I Shall Survive Using Potions! Volume 1 Page 3

  Yup, that’s all perfect. Now for the finishing touches...

  “No, there’s nothing wrong with that. To finish, I have a few questions, and one more request to make. Is that all right?”

  “Of course, feel free to ask me anything.”

  The goddess had a look on her face that showed how relieved she was this would finally be over soon. All right, guess I’ll ask her.

  “The first thing I’d like to ask about is the religions of this world. There’s nothing scarier than religion after all. What are they like here?”

  “Ah, that’s an easy one. Almost all the religions of this world believe I’m the one and only God and worship me. How they pronounce and write my name varies slightly depending on the sect and the region, but they’re all referring to me. The doctrines and laws of each also differ to a certain extent, but since they all split off from the same thing, there isn’t much difference between them fundamentally. They admonish any type of discrimination against a person’s race or status, so I would say they’re relatively moderate religions. I would assume demons and such would be their enemies, but since they don’t actually exist, there aren’t any problems there.”

  Hmm... So there was only one religion, huh. I didn’t know if that wasn’t a problem, or a really big one.

  “Then would it be bad if someone formed a new religion, or if the current one were to die out?”

  “No, I wouldn’t really mind. It’s not like I’m actually a god after all. I’m just part of a long-lived and ancient species. Since I end up driving humans away due to my adjustments to the world and getting rid of distortions, it’s more convenient for them to think of me as a divine being, so I won’t really deny it. However, I’ll also sometimes send out ‘divine revelations’ to save them from great disasters and the like. My existence and the role I play have nothing to do with faith, but I’m fine with playing the part of a fictional goddess if it means imparting beneficial teachings that would support the lives of the people. While there aren’t any significant problems regarding the doctrine of the religion, there haven’t been anything to oppose it all this time, and corrupt priests are beginning to spread like wildfire. There wouldn’t be any problems if it were to disappear. After all, it’s been fifty years since the last time I sent a revelation to this world, though sometimes you’ll find people claiming to be the ‘new oracle,’ but that’s nothing more than an egregious lie.

  “...Now I’m starting to get mad. Maybe I’ll send down some divine punishment for the first time in a few hundred years...”

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down! If you’re going to do that, do it later, and somewhere far away from me!

  “Th-Then on to my next question... Would it be bad to do anything that would influence the world on a large scale? Like, for example, if I were to spread techniques or ways of thinking from back on Earth.”

  “Hm? No, I wouldn’t mind that at all really. My job is to keep the space-time continuum stable, so I don’t really plan on doing anything with this world’s civilization. If it seemed like a large amount of living creatures were going to die for no reason, then I might try to lend them a hand. Sometimes I try helping out a particular organism just to kill time, but I never thought once about trying to influence the culture of this world to go in any specific direction. On that point, the supervisor for your world really is amazing for putting so much love and affection into the work he does for life on Earth...”

  If you thought that way, then you should do it too. That way you could have something in common with God to talk about... Oh, hey, maybe I should just tell her that.

  “Then why don’t you try putting in some more work as well?”

  “Oh, no, you have no idea how much of a pain that is. If you don’t have enough affection and patience for living things and leave it only halfway done, it turns into a real mess. I made a little mistake doing just that in the past, so I haven’t been trying my hand at it lately...”

  “But if the God of my world were to see his junior working hard doing the same work he was, don’t you think he’d be happy about that? Since you finally managed to make a connection with him now, you could go ask him for advice when you’re in trouble or if you messed up on something. It’d be something in common you could both talk about.”

  “Th-That’s it, that’s it! Oh, why didn’t I figure that out sooner! I’m such an idiot... I’ll start preparing to maintain the world again right away!”

  Good, just try your best not to mess anything up, okay? You’re not going to mess up on purpose just so you can come back to me for more advice, right? I mean, you are the person in charge of this world after all.

  “All right, I’ve got one last question then. You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, it’s just something I’m asking out of curiosity. Both you and the God in charge of Earth both, um... How do I put it... You both talk like humans, even though I think you’re both higher life-forms that far surpass the likes of us humans. Despite that, the feelings you have for God are something on the same level as humans, and that feels really strange to me... I’m sorry if I made you feel bad, you really don’t have to answer. I just wanted to ask at least once.”

  It took some courage to ask that question, and there really wasn’t any merit in asking it, but I was just so curious I couldn’t help myself. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be satisfied with why God treated me the way he did, and I wouldn’t truly be able to relax and enjoy my life. This also had something to do with whether or not I would ask her my final request.

  “I see... Well of course you’d be curious about that. Then I’ll explain this as simply as I can. If you don’t understand or aren’t satisfied with something, please think of it as ‘that’s just how it is.’”

  Looks like she was going to tell me after all. The expression on her face seemed like it just got way more serious too... I was getting a powerful sense of intelligence from her eyes that I didn’t feel before.

