After hearing from Eris herself that the girls were fine, I decided to cut the call short. I mean it's Eris, she wouldn't lie to me, especially about a topic like that.
While waiting for those idiots, I decided to spend time looking at my adventurer's card. Well... It now an app more than anything.
Due to Earth's low concentration of natural MP, most items that run on magic just don't work.
Though some items like the staffs that Megumin and Aqua each have, the cursed armor that Darkness likes to wear, or my new sword, can still function properly.
Unfortunately, our adventurer's cards won't work here.
To combat this, Eris decided to implement an app that works like and adventurer's card on our phones. Very convenient if I do say so myself.
So now our phones have several features that are really useful to have. Additionally, the phones can merge with other phones amd take on their features and appearances and adds them onto its own.
Basically it can fuse with other phones. Why does this have to exist you may ask?
It's because the school that we have to go through have special smartphones that they hand out to students. It's supposed to come in the mail, together with your acceptance letter, room number and uniform.
And apparently, it's some sort of prestigious school with a 100% employment rate. Now that's plain suspicious.
Nothing is free in this world, a lesson that I learned the hard way back in that good for nothing world.
Hopefully we can avoid getting in trouble while over there, but with the way my party is like, I doubt that wish will come true.
Now back to the reason I even picked up this phone. I was supposed to look at some of my skills to see which ones can be useful, but I got sidetracked providing an explanation for our 'dear' audience!
Deep breaths Kazuma, deep breaths.
You're talking to some people that may or may not even be there, get it together!
Ahem. Back on topic.
I looked at some of the skills that I've learned over my time adventuring. The Thief skills are a no-brainer, they cost almost no MP and have simple incantations.
I did learn how to cast basic spells with no incantation. I just think it and it happens. Though it can be less effectice at times.
Steal, Lurk, Lip reading, Detect Motive and Detect Trap are absolutely going to be useful here.
Up next are my basic magic spells. Using intermediate or advanced magic hear would be a hassle (one of the big reasons as to why I won't use Teleport) , so I opted to go back to my roots.
Create Water and Earth, Tinder, Freeze, Wind Breath, all these elemental skills don't use a lot of MP, so I'll mainly be using these ones in terms of spells.
The other ones that I know are more miscellaneous than anything, but are still incredible here.
Farsight, Night Vision, Snipe, Deadeye, Cooking, Sprint, and a few others make up the rest of the catalogue.
"Woah... " I muttered.
My stats are huge right now! I had almost forgotten that my stat cap was removed.
Who's the weakling now?! Hah!
I started laughing to myself, imagining those jerks back home who used to call me names. Well once I get back over there, I'll pummel all of them.
My highest stat was still my luck stat followed by my intelligence stat. Though my strength, vitality and agility that used to be just average, were now above average.
I still had a bit of skill points left to spare so why not learn the last ones in the learnable skills list.
Once I finished learning some random skills, I went and allocated sone of my skill points to my stats, specifically strength and intelligence. Though I did make sure I had around 10 left in reserve.
"And that's all that grinding was finally used up. " I said as I finished fiddling with my adventurer's card. I just started fiddling with the 'phone' that Eris gave me.
Soon though, I got bored and decided to play on my PC. I used to spend every waking hour of the day on this thing and now I haven't touched it in years.
"Oh Internet, how I've missed you."
Well, time to get back to my life before I got killed, I've got a lot of catching up to do even though time technically rewound. But who cares!
"Let's do this! "
____________________________
Three Weeks Later
"What the hell is taking them so long!" I screamed to no one in particular.
What is up with those guys?! It can't be that hard to follow a tracker on a map right? Right?!
Don't answer that question.
It's been three weeks. Three weeks! Since the last time we saw each other. Normally I wouldn't be too worried about them, but they're in unfamiliar territory.
I told them that they can contact me whenever they have a question abouy anything and thank god for that!
The amount of times I call in and see them about to do something stupid or dangerous is ridiculous.
It happens so often that it becomes routine for me to check up on them three times a day. Most of the time, Megumin's the one who picks up the call. Keyword most.
I've stopped them from getting involved in gang activity, drug deals and even from guys trying drag them to their bases and do who knows what.
Thankfully, that seems to have died down as they're now nearing where my house is. They both told me that and I checked the tracker.
I prepared to go out once again while wearing my green tracksuit. I've been doing this quite often that my parents were very surprised to see me going out a lot.
Speaking of parents...
While I do try and avoid them when I walk around the house to get something, it does feel nice to see and hear them again. Though awkward on my side since the last thing I heard about my parents was them laughing at my death.
No use moping about that
I stood in front of the full-body mirror, taking in my new, err... old body.
"I still can't believe I'm back here, even though it's been two years... "
My name is Satou Kazuma and I'm a 15 year old teenager turned adventurer. I used to live life sitting in my room all day doing whatever, but ever since one particular day, that all changed.
"Haah... This isn't the time to get sentimental. "
I look away from the mirror and headed out of my room. I only brought the essentials with me; my wallet and phone.
