New Beginnings 2

She wasn't about to let these people, as nice as they were, onto the fact that their friend Dust hadn't actually done much.

She'd spun a sob story about her family being killed – true enough, if one considered her second life – and that all she had was what was on her. The other three had treated her nicely, given her some of their food, and generally cooed over her for a while as they shot harsh looks at their friend.

Sometimes, it was nice being malnourished and resembling a girl four years younger than you were with a voice to match.

Not often. But sometimes.

Now, they were waiting. She had stopped acting like a petulant twelve-year-old, to squeak out a few questions about the place she was in.

Tanya had gotten good at lying to both friends and higher-ups about how she had knowledge that she really shouldn't have, or how she knew that the Alliance Cordiale's forces were going to try any specific thing. Trying to justify her ability to speak Akitsushiman to Viktoriya had been the hardest, if only because the looks of suspicion had been so unfamiliar and…

Shame-inducing.

These three were considerably easier, and they bought her act hook, line, and sinker, as expected.

What was this town? She had only been travelling with her father in order to sell some of his stuff.

They were in Axel. It was the beginning town of adventurers, a major crossroad for travelers, and one of the Kingdom of Belzerg's greatest assets. It was isolated from the forces of the Demon King, due to the distance from his castle, as well as its distance from the border.

The Demon King was having enough trouble with the Kingdom of Belzerg and the tentative help of the countries surrounding it. He didn't want to antagonize anyone else, and attacking a town so close to the border wouldn't do him wonders.

What was the money called? She wasn't from around here, and didn't know how to use this weird currency.

The money was called Eris. They were named after a goddess whose followers had a strong presence throughout Belzerg.

Judging from the meal Tanya had gotten, they were probably similar to Yen, although that wasn't all that likely due to the inflation and wildly different economies that the two nations had. She'd figure out more as time went on, she supposed.

Tanya had merely hidden her anger at the mention of the 'g' word, letting her left eye twitch for only a moment and hoping her hair wasn't doing that thing Viktoriya said it did when she began thinking too hard or got really annoyed.

How would she survive? She didn't have any family, as her siblings had all perished.

They couldn't support her, but she could earn money by either becoming some sort of servant or by becoming an adventurer. Tanya had thought, for a moment, about becoming a maid and avoiding Demon King entirely.

Then the contract, still pressed into the folds of her clothing with the relics heaven had given her, burned hotly. She winced, and the adventurers had expressed concern.

Tanya just waved them off, explaining it as "Tummy trouble."

They'd all melted at that, and they had directed her to the Guild's admission desk.

Tanya had thanked them in the high-pitched tone she had been using, and walked away briskly towards the desk she'd been pointed at.

It seemed that the contract would take steps to ensure she would try to oppose the Demon King.

Fine then. Hypothetically, if someone in her situation were to become a maid, then they would be guaranteed freedom and wouldn't have to risk their lives.

Tanya paused her steps, hoping that searing pain wouldn't strike her again.

It didn't.

Emboldened, she continued her 'hypothetical' thoughts. On the other hand, said person wouldn't be able to get that wish.

Tanya sighed. She supposed she would look at what an adventurer could do, and then compare it to the army.

Tanya turned a corner, and stopped the carefree skip that she had adopted as she had walked away from the group.

Now that they couldn't see her, she sighed. Sure, they might not have thought anything was weird with her questions. This was, apparently, some sort of crossroads for travelers, meaning that it wouldn't have been out of place for someone to wander in not knowing anything about the place.

One could never be too sure, however.

Quickly, she strode up to the front desk, studying the receptionist as she approached. Blonde hair, a kindly face, clothing as… open as every other maid that she had seen here, she seemed to be perfect for this job, as far as looks went.

If nothing else, enticing young people into taking up whatever job they were offering here would be fairly simple, if they only thought with the organ between their legs.

"Hello. What can I do for you today?"

Tanya rested an elbow on the countertop, privately wishing that she were taller so that that action wasn't so uncomfortable.

