When Descartes left, Kaori immediately felt a bout of depression settling in. Everyone else was amazed that Kaori had gotten off so lightly after being caught literally stealing information from her boss. They all marveled at how she had garnered so much praise and had earned so much clemency that she would be excused from such an infraction and then scolding that same boss on top of it. Kaori, however, had fixated on the writeup she had received to the exclusion of all else and was feeling like she had been told she was the worst employee ever. Such is the mindset of a perfectionist.
She milled around a bit working on some dwarf recipes but her heart wasn’t in it now. Eventually, she set up a chart on the PDI network and asked the other deities to find as many cross combinations as possible, even if they weren’t going to use them all. She made mention that the discovery of each new species would carry the names of the deities who figured them out in the extended details of that species if it went on sale and they would receive a cut. That got a lot of motivation and suddenly everyone wanted to help.
Kaori just shrugged and went back to her apartment. She had years worth of light novels, manga, anime, and games to catch up on. In truth, she just wanted to distract herself because she felt like dying. An interesting question occurred to her; Could she die? To keep from pondering that, she popped in a release of a recent otome game she had purchased for one of her new consoles.
Kaori was getting very into the game. She had discovered that there were five alternate love interests to the main five. All of the main love interests were hot young male magic academy students. The alternate interests included a couple of the side characters, one teacher, and even a couple of the female rivals. How evocative and spicy!
Kaori had just gotten into the storyline for the second alternate when she received a text on her PDI. It was one of the younger goddesses that she had hired from the catalog. The woman was likely old enough to be her great, great, grandmother but that was inconsequential. What mattered was that she wanted to speak with Kaori.
Kaori pondered it for a few and then conjured a bit more furniture with her apartment builder before opening the door into the office. The young-looking woman of elven descent came in with a bow and a thanks. When she was inside, Kaori shut the door and invited her to come sit at the table in her room. Kaori produced a variety of rice snack crackers that she had gotten complimentary at the hotel.
The woman was astounded by the variety of different snacks she was being presented and then the oddity of the room’s contents hit her. The elven woman whose name was Lerrelan, began by asking Kaori about the various different items in the room. Kaori tried to explain some of the figurines to her and that led into a discussion of the book series they were from.
Lerrelan had intended to go in and focus mostly on talking to Kaori about what had upset her so much. She knew that Kaori had been reprimanded but it wasn’t a very serious attempt at punishment on Descartes’s part. He had all but admitted that he had set the information out for her after discovering that she was having troubles creating new races.
Lerrelan had never seen another higher order deity take such an immediate liking to a new deity but it was clear that their supervisor was one of her director’s favorites for some reason. She considered it thoughtfully before she volunteered to speak to Kaori-sama about it. In truth, she was as curious about the woman as everyone else was and really wanted to figure out what was so special and odd about her. As she spoke with her about a myriad of imagined worlds that the woman understood in great detail, she began to get a sense that there was something distinctly different about the world she had come from.
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Lerrelan did steer the conversation back on track after a long time and finally remembering why she had come there. Kaori avoided the discussion for a bit before finally relenting and talking it through with the councilor. It occurred to her that this was the very reason they had been hired and she was not above the need for counseling.
Kaori told Lerrelan about the writeup and how this was the first one she had ever gotten. There was a lack of comprehension so Kaori had to try explaining what her job was in her previous life. This turned out to be a very long and in depth conversation about Earth. The continued lack of understanding prompted Kaori to show the elven woman a bit of Earth and took her to supper at McDonald’s and introduced her to the bai double cheeseburger while she had the bai teriyaki burger and they both had a Uji matcha frappe’.
After the fairly late lunch, as in, they had gotten to McDonald’s right as the bai menu opened at 5 pm., Kaori proceeded to drag Lerrelan to a shopping mall. The two women spent hours going from one shop to the next and buying a huge assortment of clothing and accessories for the utterly bewildered elf. Between going to several shops, the pair went to the bathroom but actually entered Kaori’s apartment to drop all their things off.
After the seventh or maybe ninth store they went to, Kaori decided that they had seen enough of the mall. It was time for the pair of business attire clad women to go clubbing! Kaori introduced Lerrelan to yakiniku barbeque which the woman took to readily. Kaori realized that this was a lot closer to what she would be used to than a McDonald’s or another fast-food chain.
After the eighth round of beers, the women were attracting a small crowd of would-be suitors. They didn’t seem to care that Lerrelan was sporting a pair of elven ears and a couple seemed fixated on that point. Kaori hadn’t had this much attention in a long time but it was getting troublesome to tell the guys no so many times. It seemed that a few of them were unused to being refused and might make a seen so Kaori pulled out her secret weapon and told them that they were lesbian so the guys had no chance to begin with.
A couple persisted even after that but it was clear that they were just obnoxious. Kaori pulled out the stops and bought four rounds for everyone in the bar/grill. During the commotion, the pair slipped out and headed to a karaoke bar that Kaori remembered seeing. Lerrelan was already bewildered but when she heard the music coming from everywhere, she was just confused. However, Kaori found that her and her companion could sing the songs beautifully so that was a plus.
When they finally made it back to Kaori’s apartment dimension, Lerrelan had come to a firm understanding. There were definite reasons that Kaori was special and her culture was so far removed from the normal that anybody from her world was bound to seem gifted. The realization that Lerrelan had was actually that Kaori was gifted among her own people and that would obviously make her exceptional among other cultures. It seems that Descartes wasn’t just fixating on her for no reason.
Once Lerrelan was gone, Kaori breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure who benefitted more from the outing but she was glad it was over all the same. Kaori wasn’t sure what might have happened if the guys in that bar had gotten handsy. Two goddesses mingling with a bunch of mortals sounds evocative of many fantasy novels but in truth, it could have gone very badly.
Kaori decided that from now on, going to Earth would have to be something that was purchased with WP. This would have to be a rather expensive tour as well. Kaori still had a small car’s worth of gold that she could sell but she would have to be careful with doing that. Her funds wouldn’t last forever if she kept burning through them to take trips to Earth all the time. Besides, it was high time that she got out the book and paused time and began implementing all of her changes.