Crimson Magic Clan, Let’s & Go!!

by Natsume Akatsuki

  All in all, it was a pretty pleasant dinner. For the first time in a long while, I thought back to dinners with my family in Japan. The anxiousness of roughing it started to vanish, and I just relaxed and enjoyed the food.

  It happened when I had just gotten out of the bath and was going back to the living room.

  “Don’t be stupid! Don’t you love your own daughter?! What you’re trying to do is like throwing a delicious-looking little lamb into a cage with a wild beast that hasn’t eaten in a week!”

  I had been the last one in the bath, and now I heard Darkness hollering something in the living room. I peeked in, wondering what all the fuss was about. There was Hyoizaburou, sawing logs. I was sure he’d been awake when I went to take my bath. He was pretty quick falling asleep. I didn’t see Aqua anywhere. She must have already gone to her room.

  “Now, now, they were already living in the same house together. Were there never any…mistakes? Then there’s no problem! Our daughter is already of marriageable age, and Kazuma is a discerning man. If something happened between them, surely it would be because they both wanted it? And as parents, how could we object?”

  Apparently, Darkness was pushing back against my sleeping in the same room with Megumin. Personally, I didn’t care where I slept. Megumin’s mom had a sly smile on her face.

  “…If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Darkness, why are you so against this arrangement? Is it not to your liking for Kazuma and my daughter to sleep together?”

  Even I wasn’t thrilled with the way she’d put that…

  “What?! It almost sounds as though you think I’m jealous or something! That makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I really wish you would stop…”

  …Huh?

  “O-oh, I’m sorry. My mistake. But it would be such trouble to move my daughter to another room. Someone has to sleep in the same room as Kazuma.”

  “Then have Mr. Hyoizaburou sleep with him!”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Darkness was offering a sound argument, but Yuiyui seemed a little startled.

  Hang on. I’m sure Darkness is right, but I get the feeling I’m missing something here…

  “Well, we couldn’t— I mean, knowing Kazuma from our daughter’s letters, we couldn’t let him sleep with Komekko—she isn’t the right age yet. But I wouldn’t be exactly comfortable letting him sleep with the master of the house, either…”

  Hey, just what kind of person did this lady think I was? Tomorrow I was going to make them show me all the letters Megumin had sent them.

  Darkness was getting more and more agitated. “Then…! Then have me sleep with him! At least if that animal tries to do something to me, I can resist with all my might, and somehow…! No! My resistance might be futile in the face of his inhuman lust, and he might do something awful to me. I-I’m sure his appetite has been building and building this entire trip. And he stayed up all night! They say men are especially ravenous after staying up all night…! He holds me down despite my desperate attempts to resist, blocking my mouth because what if Komekko wakes up and everyone will hear and shut up already—”

  “Sleep!” Yuiyui intoned, and Darkness slumped down right where she was, ending the stream of idiotic inanities from her mouth. Good on Yuiyui.

  …I looked at Hyoizaburou, who had somehow managed to remain fast asleep throughout this entire exchange. Maybe Yuiyui had…

  That was when Yuiyui noticed me watching from the doorway. “Oh, Kazuma,” she said, wrapping one arm around Komekko, who looked terribly sleepy. “Done with your bath? Miss Darkness fell asleep rather suddenly. Could you help me carry her to her room?”

  The smile never left her face.

  7

  “Thank you for your help. Miss Darkness must have been exhausted from your trip. I’m sure she won’t wake up till morning. And my husband and Komekko and I are all very sound sleepers. It’s very hard to wake us up, even if there were to be any loud noises or voices or… Well, you must be tired, Kazuma. Rest well!” She kept shoving me insistently toward the room where Megumin was asleep.

  “Uh, s-sure… Thanks, I guess I’ll try to get some sleep… Hey, just so you know, Megumin and I have known each other long enough that there won’t be any…mistakes or anything. Our pervy Crusader is just the worrying type. You don’t have to listen to her, okay?”

  “Oh, I understand, I know exactly what you’re saying. And of course, on the off chance that anything did happen, I’m sure you would take responsibility…!”

  You know, I don’t think she understood very much at all.

  She gave me one last, forceful push into Megumin’s room. “Sweet dreams…!” I heard her say behind me.

  I turned to the dark room, a little annoyed. There was Megumin. I had no idea when they had brought her in here. While she was asleep, I could see how beautiful Megumin really was. A few rays of moonlight filtered in through the window and played gently across her face. Looking at her rich, soft black hair, I felt a tugging on my heart that I had never…

  …What was I doing, getting infatuated? I saw Megumin every day. It was probably trauma from that thing with the orcs that suddenly left me all googly-eyed over her. When we got back to Axel, I would have to go to the succubi for some psychological care.

  I was pretty tired, and thinking about dropping off to sleep.

  …And then I heard a voice from just outside our room:

  “Lock!”

  Megumin’s mom must have magically locked the door. I knew it was mostly my fault for stupidly running my mouth about all the money I was coming into, but I had to wonder whether Mom quite had all her marbles. No matter how much their daughter had written, did they really trust a guy they knew only by letter? Maybe they had a lot of confidence in what she’d told them.

