Babs

After we finished introducing ourselves to the entire guild, we went to take our seats by the counter, where a very pretty elven woman with blonde hair and large... chests... was situated to receive us.

"Hey there," the staff said with a cheerful smile. "I've been expecting the two of you. Welcome."

Damn, they were huge. They had to be like quadruple D's or something. Were they even real?

"Ahem..."

Misaki, who was standing beside me, suddenly cleared her throat, crossed her arms, and began tapping her foot as she shot a glare in my direction. I quickly refocused my attention on the woman's face instead.

"Ah... yes. Thank you very much," I said to her. "We are both really happy to be here, Misssss..."

I lowered my gaze again as I scrutinized her name tag.

Misaki quickly grabbed me by the ear and pulled.

Hard.

"Ayy, ayy, ayy!" I protested. "I was only trying to find out her name, I swear."

With a scowl on her face, Misaki continued to tug on my ear, choosing not to believe anything I just said.

"Hey, would you let go already? Ahhh."

"Perv," Misaki spat. "Stop ogling other women. It's rude."

"But I wasn't... Fine, fine, fine. Could you please just stop pulling on my ear now?"

When I was finally set free, I cleared my throat, dusted myself off, and started over.

"Sorry about earlier, ma'am," I said to the elf lady who was also one of the guild’s receptionists. "My name is Daichi, and this right here is my..." I trailed off a little as I turned to Misaki. I still didn’t know what to call her.

I’d been mostly telling people she was just a party member to save time, and although that was kinda true, my ex-wife’s contract was temporary at best. I was only planning on helping her on her first quest, and that was pretty much it. After that, she was on her own.

"I certainly already know who the both of you are, silly," the blonde lady said, flashing another pretty smile and giggling. "The entire guild was talking about you just a second ago. Once again, allow me to humbly welcome you to our small town. It’s a closed-neat community, but we are very loving." The staff turned to gaze in my direction as she said this last part. "Very loving, especially to newcomers like yourselves."

She licked her lips ever so slightly as she continued to stare at me.

"Ahh..." I said as I trailed off, confused at the sight.

"Excuse me, but aren’t you supposed to help us with something?" Clutching her staff angrily and glaring at the woman, my ex-wife shot in with the question.

"Huh? Oh, yes."

The elven woman blinked as if she suddenly remembered what she was meant to be doing, then stood up straight and composed herself.

"My name is Babs, as you can see on my name tag right here."

She gestured down at her chest for me to look in confirmation of her identity, but I didn’t want Misaki misinterpreting my intentions again, so my gaze remained forward.

"And my job is to help you out with whatever you need. Anything. Just mention it."

"Ohkay... We want to sign on as adventurers in this here town of yours," I said to the woman. "And possibly take on our first quest today, because we really need the money to afford a place to sleep. So, do you think you might have anything for us, Babs?"

"My bed," she replied in a seductive voice.

"Sorry, what?"

"I... mean, would you please give me a minute while I grab the necessary documents?"

"Sure."

As the woman went to get what she needed, I utilized the brief moment to turn around and take in the rest of the guild.

The atmosphere was like your typical Tuesday. People laughing, eating, and drinking, entire parties of adventurers planning their next quests. There was a young blue-haired girl dressed as a thief, and over in the other corner I could see several more mages, swordsmen, and archpriests just like Misaki. A few of them waved as they saw me looking, and I waved back. There was something calming about the whole scene. I felt at home here. At peace. Things I couldn't really say about my previous life, where it was disappointment after disappointment.

I turned to Misaki. She was busy glaring in the direction of the blonde woman, who was writing something down on a tiny piece of paper in the back.

"Hey, how you holding up?"

