"Shall we head for the sea soon?"

"Yeah!"

We had finished everything we needed to do in the Trade Nation of Aresgüte. Now, we could finally head south in pursuit of our original goal—seafood.

"...?"

She tilted her head as I stared at her. It's nothing, so don't worry about it.

"Oh, that reminds me."

"Hm?"

Rio suddenly raised her voice as if she had just remembered something, so I responded.

"You remember that old lady at the temple, right?"

"Oh, yeah."

"During the wedding, she said, 'The goddess's blessing was amazing.' But what exactly is that blessing?"

"Now that you mention it, she did say something like that."

What happens when you receive a blessing? From the appraisal results, I knew that my surname had changed, but were there any other effects?

"I thought it was just a name change."

"But now I'm curious."

"Haha, yeah, me too. Should we ask that old lady before we leave?"

"Yeah."

And so, we checked out of our inn and headed to the temple.

"What? You want to know about the goddess’s blessing?"

As soon as we entered the temple, the old lady in priestly robes called out to us, so we got straight to the point.

"Yes, that's right."

"You didn't even know that?"

She puffed out her chest proudly and began explaining about the goddess.

Apparently, this temple worshipped a goddess named Forsena, the Goddess of Fate.

"The goddess has two sisters. There's also Flontia, the Goddess of Abundance, and Filsteir, the Goddess of the Sun and Moon."

It seemed that each temple generally only enshrined one of them.

"Oh, I see."

"Are those three goddesses the only deities in this world?"

Since we were here, I decided to ask about the god I had met before coming to this world.

"For example, have you heard of an old man with a long white beard and hair?"

"Hmm? I've never heard of such a god. There are subordinate goddesses under the three sisters, but..."

What...? So that old man isn’t recognized as a god in this world?

My memory of him was getting blurry, and I could no longer recall his face, but I clearly remembered that he was the one who let me choose my skills when I came to this world.

"Ahem. Anyway, about the goddess’s blessing,"

The old lady cleared her throat and continued with the explanation I had originally asked for.

"A blessing is something granted when the goddess shines her light."

It was commonly received during wedding ceremonies, but apparently, one could also receive a blessing by offering prayers to the goddess. Weddings were the most frequent occasion because they triggered the name-changing phenomenon.

The blessings definitely had effects, but they weren’t always immediately visible.

"Some people have had wounds heal or experienced slight boosts in physical ability, but most people don't notice any changes at all."

"I see... So it's more of a 'maybe something good will happen' kind of thing."

"That's about right."

It wasn’t something that would provide an instant, obvious effect. But now that I thought about it, maybe I had gained some sort of skill. This world allowed for job appraisals, but not skill appraisals.

"Got it. Thank you very much."

"Sure. If you have more questions, feel free to ask anytime."

With that, we left the temple.

"A blessing, huh... Rio, did you feel anything change when the goddess shone her light?"

As we walked toward the city's south gate, I asked Rio.

"Huh? Hmm... I don’t think so."

"Yeah, same here. If anything changed for me, I haven’t noticed."

"Maybe if we had Master appraise us, we'd find out."

"Haha. Even if we got appraised now, we wouldn’t know which skills came from the blessing."

"That’s true. But at least we’d know what skills we have."

"Yeah. Maybe I should work on leveling up my appraisal skill."

That said, I had no idea how much I’d need to level it up to make a difference. Even Master could only see the types of skills, not their levels.

"I can use appraisal too, but I can only see the skill names."

"Still, that’s better than not knowing anything."

Rio nodded firmly. We rarely acted alone, but there were times when it happened.

It wouldn’t hurt to use the appraisal skill more often from now on.

========

Name: Rio Mizumoto

========

"So, there are two more towns before we reach the Großenhang Empire's southern territory, right?"

While reviewing Rio’s appraisal results, I brought up our next destination.

"Yeah. There should be a town called Agrect three days away by shared carriage."

"I see. So first, Agrect... How should we get there? Should we take a shared carriage?"

I subtly hinted that doing so would make it harder to use our portable house for camping. Rio seemed to pick up on it and shook her head.

"This is the perfect chance to use the furniture Beldran and the others made for us."

"Haha, you’ve got a point. Alright, let’s walk."

"Yeah, let’s do that."

And so, we left the artisan city of Raven behind.