Fighting the urge to glue her face to the woman's chest – sixteen years of orphanage-brand rags and military uniforms to hide whatever bodies women had underneath their clothing could do that to someone when they finally encountered someone showing a bit of skin – Tanya began to speak.

"Yes. I've come to learn about being an adventurer."

The blonde woman smiled, and pointed at the signs that sat to the side of the receptionist area. Tanya walked around, circling the signs, and began to read the chalk boards.

WHAT IS AN ADVENTURER?

HELLO READER! IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT PURSUING A CAREER IN ADVENTURING.

POSITIVES OF DOING THIS:

YOU CAN HELP THE KINGDOM OF BELZERG AGAINST THE CONTINUAL ONSLAUGHT OF THE DEMON KING'S FORCES

YOU GET PAID MONEY TO FIGHT THE VARIOUS MONSTERS THAT CAN ATTACK THE CITY OF AXEL

IF THERE ARE NO MONSTERS, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO TAKE ON JOBS NOT USUALLY AVAILABLE TO COMMONERS

And on it went. It described many, many positives of the job, and not one negative.

Tanya just shook her head with a rueful smile. If it didn't list any negatives, then there must have been some sort of drawback – there was with nearly everything. Would she be pressed into fighting? Was the pay lackluster?

Tanya shrugged. If this job wasn't willing to reveal what might be so bad about it, she'd just join the army. She knew how those worked, after all.

Tanya, once again, strode up to the counter. "Ma'am."

The woman looked down from where she had been… filing paperwork.

"Yes. Are you ready to register?" she asked kindly. Tanya shook her head. This world seemed to be an odd mix of advanced and backward, if it had paperwork and, presumably, the printing press, but it didn't have advanced weapons.

"Actually, I was wondering how old you need to be to join the army."

The woman went stiff, clasping her hands together quickly. "Oh, you wouldn't want to do that," she said.

Tanya scowled. "Actually, I do. Being part of an army allows for much faster advancement, and-"

The girl cut her off. "No, it doesn't. The people who join, who aren't connected, are thrown into the conscript force, shown how to hold a spear, and then told to pray. No training, no nothing. I would suggest that you become an adventurer, little girl," she warned, her face losing some of the carefree cheer it had contained.

Tanya blanched. She'd been part of the Empire's relative meritocracy, which allowed for someone to advance through the ranks quickly, regardless of skill, apparent age, or lack of connections. She'd forgotten how much the wider world didn't really like having young girls with no background in their army.

Well, there went becoming a high ranking commander and dealing the fatal blow to the Demon King after letting others do the hard work. She wouldn't even be able to command troops and train them her way. She'd be locked into the lower ranks, constantly passed up for nobles of lesser skill.

"And besides," the woman added, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "the minimum age for recruitment is eighteen. The Princess would have joined it if it was the age of majority, and the King didn't want that."

Tanya filed away that tidbit. It seemed that this world wouldn't be as inherently opposed to her for her outward appearance as a woman as the last one would have been, had she not been born in the Empire's meritocracy.

"Fine, fine. I'll become an adventurer," she relented, throwing a bag of Eris onto the counter. The woman smiled, took the money, and ducked underneath the counter. A few moments of grunting and heaving later, she stood up again, carrying some object.

She soon came out from behind the counter, placed the object down, and held up what looked like a blank index card.

The device looked… out of place. There were golden gears and other mechanisms on parts of it, while some sort of sphere, similar in its glowing brightness to her Type 95, sat at the top. Something that resembled a nozzle dipped down between the two legs of the thing.

"Let me formally explain," she said.

The woman smiled and began to do just that. "Adventurers each have their own occupations, which is kept track of on your Adventurer's Card, which records other information, like the number of monsters you've killed," she said, gesturing to the blank card.

Tanya, however, was panicking slightly. Not out of any fear of monsters – whatever they were, she'd learn later. No, a much more important question loomed in her mind.

Did people count as monsters?

Because, if so, she'd have to explain how she'd managed to kill upwards of two hundred mages and an unknown amount of foot soldiers, pilots, and seamen, and she didn't really think they'd accept any explanation she could give them.