  “It is true we are beings that greatly differ from your species. We have no defined physical form, the appearance of myself and the being in charge of Earth being nothing more than a temporary form to match that of you humans. In addition, our mental processes and the speed at which we think are vastly different than your race. Not only are we long-lived, our perception of time differs as well. For that reason, the being you see before you is the consciousness of only one of the numerous parallel thought processes from my true body. This consciousness, which has been given the role of watching over this world, has had its thought processing slowed down to the bare minimum and its intelligence lowered to the extreme for the purpose of interacting with your species.

  “But, to be completely honest, this is all quite enjoyable. If I were to explain it in a way you would understand, it would be a sensation similar to watching an infant crawl around, or watching a small child play some silly game that you don’t have the slightest clue in why they find it to be entertaining... Something along those lines.

  “I don’t know if I got the point across well enough or not... Rather, my other, much more intelligent parallel thought processes are enjoying the emotion I am feeling right now. The sense of respect I feel toward the being in charge of Earth is genuine. I, or rather, the foundation that makes up my real body, has a profound respect for that being’s true form, which would most likely be the cause of why I hold such strong feelings for them. My current body and real body are one in the same after all. Just like myself, the supervisor in charge of Earth is only an extremely small portion of the foundation of that being’s consciousness, so they seem like a person well worthy of my respect for them... Or something like that. And so, considering the situation that being found themselves in, they approached you in earnest and did what they thought was right for you. To be honest, I think they may be a bit excessive in their approach...but that is very much like that being, which is wonderful in and of itself. That is why I want to respect their intentions as much as possible. Was that clear enough, I hope
?”

  As she finished talking, the intense expression on her face reverted back to the happy-go-lucky feeling she had before. Did she boost her level of intelligence just for that conversation? I felt like that was probably the case. If she didn’t, then the difference in how she talked up till now would be too huge. If that was how she normally was, I would’ve never gotten my Item Box, let alone the other “services” she would provide me. Or maybe all that was the “service” she was talking about?

  Well, no matter. All I could do now was give it my all in taking on this girl in front of me!

  “Yes, I understand... Well, it’s not like I understood everything, actually, but I feel like I have a handle on most of it. So thank you, very much. With that, I’ve asked everything I wanted to. All I have left is one final request.”

  Swallowing my spit with a gulp, I asked the question:

  “Please, um... Please be my friend!”

  The goddess froze up, her mouth hanging open.

  It’s fine, right?! I don’t have a single friend in this world! I only had two in the last one, even!

  I went woozy for just a moment, but I planted my feet firmly on the ground and waited it out. All right, I’ve gotten the hang of this now! ...But even though I was finally used to it, I’d never get another chance to put that experience to use. Probably.

  Well, here I was in one of those “other worlds” I’d heard so much about. It was supposed to be called “Verny” or something.

  After Celes came out of her cosmic entity mode, she happily agreed to be my friend and threw her arms around me. It seemed her galaxy brain powers only lasted for when she was explaining everything to me back then. Once she finished, she just went back to her previous, happy-go-lucky self. She spent a good amount of time rubbing up against me, having me think up new ways of her getting closer to God, and a whole bunch of other things as well. When I was finally freed from our little bonding session, that was when I found myself standing in this new world.

  It looked like I was standing about halfway up some sort of small hill, and I could see sparse clumps of trees all around me. There was a town way off in the distance, but it wasn’t surrounded by walls or anything. Seemed like it was full of fairly normal-looking buildings as far as I could tell.

  I should probably be aiming for the town for now, but, before that, I wanted to check out my new body. I’d be spending a long time with it after all, so I wanted to be thorough about it. Had to make sure to send my complaints to Celes if there was anything wrong with it, and I could ask for extra stuff at the same time! Just call me Kaoru Almighty. I doubt Celes was going to give me her powers or anything if I kept complaining about her though.

  With that, I began running all sorts of tests on myself, including stretching out, jumping around, patting myself down in a bunch of different places; stuff like that. The results: It seemed like I really was back to the body I had when I was fifteen years old. I couldn’t check my face since I didn’t have a mirror or anything, but it at least felt right from what I could tell. Still, you didn’t have to get every single little detail right, Celes! I wouldn’t have minded a bit more strength, or some more endurance, or, you know... A little bust enhancement wouldn’t have hurt! I would’ve been completely fine with that!

  Dammit...

  Height-wise, I thought there was maybe a one centimeter difference between fifteen-year-old me and me at twenty-two, so it didn’t feel like much had changed. I was about 157 centimeters, or a little under five feet two inches for all you people stateside. I was a little bit heavier back then too. Instead of thinking about maintaining my body, I was more focused on things like club activities. And my appetite. Man, I was so young then... (Super serious.)

  What I really had beef with was my chest.

  Yeah, back when I was twenty-two I could barely call myself a B-cup... But now, sadly enough, I was a solid A. No, this was a rarity! Only one in twenty people in Japan had the privilege of bearing this status nowadays! Celes was the same too, so I guess that made us matching now. Maybe that was why she was so happy when I asked her if we could be friends...

