Aqua took the money and came back, wearing a look that reminded me of a dead fish.
“Ha-ha… He didn’t even believe I was a goddess… You know, Eris is my junior. I 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 I 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 I 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 level? 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.”
I 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. I 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, I might even recommend you give up adventuring and become a merchant instead… Would you like to do that?”
Wait, did I just get rejected as an adventurer? What’s this about?
It was all I could do not to smack the snickering goddess beside me.
If I 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.
I wondered if I could just lose her somewhere.
Anyway, starter class or “general occupation,” it looked like I was stuck as an Adventurer. The weakest class of all.
But it didn’t matter. The weakest adventurer was still an adventurer, and I was just as poised to take on a world out of my video games. It was with no small stirring of my heart that I took the card with my name and the word ADVENTURER…
“Wh—whaaaat?! Where did these numbers come from?! Besides your below-average 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, I guess I 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.
“I see, I 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! I 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 I the main character or not?