The woman carried on, unaware of Tanya's thoughts. "Whenever you eat food or kill something with a soul, you absorb a portion of its memories, which increases your experience," she said.

"When you have enough experience, your level will increase, unlocking new skills and earning you Skill Points. So please, work hard to increase your level," she finished, bowing at the waist. Tanya nodded back, hoping that her card wouldn't be able to tell what she had already done and wondering about how much this world sounded like some sort of cheap, mobile MMORPG.

Levels? Skills? Points? Experience? Monsters? None of that sounded like it should apply to real life!

But here she was, in a world where that was reality. Tanya sighed. She'd make the best of her situation, like she always had. She turned her attention to the device the woman had gestured to, on top of the counter.

The woman gestured to the device. "Please hold your hand above this crystal."

Slightly dubious and letting her skepticism show through on her face, Tanya held her hand out as indicated, and watched as the mechanisms on the side began to turn and the crystal began to glow brightly.

She raised an eyebrow as it drew in a bit of her mana. No doubt, this was how it recorded the information. Perhaps, just as Tanya could record the signatures of enemy mages to recognize named mages, the glowing device could do something more… specific.

A piercing whine erupted from the thing, and a laser erupted from the nozzle, moving quickly across the surface of the Adventurer's Card.

Tanya leaned in, both anticipating and dreading what it might say. Hopefully, it wouldn't record the people she had killed. If it did, and someone asked questions, then she'd flee.

It stopped after a few seconds, and as the light died down, the woman picked up the card.

"Let's see… Tanya von Degurechaff?" she asked. Tanya nodded.

"Yes, that's me," she said, motioning for the card.

The woman muttered, "What an odd middle name," and continued to hold it, studying it. She gasped in surprise, and Tanya's face fell.

She had been found out. She would have to fly as far as she could, and hope that she could outrun the authorities. How would she fly without the Type 95, and was flying an ability other people had? She needed to fix tha-

"Interesting! You have a mix of different stats. Your Strength is Decently Low, and your Health is Below Average, but otherwise, almost all of your stats are-"

Then the woman stopped. When she continued to stare at the card, a look of disbelief plastered on her face, Tanya saw her chance and asked another question and hopefully distracted her from whatever was wrong. "What did you mean when you said 'Below Average'?"

She looked up from the card, tilting her head at Tanya in bewilderment. "Huh?"

Tanya sighed. "Average compared to what? All living things? All Humans? All sixteen-year-old girls?" she asked, staring pointedly at the card.

If her Strength was 'Decently Low' compared to all humans, then it would make sense. She wasn't that strong without reinforcing her body.

But if her Strength was 'Decently Low' compared to all living things, including stuff like grass, then she'd be humiliated. Because being weaker than grass was probably impossible, unless the grass here was a type of… 'monster,' or something.

The receptionist opened her mouth, for a moment, as if to respond, then shut it with a snap. She chuckled nervously, and began to explain. "Well, it's been theorized that it's compared to everyone else that has an Adventurer's Card, but truthfully, that's only the best guess."

Tanya sighed again. Advanced in some way, backwards in others.

They could easily test that by looking at all of the Adventurer's Cards and calculating the averages. It might be hard to do that over long distances in such a technologically stunted time as this, but even a local survey would help identify the truth.

The woman – whose name she should really find out – shook her head, and continued to stare at her card. "Now, as I was saying, most of your stats hover between Below Average and Above Average, and…" she trailed off again.

Tanya merely made a grabbing motion with her hand, hoping that she wasn't reading something that told her she was from another world or that she had killed a few hundred people. For rather obvious reasons, that would be detrimental to her continued well-being.

"Besides your Strength being Decently Low, your Magic-Power is Extraordinary! And you already have a bunch of skills!" she shouted. Tanya gave her a weak smile, and continued to grab at it.

'Please don't see the people I've killed. Please don't see that she was from a different world. Please , Please , Please .'

The woman didn't hear Tanya's inaudible pleas, and started to lay out what she could be. "Of course, you won't be able to become any sort of Fighter-type jobs, but you could pick up a few of the advanced classes right away! And you even have some Skill Points too!"

