Crimson Magic Clan, Let’s & Go!!

by Natsume Akatsuki

  “Yargh! Yaaaaarrrgh!”

  “Lady Sylvia! Milady! You must escape! Even if none of us makes it, you alone must…”

  “Curses! Curse it all! We can’t even get close enough to counterattack!”

  “I told you we shouldn’t attack Crimson Magic Village! I told you I didn’t want to go!”

  Before we even reached the village gate, the Demon King’s forces were already routing. Barely fifty Crimson mages stood against more than a thousand foes.

  And as for those fifty wizards…

  “Lightning Strike!”

  “Energy Ignition!”

  “Freeze Gust!!”

  “Cursed Lightning!!!”

  “Geez… I’ve got to admit, I’m actually impressed.”

  They were unleashing a merciless barrage of magic against the vanguard of the Demon King’s army.

  This hardly qualified as a battle. It was a complete and utter trouncing. I expected lightning to fall on the enemy troops, but then a dozen of the demons were simply incinerated, totally out of the blue. White mist surrounded another group. I thought they would be turned to ice, but forks of black lightning pierced them, leaving holes in their chests.

  …Then the sea of enemy troops parted, and from the center emerged a beautiful woman in a long dress.

  “Troops! I will be your wall, so stay behind me! It’ll take time before they can use their advanced magic again—that’s our chance!”

  Who knew the Demon King had such a hot general? She looked like nothing more than a slim human woman; her dress had a delightfully low neckline. A blue earring sparkled in her right ear, strikingly clean and pure in contrast to her flashy dress.

  A group of men and women came forward to confront the general. I recognized one of the men. It was Bukkororii, who had teleported us earlier. His red eyes flashed, and he thrust out his hands. From long acquaintance with Megumin, I knew that when a Crimson Magic Clan member’s eyes got redder, it meant they were getting really worked up…

  “Tornado!!”

  And it meant they were getting ready to pour a whole bunch of MP into one giant spell.

  Bukkororii’s incantation summoned a massive whirlwind right in the middle of the Demon King’s soldiers, flinging a bunch of them helplessly into the air. The fall would probably be fatal.

  The gorgeous girl next to Bukkororii held out her left hand, her eyes flashing as well. She had a weapon in her right hand, unusual for a member of the Crimson Magic Clan. I looked closer and found that it was a wooden sword carved in the shape of a dragon. Maybe it was a magical weapon or something? That might explain why a member of the Crimson Magic Clan had it.

  The girl extended her left hand and gave a swipe of the sword in her right.

  “Inferno!”

  A conflagration broke out, smack in the middle of the still-raging whirlwind.

  4

  After watching the battle, we headed back to Megumin’s house. Yunyun went her own way, saying she was going to find Arue, the one who’d sent us that letter, and give her a piece of her mind.

  “Phew!” I said, reflecting back on the magic display those wizards had put on. “That was something! So that’s what it’s like to see real Crimson Magic Clan members in action.”

  “To refer to them as real suggests there are fake Crimson Magic Clan members. I should like to know exactly who you believe to be a fake!” With Megumin leaning on my shoulder and looking like she might bite me, we arrived at a snug one-story house. Not to be rude, but I couldn’t help thinking it seemed a little poorer than the average place. Megumin, looking tired—maybe because of lack of MP—went up and knocked on the front door.

  A moment later, feet thumped toward us from inside. The door opened slowly…

  Out peeked a girl, about primary school age, who resembled Megumin.

  “Ooh, is that your little sister, Megumin? She’s pretty cute,” Darkness said, breaking into a smile.

  “Megumin, she’s like a tiny version of you! C’mere, mini-Megumin. Want some candy?” Aqua was suddenly holding some candy. I had no idea where she’d gotten it. But before the girl could react—

  “Komekko, I’m home. Have you been a good girl?” Megumin spoke to the child in a gentle voice, still leaning on my shoulder.

  Komekko…

  Be it Komekko or Bukkororii, I had pretty much ceased to be surprised by Crimson Magic names. Maybe there was something wrong with me.

