5 A New Me
It had been minutes since the goddess had cursed me with this new body, and I still didn't know how I looked right now. My eyes wandered around, restlessly searching for a mirror, a puddle or a metal plate, anything that could show me my face, but there was nothing to be found.
Naturally, I had felt for those fox ears of mine. And sure enough, they were two big, furry ears waiting to be touched by my restless fingers. Each of them felt warm and soft to the touch and sensitive too, though not as much as the base of my even more soft and furry tail.
The goddess had transported me into the weathered ruins of a temple or a castle, right onto a wide platform that easily reached my shoulders in height. It had been built using beige sandstones that were easily several times my own weight.
Countless tiles that seemed to be made of something like ceramic covered the surface of the platform. Each of them was painted in dull colors that most likely had been bright and vivid a long time ago when there was still somebody taking care of them.
Aside from a large, round hole in the ceiling right above the platform, there was no other source of light to be found. And even this one now showed a slightly reddish and orange sky, indicating it was either morning or late in the day.
The sunlight didn't only fall on the platform itself, but on the walls of the hall too, where it revealed weathered drawings of animals and colorful tiles and mosaics that once showed beautiful women. The cracked ceramic pieces formed ears like the one the goddess had, and red-brownish or sometimes black hair.
The by far brightest and most sophisticated of these paintings had become my bed and birthplace, as it occupied almost all of the surface of the platform I had woken up on. It featured the sole woman that had white hair instead, just like the goddess had, though this picture looked much more elegant and mature when compared to the appearance of the goddess.
«Could be her mother...»
The goddess didn't waste a single comment on my discoveries. She had been silent for some time already, which I obviously was more than happy about.
After all the things I had gone through today, I would probably be unable to stay polite and objective when subjected to her silly remarks. And even though she was a behaving like a trickster and a brat, she was still a goddess that could easily influence my life for the worse, should I ever choose to anger her.
My long search finally ended when I found a large crack in the ceiling, which let through a few beams of light and, much more importantly, I seemingly neverending stream of droplets, which gathered on the sandstone below my feet, forming a large, algae-infested puddle.
The light shining on the puddle wasn't exactly bright and its surface was covered with ripples, but it was still more than enough to confirm my fears.
When I bend over the puddle, the vague silhouettes of what seemed to be a more than just beautiful face appeared in front of me. The girl looked around my age, about seventeen years old, maybe slightly younger, and fox-red hair covered her head. It was pretty long, long enough to cover my bare chest, and slightly wavy like the white hair of the goddess.
The two ears I had discovered before looked almost exactly how I had imagined them. They hadn't got short hair like those of a cat, but were rather fluffy instead, making them look even softer than they really were.
"...cute."
「I know, I know!」 A gleeful voice rang through my mind.
"..."
「So what will we do now?」
"We? Nothing."
「But missy~」
"I'm not your missy! You lied to me!"
「How did I lie?! I would never lie to you!」
"You promised me a healthy new body!"
「I did give you one!」
"But it is a girl's! It isn't mine! I wanted my body!"
「I already told you don't know how you looked down there! I couldn't give you a man's body!」
"And what about Mira?! You told me you would be with me!"
「Mira? She is here!」
"Show me! Show me the way to her!"
「Okay~」
It took her a few seconds to come up with more than this short reply. A pale-green, half-transparent screen appeared in front of me, on it a series of white letters that I was oddly familiar with. The numbers, however, couldn't be any more different.
『Status
===Bio:
Name: Rika
Gender: Female
Race: Demi-Human; Sub-Race: Foxkin
Class: None
Level: 1 - 0% EXP
===Attributes
HP: 5
MP: 5
Strength: 1
Vitality: 1
Spirit: 1
Intelligence: 1
Dexterity: 1
Physical Attack: 2 (+0)
Magical Attack: 2 (+0)
Physical Defense: 2 (+0)
Magical Defense: 2 (+0)』
"..."
⊱————- Extra ————-⊰
Rika: 5 HP...
???: I couldn't help it, you know?!
Rika: I will die with one hit!
???: It will be fine! I will help you grow stronger!
Rika: How am I supposed to defeat monsters with this weak body?
???: We can start with insects, you know?
Rika: Insects?
???: A few thousand will be enough for a level up!
Rika: Thousands?!
???: It will be fiine~
Rika: How am I supposed to find that many of them?!
???: You can lure them in!
Rika: Lure them? How?
???: Just kill a mouse and leave it on the ground. There will be flies and ants coming from everywhere!
Rika: Can I even kill a mouse?
???: Oh...
Rika: I CAN'T?!
