My name was Kenta Yamashita, and I was addicted to anime. Don't lump me in with those NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), though. Unlike them, I was an upstanding member of society.
By that, I meant I worked in a convenience store and lived in a net café at 38 years old while spending all my time and money reading manga, watching anime, and playing computer games. I wasn't one of those merchandise collectors, though, since I didn't have a house to put them in, not to mention the absurd prices to actually buy them.
That was the dream, though, having a house, disposable income, and maybe even a retirement fund. But that was all it was, a dream.
As for having a wife and kids, forget about it. It was too much of a stretch to find a kind, loyal girl who would love me in this economy. I was better off adopting a child, which carried the risk of being called a pedophile.
"That'll be 3,780 yen," I said as I received 4,000 yen in bills and returned 220 yen in change, giving a small bow to the cute highschool girl. "Thank you very much. Please come again."
Our hands briefly touched as I dropped the change into her hand, my daily dose of physical human interaction, or so I thought. As I turned to the next customer, the door suddenly opened and in walked a man dressed in all black with his face covered, holding a knife.
"This is a robbery! Empty the register!" he shouted as he took the girl hostage and pressed the knife to her throat.
"Kyaaa—mphh," the girl screamed before he covered her mouth and waved the knife around.
"Hurry up! Do it!" he shouted at me.
Quickly, I opened the register and dumped all the money onto the counter.
"Put it in a bag!" he shouted, so I stuffed everything into a paper bag as fast as I could.
Suddenly, the next customer in line, a scrawny high school boy, jumped the robber, his hands covering the man's face. The robber panicked, letting the girl go and trying to grab at the boy behind him.
I took that as my chance and jumped the counter, reaching for the knife. The robber, however, was simply too strong. He quickly ducked his head and slammed it back into the boy's face, finally getting him off before focusing on me.
With the knife in hand, he pushed me against the counter and slowly drove it into my chest, our eyes widening in shock at the situation we found ourselves in. Still, I wouldn't allow that to stop me, so with my dying strength I grabbed the handle of the knife, preventing him from pulling it free.
Suddenly, the girl who had been freed picked up a heavy-looking umbrella and bashed the robber on the back of the head with the wooden handle, knocking him out.
I lay there, slowly dying, with a smelly, heavy man lying on top of me in the convenience store I had worked in for the past 20 years. It was a horrible way to go, but it had been a good run. I just wished it had been less lonely. As much as I avoided relationships with other people, I desperately wanted it deep down, someone to share my life with.
I closed my eyes as strength left my body amid the panicked screams of the girl and the boy. Then bright golden light descended upon me, and a beautiful woman in a white kimono appeared as if from the heavens, kissing my forehead.
The next thing I knew, I found myself in a forest, with a catgirl standing in front of me. She was the anthropomorphic type, with a cat's head, hands, feet, and tail, her entire body covered in shining white fur with black spots. She looked like an Egyptian Mau. Still, that didn't detract from her beauty, or from the fact that she was naked in front of me.
"I am not naked!" she shouted at me with a pouting expression. "You can't even see anything with my luscious fur covering my entire body."
Still pretty hot, though; I don't know what to tell you.
"Ahem," she fake-coughed, her demeanor clearly flustered. "Thank you. Anyway, enough about me. Let's focus on you, Kenta Yamashita."
Ah, the beautiful catgirl said my name…
"I, um… er… the Goddess of Paws—"
How absolutely adorable!
"Stop that! Don't interrupt me," she shouted before regaining her composure. "I have summoned you in order to help me improve my kingdom's food culture. I tried doing it through divine revelations to my priests, but those idiots ended up deforesting half of my beautiful kingdom. Right now, they're only interested in meat, but there's so much more to life than just that. There's cakes, candies, ice cream, donuts…"
So you want them to also make sweets on top of just meat and nothing else? What about vegetables, fruits, grains, fish, soups, drinks, alcohol?
"Those other things too," she said, looking unsure when I mentioned vegetables.
Not vegetables, though?
"Maybe a bit of vegetables," she said, fidgeting slightly and looking away. "Anyway! That's what I summoned you for with a time limit of 1000 years."
A thousand years! That's absurd.
"I know it's a very short amount of time to complete the task, but I'm confident you'll be able to finish it by then. You were successfully summoned, after all."
We have very different ideas of what a thousand years means. I don't even know if I'll live that long.
