Love, Witches, & Other Delusions

by Natsume Akatsuki

  “I’m not sure,” I said with a touch of unease. “I’ve never fought goblins before, but are their hordes usually this big? How many would you say is normal? I can sense more of them than I can count.”

  My anxiety seemed to be infecting Rin. “H-hey, are there really that many?” she asked. “H-how about we listen to Kazuma and try to get a look at them? See how many there are, if we can really take them…”

  That was as far as she’d gotten when:

  “It’s fine, it’s fine! We can’t have Kazuma doing all the work! All right, let’s go!”

  Even as Keith shouted, he leaped down the hill and around the corner toward what was probably a goblin infestation.

  Taylor followed him at a sprint, and then we heard the two of them shout:

  “Yikes! Look at ’em all!”

  Rin and I dived in after them.

  There was a horde there, all right. Thirty goblins at least.

  So these are the famous goblins! They’re devil children, I see!

  They were barely as tall as young grade-schoolers, but most of them had weapons and were looking right at us.

  This could be a problem.

  Rin grimaced at the scene. “I told you! Didn’t I tell you?! Let’s have a look, I said! See how many there are, I said!”

  Taylor stepped past the corner to cover his Archer, Keith, and his shouting Wizard.

  “A horde of goblins usually means fourteen at the most! Dammit! We can’t run now; we’ll get caught between these guys and the Bane! Here we go!”

  At Taylor’s shout, Rin and Keith began preparing to fight with the grim determination of two tragic heroes.

  No sooner did the goblins see this than they ran shrieking up the hill at us.

  We were on a mountain road, remember, one side of which was a cliff.

  “Gigya! Giii! Gii!”

  And we held the high ground.

  “Eyow! Dammit, one of them shot me!” Taylor shouted. “Hey, they’ve got archers! Rin, wind defense magic!”

  “She’s chanting, but there won’t be enough time,” Keith shouted back. “Brace yourselves, everyone!”

  “Wind Breath!”

  The bit of Basic Magic I shouted out blew the incoming arrows away.

  “K-Kazuma! Way to go!”

  As Taylor called back from between his shield and me, Rin finished her chant.

  “Wind Curtain!”

  As she shouted, a whirlwind started up around the four of us.

  Now that was magic!

  This was what it meant to have a real spell-caster in your corner!

  That spell must have been for deflecting the arrows or something.

  Even as I admired the abilities of a true Wizard, I shouted, “I know a trick that’ll work on terrain like this! Create Water!”

  I poured a bunch of MP into my basic spell and produced water along a vast swath so it would roll down the hill Taylor was defending.

  Even as Rin said from behind me, “Kazuma?! What’re you—?” I put everything I had into one more Basic Magic spell: “Freeze!”

  “Whoa!”

  All three of the others called out in amazement as the ground under the goblins’ feet turned to ice.

  I’d used this trick on the Demon King’s general already, and it easily sent the goblins tumbling all over.

  Taylor, who stood on nice, dry ground, safely dispatched the creatures as they came shambling up the hill.

  We weren’t even going to get a scratch!

  I drew my sword and lined up next to Taylor…

  “Taylor! A few of these guys think they can still make it up here. Let’s handle them together! You two in the back, use your ranged attacks to get the goblins who try to keep their distance!” I called out happily, feeling a touch of wonder at how well we worked together.

  “W-way to go, Kazuma! Hey you guys, you heard the man! We could take on a hundred goblins like this!”

  “Whooo ha-ha-ha! Easy win! I’m gonna make mincemeat out of you!”

  “Here I go! I’ll let off a powerful spell right in the middle of them!”

  In recklessly high spirits, we threw ourselves at the goblins.

  11

  We were on our way home after defeating the goblins.

  “Ha-haaa! I ain’t ever seen magic like that! Who knew Basic Magic would be the most useful skill we had?”

  “Yeah, really! At Magic Academy, they told me Basic Magic wasn’t worth the skill points it took to learn. Heh-heh ha-ha-ha! Boy, were they wrong!”

