“When my stomach was full, a sudden surge of curiosity hit me. I stepped out from under the tarp and looked up at the sky.
The time on my wristwatch read exactly six o’clock in the evening.
It might be Earth time, but I decided to think of it as the time of this new world.
When I was eating dinner, the sky was still bright, gleaming in shades of orange. Now it was dyed in a soft gradient of pale purple.
‘Two moons… it’s definitely another world.’
A large, pale-blue moon hung in the sky, accompanied by a smaller, reddish crescent beside it. It was a strange yet beautiful sight.
I pulled out my smartphone, which I had shoved in my pocket, to capture this memorable first night in another world. The photo turned out well, so I set it as my home screen background.
‘Oh, right.’
Suddenly, I remembered that I hadn’t checked my own face yet. Natsuki had mentioned that my basic features were the same, though there had been various changes since I’d transformed into a high elf.
Since I didn’t have a mirror, I’d forgotten all about it, but I could use my phone to take a selfie.
I switched to the front camera and peeked at the screen.
‘What the…?’
I had always been aware of my somewhat feminine, decent-looking face, inherited from my mother. But my current appearance was on an entirely different level.
‘Natsuki… How is this even remotely the same base? I’ve turned into some ridiculously good-looking person…’
My hair was a deep navy blue, almost a blackish-blue. My eyes were a clear, deep blue, similar to the sapphire my grandmother had cherished.
My skin was porcelain-like, smooth and flawless, surpassing even my aunt who swore by luxury beauty serums. The texture of my skin was incredibly fine.
Each of my facial features—eyes, nose, lips—was perfectly shaped and placed just right. My face had the delicate beauty of a top-tier pretty girl.
‘…No, I don’t have a chest, and there’s still something down there. I’m a guy. I’m still a guy…!’
I double-checked in a bit of a panic.
I parted my hair to look at my ears, and seeing that only the tips were slightly pointed, I breathed a sigh of relief.
The elves I’d seen in Japanese fiction usually had quite long and prominent ears.
‘With ears this length, I can easily hide them. Good. Or maybe not? With a face like this, I might stand out too much. Or are elves here generally this attractive?’
I was around 160 centimeters tall, which was about four centimeters shorter than in my previous life. However, I felt that my limbs had grown longer in proportion.
Staring at the selfie I’d just taken, I realized that my head size had also changed. My body proportions were far from typical for a Japanese person.
‘If my classmates back in college saw this, they’d probably go crazy with jealousy over how small my face has gotten…’
And that was with no makeup—just naturally looking like an idol-level pretty girl. No, I’m a guy, and this is absolutely not something to be happy about!
‘If anything, I’d have preferred to be a cool, muscular elf…’
I held a grudge against that fluffball Kesaran Pasaran a little bit.
With this appearance, I looked like I was only in my mid-teens. For a long-lived elf, this would probably still be considered baby-faced.
‘Oh well, there’s no point in dwelling on it now. I’ll be living alone in this forest for a while, away from people anyway.’
I stored my phone in the item box, pulled out my work gloves, and a sickle for cutting grass.
It was a bit early to sleep, so I decided to earn some points. I placed a magically enchanted lantern by my feet and set about cutting grass with focus.
With a style of gripping as much as I could with one hand and chopping away, I didn’t bother to appraise the plants. This way, I could gather around fifty stalks at a time. Clearing just the area around my tent should earn a decent number of points.
After about thirty minutes of quiet grass-cutting, no more grass was left within the barrier. The area looked tidy now. Satisfied, I surveyed my surroundings and converted the stored grass into points.
‘Huh? 23,000 points? Did I have that much?’
When I checked the breakdown, it turned out there had been a rare herb among the grass I’d cut, worth 1,000 points each.
Mana Grass. It’s used in potions for restoring magical energy. Got it—I’ll remember its features and aim to collect it from now on.
As for the common Hime Shiba grass, when dried with basic life magic and used as firewood, it worked perfectly as an insect repellent, so I decided to keep about a hundred stalks.
‘The tent’s barrier keeps out monsters and magical beasts, but regular bugs still get in…’
Hime Shiba as an insect repellent was essential.
Upon further inspection, I realized the barrier doesn’t repel people either. However, with the invisibility spell, it becomes completely invisible to anyone but me, so that was reassuring.
‘If I were ambushed by bandits the moment I left the forest, it’d be a real nightmare. This invisibility spell is a lifesaver.’
Even when camping, I should stick to secluded places and keep my presence hidden inside the tent.
‘Feeling a bit tired. Guess I’ll turn in for the night.’
With the lantern in hand, I headed toward the tent.
I’d thrown in some insect-repellent grass into the campfire, so I decided to leave it as it was.
Taking down the tarp poles, I returned to my ‘living room’ setup. Since it would likely get chilly in the morning, I made sure to close up tightly. Just sealing it up made the tent quite warm.
I hung the lantern from the center of the dome tent’s ceiling, and before changing, I cast Cleanse. It felt as refreshing as a bath, and I changed into my sweatpants.
‘Everything’s just the right size for this physique…’
I felt grateful for the attention to these small details.
I turned off the lantern and slipped into the sleeping bag. Thanks to the life magic, Light, a gentle glow lit the inside of the tent for a while.
When I opened my status board and checked today’s points, I found I’d accumulated a whopping 40,000 points.
‘Whoa…! Thanks to the Mana Grass and Horn Rabbit, things are going well. I might as well buy something to send to those guys.’
Eagerly, I tapped on the Summon Magic Shop screen.
‘Wait…? Why are there so few items available?’
Searching by category, I found that I could only summon purchase a limited selection of items. Only items in black text could be added to the cart, while grayed-out ones were unresponsive.
Upon closer inspection, all the purchasable items were priced at 100 points.
‘What’s going on? With so many points in my balance, I should be able to buy more… huh?’
Checking the search screen, I found an option for the source shop. Currently, the only available store for summoning purchases was a certain 100-yen shop.
‘So, I can only buy items from a 100-yen shop until my level goes up…!'”
