Aqua clung to one end of the table, teary-eyed.
Sigh. I guess I’ve got no choice…
“Tomorrow, I’ll help you out. But we have to avoid anything that might turn into an actual battle, okay? Once we find the perp, we leave the rest to the Adventurers Guild. Got that?”
She was positively ecstatic.
5
“All right, I’ll just stay here. The rest of you, be safe!”
The next morning…
Wiz said good-bye to us as we left for the city’s Adventurers Guild.
We were leaving her at the hotel as a point of contact.
Our plan was to split up to gather information and let one another know if we found anything. That meant we would need some way to get in touch. So with Wiz at the hotel, the four of us made for the hot springs.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wonder what we’re going to do about this criminal. Even if we do spot someone suspicious, we can hardly have him arrested unless we actually catch him poisoning a bath or something.”
Not that I didn’t have a good guess as to who was behind it.
It had to be that tan brown-haired man who was at our hotel.
Since our chance encounter earlier, I had seen neither hide nor hair of either the woman or the man anywhere.
The woman had said she couldn’t relax in the baths here anymore, so maybe she’d skipped town. Which possibly meant the man was acting on his own now…
“Heh-heh-heh! Just leave it to me. As a matter of fact, I’ve already put a plan in motion to catch the criminal! How’s this? Our target has to enter the baths several times a day, right? After all, the best way to poison a bath would be to go in as a regular customer.”
Wow, Aqua was actually using her head for once. She puffed out her chest as she spoke.
“So I went around with a survey, asking the owners of a number of hot springs to recall what kind of customers had come by.”
“Gosh, you’ve really gone above and beyond this time…”
Maybe this was really how much she cared about her followers. I wished she would exert this sort of effort all the time.
“I see. Not even tourists and aficionados would visit that many hot springs in a single day. This will allow us to narrow it down to the people who were seen at the most baths.” Megumin, as usual, caught right on.
“And if somebody on that list left a lot of trouble behind him, that would be our guy.” Darkness, too, sounded suitably impressed.
“Exactly! Now I just need to go to the places where I dropped off the survey and collect the results!”
Seriously. I wish she were like this every day.
I think all of us were surprised to see Aqua functioning so well.
We split up, each going to different hotels to find out the results of Aqua’s questionnaire. Then we met up again in a public park and spread the sheets out on a bench to compare them.
“Okay, the results are in!” Aqua said. “The person seen at the most hot springs was…”
A woman with light-blue hair and eyes, wearing a light-purple feather mantle.
“So you were the culprit all along,” I quipped.
“Was not! Just hold on. Yes, I went to a lot of hot springs, but that was to purify them! Look at the responses from the hotels where there were problems. They must mention who the last person was to go in before the trouble started—that person is the most suspicious!”
As Aqua instructed, we checked the surveys from the affected hotels to find the last visitor to each one.
A woman with light-blue hair and eyes kept turning the hot springs into regular hot water as a prank…
“…That’s you again.”
“I don’t get it! Why is this happening?! This didn’t help at all!”
“Wait, hold on a moment.” Megumin stopped the sniffling Aqua, who was on the verge of shredding the questionnaires. She picked up the papers with an unusually serious look.
“See this? ‘A man with short brown hair and tan skin.’ After Aqua, he was the most frequently sighted person. Are men usually this interested in bathing?”
Huh. Well, I guess the Crimson Magic Clan was renowned for its intelligence, if nothing else.
“So I guess he’s our man,” I said, taking the questionnaires from Megumin and trying to affect nonchalance. “Muscular, tall…”
“…Hey, hang on a second,” Aqua said. “Why do you guess that? How would you know? Kazuma… Could it be? Even though you’re always acting mad at me, you were actually so worried that you were quietly investigating to make sure I was all right? Really? Don’t tell me you’re one of those hot-cold types?!”
Her eyes were sparkling, and she seemed genuinely keen to hear the answer.
“Nah. I happened to overhear him in the bath the day we got here. ‘Now that awful sect is done for. Our plot to destroy their precious bath is done. Right now, everything is going to plan at the other places, too. If all goes well, we need only wait. We’re long-lived—what’s ten or twenty years to us?’ You know, something like that. Just… Yikes! Grrgh! What are you doing?!”
Aqua was suddenly strangling me.
“That’s important! Why didn’t you say something sooner?! If you had told me about that right away, I could have skipped all this work!”
“Hey, stoppit already! We came here to relax, didn’t we? Why does every single thing we do have to end up with us risking our lives?! It was obviously going to turn into a huge pain in the neck, and I didn’t want to go out of my way to get dragged into it!”
“Listen to you! Have you no pride as an adventurer?! This is obviously an evil plot by the Demon King, isn’t it?!”
“You trash! Aqua, I’ll hold him down—you punch!” Darkness hollered.
“H-hey, stop! Stoppit! You really wanna go? Don’t underestimate me…!”
6
“Erg… Awful… To think the tables could’ve been turned so thoroughly,” Megumin said from where she rode on my back. I had stolen all her MP with my Drain Touch, and she sounded at once exhausted and envious.
