So I’m a Fish, So What?

Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

Puaaah!

Sheeesh, that really hits the spot!

Who would’ve thought eating modern snacks and drinking soda would be this enjoyable in an isekai fantasy world?

The reality gap and that pinch of crime make it all the more pleasurable!

Holding an aluminum soda and contently chugging down its contents in the middle of a medieval town feels almost immoral to do.

It’s more so when I do it knowing that the best this world’s denizens –including my pitiful previous life classmates– can get their hands on are natural fruit juices.

Yet here I am, using some of the most broken skills the W system has to offer just to get my hands on modern junk food, hehehe!

Ahhh, such a sinful girl this great Violet-sama is…!

If D was by any means a normal goddess, she would’ve definitely snapped at me for using the OP skills she granted me in such a wasteful way.

IF being the keyword here, let me stress.

You wanna know what her actual reaction was when she discovered this?

She clamored for me to grant her an unlimited supply of snacks and quickly drafted a soul contract with serious terms listed inside!

What was my reply, you ask? Of course, I accepted!

It might seem like a losing deal on my side, but it isn’t, really– it’s the exact opposite.

You see, when soul contracts are involved, I take matters veeery seriously.

It's literally a matter of life and death, after all.

So I naturally brought up the issue of the raw ingredients in this world, whether it’s a quantity issue or just pure lack of a specific material in this world, during our negotiation.

It was then that D went into deep thought for about….. 0.0001 seconds and then created and granted me a new, creation-type skill.

And guess what this skill’s name is?

Alchemy!

Yup, you heard that right– freaking Alchemy!

Well, it doesn’t really have much in common with the alchemy that’s usually shown in fantasy works though.

This skill essentially functions in the exact same way Shapeshifting does, with the only difference being the target and the scope of change.

While Shapeshifting can be only used on my own body and detached body parts, Alchemy can affect pretty much all and any type of matter as long as it isn’t controlled by a soul.

To elaborate, it can’t be activated mid-fight to pull off a stunt like transforming my opponent's limbs into air, but it works on their body after it becomes a lifeless corpse.

As for what and how much I can change, it really depends on how versatile and strong my perception is.

The more types of matter I can sense, and the better my microscopic perceptions gets, the more I can do.

As far as my personal perception goes, I can do stuff ranging from creating entire planets from mere cosmic dust to tampering with atomic structures and achieving the miraculous feat of transforming different elements into one another.

Of course, something as ridiculous as creating an entire planet from cosmic dust requires astronomical amounts of magic power, so that’s just a theoretical example.

Also, it’d basically turn out to be a big rock since I can’t supply the required MA energy required to make it a habitable planet.

It might be possible to compensate for that using The Living Rose, but that’s just stealing energy from another source, not actually creating it.

This skill isn’t really all that strong at my current strength level in all honesty.

It’s potential is definitely limitless though!

Now you may ask– What is the real reason D, in all her glory, would go through the effort of creating such a ludicrous skill?

Surely it can’t just be for an unlimited supply of snacks, right? WRONG.

That woman probably finds leaving home to buy more snacks to be a very troublesome task, so she decided to graciously bestow this skill on me just to avoid doing so.

Talk about being fucking lazy!

Anyways, it’s about time I get to where I am and what today’s itinerary is.

Instead of visiting Yuri and Kusama, whom I know for a fact won't be getting captured by the elves, I decided to  first contact a very special reincarnation in a place which I visited before.

I'd rather get this over with first before the elves get to them.

Who knows when the elves will start kidnapping reincarnations?

They could've already started for all I know.

Them having teleportation gates scattered everywhere isn't doing much to reduce my worries as well.

Right now, I’m back in the first human country I’ve been to in this world, the Kingdom of Aitouna.

Two reincarnations, Sachi Kudo and Ren Aikawa specifically, were born somewhere in this small, remote kingdom.

I didn’t have much interaction with the latter in our previous life, so I’ll leave him behind for now.

The former however, I did have frequent contact with.

She was our class’s representative, after all– though the only reason she kept that role is because I rejected it when I was chosen.

I already found dealing with humans troublesome, so why would I accept taking on a position that does just that?

Me and D are surprisingly similar when it comes to troublesome responsibilities… and a whole bunch of other stuff, actually.

Come to think of it, maybe the reason we clicked in the first place is related to our similarities, huh?

Sachi is a very charismatic girl with a great knack for leadership.

What makes her better at it is the genuine sincerity she exudes through her words and actions.

She’s not like those politicians who yell their speeches with practiced passion and sincerity only to trick people with sweet words.

She’s a true leader who acts on her words with genuine effort and dedication.

That’s not the reason why I care about her though.

What I care about is that she became the leader of the reincarnations at the elf village in the future.

If I ever go through with my thoughts about building a force in this world, she’d be the perfect pawn!

Whether it’s as a leader or a spy, she’s a living example of a dusty pearl waiting to shine!

And the only thing standing in between me and this pearl is her post-reincarnation background.

This may sound a bit bad and very selfish, but I’d be happy if she was born into a bad family.

It’d be even better if she’s among the reincarnations who were sold by their parents to the elves.

If so, I can conclude a soul contract with her, let her get taken into the elf village, and directly teleport into the elf village regardless of their huge barrier whenever I want.

Don’t underestimate just how important free access to the elf village is!

Although the reason is unknown for now, Kumoko and Demon Lord Ariel are going to attack the elf village in the future.

Even the Word of God Pope may be in on it since he will announce that Hugo was the Hero despite it being obvious that he’s a fake.

Now imagine what would happen if someone swoops in and offers them direct, safe access to the core of the elf village.

I instantly become everybody’s best friend!