  Komekko looked at Megumin and froze. She must have been overcome by the joy of seeing her sister again. Her eyes went wide, and she sucked in a deep breath. Then she shouted, “Daaaaad! Sis is back, and she brought a guy!”

  All right, kid, time for you and me to have a talk!

  5

  “Look closely, now. See the upside-down cup on this table? I’m going to make it move all on its own!”

  “Wow! Amazing! How do you do it? Hey, Blue-Haired Girl, how do you do it? Tell me!”

  “It’s magnetism!” Darkness said. “There’s got to be a magnet under the table. That’s how you’re doing it, right, Aqua? Isn’t it?”

  We were in the living room at Megumin’s house. Aqua was doing party tricks with a cup, and Komekko and Darkness were eating it up. I figured Darkness was probably right about the magnet. The cup Aqua was using was made of metal, after all. It would be easy enough to slip a magnet underneath the table…

  As I listened to them try to figure out the secret to her trick, I glanced over thoughtlessly.

  Aqua was sitting there in the middle of the living room, her hands folded neatly on her knees. She was staring intently at the mug on the table, but that was all—and it was moving.

  ……?!

  I could barely believe my own eyes. I focused more and more on what was happening over there, when…

  “Er…! Ahem!” The person in front of me cleared his throat pointedly.

  Whoops, right!

  I had gotten so caught up in what was going on that I had almost forgotten Megumin’s father was sitting across from me on the carpet, fixing me with a baleful stare. At first glance, he looked almost normal, just a man with black hair. But his eyes were sharp, and he radiated a quiet, intimidating pressure. Until this moment, I had known nothing of him but his name: Megumin’s father, Hyoizaburou.

  “…I understand that you have been looking out for my daughter. For that, at least, I thank you.” He gave a small nod.

  Next to him sat an attractive woman, who somehow looked a bit like Megumin, with rich black hair and the first hints of wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. “Yes, thank you very much… Our daughter often mentions you in her letters, young Kazuma… I almost feel like we know you…” Megumin’s mother, Yuiyui, bowed deeply.

  I shot a withering look in the direction of the person who more than anyone else should have been here helping me clear this up. A bedroll had been laid out in the corner, and Megumin—having spent all her MP on the explosion earlier—was curled up on it, fast asleep.

  Hyoizaburou took a long, meaningful look at Megumin, then turned to me, nonplussed.

  “…And what exactly is the relationship between you and our daughter?”

  It was the third time he had asked me that.

  “…Sir, as I keep telling you, we’re just friends.”

  At that, Hyoizaburou went over to the tea table where Aqua was doing her trick, with an expression of disgust.

  “Grrraaaaaaahhhh!”

  “Ohhhhhh! Stop, dear! Please! Please stop flipping over tables! You break them, and we don’t have the money to replace them, especially this month!”

  There really were a lot of very strange people in the Crimson Magic Clan.

  Hyoizaburou sat sipping the tea his wife had made.

  “You must excuse me. I lost control of myself because you keep mocking me with your insistence that you and my daughter are just friends.”

  I bit back the words I’d been about to say—S-seriously, we’re just friends—and pulled something out of my item pouch
, hoping to change the subject. It was a collection of the buns we had bought in Arcanletia on our recent hot-springs trip. Since we’d left Axel right after getting back, they were still in my bag.

  “Uh, here…Just something small…” I held out the box of buns, and Hyoizaburou and his wife both grabbed it at the same time.

  “…My dear wife. Young Kazuma was thoughtful enough to bring me a gift, so will you please take your hands off it?”

  “Heavens, my love. A moment ago, you could barely even look at him, but he gives you a little something and suddenly you can remember his name. Stop now, you’re embarrassing yourself. These will be our dinner tonight. I won’t let you just eat them with your wine, understand?” Was she joking? If so, it wasn’t very funny.

  I fought down the urge to point out that meat buns weren’t very good for dinner or drinks, when Komekko exclaimed happily, “Food?! Is that actual hard food?! Not, like, that nasty gruel we always eat? Actual stomach-filling food?!”

  …I reached into my bag and pulled out all the preserved rations I had with me, spreading them out on the floor.

