I woke up in a strange place again.

It was one of those when I had a strange dream, I couldn't remember and woke up feeling more tired than when I left to sleep. I didn’t remember how I fell asleep either or had any idea where I was.

My lips and throat felt dry and my entire body was sore. My stomach growled, reminding me how hungry I got overnight, and sitting up I found my gear next to a comfortable bed. My staff, a backpack, and food left on the nightstand smelled very nice. I was compelled to eat that thing without thinking about it and recognized the taste of Lambert's cooking. I was definitely in that fantasy world still.

The two mounds that blocked my vision whenever I looked downwards reminded me, that this was a different body, not one I lived my life for eighteen years. I died only to be reborn as a beautiful woman with some feline features and I was tempted to say, it was worth the price.

However, saying that I was reborn wasn't exactly accurate. The Goddess of Luck, an actual deity from this world gave me her own body, so my soul had something to possess and start a new life here. It made little sense when I thought about it, but I felt gratitude towards her.

And love, of course. The strongest memory I carried from my previous life was meeting this girl on the university campus and losing my mind after the first glance I laid on her. My heart was still working overtime whenever she was nearby, but it pained me to realize, I barely knew anything about her to this day. And made no progress either...

This nearly soured the taste of this excellent meal, but the clattering noise beyond my room's door dragged me back to the present. The door flew open the next second, and my little sister rushed through it with a huge grin. She was full of life, wearing a school uniform that wasn't just cute and elegant, but thanks to the Goddess' magic, it protected her from both magic and the elements.

"Nati! You woke up at last." She announced as if I didn't know, but now I questioned how long I was in this bed. "Don't worry, you are in Gomel's place. We brought you back when you passed out, and did a little scouting... You didn't miss anything."

"What? I passed out?" I jumped up too fast and suddenly felt dizzy.

"Whoa, careful big sis, you might be low on mana." She grabbed my shoulders to prevent me from falling. Hearing her say big sis only made the world spin faster around me though. "You were out for an entire day so take it easy now. Oh, you found your food, great."

"F-for a whole day? Sorry, I overdid it with that Cerberus..." I started remembering what happened, but it didn't make me feel better. "So you went ahead without me? What was the dungeon like?"

"Ugh, to be honest? It was boring. We saw some creatures that looked like Spanish snails, like... Disgusting." She shook her head, pushing me back down onto the bed. "But Omerta said it wasn't the actual dungeon yet, and they did not belong there either. The entrance was blocked."

"What do you mean blocked? So the Cerberus..." I struggled to put the pieces together, but she sat down and started a proper explanation before I could finish my sentence.

"So like, you know, the dungeon is in a different dimension, right?"

"A pocket dimension, yes." I nodded, quoting the Goddess.

"Oh, I haven't heard it like that. It sounds much cuter than what Omerta said..." She giggled before continuing. "Anyway, this dungeon spawned under the city, and the creatures dug their way out to the surface, like a long time ago. Then their tunnels got filled with critters from this continent, mainly those troglodytes we encountered, and the dungeon sealed itself back to prevent these from entering."

"So it's gone? And the Cerberus and the Nightmares..."

"No no no, it's not gone, it's just sealed." Emi shook her head, grabbing my empty plate and holding it up for me. "Like, we entered a cave system and followed the traces of mana, but we ended up going around in a huge circle with no actual entrance to the thing. Then we realized, that it's just earth, someone from the inside probably filled up all the routes that led there, to keep these snail things out."

I struggled to understand what she meant, drawing a circle around the plate, but then she knocked on it confidently.

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"The dungeon is still there, we just have to dig a new entrance, but it should be easy enough." She claimed, putting down the plate. "We didn't want to rush in without you... But you don't seem to be ready."

"Oh, uh, I need to refill my mana." I nodded, trying to recall that method the Goddess told me about. "I gained a lot of weight but Alexandra said I could convert that directly into magicules if I'm ever low."

"Wow, that's just cheating!" Emi yelled, then burst into laughing. "Not like I need to lose weight, but people back in our world would be very jealous. Turn your fat into magic, huh? I wonder if I could gain some weight doing the opposite..."