“What a good-for-nothing guy…” Darkness sounded equally tired, her face covered in mud courtesy of Create Earth and Create Water.
Aqua, her hair frozen in places, stood in front of us and held out a sheet of paper.
We had finally arrived at the Adventurers Guild. Based on her questionnaire and my report, Aqua had drawn a photorealistic portrait of our target. We had come here to ask for help catching the guy, but…
“I understand, but, ma’am, the only evidence you have is something you claim to have overheard by chance. That’s not much to arrest someone on. It might be one thing if you were adventurers of long standing in this town, but we barely know who you are. We can hardly just take your word on it. You’ll have to bring some more convincing proof…”
The receptionist at the Guild was not buying our story.
No surprises there, given a bunch of strangers just appeared all of a sudden and said, “Arrest this guy.”
Aqua, however, leaned in close to the Guild employee.
“Hey! If you live in this town, that means you’re an Axis disciple, right? I want you to look closely at my face. Does it look familiar from anywhere?”
“…? I’m not actually part of the Axis Church, but now that you mention it, I do feel like I’ve… Oh! In the amusement district! You were the backup dancer at that one shop, right?”
“What?! No! As if I’d ever work at a nasty place like that—as the backup, no less!”
I couldn’t quite follow Aqua’s train of thought, but something suddenly occurred to me.
Our self-proclaimed goddess couldn’t get herself recognized in a town that was supposed to be packed with her own followers. But we had someone even more famous with us.
“Hey, Megumin, play along with me for a moment.”
“Play along? What do you mean?”
As I spoke, I transferred enough MP to Megumin that she could stand on her own. She slid off
my back with a perplexed expression, and I gave Darkness a little push forward.
“Do you know who stands before you?” I asked. “This is the honored daughter of ‘the kingdom’s confidant,’ the great Dustiness family! Her Ladyship Lalatina Ford Dustiness! Hardly some mere unknown adventurer!”
““What?!””
Darkness seemed every bit as surprised as the receptionist.
Megumin figured out immediately what was going on and stood tall next to Darkness.
“Now, Young Lady. Show this hardheaded employee the proof of your status!”
“Huh?! Megumin, you too?! Ergh… I’m not so sure about bringing my family’s reputation into this…”
Darkness didn’t really want to make use of her rights as a noble, cringing as she pulled out her pendant.
It was the same one she had brought out during my trial. And it had the same effect any famous character has when they suddenly reveal their true identity.
“Th-that pendant! I-I-I’m very sorry! I’ll have this man arrested immediately!”
The necklace had an instantaneous, almost theatrical effect as the receptionist hurriedly snatched the picture from Aqua.
“Way to go, Darkness! That’s how to throw your noble weight around!”
“A-Aqua! Keep your voice down when you say things like that!”
“A-all right! In accordance with your honorable instructions, we’ve taken careful note of this man. If anything develops, we’ll contact you at your hotel.”
“Th-thanks. Let us know how it goes.”
The employee bowed to us repeatedly as we left the Guild. Darkness shrank apologetically.
From behind her, I called, “Oh, by the way. I hope the Dustiness family can pick up the tab on our expenses here.”
“?!”
7
We had finished all the necessary paperwork and were heading back to our hotel.
“You stinking—! You obnoxious—!”
Darkness was still angry.
“Aww, what now? I’m sorry, already! Fine, if it’ll make you feel better, we’ll have Aqua pay all the fees for the paperwork.”
“What?! Why me?”
“That’s not the issue! You can’t just go throwing around my family’s name whenever you want…!”
“Hey, Aqua. Darkness’s family has enough trouble raising a prodigal daughter. Throw them a bone. Think of it as the fee for saving your church.”
“Aww… Fine. I get it. I know how rough Darkness’s family has it. I’ll pay.”
“Grraaaahhh…!!”
“Yikes! Wh-what the hell? Stop it!”
I dodged Darkness’s sudden attack and then took up a stance from which I might be able to reciprocate.
“Gosh, what are you two making such a fuss about? People are watching, you know,” said Megumin. “And, Darkness, I suppose you are a noblewoman, as far as it goes. Show a little restraint…”
“‘As far as it goes,’ my foot! I am a noblewoman. Sheesh…!”
She seemed totally exhausted for some reason, and I threw a few empty punches in her direction. “You remember how you were, like, no help at all with Destroyer? Well, here’s your chance to protect some citizens like a good noble should.”
“Whatever! You’ve done nothing but make fun of me this whole time!”
“Oops, what a lackluster attack! You couldn’t hit me if I were standing still!”
“Hit you? I’ll kill you!”
“Again I say, calm down! People are looking at us!” Thus it was Megumin who finally talked Darkness down from her fury over my taunts.
“Geez. You’d think knowing I was nobility might change your attitude toward me a little bit, but noooo…” Her annoyance was plain. But under her breath, she added, “People tell you they don’t care, but everyone’s a little wary around you when they find out…”
She sounded almost glad that we didn’t treat her differently now that we knew.