  “Just something…really small…”

  “Welcome to our home, dear Kazuma! Wife, bring a cup of our finest tea!”

  “We only have one kind of tea, dear. But I’ll bring it right out. You boys wait there.”

  I sat sipping the tea Yuiyui had brought. Komekko had a bun in each hand and was stuffing her face like a squirrel. As she gobbled them down, she watched me intently from her spot beside me. For a moment, she studied the food in her hands, then swallowed heavily.

  “…Here. They’re delicious.” She held out a bun that was still whole. She never took her eyes off it, though, clearly famished.

  “Komekko, sweetie, stop! Come over here; come back to us girls!”

  “She’s right, Komekko! That’s a bad man who does nothing but play nasty pranks on your sister. Come over here before he turns on you!”

  Komekko, however, ignored Aqua and Darkness, instead looking at me with a puzzled tilt of her head. I would have to give them what-for later. Komekko was an angel.

  “Thank you, Komekko, but you eat it. I’m already full,” I said.

  “Oh, really?” was all she said before settling next to me again and wordlessly tearing back into the food. I could feel the corners of my lips pull up at the sight of her smile.

  Hyoizaburou was eyeing me dangerously. “…I don’t care how much food you bring me. You can’t have Komekko.”

  “I’m not trying to take Komekko, sir! You don’t have to listen to those two!”

  Aqua snuck up to where Komekko was wolfing down meat buns beside me, then grabbed her in a hug and snatched her away as if to protect her from me.

  …I’ll get them for this, that’s for damn sure.

  Komekko continued eating, totally oblivious to being spirited away.

  Yuiyui smiled and watched me sip tea, and at last said delicately, “Now, Kazuma, I hear you have quite a lot of debt. You seem like a very nice man, and I’m not opposed to you…but don’t you think it might be better not to be with our daughter until after you’ve repaid everything…?”

  I did the biggest spit take of my life.

  “What do you mean, be with?! I keep telling you, we’re just friends!” I said, choking.

  Megumin’s mother gave me a questioning look. “From my daughter’s letters, I got the impression the two of you were quite intimate. Is that not the case…?”

  “Okay, just a minute. Can I ask what exactly she wrote to you?”

  As I tried to calm down, Hyoizaburou and his wife exchanged a glance. Then Yuiyui began, “Well, she wrote…”

  Psst.

  The next two pages reflect the original

  Japanese orientation, so read backward!

  “…and how her life is basically a constant stream of sexual harassment.”

  I had heard enough. I got on my knees and bowed deeply to her parents.

  Hyoizaburou picked up the thread. “But she says that even so, you’re an important friend whom she could never leave. Even if you are riddled with debt, an unrepentant pervert, have no real combat ability to speak of, abuse your friends every time you open your mouth, and don’t know common sense from a hole in the ground, she says that if she ever took her eyes off you for one minute, you’d die. I assume that if she was willing to say all that, there must be something there…”

  He sounded sincere. And while I wasn’t exactly thrilled with everything I’d just heard, it did warm my heart a little to know that she considered me an important friend. We’d been through so much together—the bond between us was strong enough that we could forgive each other’s faults. I didn’t even mind knowing that she had been saying these things behind my back. My trust in her was still…

  “After all,” Yuiyui went on, “to hear her tell it, she provides all the firepower in your party—why, if she wasn’t there, your group would fall apart! She’s told us all about how she took out the Demon King’s general Vanir and how she attacked the castle of another general every day to draw him out, then played a crucial role in his defeat.”

  …I guess those things aren’t technically untrue.

  She’d helped us get rid of Hans recently, too. I wasn’t sure I’d say that we would fall apart without her, but…

  “That’s right! And she dealt the finishing blow to Mobile Fortress Destroyer! Ahhh, my little girl makes me so proud!” Hyoizaburou said, continuing where his wife left off. He did seem genuinely happy… And I mean, he wasn’t wrong. But still…

  Without thinking about it, I glanced over at the sleeping Megumin. She had been breathing deeply, but now she had her back to me…

  Don’t tell me she’s awake.