  “Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Goblin-slaying has never been this easy! When I saw that horde, I thought we were done for!”

  We reflected on our most recent encounter as we headed back to town along the mountain road.

  As we discussed the battle, our adrenaline still high, I said, “Hey, now that the fight’s over, how about you give me your stuff again? Isn’t the weak-ass Adventurer supposed to carry the bags?”

  At my touch of self-deprecating irony, the others answered:

  “Hey, sorry—we’re real sorry, Kazuma; we apologize! We’ll never make fun of someone for being an Adventurer again!”

  “Yeah, sorry, Kazuma! Hey, Adventurers are supposed to be weak—how did ours end up doing most of the work? What’s the deal with that?”

  “Hey, Kazuma, how about you give me your bags? You’re the MVP; I’ll carry ’em for you!”

  Watching the three of them scurry to apologize, I sighed.

  They realized I’d been joking, and they all started laughing.

  Ahh, this was sweet.

  This was how an adventuring party was supposed to feel.

  “Hrrn… Yowch…”

  Taylor pressed on his arm and grimaced.

  He had pulled out an arrow that had struck him during the battle.

  “Hey, you all right? I could learn some healing magic right now if you need it, but if we don’t have some disinfectant or something with us, it’d be better not to close the wound until we get back to town. Then we can wash and disinfect it.”

  Rin and Keith gulped as I spoke nonchalantly to Taylor.

  “Kazuma, y-you can even learn healing magic…?”

  “Healing magic… F-finally, our party would have someone who can use healing magic—”

  Taylor interrupted the both of them.

  “Hey, quit it. Kazuma already has a party. One full of advanced classes… Sheesh, now I think I get why an Adventurer is the leader of a whole party of experts.”

  He gave me a chuckle as he spoke.

  I, for one, still didn’t know why I had to babysit a party full of problem children, but apparently Taylor did. Maybe he’d tell me one day.

  We got off the mountain road and walked onto the plain that spread out toward town.

  Then I remembered.

  I remembered there was something out there we should be watching for.

  “Huh? Something’s coming this way—fast.”

  Count on an Archer to have superior vision: It was Keith who noticed it first.

  Then my Sense Foe alerted me, too.

  A black creature was barreling toward us across the twilit plain.

  “The Beginner’s Bane!”

  At my shout, all four of us set off pell-mell toward town.

  “Pant…pant…! Geez! All we’ve been through, and now this?!” Keith spat, breathing raggedly.

  “Pant…pant… O-oh no, he’s getting closer—!” Rin said as if in answer, teary-eyed and out of breath.

  The Beginner’s Bane was right behind us.

  The town was still a ways off. It didn’t look like we were going to make it.

  That was when Taylor, who had been at the head of our column, whipped around, sword at the ready, and said:

  “Rin! He’ll catch us at this rate! You take Kazuma and make for town! Keith and I will slow him down! When you get there, run to the Guild and ask them to send backup!”

  “Wha—?! R-right!” Keith said. “L-l-leave it to us! We let some other party’s guy d
o all the work today—time for us to do our part!”

  Damn! That’s a good line!

  But what was all that leave-it-to-us, you-go-on-ahead stuff?

  “G-got it! Let’s go, Kazuma!” Rin shouted to me; she took my hand and made to run.

  But be it only for the day, those guys were my party members. I couldn’t leave them there.

  The Beginner’s Bane was practically in front of our faces.

  Its target was Taylor, who stood and blocked its way.

  “H-hey, Kazuma! Weren’t we getting out of here?”

  I loosened Rin’s hand from mine. I heard her confusion as I made no move to leave. I spoke softly so as not to attract the Bane’s attention.

  “Create Earth!”

  I felt the little grains form in my hand.

  “H-hey, Kazuma! You’re in trouble—hurry up and run!”

  Keith was panicked, but I closed my hand around the bit of dirt and gently stepped just behind Taylor’s right side.

  “Heyyy!” shouted Taylor. “Come and get us, fur ball!”

  The Beginner’s Bane leaped at him.