  …Whatever. Time for bed.

  It was only when I took another look around that I realized.

  The futon Megumin was sleeping on was the only one in the room.

  8

  Bathed in the moonlight that drifted gently through the window, I froze. The sight of Megumin, snoozing soundly, filled my vision. It was just the two of us here now. Aqua had already drifted off to the sleep of the drunk, while Yuiyui had ensured the two most likely interlopers, Hyoizaburou and Darkness, wouldn’t be conscious for a while… And then she’d locked the door so no one could get in or out of our room.

  Talk about the perfect setup.

  There was only one bed in the room. And although it was spring now, it still got cold at this time of night. Even indoors, I would probably catch a cold if I slept without some kind of cover over me. And what if it turned into pneumonia or something? I had heard the healing magic around here didn’t work on actual diseases. Death by illness was considered part of your natural life, and you couldn’t even be brought back with Resurrection. In other words, it was way worse to die of disease than to get killed in battle.

  Anyway, what was I worried about? It wasn’t technically a problem for me to get under the covers with Megumin…

  “…………”

  I stood thinking for a long time. If I so much as laid a finger on the peacefully sleeping Arch-wizard, I would never again be able to deny it when Darkness or Aqua called me a monster or inhuman or all those other hurtful things. I was a gentleman! Not some animal. But I did have her parents’ permission. That meant I still had the upper hand, even if Megumin sued me or something. Or did I? I had no idea how this world’s legal system worked. Damn! I should’ve studied the law more closely. Then I might…

  No, that wasn’t the issue.

  It wasn’t a question of lawsuits or something. I’d been looking at this all the wrong way. Argh! This whole situation had even me confused.

  Okay, calm down, Kazuma! Calm down and think!

  It was really a bit of a chilly night for thinking, though. It was hard to think when you were too cold. First I needed to get under the covers and collect myself.

  I wriggled into the bed, careful not to wake Megum
in. I felt the heat of her body beside me, heard her deep breathing. Now I could finally think…

  ……………

  No, I couldn’t! What a cunning trap. I had ended up in bed next to Megumin without even realizing what I was doing. I was about to try to get up again when I realized. Suppose I scrambled out of the bed. I guess Megumin would open her eyes at exactly that moment. And then—well, you’ve seen enough anime and manga to know what would happen next.

  Yup. No matter what I said, I would be sure to get it. And I could swear up and down that I hadn’t touched her or that this was all her parents’ doing, but it wouldn’t matter.

  Oh, man. This sucked. I was basically being framed as a perv.

  Well, I wasn’t going to make the mistake of all my forebears. If I could see how not doing anything was going to get me into all kinds of undeserved trouble…!

  Then I can at least revisualize this and make sure it isn’t a false accusation.

  I could hear Megumin’s deep, even breathing.

  Oh man. My heart’s really pounding.

  It crossed my mind that I was about to do something totally unthinkable.

  But hang on. I wasn’t some sexless saint. I was just an average guy, and I wanted to get it on as much as the next virile young man. Put a healthy guy like me into bed with a beautiful, helpless, sleeping woman, and there was bound to be a, you know, “mistake.”

  It was Megumin’s parents who had engineered the situation. It was all right—I could beat the rap. In this situation, I could walk free even if Sena herself took me to court…!

  So I steeled my resolve and was just about to make my move when…

  …Megumin opened her eyes, blinking sleepily. She saw me lying there, trying to make sense of the situation.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Oh… Good morning, Kazuma… How long was I out…?”

  It was late at night now—maybe not quite midnight but definitely a solid eight hours since Megumin had asked us to let her sleep for a while and then collapsed into bed. She gave a murmur of acknowledgment when I told her this…and then she suddenly seemed to register where we were.

  “…And why are you sleeping in the same bed as me, Kazuma?” she asked, staring at the ceiling.

  I, too, kept my eyes fixed above me as I replied, “…Don’t make me say it. It’s embarrassing.”

  “What?!” She suddenly sat up.

  “Hey, don’t steal the blankets; it’s cold. Anyway, chill out.”

  “You expect me to be calm?! I wake up in my own room, in my own house, to find you in bed with me?! I couldn’t be calm if—!”

  As she spoke, Megumin jumped out of the bed and patted herself down. She was probably checking to see if I’d done anything to her.

  As a relieved look came over her face, I said, “Geez, do you really think I’m so disgusting that I would do something to you while you were asleep? What is this vibe I keep getting off you people? We’ve lived together for more than a year, and has anything happened? Darkness, too—she was super against us sleeping in the same room like this.” I straightened up the sheets Megumin had thrown aside when she jumped out of bed, letting only my head peek out from under the covers as I spoke. I was cold.

  Megumin seemed a little lost for words at all this. “Er… W-well… You’re right. I’m sorry… It’s just that waking up to this was a little confusing… Y-you’re right. You do jokingly sexually harass me, but you’re not the kind of person who would actually do something untoward in a situation like this.” The ghost of a relieved smile passed over her face.

  Still not letting anything more than my head out from under the covers, I said, “Damn straight. And don’t you forget it. The only reason I’m even in this room is because your mom trapped me here, okay? Shoved me right inside and locked the door with magic. Getting in bed with you was my only choice.”

