw her arms around me. It seemed her galaxy brain powers only lasted for when she was explaining everything to me. Once she finished, she just went back to her previous, happy-go-lucky self. She spent a good amount of time rubbing up against me, having me think up new ways of her getting closer to God, and a whole bunch of other things as well. When I was finally freed from our little bonding session, that was when I found myself standing in this new world.
It looked like I was standing about halfway up some sort of small hill, and I could see sparse clumps of trees all around me. There was a town way off in the distance, but it wasn’t surrounded by walls or anything. Seemed like it was full of fairly normal-looking buildings as far as I could tell.
I should probably be aiming for the town for now, but, before that, I wanted to check out my new body. I’d be spending a long time with it after all, so I wanted to be thorough about it. Had to make sure to send my complaints to Celes if there was anything wrong with it, and I could ask for extra stuff at the same time! Just call me Kaoru Almighty. I doubt Celes was going to give me her powers or anything if I kept complaining about her though.
With that, I began running all sorts of tests on myself, including stretching out, jumping around, patting myself down in a bunch of different places; stuff like that. The results: It seemed like I really was back to the body I had when I was fifteen years old. I couldn’t check my face since I didn’t have a mirror or anything, but it at least felt right from what I could tell. Still, you didn’t have to get every single little detail right, Celes! I wouldn’t have minded a bit more strength, or some more endurance, or, you know... A little bust enhancement wouldn’t have hurt! I would’ve been completely fine with that!
Dammit...
Height-wise, I thought there was maybe a one centimeter difference between fifteen-year-old me and me at twenty-two, so it didn’t feel like much had changed. I was about 157 centimeters, or a little under five feet two inches for all you people stateside. I was a little bit heavier back then too. Instead of thinking about maintaining my body, I was more focused on things like club activities. And my appetite. Man, I was so young then... (Super serious.)
What I really had a beef with was my chest.
Yeah, back when I was twenty-two I could barely call myself a B-cup... But now, sadly enough, I was a solid A. No, this was a rarity! Only one in twenty people in Japan had the privilege of bearing this status nowadays! Celes was the same too, so I guess that meant we matched now. Maybe that was why she was so happy when I asked her if we could be friends...
Wait, Celes had the ability to change how she looked to whatever she wanted to, didn’t she? Grrr...
Hold on, just calm down, me. Now wasn’t the time to get angry at her...yet. Deep breaths, deep breaths...
For the time being, the body check was over. Next up, a powers check. I thought I’d give my most important ability a shot: potion creation. I stuck out my right hand and concentrated.
Give me a health potion that tastes like a sports drink!