  Wait, Celes had the ability to change how she looked to whatever she wanted to, didn’t she? Grrr...

  Hold on, just calm down, me. Now wasn’t the time to get angry at her...yet. Deep breaths, deep breaths...

  For the time being, the body check was over. Next up, a powers check. I thought I’d give my most important ability a shot: potion creation. I stuck out my right hand and concentrated.

  Give me a health potion that tastes like a sports drink!

  I tried imagining the container being one of those small, plastic bottles you saw everywhere for drinks. The next instant, I held a bottle from a famous drink company in my right hand, filled to the brim with the exact contents I’d been thinking of. After twisting off the cap off and taking a swig, I found it really did have the slightly bittersweet taste of a sports drink. I wasn’t tired or anything, so I wasn’t really sure if it was healing me at all, but I was going to put my faith in Celes and believe it must have some sort of effect if I could already do this much.

  The next thing I needed to check was my Item Box of course!

  Item Box, open!

  I concentrated and poured everything I had into focusing my mind as I stuck my right hand out. It wasn’t like I really had to do all that, apparently, but since this was my momentous first use of the Item Box, I wanted to make it seem as cool as possible.

  Slipping my wrist inside an invisible space in the air, a list of my inventory appeared inside my head.

  [Inventory: Empty]

  ...Yeah, I knew that was going to happen...

  It wasn’t like I was hoping for you to put something in there as a little extra service, Celes. No, not at all... Like, seriously, I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. It wasn’t like I was hoping for some sort of divine sword that split heaven and earth, or a whooole bunch of useful items for every situation you could think of to be stuffed in there for me. Nope, not this girl.

  Next time I saw Celes, I thought I’d tell her all about a certain arrogant King of Heroes who loved his flashy gold armor, and maybe some stories about a certain blue cat-thing with a huge pocket on its belly for good measure.

  Anyway, it looked like that was that for now. I wouldn’t know about the language thing until I met some other people first.

  All right, time to head to that town. I bet I’ll come across some type of road if I just go down this hill.

  I took a big stretch, then lightly brushed off my pants before finally setting off. I made sure to have Celes change my outfit to the type of clothes you’d find in this world before she sent me here. I mean, it’d be somewhat of a problem for me if she just tossed me into this world stark naked, so I made doubly sure to ask her for clothes. I felt like I could’ve been in danger if I didn’t. Seriously, knowing what she was like, I had a really bad feeling about it. My danger senses were going into overdrive, I tell you.

  After walking for a little while, I noticed a little squirrel-ish creature staring at me from one of the tree branches above me.

  “Hey, you up there in the tree. Is this the right way to get to a town with people in it?”

  As I gave it a nonchalant smile, the small critter replied: “Yup, that’s right. Just go straight ahead.”

  “Oh, thanks a bunch. You really helped me out!”

  “Hey, no problem!”

  I walked in silence for a bit, eventually coming to a stop and placing both hands on a nearby tree. I then proceeded to bash my head against it repeatedly.

  “Understand, read, and write in any language... UNDERSTAND! READ! AND WRITE! IN ANY! LANGUAGE!!!”

  Celes...why did you decide to go that far with my special service power?!

  That little guy from before couldn’t write too, could he? I was beginning to get a little freaked out by that, so I was just going to stop thinking now.

  The sun had already gotten pretty low in the sky. The
town looked close back on the hill, but it still seemed like I had a ways to go. A little while later, I finally found something that resembled a highway leading to town, but it was pretty far away. I’d heard things looked much closer than they really were when you were somewhere high up, so I guess this was a prime example of that, huh...

  I always loved reading, so I had a pretty good repertoire of random knowledge. I even chose a science major in college, and I had a deep respect for all the mad scientists out there who sacrificed everything for the sake of their research. But I had no intention of doing anything like that myself though.

  I was starting to get pretty thirsty along the way, not to mention tired, so I ended up downing a bunch more potions along the way. They actually helped me feel more energized, and I killed two birds with one stone since they slaked my thirst too. There was a drug back on Earth that could get rid of all your fatigue as well, wasn’t there? What was it called again? I remembered it was a combination of the Greek words for “love” and “labor,” so Philopo...

  I was getting freaked out again, so I stopped thinking. Again.

  This potion doesn’t have any weird side-effects to it, right?!

  Also, if Celes was supposed to drop me close to town, how come she’d put me so far away? It was dangerous to leave things to Celes. I knew she probably didn’t mean anything bad by it, but her basis for judgement was a bit...screwy, to say the least. Well, the way she saw things was probably way different than a human would, so I guess that was just how it was. That didn’t change the fact that it still felt dangerous to leave it up to her, so I was just going to try and do my best to get through everything on my own. For now, I was just relieved with the fact that I made sure to specify I actually wanted clothes. And I was a little miffed that I’d made it this far with no resistance whatsoever. At this rate, it seemed totally possible that cats were going to end up being the villains here or something.