I stood in front of a shop that was wedged between two taller buildings. It looked squeezed as if the neighbours were closing in. The sign was neon lights, some letters had become illegible as they flickered on and off at random interval. But the window was clean and the clothing apparel on display was clearly... Unique. There was no theme to them or colour coordination and they were crammed together rather than artistically arranged.

I pushed the door and a bell rang. Almost simultaneously as I did that, my phone vibrated and I received a message from Red.

[ Wow! Level two already?! How do you do that? Anyway, Congrats! ]

Reading her message only made me wonder about something. The ghostly voice from before told me I reached level two after I killed that Goblin. And since Red knew something about level two, shouldn't that mean she also had killed or at least known about the Goblin? I had the urge to ask her about the goblin, right here right now.

But I had a feeling that kept screaming inside of my heart, telling me that asking Red through the message would only leave me with more question.

Speaking of the message, she had already sent me three messages and I hadn't replied to her at all. Moving my thumbs, I started tapping on my phone screen and replied. [ Thanks. And there's something that I wanted to ask. Can we meet tomorrow? Your time your place. ]

[ Sure~ I'll message you after I find the place! ]

After I read her last message, it was good enough for me to notice our appointment had been decided. And so with a strange determination to not scare her away on our first meeting, I started strolling around the shop.

But... to tell the truth, I always hated everything about shopping. I hated the crowds, the queues and the aching feet. I also took exception to overly attentive shopping assistants, the perky seasonal music playing in every store and all the special deals tempting me to spend even more and only made me confused in the end.

But in this store... well, the crowds were non-existent and therefore, no queues. The owner was here, or he might be not here, either way, he would immediately come out everytime I wanted to check out my goods. Rather than perky music, the only music that I could hear were the echoes from my own footsteps. And from my perspective, it was weird to not meet or see any kind of abnormality in this store, even though just a few minutes ago, a goblin was nonchalantly walking on the street.

Shrugging my shoulder, while rolling the small red jewel across my finger, I non chalantly walking in a corridor with shelving spanning both sides, picking the clothes one by one and brought them to the counter. Like I said before, not a second had passed since I did that and the owner's head had already been sticking out from the backroom.  The owner whom I called as Ken was a lanky man with black hair, styled into an undercut. Various tattoos covered his arms, and a sun tattoo covered his entire neck and went down to the left side pectoral region, which he always showing off to the others through his loose gray tank top. Well, if I had to describe his appearance in general, it was a little bit... scarier than my own.

And Ken greeted me with a big yawn while massaging his neck. "Do you really need to buy clothes at this hour?" He did another yawn after he said that. "Just put the money on the register and go home."

He immediately went to the back room as soon as he finished his sentence. Maybe it was the trust because I was this store long time customer or because he had a secret CCTV that he used to monitor the counter? Either way, that was a whole new level of laziness coming from him.

Following Ken's cue, I leaned my body from outside of the counter and opened the money register just as he said.... and couldn't see a single coin inside of it, though considering Ken's attitude this view didn't surprise me at all. While putting exactly 4,780 yen onto the register and then packing my own goods, I could only wonder how his shop still survived. Then again, his goods always seemed new, so I guessed he did just fine.

I walked home, walking at the same pace on the same route. But in my eyes, the familiar trees and street signs of the daytime took on new and ominous forms. It was as if their friendly and familiar spirits had been replaced with malicious demons. Even the lights and several people that was nonchalantly walking to their house could not make them seem any less threatening.

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I couldn't help but thinking that way though, considering I could see a horde of... rain droplet shaped monsters with round eyes, and goofy, toothless smile happily bouncing around near the street sign; On top of their head was [Slime Lvl 0] 

Aside from those slimes, hanging upside down on the branch with its long, monkey-esque tail was a short, round white-silver furred creature with duckbill, bird-like claws, and a Mohawk, [DuckPunk Lvl 2]

For now, I... just pretended to not see any of those creatures and focusing my attention into my phone, more precisely the Miracle Match Making App,  considering I started seeing weird shit after I got this.

I didn't pay much attention before, but there was a new notification on my status page. Touching the top left corner, which was my status screen, I saw a small, glowing ‘+2’ in the upper right, just outside my 'Status column' and '+1' on my 'Miracle column.' When I touched it, the Status column rippled and changed, expanding slightly to allow for some plus and minus signs to surround all the Status numbers. That part... in a weird way was somewhat predictable; I had increased in level, so I had some points to distribute. At least that was my brain told me if I chose to just ignore everything else.

I had no idea where to start though. All I could do was stare at the character sheet and make some guesses according to their self-explanatory names. To tell the truth, I wanted to increase either my INT or my CHA but they didn't give me that damn options.

Then again, beggar couldn't choose what was given to them. The whole status thing might be real or it might be fake, which considering all the weird thing that I had seen, it was very unlikely for the latter. I'd just happily accepted the deal and silently increased my Stats.

(About increasing stats, I had played enough RPG and smartphone games to know the meaning behind each of those statuses and the terms such as min-maxing, dump stats, and generalist/specialist trade-off.)

First of all, for now I just assumed Miracle Resistance and Boost as my dump stats, considering those two were the lowest of all of my stats. No, in fact, considering I didn't know anything about Miracle I had already put everything with 'Miracle' as their name in 'Dump Stats' Category.

(After I defeated the goblin, I had shouted the Miracle names, both of 'Perception' and 'Conjure Crossbow and Bolts' while concentrating and imagining their shapes on my mind, and the result? Nothing happened except for people looking at me with somewhat sympathize looks on their face. Then again, I wouldn't want to know what kind of face they would make if they saw a crossbow to magically appeared on my hand.)

That left everything under of what I called as Physical Status. They gave me no indication of what the underlying mathematical reality was. But from my stats distribution and my miracle, I assumed I was more of a ranged type character. And If that was the case then wouldn't that mean I should've just increased my Dexterity and Agility?

Curiously, I tried to put a point in Dexterity, I saw the Status point changed into one. And simultaneously with that, my Dexterity increased to 8 and alongside with it, my stamina was now raised by two and becoming 44 in total.

I didn't feel any real difference in my body though. Then again, it was pretty hard to count someone dexterity, so I guessed I should've gone with something more countable, which I obviously, instantly removed Vitality from the list.

While keeping that in my mind, I ran the jogging app on my phone then nonchalantly sprinted with all of my might on the area with less people. As soon as my phone vibrated, which signalling I had passed the 50-meter mark, I stopped running and starting taking my phone from my pocket. It recorded that my maximum speed was 20,1 kmh. 

Opening the Miracle Match Making App, I couldn't help but notice my Stamina had dropped to 39. Shrugging my shoulders, I put the remaining of my status point into Agility and saw the '+1' vanished and my Agility raised to 8. Alongside that, my Maximum Stamina and Stamina Regeneration had increased by one, becoming 45 and 17 in total.

Once again, using the same method, I tried to sprint into my house and was pleased to find I certainly felt a little faster or maybe it was only a suggestion from my brain and I, in fact, hadn't gotten any faster from before. But after checking my phone, my lips curled up. It had recorded that my maximum speed was now 21,12 kmh.

So is each point of Agility increased my running speed by 1 kmh? Or should I also consider the decrease in my Stamina? While thinking like that, I shrugged my shoulder and opened the app, only to notice my Stamina had decreased to 35. 

As I shifted my attention into 'Miracle column' I didn't see any other options for learning any new Miracle, except for raising their level into level two. Though, after considering I didn't know which one was more useful, I just ignored it for now and silently went to my home.

Like a deja vu, as soon as I opened the door of my house, I received a message from Hanako. [Congratulations for reaching level two.]