"...? Oh. Yeah, I'm fine, I guess," Misaki said, lowering her gaze to stare at the floor. For someone who just claimed she was fine, her expression didn’t quite match her words. The situation seemed to be overwhelming her, but she was trying to put on a brave face. She was never a hardcore otaku gamer nerd like me, who basically read and watched fantasy light novels and anime as easily as I breathed. However, she had always been a quick-to-adjust kind of person. So I knew, at the end of the day, she was going to be just fine.

"Alright, just fill in these forms right here with your details, and these ones right here are the beginner-level quests you can choose from, and this little slip of paper right here is my street address. I get off work by eight every day, and at night, my front door is always open. Just let me know when you're coming and— Awww!"

Misaki brought down her staff on the woman’s head.

***

We were standing out back of the adventurer's guild, and I still couldn't bring myself to wrap my head around what I had just seen. While inside, the guild receptionist had signed us into the system as registered adventurers, and the moment mine and Misaki's stats were displayed on some kind of weird-looking magical tablet, I became speechless.

As expected, my class was Demon Hunter Night Rider. The only one of its type in the whole world, as it was an entirely custom class created by me back when the god gave us the liberty to choose whatever we wanted. My pistols were hi-tech sci-fi fantasy, capable of firing elemental bullets like fire, lightning, ice, wind, earth, and a few others. The projectiles could be used in different creative ways, granting me the ability to either stun my enemies or trap them in some kind of crystal prism. And most importantly, the more I leveled up, the more elemental rounds I unlocked, and the more creative applications I discovered.

It was exactly what I wanted, and exactly what I had gotten. I was so happy. But then I glanced over at Misaki's stats, and I nearly choked on my astonishment.

She was level 50.

How did that happen?

Almost all of her skills and abilities were maxed out to the halfway point, which made her practically invincible in a battlefield. She had serious firepower, insane defense, and a crazy healing factor. In contrast, I was only at level 10, with most of my skills and abilities still locked and unavailable.

Looking at her stats, I suddenly remembered the pink spider from the forest. Dude never stood a chance at surviving that blast.

"So, horses," Misaki said, snapping me out of my thoughts and bringing me back to the present. "I don't think I have ever ridden one before, you know, back in our previous life."

Located at the back of the guild were several stables with horses in them. We had decided to go on a quest, a duck-hunting quest to be exact, and since the place was out in the fields near a pond, we required transportation.

We spent a solid five minutes arguing on what horse to pick. Misaki wanted a white one because much beautiful because much elegant. I wanted a black one because much cooler because much cooler. It was a ridiculous argument and was going on forever, so we eventually reached a compromise because we needed to get started on the quest while we still had some daylight.

"Alright, how about that one?"

Misaki pointed at a mostly brown horse with a white nose and black mane. It wasn't as big as the one I wanted, but it still looked very much healthy like all the rest.

We walked it out of the stables, and I hopped on board before helping my ex-wife climb up behind. I told her to hold onto me if she didn’t want to fall, and hesitating a bit, she then wrapped her arms around me.

The sensation of her chest against my back was oddly comforting, familiar, and of course, a little distracting. It triggered a chain reaction of memories to come flooding in, of some of the moments she hugged me, some of the moments I hugged her, and some of the times I gave her piggyback rides whenever we were returning to our apartment from a fireworks festival at night.

She’d always get tired after walking a few blocks, and I’d have no choice but to carry her on my back. But I never minded the extra weight. In fact, I welcomed it.

She wasn’t particularly heavy, despite being an absolute chubby baby growing up. But having her resting on my back like that, it just made me feel connected to her on a whole different level I could never explain.

We were really in love back then, huh.

I rapidly shook my head to stop the reminiscing and return to the task at hand. No point in wasting time dwelling in the past. Those days were over.

After confirming Misaki was all set, I gently kicked the horse in the side and... "Ya!" We were off.

The receptionist lady had somehow magicfied my sunglasses, and now I had my stats, GPS, and other cool features showing up in a corner of my lens.

Up next, to the cursed pond to farm some ducks. Finally, some action in this fantasy world.