Standing back in her dorm room, Light stared at all the brown bags filled with valis in disbelief. Each bag contained about 100,000 valis, and they were completely identical.

  They were also one of the rewards from her newbie package.

  It had been around a week since Light arrived in this world, and besides going to the dungeon daily to steadily improve her fundamentals, she had also been experimenting with her Fictional Exchange skill.

  In hindsight, she probably should have thought about this use sooner, but she had discovered that duplicating items was incredibly easy. With games that had multiple save slots, all Light had to do was create a separate slot containing her main save, extract everything she wanted, then reload her main save and overwrite the previous slot, restoring everything she had withdrawn.

  Since these games could accept real-world items, Light experimented with duplicating valis, the currency used in the world of Danmachi. She also duplicated her starter sword, ensuring she had plenty of backups.

  "It is a shame I cannot use weapons from Final Fantasy XIII, though," Light muttered, recalling the day she withdrew Lightning’s starter gunbde, Bzefire Saber. She had been excited to upgrade her weapon, especially to something so cool-looking.

  Unfortunately, she had greatly overestimated her own strength. Lightning, even at the start of the game, could unch full-grown adults into the air when staggered, so naturally, her weapon was not going to be... well, light.

  The moment Light withdrew the Bzefire Saber, it fell to the ground with a loud thud. Thankfully, she had been inside the dungeon, so the only result was some cracked flooring. Fortunately, the damage did not seem severe enough to spawn anything more threatening.

  Light still remembered the awkwardness of putting the sword back into her inventory without being able to lift it. Kneeling down and pushing the screen of the hand-held console across the frame of the sword.

  Still, it was not all bad. Although Lightning’s weapon was out of the question until she levelled up more, Lightning’s military outfit, Guardian Corps, was still avaible for use.

  Fitting into the white and dark leather jacket with sharp, angur lines and a high colr, paired with a red and cream tunic underneath and fitted trousers tucked into knee-high boots with a pouch belt and gauntlet-like gloves, Light had done away with her dull, vilger-like outfit and finally wore something that better highlighted her body's beauty.

  The first thing Light said after equipping her new outfit, which not only improved her defence but also enhanced her magic and physical capabilities, was, "I feel like I am cospying at this point."

  Between her natural pink features and her hair already tied up, the only difference between Light and Lightning at this point was their bearing. While Lightning was a trained expert soldier with a naturally stern personality that reflected in her daily expressions, Light was far more id-back and approachable.

  With her experiment over, Light threw all the valis inside her domain and headed out. Loki had told her on the day she joined the Familia that she could have her status updated weekly, the only exception being if the timing coincided with their Familia’s expeditions deep into the dungeon.

  Speaking of expeditions, the Loki Familia was currently in the middle of one, leaving the manor practically deserted. The only people left behind were low-level members who had not yet met the requirements to join. In such a prestigious Familia, the number of people who applied but were not skilled enough to participate in expeditions could be counted on one hand.

  The only reason Loki would take in someone with so little ability was either personal interest or the belief that they possessed a skill with great potential.

  Heading through the empty hallways, Light finally reached Loki’s office. Knocking on the door, she heard her Goddess’s voice from the other side.

  "You can come in, Light."

  Opening the door, she found Loki sitting behind her desk, a stack of papers in front of her, the scene looking straight out of an anime. Seeing Light’s ck of reaction, Loki pursed her lips.

  "You are not going to ask how I knew it was you?"

  "With how few people are in the manor and the fact that it has been a week since you blessed me, it makes sense that you could guess it was me," Light expined while moving closer to the desk, nonchantly picking up one of the documents.

  It seemed that Loki was dealing with all the financial aspects of the expedition, including equipment, food, hiring bcksmiths to repair weapons on-site, and securing healers, as the Loki Familia was sorely cking in that area. She was handling every single detail that went into pnning such a rge-scale operation.

  Instead of reacting to Light’s nosiness as she casually read through confidential Familia documents, Loki simply nodded. If Light had any nefarious intentions towards the Familia, she would not be acting so brazenly. Unless she was stupid, but Loki knew that was not the case.

  Over the past week, Loki had tried to dig deeper into Light’s background, searching for any connections with other gods or a dark history. Yet, no matter who she asked, no one could find anything on her. It was as if she had simply appeared out of nowhere.

  Loki had also attempted to ask the girl loaded questions whenever they crossed paths, disguising them under the cover of casual conversation. Even so, she had uncovered nothing.

  From what she could tell, Light was simply a hardworking girl with a humble personality.

  "You are really no fun sometimes. Why do I always attract girls who only know how to shoot me down?" Loki feigned sadness, dramatically colpsing onto her desk, even squeezing out a couple of crocodile tears for effect.

  "Does that not just make you a masochist at this point?" Light asked while still scanning the contracts.

  Loki was genuinely taken aback. If she had been drinking something, she probably would have done a spit take.

