A mischievous smile crawled up onto Atelier’s face. At the sudden declaration, Kurushimi fell into silence, unable to respond for a second. Her mouth was wide open with shock. In her knowledge of isekai tropes, the fact the main character was from another world was a big secret that would be kept secret for a while until a big reveal. This may not be fiction like in what she had read or seen, however this was the first person she had met other than Voice-san and she had already been found out?

“She may not actually know yet, it would be better to play du-” Voice-san hurriedly spoke to Kurushimi as they faced Atelier. For all they know at the moment, it may be a bluff and they could play dumb. It would be better to deny Atelier’s claim. Indeed, it would be. However…

“Wow! You can tell?” Kurushimi immediately cut Voice-san off and replied to Atelier with a look of admiration, causing Voice-san to sigh deeply. Knowing how simple Kurushimi’s mindset was, she would have told Kurushimi to at least listen to her before speaking. But how was she supposed to know they would end up meeting someone now of all times?!

“Hah… Now you’ve fully given away any sense of hiding your identity.” Voice-san reprimanded Kurushimi. Atelier’s goals are currently unknown, how she would respond to knowing such information is also unknown.

“What’s the worst that can happen with her knowing, though? It isn’t that big of a deal.” Kurushimi responded to Voice-san’s concerns by brushing them away.

“Who are you talking to?” Suddenly, Voice-san’s and Kurushimi’s conversation was cut off by a confused Atelier. Kurushimi’s face froze in realisation. She had been talking normally with Voice-san for so long, she forgot to others it would look like she was talking to herself! “Are you talking to someone through telepathy?” Atelier questioned.

“Um…” Kurushimi hesitated to respond.

“At least this time try not to immediately tell her the truth.” Voice-san cut in faster this time before Kurushimi could answer again. Even if it wasn’t a big problem for Atelier to know, it would still be beneficial to keep as much information as possible a secret for now. At least, until it is known whether Atelier is trustworthy or not.

“I… I’ve been alone for a while! So I talked to myself unconsciously just now haha~” Kurushimi quickly thought of an excuse to somewhat explain what was happening. She found it a little embarrassing to say she had been talking to herself, but it was for the sake of hiding Voice-san’s existence for now.

“Hmm… Is that so? I’ve been alone for a long time too, but I’ve never talked to myself like that…” Atelier shot a suspicious glance at Kurushimi shortly before wiping it off her face. Kurushimi sighed in relief, judging by her facial expression that her excuse had barely worked. Or at least, Atelier wouldn’t bother her about it.

‘Hey Voice-san… Can you hear me~?’ As soon as Atelier had stopped suspecting her, Kurushimi immediately went to attempt communicating with Voice-san through her head. She wasn’t exactly sure how communication worked with her thoughts as she had been talking out loud so far, so as to how much Voice-san could hear when it came to her thoughts… Hopefully they could speak this way at the very least.

“Yes, I can hear you.” Kurushimi was relieved by the prompt response from Voice-san. However, another thought ran across her mind. How much of her thoughts can be heard by Voice-san? Has everything she has been thinking up till now been completely open? The mind is an untempered and unchained construction, that is why what you say and think are generally very different. Even if what she had said so far wasn’t incredibly bad, what if she thought of something super embarrassing in the future!

“Calm down, I can only hear direct thoughts such as this one.” As Kurushimi was clutching her head, dreading the future, Voice-san’s next words quickly consoled her worries a little bit. “However, I do have an idea of what you are thinking subconsciously.” But then her worries immediately resurfaced once again. ‘At least, I can hide my thoughts somewhat.’ Kurushimi thought to herself.

“Kurushimi, your thoughts are like an open book. Mind reading isn’t necessary to tell what you're thinking.” Voice-san instantly rebutted a thought Kurushimi didn’t think she would be able to see.