  I studied her suspiciously.

  “She wrote so many other things about her party and her friends, too,” Yuiyui said. “But if you don’t mind my asking, what about all that debt? I can’t help but worry about my daughter’s party. I’d love to help in any way I can, but our family doesn’t have much money…” She gave me an apologetic look.

  “Oh, please,” I said easily, “don’t worry about it. I took care of that debt a long time ago. And I’m expecting a windfall about the time we get back from this trip. So really, we’re fine—you don’t have to worry.”

  Hyoizaburou pricked up his ears at this. “…Oh-ho. If I may ask, just how much of a windfall…?”

  I didn’t think too hard about the question—maybe because I was a little anxious being at Megumin’s actual house—but replied, “About three hundred million eris, I guess.”

  ““Three hundred million?!””

  …Huh? Should I maybe have kept that to myself?

  Hyoizaburou slid a little closer to me. Then he clapped his hands, a perfectly brilliant smile on his face. “Oh yes, Kazuma. Please stay here tonight! You all are friends of my daughter’s, after all—how can I not extend my hospitality? Stay as long as you like—forever, in fact! As adventurers, you must not have a home of your own, right?”

  “Oh yes!” Yuiyui said. “Komekko, let’s you and Daddy and me camp out here in the living room tonight! You two girls can sleep in our room. Our house isn’t very large, though. We just have this room and our room and the room that used to be Megumin’s bedroom… It might be a little small for all of you to live in. Say, dear, weren’t we just thinking about remodeling…?”

  I wanted to break in before they could get any further ahead of themselves and said a bit hesitantly, “N-no, it’s all right. We have, uh, our mansion back in Axel and all…”

  ““Mansion?!””

  Did it again.

  Megumin’s parents were looking at me with shining eyes. I averted my gaze, hoping to find help from Aqua and Darkness…

  “And now, for my next trick! I will do something amazing with this little box!”

  “Oh! She’s going to open it, and something’s going to fly out from inside! I’m sure that’s it, positive!”

  “Wow! Amazi
ng!”

  Suffice to say, they weren’t going to be any help.

  6

  It was late in the evening, but Megumin still hadn’t woken up. It was understandable. In some ways she was the most adult member of our party, but she was still just fourteen. We had gone to Arcanletia, gotten back, and immediately left again, plus she had used up her MP on that explosion. As she slept…

  “Meat, Mom! Real meat!”

  “I’ll take that! Dear, you have the bok choy—it’s supposed to keep a woman looking young. And I want my wife to be beautiful her whole life through!”

  “Oh, but my love, your hair’s been thinning lately. You should have the seaweed salad with that meat!”

  None of them seemed the least bit concerned about the return of a family member they hadn’t seen in ages. They were completely focused on the food I had gone to get for them.

  The main dish was hot pot. Aqua was drinking the wine we bought to accompany the meal, while Darkness seemed a bit anxious, as though this was her first time eating at a table with a whole family. I kept peeking around to make sure I was minding the local manners, but I was doing my part to demolish the food supply.

  Finally Komekko sat back, her stomach full and her eyes shining. “Hey, Dad! Mom! Blue-Haired Girl is awesome! She pulled this huge Neroid out of a tiny little box!”

  That got my attention. Darkness noticed me leaning in. “It was really something, Kazuma. It shouldn’t have been physically possible! She pulled this huuuge Neroid out of that box, and it went leaping through the window. I keep wondering how she did it…”

  At that, I turned to Aqua, who was happily drinking her wine. “…Hey. I’ve been wanting to ask you. Could you show me one of your party tricks? I mean, really show me?”

  “Uh-uh. These aren’t tricks, they’re art, and you can’t rush art. It has to emerge spontaneously, at a moment of intense emotion! If you really want to see what I can do, throw me a party that will put me in an artistic mood.” As she spoke, she popped some peas—a snack to go with her alcohol—out of their pod with one hand, nimbly launching them toward my mouth. “Way to suck… I popped those peas right on target; the least you could do is catch them in your mouth… Eek, s-stop! You don’t even drink that much wine; don’t take all my peas!”