Tanya nodded, and then she cringed as the people from around the bar began to surround them and murmur.

"Like what?" she asked, shifting her eyes nervously, still hoping that no one would see anything about her past lives on that card.

"Plenty! Judging by the skills you already have, some of the classes you could pick up right now are: Ranger, an Archmage, or even Enchanter!" she cried out.

The people around them erupted into cheers, but Tanya was just confused. She might have been able to provide a vague guess as to what the last two were, but she had no clue what a Ranger was. Maybe it had to do with scouting?

"Er… can I see what those are?" she asked, motioning for the card again. The woman nodded, and Tanya snatched it.

Finally, she could see what it looked like.

Her name was written across the top, while a simplified picture of the profile of her head was in the upper right corner. Scowling, Tanya noticed that it even depicted that stupid fucking ahoge on the top of her head.

Underneath her name, her age, race, and gender were listed out – 16 and human for the first two, though the last was decidedly… smudged – and under that was a section titled 'DESCRIPTION'.

'ONCE A WORKER IN HIS COMPANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT, AND THEN A BATTLE-HARDENED IMPERIAL MAGE: TANYA VON DEGURECHAFF HAS BEEN THRUST INTO A THIRD LIFE, INTENT ON TURNING THE GODS' BARGAIN ON THEMSELVES. WILL SHE SUCCEED? WHO KNOWS!'

Tanya breathed a sigh of relief that the woman hadn't read it. She continued down, surveying the other fields.

Her 'STATS' resided underneath that description, with a number resting next to each of them. Her Magic-Power number was imprinted in bright blue, while her strength was a dull red. A box labeled 'LEVEL' sat near the center, with a 1 on the inside.

Next to her stats was the most important thing: a list titled 'SKILLS', with a number ten next to it. That number was presumably the number of 'Skill Points' she had.

She looked at the first entry on the list.

'Passive Shell: Deflects debris and small caliber bullets. Shield strength determined by Magic-Power.'

That was a fairly accurate description of her Passive Shell, even if it was a bit vague. And so she looked down the list. It described each of her formulas – though it called each of them by the archaic term 'spell' – and put them into different categories. Her shields and most of her more combat-oriented formulas were considered under Magic-User Type, her Reinforcement formulas were for Monks, while a fair few of her Observation formulas were considered Rogue-Like Type. Her ability to pray and then activate the Type 95 was marked as Priest Type.

Most importantly, however, was the fact that a fair few of her skills were labeled 'Crafting'. Almost all of them were related to her ability to imbue her projectiles with formulas.

She needed all of them to continue to function as she had, and trying to learn some new way of doing things could take too long.

Being X wouldn't let this go unpunished, after all. Tanya was sure that once heaven had enough mana, Being X would, at the least, send her another angry rant detailing how she should have just submitted to him already.

If he sent someone after her while she was in the middle of trying to adapt to a new way of fighting, she might very well die.

Besides that, learning a new way to do things could also mean missing out on killing the Demon King. It wasn't as if everyone else reincarnated to this world would simply wait for her to retrain before trying to kill him.

Tanya looked up at the woman. "Er… miss… What is your name?"

The woman, who had been leaning in, straightened up and chuckled a bit. "Sorry about not introducing myself. I'm Luna," she supplied. Then, she leaned in again. "Have you decided which ones you will give up?"

Tanya sighed. She hadn't looked at every skill she had, but she knew one thing. She didn't want to give up any of her current arsenal.

While each of her skills had been listed as a different type, none of them had been described as belonging to a single job. She wasn't about to lose what over five years of training and fighting had instilled in her, not without a much more concrete future ahead of her.

Of course, she was most familiar with using a gun, something that she doubted the people here had invented yet. She wouldn't be able to imbue her bullets with formulas if she didn't have any bullets. Which meant that she'd probably need to learn how to make one, or pay someone to do it for her.

"Is there any class that would allow me to keep everything I have?" she asked, looking up from her card.