  “Wind Breath!” I intoned loudly, holding my palm out toward the monster.

  “Graaah!”

  Since I was at Taylor’s side, the Bane took my blast of sand full in the face, collapsing to the ground as hundreds of grains got in its eyes.

  Even blind, it continued to charge toward us.

  “Frraaarr!”

  “Wait—! Wha…?! Huh?!”

  Taylor and the others still didn’t understand what had happened.

  “Now’s our chance!” I said. “Run like hell!”

  There was still a ways to go to town, but there was no sign of the Beginner’s Bane.

  They’d told me it was intelligent—maybe it was intelligent enough to stay away.

  “Did we lose him?” Taylor muttered, still breathing heavily.

  “It looks like we did…” Still breathing hard herself, Rin came to a halt and looked over her shoulder several times.

  “Hoo…heh-heh… Hee-hee-hee-hee!” Keith let out a gale of laughter that seemed to well up irresistibly from inside him.

  Had he gone mad with fear?

  But his laughter seemed to be infectious.

  “Heh-heh-heh…heh-heh!”

  “Ah-ha-ha-ha-haaa!”

  Pretty soon we were all laughing at our narrow escape from the Bane, even me.

  “Hey, what the hell did you do, anyway, Kazuma? Huh? Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  Taylor pounded me on the back. It stung, but it didn’t feel bad.

  I gave his armor a jolly smack in return.

  “It was just Basic Magic! I’m only an Adventurer—Basic Magic is all I have the skill points for! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  “Who’s ever heard of an Adventurer like you?” Keith howled. “Woo-ha-ha-ha! Oh! My sides hurt! We met the Beginner’s Bane and lived to tell about it!”

  “You can’t be for real! There’s no way! What is your Intelligence, anyway?” Rin demanded. “Hey, Kazuma, let me see your Adventurer’s Card for a second!”

  I politely handed over my card.

  “Hey… What? Your Intelligence is totally normal. So are all your other stats, except… Whoa! Look at that Luck! That’s ridiculous!”

  Taylor and Keith crowded in to see.

  “Whoa, what the heck?!”

  “H-hey, you think it’s Kazuma’s Luck that made this quest go so well? Pay homage, everyone! Maybe you can get a blessing out of him!”

  No. Luck had nothing to do with it.

  Even the girl at the Guild had said Luck wasn’t much use to an Adventurer.

  And if I was really lucky, how did I end up with that party of losers?

  But at Taylor’s words, all three of them joined their hands in front of their faces.

  “H-hey, knock it off, you guys. Don’t pray to me… How about some coffee instead? I can make water; I can make fire…”

  The three of them laughed and pulled out their mugs.

  12

  It was past midnight when we arrived back at the Adventurers Guild.

  Besides collecting our reward, we needed to report that we’d seen the Beginner’s Bane.

  As Taylor had said, though, since we had destroyed its entire horde, the Bane was likely to go in search of new goblins before it bothered any more human settlements.

  “W-we maaaaade it!” Rin said. “I feel like I went on the biggest adventure of my life today!”

  Laughing, we opened the door of the—

  “Sniff… Hrk… H-hic… Ga-Gazumaaaa!”

  At the sight of the tearstained, snotty Aqua, I quietly closed the door again.

  “Hey! I totally get how you feel, but please don’t shut that door!”

  Someone pried open the door, half weeping himself—it was the guy who’d gone at it with me that morning.

  Dust, wasn’t that his name? The new leader of Aqua & Co.

  He looked awful.

  Dust was carrying Megumin on his back; Aqua, still crying, was carrying Darkness, whose eyes had rolled up into her head. She was knocked out cold.

  On closer inspection, Aqua appeared to have large teeth marks on her head, along with something moist—some kind of spittle?

  “What the… No, don’t tell me. I think I get it, and I don’t want any details.”

  “No, listen! Please, listen! I was wrong; pleeeease hear me out! We’re on our way out of town, right? And I ask what kinds of skills everyone can use, and this kid was like, I can use explosion magic! and I was like, That’s great! And then she was all, Let me show you my true power! and let off a huge explosion right in the middle of an empty field! Why would you do that?!”

