"Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!"
Screaming her lungs out turned to be a lousy way for Min to avoid the attention of the judgmental peasants. Then again, she couldn't help herself. She also couldn't stop her legs from running madly in an adrenaline-induced dash.
Where was she going? Min had no idea. Hopefully, her apartment was just beyond the fields of wheat. She hadn't abandoned the hope that she was still somehow dreaming. At least she hoped to find somewhere secluded where no one could see her lovely unmentionables bouncing in the air.
So far, the farmers didn't seem sympathetic to her plight, not that she had stopped to ask for help. Min was a bit too embarrassed at the moment to consider the thought.
Min kept running, trampling the crops under her smooth legs. The wheat reached up to her waist and tickled certain parts of her anatomy that she preferred to be left alone. She ran with her arms folded over her bust to try to hide her bare breasts from the scowling peasants.
In her aimless sprint, Min reached the middle of a dirt road cutting across the countryside. Stone houses marked the path toward the wooden walls of a nearby town.
The road was empty, but Min could see a column of dust rising on the horizon. A caravan was coming her way, she had to hide quickly!
On instinct, the naked woman sprinted towards the first building she saw, a tall stone house. Min hopped over a small fence, went around the back, and- "Baaaaaah!"
"Aah!" A herd of goats was grazing in the house's backyard. The animals approached Min, smelled her, and then kept eating. "G-good girls!"
Min was finally alone. She could take some time to breathe and process everything that happened.
She sat down, letting her bare bum rest on the scratchy hay on the floor. Min brushed her black hair away from her eyes and looked down at herself. Patches of mud adorned the otherwise pale skin on her legs. Blades of wheat hung to her thighs, and a considerate leaf clung to her hairless womanhood to give her the bare minimum modesty.
What a sorry sight she was.
"This is not how I expected my adventure to go… What a crappy start."
Sure, she had been reincarnated in a fantasy world like she always fantasized, but in the most embarrassing way possible. She had nothing! Min didn't even have clothes on her back. What was she going to do? What could she do?
But… the goddess chose her for a reason, right? She even gave her some special powers, even if Min didn't know what they were yet.
In all the stories she read, the beginning is always the most difficult part for the protagonists. Their lowest point. So what if Min's lowest was a bit lower than average? This was nothing but a small bump in her road to greatness.
"The first step to becoming a legend is …borrowing some clothes."
Min's eyes glittered as they caught sight of something interesting. There was a whole line of garments drying out to the wind. Dresses, shirts, pants, it was practically a boutique! She got up, dusted the dirt out of her behind, and began to choose what to wear.
Min settled for a beautiful red linen skirt that was about her size. It was the fanciest garment in the lineup. Hard to believe it belonged to a peasant. They wouldn't mind if Min took it, right? It wasn't stealing if she used the clothes to save the world. It was more like... grabbing loot!
Just as Min yanked the dress out of the line, she heard a door close behind her. A booming voice called her out.
"Stop, thief! Leave that there, and things won't have to get ugly."
An imposing middle-aged woman called out to Min. She was almost as wide as the doorframe she came out off. Her rocky face wore a permeant scowl, her hair hidden by a white bonnet. She waved a wooden spoon as if it had the weight of a war mace.
"Ah!" Min wrapped the skirt around her lithe body without putting it on. She pressed her legs together and smiled sheepishly. "S-sorry, can I please borrow this dress? I am, err, kind of naked."
Min didn't want to fight with the woman, she was built like a tank. On the other hand, what if she was her tank? Her first party member to help defeat… whatever she had to defeat. A demon lord? Or maybe she was going to be her guide, taking Min under her wing as she taught her all about this new fantasy world.
Yeah, she could see it. This could be a cute first encounter in the grand scheme of things, something to look back at and laugh about. The woman seemed stern, but she probably had a heart of gold underneath that rugged exterior.
"I can see that. I don't care what kind of lover quarrel you got yourself involved in, girl. You will put my clean dress away from your filthy hands."
"Lover quarrel?! T-that's not what happened, honest! I'm an adventurer! I need this dress to go on a grand quest and save people! I'll be honored if you could help me." Time to see if her persuasion skills were up to snuff.
"Yeah, you don't seem like the type of gal to cheat with a guy in a barnyard." The woman squinted. "Matter of fact, you do seem like the adventuring sort."
So the goddess wasn't lying about that skill. Thank goodness. That was a quick way to clear the misunderstanding. "Yes! That's me, Min, the Adventurer! S-so can I please take this-"
"You think that just because you go on adventures, that makes you better than me? Gives you the right to take stuff from the common folk just like that?"
"But I need it to-"
"To what? Fight a dragon?" The woman scoffed. "Well, my daughter needs her skirt nice and clean for the Spring Festival. A fire-breathing lizard has nothing on the temper of a young maiden."