Luna's face fell, and she began to play with her hair. "Well… there is… one. The Adventurer Job is the most basic one possible. Your skills won't get boosted like they do if you choose a regular class, and learning more advanced skills from other adventurers means you have to pay more Skill Points," she laid out.

Tanya nodded, and the woman continued. "But you can learn any skill once you've seen it performed, regardless of class, and the Adventurer Class can be easily switched to a different one later on."

Tanya nodded, and began to weigh her options. She looked back down at her card.

'Crafting Type', huh?

"Er… what are the Crafting Type jobs?" she asked.

Luna smiled brightly again, happy to be talking about any other job than the Adventurer one. "Crafting Type jobs are a wide variety of different things. They do, as the name implies, involve creating something. The Enchanter can imbue objects and weapons with mana, while a Creator can mold the elements into beasts to do their bidding," she explained.

Tanya nodded. "Are there any other ones?" she asked.

"Well," she said, counting her fingers, "those are the only two I know of that you could have. The Blacksmith is another well-known one, but that has a Strength requirement that you do not meet."

Tanya grinned. If the name of the job was anything to go by, learning some of a Blacksmith's skills meant that she could remake her rifle. She wouldn't have to give up her style of fighting, hopefully.

"Alright. I'll take the Adventurer Job, please. I'm already used to what I have," she said, handing her card back to Luna.

The receptionist sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and began to fill out the card using the device that Tanya had first seen. "Alright, then. Your loss."

Tanya looked at the crowd, who seemed to become less interested. Tanya crossed her arms, and attempted to sound as confident as possible. "That's just what you think. I could beat anyone in this bar at an arm wrestling contest using my unique skills," she claimed.

Laughter echoed from the crowd, and Tanya turned to them as Luna handed her back her card. "Oh, you don't think I can? Or do you all think that someone with a Strength stat like mine can't win?" she said boastfully, eyeing the crowd.

"Heh, I'll take you on!" came a voice from the crowd. Tanya watched as Dust stepped forward, pushing past the people. The crowd began to mutter.

"How despicable, Dust will even fight children…"

"We should have expected it, from the pathetic Dust."

"How deluded is this girl, to think she can beat Dust with such a low Strength stat?"

Dust walked to a table and the crowd glared. Tanya was confused as to why everyone was looking at Dust like he was the scum of the Earth, but she ignored the why and focused on what it meant. They thought that Tanya would lose, even if they wanted to root against Dust.

Head shaking slowly, Luna strolled back behind the counter, and Tanya thanked her silently. That the receptionist wasn't intervening meant she'd have free reign to establish herself.

The faster she was established as being powerful, the sooner she could gain allies that could help her take down the Demon King.

Team members, sure, but also regular people. People who had skills or services Tanya might need to increase her own chances of survival, considering none of that would be provided to her for free if she wasn't in the army.

The man walked over to her, sat down at a nearby table, and crossed her arms. "Before we start this, we've gotta have some sort of wager," he said, grinning.

Tanya, having taken her seat, raised an eyebrow. "What kind of wager?" she asked hesitantly. She wasn't going to do some vague 'in the future' promise. But, based on their first conversation, he probably wanted…

"Monetary."

Tanya's skeptical eyebrow lowered, and she retrieved the remaining money she had from within her clothing. Most of her money had already been spent registering as an adventurer and on her meal. This was what she'd taken from that thief.

Dust caught her unsure look at the bag, and Dust waved a hand. "We can skip that, I guess. It's almost not worth the effort," he bragged.

Tanya shook her head, grinning at him. "No, you're right. Need to show I think I can beat you, right?" she said, placing the money on the table.

Dust's eyebrows rose now. Then, he grinned and placed a similar looking bag on the table. "Alright, little Tanya. Let's go!"

With that, Dust slammed her arm on the table.

A person who had spent years of his life adventuring. A petite little girl, wearing what amounted to dirty, thin clothing and a tattered rag of a cloak. Based on how they looked, it seemed obvious who would win.

Appearances were deceiving. No one here knew that Tanya had two items worth more than a good portion of the interior of the guild for their artistic value alone. No one knew that Tanya had spent nearly half of her current life subverting everyone's expectations besides her own and, near the end, the ever-faithful Viktoriya's.

