6 – Count me out

From that day onward, my lazy life started. At any rate, it was slow; I lived slowly. First, I slept as much as I wanted to sleep. Lina makes the best body pillow in the world.

Lina took care of all of the cooking and cleaning. Normally she eats her food raw, but for my sake she learned how to cook. And she learned how good food really can be.

When I wanted to exercise… normally I should say I kill monsters, but that would be a lie. Since only slimes lurk around here, that wouldn't even be called exercise. Plus, with my power, they won't even come near me. So I invented all sorts of games. Volleyball, chess and sparring. Lina really improved in 1 year since we were together. I should also mention that Emilia-chan almost fainted when I introduced her. But I needed to see her stats.

Lina was level 50 and in one year she gained 5 levels. Apparently this is already considered monstrous in this world. I am even more of a monster by those standards. The villagers doubted me at first, but immediately believed me when people saw her stats.

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Name: Lina

Age: 187

Race: Evolved Beast

Class: Battle Priestess

Level 55

Attack Power: 5582

Defense Power: 3783

Magical Power: 4725

Speed: 5002

Intelligence: 3287

Magic: Levitation, High Healing, Lightning Strike, Blizzard, Tornado, 9 Flaming Tails, Inferior Fox Form, High Speed Regeneration

Special Abilities: Cooking, House Chores, Blessing of the Moon Fox

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In that one year, every now and then, I made medicine and went and sold them at the village. Also, if someone in the village was sick, I would examine them and then cure them with my magic. I can’t leave someone in the village alone to die without helping. They give me free food, so it's only fair I give them something in return.

There was also that time when a drought hit the village, so I used my power to make it rain. I remember, Lina went speechless on that one. But making it rain for a day really is easy as blinking for me. I started to feel like a special existence myself. Basically when doing these kinds of things, they started treating me as their deity. Don't get me wrong. They still respected Lina just as much. They just became really formal and happy that I came into their lives. It made me feel cozy inside.

I really didn’t do much aside from that. Although Lina is my slave, she started to see herself as my wife. I awakened her yuri side after all. All worries about who I was, where I came from have faded. I did tell Lina about my amnesia, but she didn't know any spells about memory recovery. But as long as we were together and I trained and played with her, it was enough to satisfy her curiosity. And we genuinely loved each other. Life was good.

"Ayaka?"

"What is it Lina?"

"Some people are approaching our home. I can sense them getting closer to my mist."

Weird. Today isn't an offering day. And there are hardly any people that come knocking at our door.

Firstly, the location is inconvenient. The plateau is located where even just by walking from the village takes a considerable amount of time for humans, so it’s troublesome to come.

Since there aren’t any facilities along the way, there are also no opportunities to drop by.

As both me and Lina are being respected by the village, there is no such thing as a villager coming just for a carefree visit. I wouldn’t be able to live calmly if someone comes to visit every day. It’s important to have a sense of distance.

For that reason, it is unlikely that anyone would come to my house.

Naturally, there are probably reasons such as a child got sick suddenly and wishes for a cure. During that point of time, they will quickly come running to me.

If it’s an emergency patient, I can't turn a blind eye to that. Being sick isn't fun.

"Well, let's go see who it is."

I didn't want them to reach my house, so me and Lina went and waited at the gate.

There we could see a young man carrying a sword on his back. He was probably in his twenties. Additionally, there is a muscular man with an axe, a woman in the robes of a magician, and the fourth was an archer in some light weight armor.

"Hi there. Watcha'doing here?"

"Excuse us, we were told that a powerful guardian lived here."

"Oh. So you have some business with Lina then? She can't turn back into her kitsune form though, but I assure you, this is the guardian."

"No. We aren't talking about the fox guardian. But the guardian diety that watches over Poena village. I believe that's you, Megami-sama."

"Well… that's a complete exaggeration. Can you not call me that? I'm mortal just like everyone else. Anyway, I'm not that special."

"It's not good to lie. Mana is practically gushing out of your body."

The woman in the robe said that with a frightening expression. Lina also mentioned this once. Sometimes I leak too much mana from my body, but I have no control over it so I can't help it.

"Anyway, we are…"

"Cooks!"

As soon as I said that Lina almost burst into a laughter and the group of 4 were kinda shocked.

"Ayaka, how did you come to that conclusion?"

"It's easy, Lina. Because of their gear. The guy with the bow catches food, the other 2 slice up the meat with their cooking knives, and the woman in the robe uses her magic to cook the meat. So, it's obvious, they are cooks."

"Who are you calling a cook!? We're proud adventurers. Gosh, I never had my beloved sword called a "cooking knife" before."

Adventurers? But cooks feel more accurate. There weapons… are incredibly weak so other than cooking, I really can't see them being used for anything else.

"Putting that aside, would you please hear us out? We are here on an important mission. A dangerous Oni has been creating havoc all across the land. Each village that gets in it's path is completely obliterated. Although the kingdom did send the military to track her down, as you would expect, finding one single person is harder compared to a group.

We believe this Oni wants to catch the eye of some demon general so it will be accepted into their ranks. Many people are losing their lives, so adventurers like us were also asked to help out. So now, great Megami-sama, would you please join us on this noble quest and help us put a stop to all this rampage?"

"No thanks."

"Splendid! I knew we could count… WAIT!! DID YOU JUST SAY NO!!?"