"W-what?"
"Last chance. Put. That. Back." The woman accentuated her threat by slapping the spoon against her hand.
Welp. Her persuasion roll failed. Min gulped, she couldn't go back to being naked! Who knows when she would have another chance to get dressed? It's not like she had the money to buy more clothes.
What would a great adventurer do? Improvise. The peasant seemed fixated on the cleanliness of her clothes. Min could use that.
"Sorry!" Min grabbed the clothesline and pulled it loose. All the clothes hanging to dry came crashing down into the mud. As she expected, the woman jumped to try and salvage her clean laundry but too late. She and her whole wardrobe fell into a pool of mud, hay, and goat hair.
"No! Now I have to clean all of this AGAIN! Get back here!"
The goats blocked the easy way out, so Min sidestepped around the woman and ran inside the building. It was an inn, filled with empty tables waiting for patrons to come and relax.
Another woman about Min's size stared at her from behind a counter next to the kitchen. She looked a lot like the one outside, but half her age.
"What are you doing? You are tracking mud all over the floor! I just cleaned!" she yelled, apparently more concerned over Min's footprints than her intrusion.
"Eep!" Clutching the dress like a life ring, Min kept running for the exit, dodging tables and jumping over seats.
"Wait, are you naked?" The woman got an eyeful of Min's flexing buttocks as she tried to flee. "Is that my dress?! GIVE IT BACK!" She jumped over the counter to give chase to the naked intruder, but a little too late.
Min had crossed the inn, her hand on the knob of the door to her freedom. Wow, that was a close encounter, but as always, the heroine managed to pull off the w-
"Hi girls, I'm back early!" the door opened and hit Min's forehead head-on. A hunter and his game picked that exact moment to enter the inn.
The collision sent Min stumbling back in. She dropped the skirt and crashed into the counter, knocking half a pint of ale onto her glossy black hair.
"Ew… Ah!" Two angry women and a confused hunter stood around Min. With her back against the counter, she had nowhere to run.
"Anything to say for yourself?" the matron asked, slapping the spoon once more against the palm of her hand.
"S-s-sorry?" Min closed her eyes and raised her arms in defense. So this is how she was going to die again, huh? Hopefully, she would last more than a day in her next incarnation.
"Err, I'm going to go skin the deer…" the old hunter excused himself and dragged his game outside. He knew a storm brewing when he saw one.
"Sorry isn't going to cut it. Now listen here, miss high and mighty adventurer, you will clean all the damage you caused. Starting with washing the floor!"
The innkeeper's daughter tossed an old rag between Min's feet, her mother placing a bucket of water next to it.
"Huh?"
"You will scrub our floors until I can see my pretty reflection smiling back at me!"
"Then, you are going to wash our clothes!" The matron pointed towards a wooden tub in the corner of the room. The mud-stained clothes were already piled next to it, along with a washboard. "Maybe that will teach you some responsibility!"
Cleaning was better than getting a beating any day of the week. Still, Min eyed the backdoor. Maybe she should try to escape one more time when her captors became distracted.
But would that be the right thing to do?
How could Min build a reputation as a trustworthy adventurer if all she did was flash people and steal their clothes? No, she needed to take responsibility, as that ogre of a woman said. Better be naked and honorable than covered with the stains of crime.
"O-ok. I'm sorry about the mess. I'll clean it up." Min apologized with a half-hearted bow. She grabbed the rag, went on her knees, and began to scrub the floor.
This wasn't the great start of her adventure she had hoped for. Min was completely naked with her admittedly small ass wriggling in the air. She wasn't feeling like a hero, more like a stray dog.
On the bright side, it was sure to be a learning experience. Better learn sooner rather than later how to wash clothes in a world without laundromats. And hey! She had access to a pile of clothes in the meantime! No more naked Min!
"Ow!"
The matron slapped her hand with her spoon. "If I catch you even thinking about wearing my family's clothes, then…" The innkeeper slapped her trusty spoon against a table. "Adventurer or not, your ass will be as red as your face."
"You can't be serious! I'm naked! Please, at least let me borrow a tablecloth!"
"I'm not going to reward you for your bad behavior! That's the punishment, girl! Otherwise, you won't learn your lesson. Trust me, you'll thank me in a couple of years."
"You won't, but she isn't kidding about turning your ass tomato red," her daughter crouched to whisper at Min.
Min gulped, this wasn't how it was supposed to go! The first people she met were supposed to help her ease her arrival into the new world, show her the ropes, and tell her how everything worked! Not punish her like a disobedient brat!
Well, nothing to it. Min kept on scrubbing. She had her first quest on this new world, as ignoble as it was.