Languidly, Tanya placed her elbow opposite of Dust's. Her speed in doing this wasn't just to present an air of superiority. She was also stalling for time to test how much the Reinforcement formulas would cost in terms of mana.

It had taken hours of using the Reinforcement formulas in her last life before they could show signs of damage in a user, but that was with a Computation Jewel and in a different world. She would have to use more magic, based on her earlier experiments with the formulas.

She'd see what this experiment yielded.

As Dust grinned, Tanya began to calculate her Reinforcement formula, taking care not to let any of her mana stray towards the Type 95. She wouldn't be known as anything other than a religious nutcase if she began spouting off about some invisible man in the sky.

"Nervous? Don't worry, I'll go easy on you, squirt," he claimed as he gripped Tanya's had.

She just smiled at him, and cheered victoriously inside her head as a confused look overtook his face. He wasn't taking her seriously.

The two of them waited a moment more, and when Keith said, "Give her a lesson Dust!" she took it as the signal to start.

Muscles bulged. Mana flowed. Neither moved, and the crowd grew quiet.

Or, Tanya didn't. To the observers, it looked as if Tanya hadn't moved an inch, and that she wasn't even slightly struggling. Her arm remained perfectly still, her clothes didn't make so much of a whisper.

Dust, meanwhile, arm taut beneath a layer of clothing, was pushing with all of his might as the table groaned beneath the force of their struggle.

Tanya, aware that she could, maybe, keep this up for an hour or two, brought her free hand to her mouth. "Is that all, Dust?" she said, pretending to yawn.

He grabbed her hand with his other hand, and pulled down on it, cheating to try and move it at all. Still, it didn't budge. Tanya just smirked at his rising frustration.

He continued to try and move her arm, muttering, "How the hell are you doing this, loli?"

Twitch .

A strand of hair at the top of her head danced as she processed what he'd said, before it became still.

She had not had that word thrown at her, ever. Germanian had no equivalent, and she had been thankful for that small mercy of the demanding language.

How dare he.

She smiled widely at him, and he tilted his head, likely confused. He was also wholly unaware of the massive amount of mana flowing into the formula.

I'll make you pay for that!

The force on her hand – strong, to be sure, but not as immense as the presence of Being X when he decided to stop time – slackened for a moment. Tanya's smile, small and innocent, turned predatory as she finally decided to stop waiting and to really push .

Dust, still shocked by Tanya's appearance of immovability and very demented smile, was sent flying from his seat as Tanya launched him across the room.

The crowd remained silent for only a moment more, until a grand cheer went up in the crowd. Tanya stood on her chair and raised her arms up, brandishing the money, all the while laughing at the look of fear that marked Dust's face.

Served the bastard right. She didn't even break any of his bones for that comment.

Keith rushed over to the toppled man, while Taylor and Lynn walked over to her. "That sure was impressive, Tanya. How'd you do it?" she asked.

Tanya looked to the one she had beaten, and she saw that Dust was looking happy about something Keith had said to him and the small slip of paper in his hand.

Tanya wrote it off; as long as he wasn't trying to get this money back, he could look at whatever coupon all he wanted.

The crowd around her, who had heard the question, all quieted down, wondering how she had thrown him across the room with a Strength as low as hers. Tanya just laughed. "Sorry to say, even if I could tell you, you wouldn't be able to learn it. You all have regular jobs, right?" she questioned.

A round of laughter began to bubble up, and more people lined up, eager to test their strength. Tanya sighed in relief. No one had really tried to pry into how she had done it, and that was good. It showed no one would be overtly nosy about her business, as long as it looked clandestine.

Tanya looked at the two bags of money in her hands, and then began to grin. She'd be able to afford a room in no time at all.

She eyed the crowd, watching maids deliver drinks. Maybe a drink or two wouldn't be out of place, with such a wonderfully light atmosphere? She never got the chance to enjoy hers before she'd been immolated in her last life, after all.

--OxOxO--