Except for the elves, of course– but it’s not like anyone wants to be friends with the obnoxious long-eared bastards in the first place.

What makes her much more valuable than any other reincarnation though, is the fact that I can influence the captive reincarnations and maybe even take them out of the elf village through her.

Kumoko will order Sophia not to hurt reincarnations in their battle, so I’m assuming they will play the role of the hostage in that entire fiasco.

I won’t let her work for free, of course.

My plan’s to contact her before the elves come here and offer her a deal depending on her background.

However, it’s an established fact that my protection is gonna be one of the cards placed on the table.

Not only is it a very enticing and impossible to refuse offer, it also costs me nothing at all.

With a mischievous little scheme conceived in my head, I threw away the soda can and hopped off of the rooftop I was squatting on for the last hour.

A moment later, the can was hit by a gray light ray and disintegrated into dust.

The correct usage of Rot Magic is definitely garbage disposal, I tell ya.

It’s the ultimate fuck global warming tool out there.

Don’t tell that to Kumoko though, or she might go ballistic on my ass.

Judging by the position of the moons and how quiet the town is, the time should be nearing midnight.

Medieval peasants usually rest shortly after sunset so that they can wake up at dawn refreshed for a long day of work.

I believe this should be even more so when it comes to those living in remote villages since their access to convenient magic tools is very limited.

Nodding at my thoughts, I teleported to a certain village whose name I didn’t bother to remember– if it had any in the first place.

This is the place where Sachi was born.

It took me a while to find it since only the name of the nearest town was mentioned in the information I have.

And since the only way to determine whether one is reincarnated is by appraising them, I had to search through all nearby villages using a brute force approach.

Although doing so made me feel like an idiot, I ran around appraising every single baby I came across until I found her.

She is still unnamed despite being a few weeks old, but the characteristic n%I = W skill along with a unique reincarnation skill in her status undoubtedly confirm her identity.

I then spent a few hours watching her and her parents’ daily lives in order to confirm her background.

Unsurprisingly, she also had a bad start.

I’m beginning to see a pattern here…

So D is quite the petty goddess, huh?

Well, she IS an evil goddess and all.

Sachi had it easier than Kumoko and me, but it was still nightmare mode from the very start for her.

You can even argue that she had it worse since we could at least control our bodies and move around from the moment we hatched.

She can only lay there and look at the ceiling, powerless to do anything without the help of a stranger.

On top of that, her parents were poor… verily so.

They were basically at the bottom of the wealth ranks of this village, let alone the entire world.

Both were visibly malnourished and their clothes had numerous patches and stitches sewn onto them.

Frankly, I felt disgusted just looking at them.

It’s not because they are poor, no.

I was never the one to care about material wealth and illusory social status.

I felt disgusted because of how irresponsible they are.

You are clearly struggling just to keep yourself alive, so why bring a child to this cruel world for fuck’s sake?

I’ve witnessed this very same situation hundreds of times during my time traveling with Theo, and it still vexes me to no end!

I never understood why humans do such a thing, and I don’t believe I ever will.

How is this any different from murder and torture?

The child will starve to death anyways, right?

If you can spare them that, why give the child a short life filled with suffering?

…..Or did they have her with the purpose of selling her in mind?

Laws – if they even exist– don’t hold much weight in this world, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be a common practice, albeit a very revolting one.

If so, then I can see why Sachi didn’t like Filimos very much in the anime.

In her case, the elves acted as Filimos’s agents and bought her as a slave.

Sachi’s parents got the money they needed and the elves got the reincarnation they wanted.

The only victim in this transaction is Sachi herself, who not only lost her chance at a new life filled with infinite possibilities, but also lost her freedom.

The fact that her trusted teacher was behind this entire fiasco must have left her feeling hurt and betrayed.

Shaking my head, I focus my attention back on the real world in front of my eyes.

Inside a certain dilapidated house in the village, I swiftly locked on to Sachi’s aura and teleported next to her.

Opening my eyes, I found myself looking at a frugal house containing the bare minimum of living necessities.

A dusty wardrobe, a wooden cabin containing some barely edible grains, a few rusty kitchen utensils, a couple of dirty cups and plates, a small wooden sofa decorated with dirty animal skins, and a wooden table for eating.

The firewood used for cooking is placed outside the house, and their water source is the common village well.

Finally, the main object of attention in the room is a baby girl swaddled in an animal skin blanket staring at me with wide, dumbstruck eyes.

“Yo.” I greeted telepathically.

She just kept her current posture without reacting to my words.

Hmm? Is there something wrong with my telepathy?

Shouldn’t be… I mean, I’m using the version included in the Soul Grimoire, not the one in the W system.

It’s much more stable and secure, so there’s no way she didn’t hear me.

Could it be….. she didn’t even realize the existence of the W system yet?!

Holy– What the heck have you been doing for the last few weeks, young lady?

“Earth to Kudo? Earth to Kudo? Please answer if you can hear me” I repeated while waving a hand in front of her eyes.

After doing so for a few minutes, she finally reacted, her dumbfounded expression turning into a mixture of curiosity, confusion, and a bit of fear.

Honestly, I’m impressed that she has such a rich palette of expressions despite being a baby.

“Ohh, boy. Am I actually gonna have to explain everything to her from the start?” I sighed. “I guess we should begin with the introductions then.”

Moving closer, I slowly shapeshifted back into my original appearance and used a bit of Fire Magic to light up the room.

“Name’s Violet! Well, you used to know me as Tomoko Ito Grant. Nice to meetcha again, Class Rep.” I casually introduced myself with a playful grin.

And so the surprisingly expressive baby returned to staring at me with wide eyes filled with unconcealable shock.

This is kinda fun, fufu~

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