R-Really?! All right! Leave it to Li’l Satie to earn a perfect score! “And 100 SP means I can buy...”
“That’s right, Mr. Sneaky’s all yours! Go do crimes or whatever!”
“I’m not gonna use it to commit crimes or anything, but thanks anyway.” The Goddess tossed me an egg-shaped device—Mr. Sneaky, apparently. Now I could have my own private time away from the prying eyes of the Goddess! Good, good! There were certain things I wouldn’t want this little girl Goddess to see! (That’s why up until now I’ve just been settling for playing with my boobs a lot.)
“To be honest, I’m shocked!” the Goddess continued. “I was sure your offering wouldn’t merit enough points, and I was prepared to recommend you a loan plan or have you pay in installments—dragging you into crippling debt in the process—but to think you achieved a perfect score right off the bat! You’re a terrifying force to be reckoned with.”
“I’d say what you just uttered was much more terrifying.” I was already the kind of person who didn’t like to leave any debts behind when I borrowed something, so just the notion of being indebted to the Goddess made me panic. “By the way, I’ve been wondering... I wasn’t of sound mind when I took those socks, and yet I preserved them in my space perfectly, even freezing time right when I needed to. You didn’t possess me again, did you?”
“Nope. Like I said before, that body of yours comes equipped with an innate, insatiable desire for socks. That’s why you instinctively preserved them. The gods can’t lie!”
Really...? Well, I guess I have no choice but to believe her anyway. Even if she was lying, I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Still, though, you’ve really been putting in the work. To think I gave you some vague mission on a whim, and you’ve now come back with two pairs of high-quality socks in such a short time!”
“O-Oh, er, thanks...I guess?”
“I knew putting a man’s soul in a cute girl’s body was the right move! A girl’s mind just lacks that key level of assertiveness, and if I kept you in a man’s body, everyone would just think you were a creep! You should be praising my keen insight!”
“Well, no complaints on that front, so sure.”
“Well, you in particular surely would’ve been drawn to the sock life even if I hadn’t mentioned it! You were born under that star, after all.”
“Yeah, because you made my body that way!” If there really were such a smelly star, no doubt it would also be under this Goddess’s jurisdiction.
“Now I’m looking even more forward to your offerings in the future, Karina! I’m especially anticipating the socks from your slave, Aishia!”
“Well, that’s pretty much her only job right now, but okay.”
I strongly suspected I was being manipulated in multiple ways, but as it hadn’t inconvenienced me so far, I decided I’d continue to curry favor with the Goddess. Through socks, of course.
“By the way, Goddess, I punished a bunch of delinquents. Wanna hear what happened?”
“Sure, go ahead and tell me. I already watched it all go down, though.”
So you were watching.
“After all, you punished them in my name, correct?” she said.
“Er... Well, technically.”
“Then wouldn’t it be only natural that I’d hear my name, get curious, and come to watch?”
“Er... I suppose.” Yeah, I did question their faith and tell them the Goddess was furious with them to threaten them, but only to give them a scare.
“Besides, when your amusement level is off the charts like that, I’ve gotta at least check and see what’s up.”
“Amusement level?”
“Yeah, it rises whenever you feel like you’re enjoying yourself. I may be a divine being, but even I wanna see some entertainment every now and then, you know? And what better metric to determine what I’d find entertaining than a beauty like you made in my image? That was another critical reason for your body’s appearance—I needed you to have a form I could empathize with more easily!”
So this “amusement level” was another key factor, was it?
“To put it in simpler terms,” she continued, “it’s like getting a push notification that one of my favorite streamers has gone live. By the way, I also watch your mini-streams every morning.”
So whenever I was enjoying myself, the Goddess got notified about it?! Yikes... Then I guess purchasing Mr. Sneaky was the right move after all.
“Anyway, the way you handled those delinquents... I had a blast watching it!”
“As long as you enjoyed yourself, that’s all that matters.”
“It looked to me like those men were enjoying their forced skydiving session too.”
“They were indeed. Oh, just to clarify, I made sure not to hit their vitals, so their lives weren’t in danger or anything.”
“I couldn’t have cared less if you’d killed them, actually, but I guess that just shows how generous you are. You’re a good girl, Karina!” She patted my head with a grin.
Hearing her speak about the deaths of her own subjects as casually as discussing the weather reminded me that despite her little girl appearance, she was still a superior entity. “Do the lives of humans not mean anything to you gods at all?”
“Unless they catch my interest in some way, not really. And I don’t really force the humans of this world to worship me. It’s not the only world I own, after all.”
“Wait, so this world to you is just like a PC collector buying one more rig for his collection?!”
“More or less. I mean, wouldn’t that only be natural for a superior being like me?”
So to her, this world was nothing more than a hobby. Yeah, I suppose that tracks, considering she didn’t hesitate to wreak havoc on it in order to eliminate a guy stupid enough to claim her lover’s name.
“At any rate, using me to threaten a bunch of ne’er-do-wells was honestly more entertaining than I thought,” the Goddess said. “Feel free to use my name however you want in the future too! Get ’em to bow before you, like the great Lord Mito!”
“Are you sure that’s okay? Wait, you actually know about that old Japanese TV drama?”
“Of course. I’m a goddess, after all!”
That’s the reason, huh? Well, apparently she also knows about revolving payments and live streaming, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
“In fact, if you’re ever about to do something interesting like that, go ahead and use my name anyway so I’ll know to tune in!” she continued. “As your goddess, I’ll watch over you! Rather, if you don’t call me, I’ll be all pouty, and you don’t want that.”
Apparently, when I performed duties in her name, it established a simple ritual that made it easier for her to watch what I was doing. It apparently made her see me at a higher resolution or something.
“You should also call me if there’s some big event or drama going on. Even if it turns out to be boring, I won’t be upset or anything. Even ‘just chatting’ streams can be fun in their own way!”
“Sounds like you have a lot of free time on your hands, Goddess.”
“Well, of course. As the Goddess of Time and Space, I have all the time in the world! Oh, but just be careful—I won’t be able to see you if Mr. Sneaky’s active, and a stream with no picture or sound? No thanks!”
“Gotcha. Er, I’ll call you if something like that comes up.”
“Really? Yay! Actually, you know what? I’ll award you bonus SP if it’s especially entertaining!”
Ooh, bonus SP? That did sound nice. The fewer socks I could get by with offering, the less effort I had to make on my end!
“Anyway, that concludes today’s appraisal, but before you go, allow me to offer you some extra information you might be interested in. Actually, one of those sacred treasures I mentioned is in your vicinity and should therefore be incredibly easy to recover—somewhere around Solasidore, as a matter of fact.”
Come to think of it, gathering the sacred treasures was another way I could earn SP, wasn’t it? “Er, this would be even easier if you, well, told me where these sacred treasures are.”
“Huh? But that wouldn’t be any fun.”
If my memory’s correct, didn’t you say the world’s in an energy deficit and in danger of collapsing if I didn’t fetch those treasures? Wait, no, then you clarified that as long as you kept supplying the world with energy, it wouldn’t collapse—so I guess to you, it wasn’t that big a deal. I’m sure you see sock gathering as the more pressing matter here.
“In any case, do your best to entertain me more with your antics in the future! Fair wheel! (･ω･)ﾉｼ”
“R-Right, see ya.” Fair wheel? That’s not even a real salutation, Goddess. And I’m not even going to comment on the emoticon anymore. I mean, it’s one thing to put it in text, but how are you even saying it out loud—dammit, I ended up commenting on it after all.