The house was empty at the moment but if my mom and dad were they'd surely make a fuss about me going out again.
Once I opened the door, the sunlight blinded me for a moment before my eyes were able to adjust.
Well that's what I get for always staying in a darkened room with no natural light.
I wandered around without any real destination in mind, scratch that, I was currently going to the place where the girls were at, courtesy to the tracker of course.
I wasn't paying much attention to my surround8ngs that I almost didn't notice that I almost walked on the road right as a speeding truck was passing by.
Phew. I shouldn't be out here getting isekai'd again! Right when I just came back.
Though that little incident did give me a bit more awareness of my surroundings, specifically the road I was currently on.
"Would you look at that."
I was standing at the street where I was supposed to die at. Well that doesn't really happen here does it?
Wait didn't Chronos mentioning something about the timeline trying to correct itself? Was that why I almost got hit by a truck?!
Is time itself not even on my side?!
After cursing the very concept of time in my head, I saw three unnmistakable figures at the end of the street. They too seem to have noticed my presence since their faces were filled with relief as they started running, screaming my name as they did so.
"KAZUMA!!!" The relieved shouts from my three party members reached my ears.
Once they were close enough, they wrapped me up in one big group hug. I swear I heard them quietly sobbing, but when I actually looked at their faces, wait no, their faces are buried within the mass of the hug.
The hug ended after a while and I started talking before any of them had the chance to open their mouths.
"Is that really how you treat your party leader that you haven't soon in weeks? By almost suffocating him to death?!" I said jokingly.
My joke made them deadpan for a bit before letting out a bout of giggles that I could have sworn were directed my way.
Well whatever, at least the teams back together again.
"K-Kazuma! (Yes, I'm Kazuma) it was terrible! (Huh.) The people were so mean! They laughed at ud and made fun of our clothes!" Aqua complained while sobbing. These were the 'offended tears' that she would shed when someone makes fun of her.
"Yeah and they kept calling me a little girl despite me being 16 now! (Actually you're 14 again) They're so lucky I had some self control or I would have-!" Megumin ranted, her eyes filled with rage and fury. Even Darkness wouldn't want to get caught in that glare.
Speaking of Darkness...
"Do YOU have anything to complain about?" I ask the only member of my party who wasn't wearing their adventuring gear (suprisingly).
Darkness was wearing clothes similar to whenshe taught at the school in Axel, though they are a bit looser on her body compared to the tight fit they were back home.
"N-No..." Darkness replied sounding a bit disappointed at her own answer. "All they did was ogle at my figure then once they talked to either Megumin or Aqua they'd run off without even talking to me first." Yikes... Those guys were so thrown off by Megumin and Aqua that they didn't talk ti the one person who can hold a (decently) normal conversation with new people.
The blue-haired goddess then proceeded to pat the back of the depressed crusader, aiming to try and prevent her from getting into a deep depression especially after I heard something along the lines of 'Am I not a beautiful woman by their srandards here?"
Y'know, with all of Darkness'... quirks, sometimes I forgot that she's just a woman with her own preferences under all that high defense and masochism.
"Well... Do you guys wanna see my parent's house? It's just up ahead."
After some nods and queries from the girls, we started walking to the place that I called home before getting isekai'd.
Though not before Aqua has one of those random moments where she gains some intelligence (at my expense) and figured out that the road we were currently travelling down was the same one that I died on. Which then led to me telling the embarassing story (for botb of us) of how we basically got stranded at Belzerg.
Of course it would lead to them all laughing at the both of us (mostly me) after the story was told.
"Kazuma pfft did you really die while trying to pfft save a girl." Megumin could barely hold it together before she became laughing mess. Aqua wasn't any better, reminding me of the reason I dragged her down with me. Darkness though while she was giggling like the rest, had a gentle smile on.
"Dying while trying to do a good deed, or at least you thought it was. That's a really Kazuma way to go out."
"Still though that proves that even before you met Aqua, you had the heart of a hero." Darkness finished.
"I mean I-" I try to form a complete statement but was unable to do so, from hearing those words from Darkness.
"Yeah! You are a hero Kazuma! A true one, not like those self-proclaimed 'heroes'back home." Megumin reiterated. I swear if even Aqua starts saying I'm a hero then-
"They're...right, I guess. (You too?!) Even though you're a Hiki-Neet who died from shock, you're still our leader, the hero who defeated the Demon King and was the one who fulfilled your promise of sending me back to heaven. Thank you Kazuma." Aqua gave the final hit and gave me one of her rare true smiles.
No! I can't take it!
"You guys... "
What happened after that was a silent but comfortable group hug (again) before we arrived at my house.
Suffice to say, I had no idea what happened between my parents and party members. After getting an explanation about who they were (obviously a fake one) they ushered to my room and decided for a not really one on one talk.
I heard my name come up several times, but that was it. So, I just went and started playing around with the other device the Eris gave me.
There's only two weeks left before we head out for school. Hopefully we don't get into too much trouble while there.