‘Guh- I’ll ignore that comment for now…’ Kurushimi looked back to Atelier. At this rate, if she kept speaking with Voice-san, Atelier would grow suspicious again and it would be hard to shake off this time. And, there were bigger concerns right now. ‘How does Atelier know I’m not from this world, who is she and where did she come from?’ Those were the main concerns running through her head right now.

Generally, the only method to answer those questions at this time would be to ask Atelier and try to get information out of her. However, Kurushimi had a trusty method of getting information that had been open to her since meeting this new world's set of laws. Mana glistened in her eye as she focused on Atelier, who stood before her.

[Skill failed!]

“Huh?” Kurushimi's face filled with visible confusion as the system message she got back was not the expected result, but rather a notification of it failing.

“You think I’ll let such an obvious appraisal go through?” Atelier stepped forward, moving in front of the system message to put herself back into front-view again. “You might not know this yet, so I’ll tell you. Appraisal’s level doesn’t only decide how much information one can view. If two users who both have appraisal meet - and one of the users tries to appraise the other - the other can challenge the appraisal. The winner of the challenge is decided by… you guessed it, whoever has the higher level appraisal.”

After hearing Atelier’s explanation, Kurushimi was a little saddened. This meant that her idea of using appraisal to gather information had been blown away completely. However, she was quickly distracted by something else she had gathered from Atelier’s explanation. “So your appraisal level is higher than mine? What level is it!” Kurushimi excitedly jumped forward.

“Ah-!” Atelier fell back as Kurushimi suddenly appeared in front of her. At this point, she had already moved towards Kurushimi after challenging the appraisal. But now, Kurushimi had run forward, which Atelier hadn’t expected her to do.

“Actually, what level are you? Is it high? Higher than Karshak? Ah, that might be too much. Karshak is Lvl. 120 after all.” Kurushimi spoke fast and rapidly asked multiple questions. At this point in a conversation with a mortal like her, they would normally get even more careful than they were before. However, she had done the exact opposite and gotten excited. This being the first time Atelier had seen a mortal react this way. And even more importantly, an unexpected name was mentioned.

“Karshak? You know that name?” Atelier furrowed her brows as she asked with a doubtful expression. Karshak was a name she definitely knew. But what was unexpected was that Kurushimi would know that name and be alive to mention it. Stuck in her thoughts, Atelier failed to realise Kurushimi had grabbed her hands during the flurry of questions.

“What other skills do you haaaagh?!” Or at least, she had attempted to grab Atelier’s hands. As she leaned in, the expected result of her hand meeting Atelier’s did not happen. Instead, her hands passed through them and she fell forward. A loud thump resulted from Kurushimi hitting the ground. Even though Atelier was right in front of her, she had also passed straight through her body as well.

“Ow… Yeah, I thought you looked sort of transparent~” Kurushimi dazedly said from the ground, her face covered in dirt. Earlier, she had indeed observed Atelier to look transparent. However, she had forgotten about that and was now laying on the ground as a result. “Then…” she slowly started to stand herself up until she was looking at Atelier from equal ground again, “You are a ghost!” She declared confidently, extending her pointer finger outwards.

Atelier looked at the now dirty Kurushimi, who had declared her conclusion with confidence and replied, “Close. But not right.”

“What are you then?” Kurushimi asked.

“My current form is similar to that of a ghost. Or spirit, more specifically. However, that is not what I really am.” Atelier began to explain, to which Kurushimi listened attentively. Holding her hand against her chest, Atelier stared earnestly into Kurushimi’s eyes. “I am the goddess, Atelier - and I need your help.”

“Goddess? Help?” Kurushimi was a little taken back by the reveal. Her original guess really couldn’t have been further off. This was her first time meeting a goddess in this world. Normally this wouldn’t be a crazy thing to witness as it isn’t an uncommon trope to meet a goddess in an isekai. However, after not meeting a goddess upon arrival in this world, Kurushimi thought that she would end up missing out on this trope. But now, she has randomly come across one in the wild.