  Megumin sighed at this. “That mother of mine…,” she muttered, her shoulders slumping, as if everything I’d said made perfect sense to her. I rolled back the sheets and patted the bed next to me.

  “So that’s that. Get in bed—it’s cold. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.”

  This drew a momentary frown from Megumin. She looked at the ground and said quietly, “…You really won’t do anything? Even though you’ve finally got me alone?”

  Talk about suggestive. Wait—whoa. D-does she want me to do something? I mean, between this and the way she held my hand back at our campsite—I really am finally getting popular with the girls!

  I immediately contradicted everything I had just said as forcefully as I could.

  “Idiot, we’re finally alone—how could I not do something? I’ve even got your parents’ blessing!”

  For some reason, this caused Megumin to run for the window.

  “That’s what I thought! I’m staying at Yunyun’s house tonight!”

  “Dammit! You set me up!”

  Megumin jumped out the window of her room and disappeared into the dark.

  Chapter 4

  May I Have a Just Cause for This Sleepless Night!

  1

  The next morning…

  We saw Megumin’s parents off to work and then had our breakfast. We were lounging around in the living room when Aqua turned to Megumin, who had come back from Yunyun’s house, and said, “Megumin, Megumin! Since we’re here, I want to do some sightseeing around the village.”

  “Sightseeing? You know this place is under assault by the Demon King, right?” I said in annoyance. Given the way the Crimson Magic Clan forces had walked all over the Demon King’s army the day before, maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me that Aqua would come up with the idea.

  “Fine by me,” Megumin said. “Since the village doesn’t seem to be having any trouble, we could also just teleport back to Axel—but if you want to tour a bit, we could hang around here today and then go back tomorrow.”

  If that was how our resident Crimson Magic Clanner felt…

  “Oh, hey, there’s someone around here who can teleport back to Axel?” I asked. “Great, that’ll make our trip home easier.” Especially for me. This meant we wouldn’t have to go back through the orcs’ territory.

  “You sound awfully happy, Cad-zuma,” Aqua said. “All right, then. I’m going to have Megumin show me around. What does everyone else want to do?”

  “Not a bad idea. I’m free; maybe I’ll go with— Wait, what did you just call me?” I turned to Aqua, but she only gave me a puzzled look.

  “Did I say something unusual?”

  “N-no… Must’ve been my imagination… I guess…? Never mind. What about you, Darkness?”

  She looked up from where she was making some repairs to her armor, but she didn’t bite. “There’s somewhere I’d like to go. A very skilled smith lives in this village. As a lover of fine armor, I want to pay him a visit. You have fun sightseeing, Trash-zuma.”

  “Okay, gotch— …What did you just say?”

  “Just Aqua and Ka-sleaze-ma, then. This village has lots of interesting things to see, so you’ll never get b—”

  “Wait just one darn second!” I bellowed.

  Aqua gave me another perplexed stare. “What’s wrong, Cad-zuma? Upset your little trick on Megumin last night didn’t work out?”

  Apparently, the others had already found out what had happened the night before. I put my hands together in front of my face, bowing my head deeply. “I’m very sorry… !!”

  But hey, I was a healthy young man—how was I supposed to resist in a situation like that? I mean, with a young woman in bed next to you, it would practically be rude not to do something, right? I explained all this to them as fervently as I could, but…

  “I think you could do with another orc attack.”

  Megumin looked at me like garbage she was ready to throw out.

  2

  Some time later, after copious treats at the only café in town, Megumin was finally ready to be civil to me again. She b
rought me to one place in particular…

  “The hell?”

  Such was my first impression.

  She had taken us to what seemed to be a shrine. “This is the guardian deity of this village,” she said. I took a close look at it.

  “This is a cat girl in a swimsuit.”

  The object of local veneration, housed deep in the shrine, was a figurine of a cute girl.

  “Long ago,” Megumin said, “one of our ancestors allegedly saved a traveler who was being attacked by a monster. In gratitude, the traveler gave him this and said, ‘This is a god to me, more precious than my own life.’ No one knows what god it is, but we venerate it like this just in case it helps at all. The traveler also supposedly told our ancestor how to build the shrine.”

  That traveler had to be Japanese. No question.

  “Hey, Kazuma, it kind of ticks me off to see people worship a figurine the same way they’re supposed to worship me.”

  “You’re the one who sent him here with this thing. You owe the Crimson Magic Clan an apology.”

  Our reactions mystified Megumin. The next place she took us was…

  “This is a holy blade said to bestow great power upon the one who draws it out.”

  “Now, that’s more like it! I knew Crimson Magic Village must have some awesome stuff!”

  She brought us to a stone with a sword stuck in it. And the chosen one who pulled it out would gain the legendary power of—yadda, yadda, yadda. You saw this sort of thing in games all the time.

  “Hey,” I said excitedly, “can I try?”

  “Sure, if you want, but it’ll be a while before it’s possible,” Megumin said. “Plus you have to pay a fee to the blacksmith if you want to try, and you only get one attempt, anyway. You should probably wait.”