While I was lost in thought, Tomoya suddenly grinned and said, “Hey, Nao, it’s time to do the thing, you know?”
“What do you mean, the thing?”
“Oh, you know, the thing where I cross my arms, and you stand on my arms, and then I toss you in the air! We couldn’t do it before, but we’re probably strong enough to do it now, what with our new bodies, right?”
Oh yeah, I remember seeing characters in manga get over walls that way. I’m lighter than I was before, and Tomoya’s probably stronger now as well due to Beastman muscles. However...
“Hold on, what if you mess up and end up doing a weird German Suplex on me instead? We’ve never done this before, so are you sure you can do it correctly?”
“Relax, I’m sure it’ll be fine—”
“Stop,” said Haruka. “What if you two get injured?”
Tomoya cocked his head in thought while he stretched his arms to warm up for the toss, but Haruka stopped him with a slap to the forehead.
“Try climbing on Tomoya’s shoulders first,” said Haruka. “With your skill, that should be enough to see a few kilometers ahead.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to risk getting injured right away,” I said.
“Oh, come on! I wanted to try it at least once.” Tomoya grumbled a little, but when Haruka glared at him, he hastily forced a smile of agreement, planted his feet solidly on the ground, and beckoned me over.
“Upsy daisy.” I stepped up on Tomoya’s joined hands and got on top of his shoulders. Tomoya’s body was sturdier than I’d thought at a glance, and it seemed like I also had improved physical abilities, so I managed to stand up without difficulty.
“Do you see anything?”
Looks like there’s nothing in front. Let’s see, what about behind? Hmm, a wall?
“How did it go?” asked Haruka.
I hopped off Tomoya’s shoulders and pointed in the direction where I had seen the wall. “I saw something that looked like a wall in this direction. By the way, thanks for the ride, Tomoya. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It felt like a massage, so my physical abilities must have improved a ton,” Tomoya replied, dusting off his shoulders.
“You too, Tomoya? It felt pretty different for me as well. We should probably test our abilities the first chance we get.”
“Yes, we definitely should, but let’s get to town first,” said Haruka. “We can discuss things on the way, and besides, do you want to sleep in the open with no roof?”
“Mm, let’s not,” I said. “We also don’t have any food right now.”
Having agreed to Haruka’s suggestion, we resumed our journey with Tomoya marching out in the front. Haruka had said that a highway near a town wasn’t especially dangerous, but we decided to play it safe and have our toughest member, Tomoya, lead the way. I was in the middle and Haruka brought up the rear, since she could use healing magic. Well, she should be able to, anyway.
“Since Nao saw that wall from on top of your shoulders, Tomoya, that means it’s somewhere between five to seven and a half kilometers from here. At least, that’s what it would be back on Earth.”
“Really? You’re as smart as always, Haruka! I don’t get what you’re saying at all!” Tomoya chuckled.
Haruka sighed at his reply. “Tomoya, don’t be so quick to brag about your ignorance! Besides, it’s not like I know the exact formula. I just remember that you can see about five kilometers under normal circumstances, and even if you doubled your height, you’ll only be able to see half again what you could before.”
It was basically trivia, but it still amazed me that she remembered something like that. She’s definitely built differently. It must be those 200 Points. Not that I’m jealous or anything...
“So that means we should get to our destination within two hours, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” replied Haruka. “By the way, do you two have anything on you?”
“Hm? As you can see, nothing at all. What about it?”
“Yeah, same here.” I turned around and held out my arms in front of me. All I had on me were some normal clothes (they were a little thick and felt handmade) and that was it. I had no other belongings.
“Oh, are you thinking we might have an Inventory that we haven’t checked yet?” Tomoya asked. He sounded excited about the possibility of a menu we hadn’t found earlier, but Haruka shook her head.
“No, the General Knowledge skill says nothing about that, although expensive magical satchels and bags apparently do exist. For right now, forget about that and check the pockets of your new clothes.”
I followed Haruka’s orders and checked my clothes. I did indeed have pockets, and when I thrust my hands in, I felt a few coins. They were about the same size as a one hundred yen coin. “This is money, right? Let’s see, it looks like there are ten coins here.”
“Oh, same here!” Tomoya took the same number of coins out of his pocket and held them up in his palm like I had.
Haruka inspected our coins and nodded. “Yeah, I have the same amount as well,” she said. “They’re large silver coins. Each one is worth the equivalent of about one thousand yen, although it varies a bit. As for the currency in this world, one large silver coin is worth one hundred Rea.”