  Dust pleaded with me, all but sobbing, but I covered my ears and pretended not to hear.

  “Hey, listen to me! Then, the—the Beginner’s Bane! I don’t know if the sound of the explosion attracted him or what, but the Beginner’s Bane showed up! And now our spell-caster, who we need, is floundering on the ground, and I’m going, Let’s get outta here! but this Crusader throws herself in there without any armor, and—”

  “Hey, guys. It looks like your friend here already reported the Beginner’s Bane for us, so how about we relax and have a little meal? Let’s toast the start of a new party!”

  “Whoooo!”

  Taylor, Keith, and Rin all cheered at my suggestion.

  “No, wait! I apologize! I’ll bow down to you, anything, just please let me have my party back!”

  Now Dust really was crying. I knew exactly how he felt.

  “Have fun with your new party,” I said.

  “I’m sorrrrryyy! I’m sorry about this morning! Forgiiive meee!!”

  Chapter 2

  May There Be Peace for the Master of This Maze!

  1

  “We’re hitting a dungeon tomorrow.”

  “Don’t wanna.”

  “We’re going.”

  Megumin refused, I insisted, and so she tried to run, but I caught her.

  It had been a week after getting my head sliced off.

  I’d healed up enough to be allowed to go back into battle, so I’d brought the dungeon idea to everyone as they lounged at the Guild. But Megumin was firmly opposed.

  “No way! No way! I have no value in a dungeon! I cannot use my explosions lest the place cave in, and that leaves me just an ordinary girl!”

  “That’s what I said when you joined us! As I recall, you said you would carry our bags or do anything as long as we didn’t abandon you!”

  At that, Megumin, whom I still held by the collar, hung her head as if she had finally seen sense.

  “Sigh… All right. But I won’t be any help, you know. Carrying your bags is the most I will be good for,” she said, and a hint of unease showed through her facade of resignation.

  “Don’t worry,” I said comfortingly. “You only have to come with us to the dungeon entrance. What if we run into some nasty monsters on the way? You can clear them out with your
magic.”

  “What? Just to the entrance?”

  She seemed confused.

  “Why d’you want to go to a dungeon all of a sudden, anyway? There really should be a Thief in the party if you want to dungeon dive. I haven’t seen any around the Guild lately. Where’s Chris?”

  Aqua spoke from her position sprawled out across the table.

  While I had been trying to get well enough to go back into battle, she had been camped out at the warmest spot in the Guild Hall, in front of the fireplace, drinking alcohol or just lolling around.

  When I asked if she was even old enough to drink, she said I shouldn’t assume a world where magic was real would have the same laws as Japan.

  It seemed like in this world you could drink no matter how old you were, so long as you were willing to take responsibility when something happened.

  “Chris seems to have gotten busy all of a sudden. She said some mentor who’d helped her out before came to her with some outrageous, impossible thing she couldn’t refuse. So she’s off settling things. But she already taught me the skills you need for a dungeon, like how to spot and disarm traps. She also told me that the monsters don’t change with the season. So I figure we can hit some nearby dungeon, and if we’re lucky, we make some cash.”

  I hadn’t just been sleeping in during the week since I’d gone on that quest with Taylor and the others.

  I had risen up three levels from my encounters with the Snow Sprites and the goblins and had learned Detect Trap and Disarm Trap, as well as one other new skill.

  The success of Detect Trap and Disarm Trap was affected by your Dexterity, as well as your Luck.

  I had average Dexterity, of course, but I was hoping my exceptional Luck would carry me through.

  Although sometimes, saddled with a cast of weirdos and a mountain of debt, I wondered if my Luck was really that good at all.

  Darkness was smiling and polishing her armor, which had come back from the shop.

  She glanced over at me.

  “Hmm, I’d rather wait. General Winter shattered my great sword, remember. I’ve got a new one on order, but it’ll be a while before it’s ready. If you’re counting on me in combat…”

  “I really haven’t been.”