She pulled up her uniform to flash her thin midriff, and even though she was sitting, her skin did not fold over her skinny belly. She was always a scrawny kid, but it looked like she lost even more weight since I died in that other world. I felt pity for her, thinking I must have caused this, but the longer I stared at her midriff, the more embarrassing the situation turned out to be. I slapped her hand away and fixed her shirt with a blush.

"I don't think it's possible to remain that thin if you eat Lambert's cooking all the time, and don't know any magic tricks..." I claimed, laughing nervously. Now my mind was filled with so many conflicting thoughts that I had no chance to remember that method. "The Goddess said she didn't want to rely on her followers, but she still needed a lot of mana, so she just converted the food she ate directly. The crystal doesn't know the method though, and I can't remember what she said..."

"Well, maybe just imagine how the fat evaporates and turns into a cloud of mana or something?" She laughed, patting my round belly, embarrassing me even more. I worked a lot on it last month, but it was still far from the shape I inherited from Alex.

Emi's idea seemed good enough to try though. Even if she meant it as a joke, magic worked similarly. If I could visualize something, it would become reality with the mana I controlled. But now I had to attempt the opposite and gain mana with this method, and I had a rowdy tomboy next to me, that didn't let me focus on anything...

My concentration chances dropped below zero once the other two girls appeared at my door. They brought their spiky and flame-looking magic staff with them but entered carefully as if treading on eggshells. This reminded me of how my attempt at levitating small rocks turned into a literal black hole before I passed out, and it explained their strangely careful behavior. I let out a nervous giggle.

"Oh, you're up, how're you feeling?" Omerta asked, leaning against the doorframe. Ember stopped only a step away from her, almost as if she tried to hide behind that staff, the usual confident stance nowhere to be found. "How much did Emi tell you about our scouting mission?"

"Um, just that you found no entrance to the dungeon, and you will open one... I'm, uh... Sorry about that... Thing." I struggled to put it into words without embarrassing myself even further. While I barely remembered the details, things would have been ugly if they looked at me like this. "And that I held back the entire expedition..."

"Nuh-uh, it's all right. If anything, now we know that you can deal some serious damage if it comes to that." The orc witch responded with a laugh, but it felt forced on me. Ember seemed reluctant to add her part, but Omerta nudged her shoulders and made her speak.

"I bet you are out of mana and feeling tired... When I depleted my magicules, I used these crystals to drain some from them, but it's quite risky if you don't know what you are doing." She explained, a bit discursive. Gitaut said something about their purple crystals still containing the mana from their previous functions, but mine never emitted a significant amount. "Ah, otherwise, you could just meditate a bit and refill that way, we are not in a hurry or anything..."

Now it was clear as a day, that they came to urge me a bit. Unsurprisingly, if I was passed out for an entire day and was about to experiment with turning my excess weight and energy into magicules anyway. But I got more and more distracted instead.

"Ah, the thing is, the Goddess taught me a method, but I never tried and it's a bit hard to concentrate like this..." I tried my best to tell them politely, they were a bother, without scaring or offending them. Interacting with people, especially when I wanted to make them do something was tiring for me even more than training or using magic...

Fortunately, I had my little sister with me who seemed to understand my meaning without explaining it further. She opened her arms and launched herself off my bed, herding the witches out of my room.

"Take your time, Nati, I'll handle things out here." She claimed, turning back for a mischievous wink, and reminded me why I loved her so much. I couldn't believe I lasted this long without her in this ruthless and strange world. She slammed the door behind her, and I was finally left with the empty plate and my staff in the dwarven smith's room.

"Right, let's not disappoint her..." I mumbled to myself, attempting to clear my mind from all the whirling thoughts inside it.

I cooked bacon before, and sometimes I felt like a pig for eating this much, so it wasn't hard to think of the parallels. The thin slice of bacon would sizzle and shrink as it touched the heated pan, and release the fat, gathering on the bottom. I imagined the same thing happening to my shame, the belly fat I packed on this godly body in the last months, and how that fat would then serve as the ingredients for another dish.

The very essence from which I could cast my spells. I had to turn that substance into magicules, without instructions. Alexandra never explained her method in detail, but if I found some parallels, I could turn matter directly into energy.

E = mc^2. I learned this back in school. Well, at the very least, I heard about it. Energy or mana, it shouldn't matter, I started the transformation...