And the second thing, “You need my help?” Kurushimi looked at Atelier skeptically. This goddess was asking for her help, despite her being supposedly weaker than the goddess. Only one thing ran across Kurushimi’s mind when she thought about it.

‘Isn’t this my first quest?!’ A lot more common found in videogames, quests were also a staple of fantasy. So far, she hadn’t come across an ‘NPC’ to give her one, but it looked like this was it! Although, Kurushimi felt a little bad calling Atelier an ‘NPC’. After all, this was a sentient being. Not coding on a computer.

“As I said before, my current form is similar to that of a spirit. I cannot be hurt or touched, but I am also unable to interact with the world beyond speech and a few skills like appraisal. I am trapped here and can’t leave unless someone helps me.” Atelier explained her situation.

“Why are you in this form?” Kurushimi asked. From the way Atelier described it, she felt that this ‘spirit’ form couldn’t possibly be her original form. Something must have happened that made her take this form.

“From a battle too long ago to remember. I was trapped here using the surrounding crystals to prohibit me from leaving. By now it is unlikely that the people in this world will remember me, making me a forgotten goddess.” Atelier said, a solemn look appeared on her face for a brief second.

Hearing Atelier explain her situation, Kurushimi started to feel a bit of pity for the goddess. For a long time, she had been trapped here in the forest and forgotten about. It is a common fear for people to be afraid of being forgotten about after death, but what about being forgotten before even dying? “Mm, so it’s these crystals trapping you? I’ll destroy ‘em for you then!” Kurushimi said, clenching her fist and raising her voice.

“Ah, wait. You don't need to do that.” Atelier said.

“It’s fine, don’t worry. It isn’t a problem to destroy some crystals!” Kurushimi replied.

“No, I don’t mean it like that. What I mean is, that wouldn’t work.” Atelier explained, quickly correcting Kurushimi. “You could try to destroy the crystals, but you would have to destroy every single one around which would take way too long. The crystals are sturdier than you may think. And anyway, there is a simpler solution to get me out of here.”

Kurushimi’s interest peaked at the last words Atelier said. As expected of a goddess, she had already thought of a good and simple solution. “Ok, what is it? If I can help, I will.”

“Thank you very much. I’m very grateful you are willing to help. The solution goes as: The problem is that the crystals prevent me from leaving due to my current form. So, I need some kind of way to get past. I need a physical form. This is where you come into it. I can enter a sort of ‘spectator mode’, going by your world’s terminology. Where I can link myself to you and even communicate with you telepathically. It’ll work sort of like a trojan horse, letting me bypass the crystals through your body.” Kurushimi listened to Atelier’s solution to escape. However, the solution felt oddly familiar to something else.

‘Hey, Voice-san. Doesn’t that sound a lot like you? Like how you spectate me and speak telepathically and stuff?’ Kurushimi quickly went to Voice-san to discuss this. What Atelier had explained sounded exactly like how Voice-san was.

“Yes, that does sound a lot like our situation…” Voice-san agreed, but grew even more skeptical of Atelier. “Are you going to accept it?” she asked Kurushimi. It was up to Kurushimi whether they tried this and would see whether or not Atelier was talking about the same thing they were now.

‘This could be a lead on what or who you are. Perhaps we could find something out about you through Atelier?’ Leads on who or what Voice-san was were scarce. Neither Kurushimi nor Voice-san really had any clue and it didn’t look like there would be many other opportunities to find out. Especially at this point in time, where they are situated in this isolated forest. And Kurushimi wanted to help Atelier. Having someone with deeper knowledge of this world would be useful.

“If you want to, I won’t try to stop you.” Voice-san agreed that it would be beneficial to take on Atelier as well. However, there was still something a little unnerving that made her feel uncomfortable about letting someone else in. But she decided to keep that feeling to herself.

“So how do we do it?” Kurushimi asked Atelier.