I see... So these ten coins altogether are worth roughly ten thousand yen.
“Was it the evil god who gave us these clothes and money? It’s definitely pretty evil to abandon us here with just clothes and about ten thousand yen each,” said Tomoya. “Most of the additional skills were horrible too.”
Those horrible drawbacks were probably the fault of our classmates who had wished for skills they didn’t deserve, but at the same time, the fact that the god had booby-trapped the skills was super malicious.
“Really? I don’t think he was that evil. As I mentioned earlier, I believe he was actually rather kind,” said Haruka. “He gave us clothes that fit this world and enough money to both buy necessities and stay at an inn for one night. He gave the same to everyone in our class, as well, so that’s thirty-two people. Would you give a total of 320,000 yen to people you were meeting for the first time, Tomoya, and prepare clothes for them too?”
Well, when you put it that way, that evil god does sound pretty generous. He did bring us back from the dead too.
“I mean, sure, that’s one way to look at it,” I said. “But isn’t he a god? If he was actually a nice god, he wouldn’t have booby-trapped those additional skills.”
“Why would you ever depend completely upon the mercy of a god? Most of the gods in ancient mythology from around the world are totally egocentric. Take, for example, the supreme deity of the Greek Pantheon. Anyone who tried to emulate him would be nothing more than a disgusting sexual predator.”
Ah, yeah, there are a lot of spicy stories in Greek mythology. There were very few gods in that pantheon who could even be considered sane. I guess these gimmicky additional skills could be considered just pranks compared to the irrational things the Greek gods did all the time. I don’t know if it’s okay to call something that can kill you a prank, but what can you do against a god?
“Also, if you ignore the absurd ones, there are actually some useful powers among the additional skills,” said Haruka.
“Really?” said Tomoya. “Do you mean aside from the Help Guide?”
“Yes, my General Knowledge skill was an additional skill.”
“Oh yeah, I was going to ask about that,” I said. “Was that skill actually on the list? I didn’t notice it at all.” I was fairly sure that I had looked through everything at the beginning.
“I requested it during my character creation process, so that’s probably why you didn’t notice.”
“That makes sense. I didn’t search much further after I got the Help Guide and noticed the gimmicks in the first few skills I looked at.”
“This General Knowledge skill is most likely a very valuable and important one,” said Haruka. “Make sure you two ask me before you try to do anything. You wouldn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb, would you?”
That made sense. We wouldn’t have known how much these coins were worth without Haruka’s information. It would be a bit awkward to go up to some stranger and ask them about something that ought to be general knowledge or common sense in this world. Back in Japan, if someone had approached us to ask about the value of currency or about the amount they had in their pockets, we would probably guide them to a police station in case they needed to be taken to a hospital. That would seem like common sense to us.
“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Also, I just thought of a question. Will we be able to enter a town right away when we get to one?”
“No, we’ll have to pay an entry toll for towns that are surrounded by walls. The rates vary from town to town, but they tend to be in the ballpark of one hundred Rea. However, if you live in a particular town, or if you’re registered as an adventurer at the Adventurers’ Guild, then you don’t need to pay the fee.”
“Oh, so there’s an Adventurers’ Guild!” Tomoya turned around when he heard Haruka say those two words and repeated them in a joyful tone.
“Yes, there is. That’s a trope one can take for granted in this kind of fantasy world. However, don’t get into a fight with other adventurers, understood? It’s strictly forbidden! You’ll get arrested and dragged off to a dungeon, regardless of who you got into a fight with. In fact, I would say the rules for adventurers are even stricter than the rules that apply to scuffles between ordinary citizens.”
Oh, so I guess the Adventurers’ Guild in this world isn’t hands-off when it comes to fights and conflicts between adventurers.
“That makes sense, considering that most adventurers will probably be armed,” I said. “Back in Japan, I remember hearing about how you’d get a heavier punishment for public brawling if you practiced martial arts.”
“Is that how it works?” Tomoya asked with a sigh. “Oh well, I guess that means we’ll miss out on the trope of getting bullied while we’re registering as adventurers.”
Why do you sound disappointed, Tomoya?
“Okay, so our goal for now is to work hard towards a stable and sustainable life without drawing attention to ourselves, right?”
“Yes, and don’t forget the rules that you repeated earlier!” Haruka said.
“Roger. Well, I’ll eventually find a wife with animal ears!”
“Uh, yeah, good luck with that,” I said.
Haruka and I both let out a dry laugh at Tomoya’s resolve.