“Noble or not, you are still Darkness. Why should our attitudes change? And anyway, the Crimson Magic Clan pays no heed to station. We will speak our mind to any noble or king.”
“Megumin…”
“In my country, people complained about politicians all the time. And personally, I don’t care about social status or even gender. So I’d sure never feel obligated to fawn over a noble who’s barely making ends meet like you.”
“K-Kazuma, you too? …Wait a second, what was that about barely making ends meet?” She snatched me by the collar with a glower.
I ignored her, instead looking to the last member of our party. “Come on, Aqua. Say your part. Tell her you’ll never let status come between us or whatever… Hey, what’s that you’re making…?”
I trailed off as I saw Aqua deftly creating something as we walked along.
Was that clay she was holding? Where had she been keeping it?
Wherever it had come from, she was completely absorbed in making a sculpture from it.
“This? …Oh, I’m just copying Darkness’s pendant from earlier. Here, look. Can’t tell the difference, can you? With this, we can pretend to be members of Darkness’s family and get anything we want… Oh noooo!”
Darkness seized the lump of clay and flung it away.
“Welcome back! How did it go?”
Having returned to the hotel, we filled Wiz in on the details.
We’d given the information on our suspect to the Guild and then made sure every bathhouse in town got a copy of it, so there was nothing else we could do.
The guy would probably be careful about going to any of the hot springs, and we couldn’t very well just hang around town. In the end, we decided to do what we had come here for in the first place: enjoy the baths.
“It was an awful lot of work. But I’m glad we were able to stop the Demon King’s plans before anything happened… Hey, Darkness. You’re a sheltered noble, so you probably don’t know this, but among the common folk, when guys and girls go on a trip, it’s tradition for them to bathe together at least once. We’re leaving tomorrow, so we’d better hurry up and keep the custom.”
“?! I-I’ve never heard of a practice like that!”
“Like I said, it’s something the lower classes do. You nobles wouldn’t know about it. If you really want to bridge the gap between our status and yours, now’s the perfect chance.”
“Is—is that a real custom…?”
“No, it is not,” Megumin interjected.
Just as I was dodging an attack from a red-faced Darkness, we heard an urgent knock.
“Yes, who is it?”
Aqua opened the door to find the employee from the Adventurers Guild clearly out of breath, presumably from running here.
“Wh-what’s going on?” I asked with rising unease.
“It’s terrible! The hot springs…! Every hot spring in town is suddenly welling up with poisoned water…!”
Chapter 5
May There Be a Goddess for This Impure Town!
1
It was the morning after we’d learned that every hot spring in town had been poisoned. After breakfast, we gathered in the girls’ room.
“I’m concerned about the main springs,” said Aqua, who had spent the previous day going around purifying the baths.
Apparently, the poisoned water had appeared only briefly and then stopped flowing—almost like someone was doing an experiment.
No sooner had Aqua heard the Guild employee’s report than she made a beeline for town and started decontaminating everything she could get her hands on.
“The main springs? Those are in those mountains behind the Axis Church, aren’t they?”
Aqua nodded.
Behind the huge church, home to the Axis sect, were the water sources widely regarded as the town’s lifeline. Naturally, they were very carefully guarded, and I couldn’t imagine they would be easy to sneak into.
“True, I doubt someone could go from bath to bath in such a short time. Our spreading that information around must
have made him anxious, and he decided to attack the source directly, no matter the consequences. That seems the most obvious theory.”
It would certainly be quicker to poison the wellsprings than every individual bath.
“But the question would be how he got in to such a carefully guarded location,” Wiz said, knitting her brow.
“Kazuma,” Darkness broke in, “what is that you’ve been eating? Let me try some.” She grabbed my snack—something that looked a bit like pizza and passed for junk food in this world.
…………
“You know you’ve been looking even dumber than Aqua these days?”
“?!”
Darkness dropped the pizza gracelessly before it even got to her mouth. Her face was stiff with shock.
“Excuse me,” Aqua interjected, “but that makes it sound like you think I set the standard for dumbness around here.”
“Well, you do… Hey, stoppit! I take it back—I apologize. You’ve worked really hard on this trip and even used your head a little! I’m sorry, so give me back my pizza!”
As I had it out with Aqua over my food, Darkness stood up suddenly.
“…The source, right? Well, Kazuma, don’t just sit there; let’s go! We’re going to head to those mountains and find out what’s going on!”
She seemed awfully invested in this. Maybe she was frustrated feeling like all she could do to help was tout her family’s name.
“Okay, sure. Let’s see what the deal is with this water source.”
2
Just to the left of the massive church that was the Axis headquarters, there was an enormous lake that served as the source for all the town’s water.
And behind the church were the mountains the water flowed from.
A division of knights from the town was strictly guarding the path leading to the spring.
“Come on, I’m an Arch-priest of the Axis Church! Here, look at this! Hey, you’re not looking!”
Aqua was trying to foist her Adventurer’s Card on one of the guards.
We had been stopped at the entrance to the mountains.
You Good-for-Nothing Quartet Page 12