  "You know I am your Goddess, right? You have been here a week, and you are already talking to me like that?"

  "Would you prefer I put you on a pedestal?" Light’s eyes drifted away from the paper as she examined Loki with a teasing smile.

  The mere thought of her children treating her like Freya’s cultists sent a shiver down Loki’s spine.

  "Yeah, no thanks. Anyway, did you come here to update your status? Nice clothes, by the way. You finally stopped dressing like a homeless person."

  "I did, and… thanks?" Light replied, unsure how to take such a compliment.

  She then proceeded to undress and grab a chair, revealing her bare back to Loki. Compared to st time, Loki was much calmer. Although she could still admire the beauty before her, she managed to maintain her composure.

  The moment the drop of blood touched Light’s back, Loki whistled approvingly.

  "Not bad. Not bad at all. About fifty stat points in one week. If you keep this up, you might even match my Ais’s record for reaching level 2 in a single year. My eyes did not deceive me, you definitely have some talent for this."

  Not long after, Loki passed over the familiar brown parchment.

  Name: Light Ashford

  Race: Human

  Age: 18

  Level: 1

  Power: I-11

  Endurance: I-3

  Dexterity: I-9

  Agility: I-10

  Magic: I-19

  Innate Skills: [Avengers – SSS], [Fairy Canon – S]

  Magic: [Ariel – SSS],

  Development skills: [Cooking – F]

  Light read the status again, taking note that not only did her three innate skills not appear, but also the other two granted by the system, Cleanse and Charm Negation. This led her to believe that only skills originating in this world could be read by Falna.

  Looking at the stats, which barely seemed to have moved, Light could not help but show her displeasure. Despite knowing this would have been considered excellent progress by anyone not named Bell, she unconsciously compared herself to him.

  Although Loki had painted her talent as something exceptional, even comparing her to the Sword Princess herself, in reality, she had been comparing Light to the seven-year-old version of Ais, the one who acted as a supporter in her early days. Although Loki had not meant to, Light felt as if she had been smacked in the face with such a comparison.

  Ais might be the main heroine of this story, but still… only being able to keep up with someone who could not even reach the top shelf was ego-destroying.

  "What is wrong?" Loki raised an eyebrow. After giving such high praise, she could not understand why Light looked so miserable. The Sword Princess was practically a legend in the city. She could not wrap her head around why someone would take offence at being told they had equal talent.

  "I thought I would have done better," Light answered honestly after taking a deep breath. Maybe if she had not known about the anime, she would be excited now, but ultimately, she was not.

  Loki simply chuckled. "There are no shortcuts to reaching a high level. It takes years of experience and commitment."

  Unless you are Bell, who speedruns it all in about six months, Light thought to herself.

  After a few more back-and-forths, Light bid her farewell and returned to her room. The moment she did, she closed the door behind her and loaded up the system store feature.

  "Store."

  The moment the word left her lips, a system screen appeared before her eyes. There were not many items in the store, only those from the Familia quest. At the bottom right of the screen, she saw a white fme and a bck fme, both with unique numbers dispyed next to them.

  "So the white fme must be how much positive karma I have obtained, and the bck one represents negative karma."

  After taking note of the two currencies, she found what she was looking for.

  [Liaris Freese (Modified) – 150,000 Positive Karma or 300,000 Negative Karma.]

  "Still so far away..."

  Currently, Light had 1,232 Positive and 8 Negative Karma in her wallet.

  "System, where did I obtain both sets of karma from?"

  [The main source of your positive karma has been from killing monsters before they could harm other people. Your negative karma comes from purposely withholding the truth about your skills from Goddess Loki, who took you in.]

  "Keeping a secret counts as negative karma? That seems a bit strict."

  [It is much easier to obtain negative karma, so having only eight after a week is essentially negligible. The only reason this secret counts as negative in the first pce is that you intentionally misled her when her only goal was to ensure you were not a threat to her Familia.]

  "It even takes that into account too… If so, what about if I want to do good deeds for positive karma, but I am selfishly doing so in order to earn money for the store?"

  Light practically knew the answer, but even so, she needed confirmation before she took action going forward.

  [Naturally, you will still be rewarded, but there will be a penalty.]

  "I thought as much," Light answered dejectedly.

  After hearing that the system considered Loki’s motives, it only made sense that it would do the same for her own.

  Afterwards, Light scanned the storefront, looking at the missed rewards, grimacing slightly at the prices. From a simple value-for-money perspective, she had definitely backed the wrong house by joining Loki. The Bcksmithing Knowledge and Alchemy Knowledge were both set in the millions, regardless of whether she used Positive or Negative Karma.

  Although there was no way to tell how much Ariel and Avenger would cost, Light assumed they would be less than Bell’s common-sense-breaking skill.

  "Guess that goes to show how valuable the knowledge of the gods is."