"Just get a class at one of my churches and rank up. It's easy. In exchange, I'll give you a unique class when you next rank up."
Class? Rank up? Unique? So there are systems in this world?
"Ah, time's up! Goodbye, see you later!"
Wait!
The next thing I knew, I had been born and was being carried by an old catwoman. Looking around, I found myself in a rather dilapidated wooden room. It looked like I had been born poor again, but that didn't matter as I stared at my adorable, squishy-looking paw pads. It seemed I had been born as an anthropomorphic orange tabby cat.
Now, being an anime fan, I quickly checked for any sort of cheat abilities. This world apparently had a system, but there had to be more than just that for me, right?
Status! Nothing.
System! Nothing.
Powers! Stats! Profile! Menu! Character! Inventory! Info! Equipment! Nothing!!!
Eh, I guess it was one of those in-world system things, which meant I had to complete that Goddess's request of building a food culture in this kingdom through my own culinary skills and modern sensibilities. It shouldn't be too hard. I had 10 lifetimes to pull it off, after all.
As I was being lulled to sleep, I couldn't help but remember that other goddess who had kissed me on the head as I lay dying. She seemed familiar, like one of those Shinto deities.
Ame-no-Uzume? Izanami? Amaterasu?
Suddenly, my vision was filled with a computer-like screen, and I found myself on a grocery delivery website. It seemed this was my real cheat, my gift from the Goddess Amaterasu.
Ah. The screen closed. Amaterasu.
As the screen opened again, I started poking around with my mind but couldn't change the website, so I continued probing and was somehow led to a "pay now" section that indicated I had zero currency. That meant I had to find some way to fill it up before I could purchase anything.
Great~ My cheat was useless while I was poor. It was the same catch-22 I had lived with in my old life. Only those who had capital had the means to grow it, while poor people like me had no choice but to work in a convenience store for 20 years and still remain poor.
From that day onwards, I started acclimating to my new life.
I slowly learned the language called Common, found out I was named Kit, and that I had been abandoned, which meant I was an orphan. It was fine though, just another disadvantage added onto the pile. On the bright side, all the kids were so adorable and fluffy. Unfortunately, it was apparently quite an intimate gesture to stroke another cat's fur so I could only look but not touch, another depressing fact about this new life.
Things changed for me when I turned 10 years old, when I was finally able to earn a copper coin from begging. The orphanage had money, but I wasn't enough of an asshole to steal it for the sake of an experiment.
I discovered that I could add more currency to the website in my mind if I pressed the coins of this kingdom onto the "pay now" section. From that, I was able to buy a single piece of candy. I tried selling it and was able to build a bit of capital until I attracted the attention of the gangs in the city. They had seen me raking in a gold coin and wanted in on the action, so I quickly stopped my operations and hid.
It was dangerous having an ability like this without the strength to match, greatly limiting my earning potential.
I studied a bit more and discovered that in order to truly improve my situation, I had only a few options. I could tell someone of great power about my cheat and pray they didn't take advantage of me. I could risk my life as an adventurer and grab power with my own two hands. Or I could take the option I had chosen, all of the above with a bit of maneuvering.
First, I needed capital, and the best way to get my hands on it was to become a slave. If I sold myself for 10 years, I was guaranteed a platinum coin as payment at the end after taxes, which meant 10 gold coins per year without being harassed by hooligans on the street. Through this, I would get a chance to work for people of power who I might decide to partner with depending on their character, which would allow me to skip ahead to the endgame.
If I didn't find anyone to partner with, I would proceed to step two, becoming an adventurer.
Unfortunately, leveling up was extremely dangerous, or so I had been told. The survival rate was apparently 10% for reaching Rank 1 for those like me who could maybe afford a dagger and leather armor before heading off to fight monsters without training, which was where step one would come in handy.
I would use the platinum coin to buy combat lessons from the Adventurers Guild, equip myself, and start my life as an adventurer to reach Rank 1, where I would have enough lifespan to focus on the Goddess's task. Once the money started rolling in, I would aim to reach Rank 2, receive the Goddess's unique class at Rank 3, and that was as far as I could plan. I was sure I would think of something to do once I reached that point. I would be about a thousand years old after all.
And so, at 10 years old, I sold myself into slavery and came under the employ of Viscount Fennwhisker, where I met the love of my life, Daisy.
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