Hey. Revenge is all well and good, but I’m standing right here.
“Explosion!!!!”
The light from Megumin’s staff lanced toward the hydra, which had already been the subject of so much magical abuse. The bounty head that had made this area a wasteland for so long gave one last, great scream before it went to its eternal rest.
9
“You must recognize my victory! I eliminated six hydra heads, whereas you were responsible for only two, Yunyun! Anyone can see which of these numbers is greater!”
“Wh-why should you win, Megumin? You just stood around until the hydra was nearly unconscious! I was out there helping to rescue someone who got eaten; I must get points for that!”
“Yes, perhaps one point, for rescuing a punk who thought he was going to claim the entire reward for himself and instead only got swallowed. But if you truly consider yourself a member of the Crimson Magic Clan, then surely you understand the importance of waiting for the right moment to grab your glory!”
With the hydra in the books, we and the other adventurers were going back to Axel in high spirits. Megumin and Yunyun (the former having strong-armed the latter into giving her a piggyback ride) had been going at it like this all the way home.
Despite how powerful our opponent had been, we had finished the job with just a single casualty, and that person had already been resurrected by Aqua.
Keith and Rin, whose party I had once joined, were chatting with me.
“Man, oh man,” Keith was saying. “I guess we really can do great things when we need to! Er, although maybe it wouldn’t have been possible without you and your party, Kazuma.”
“That’s for sure,” Rin said. “I know we agreed to split the bounty, but you guys should definitely get more. Maybe you can take the share of the idiot who said that the one who kills the hydra gets all the money.”
The truth was, though, that it had taken all of us to bring down this monster. And so…
“All right, then!” I said. “I know we’re all tired from that hydra. Let’s take it easy today and get our reward tomorrow!”
““““Yeah! Whoo-hoo!””””
“You’ve gotta be kiiiidding!”
I thought I heard a disappointed moan mixed in with the cheering. I glanced over happily at Darkness, who was walking beside me. The nervousness and unhappiness she had shown lately were gone, as if she had been freed of whatever had been possessing her.
“So how do you feel now that the hydra’s gone? Think you can start getting some sleep again?”
“I do. You’ve helped me figure out a few different things,” she said. “Things I now feel silly for having worried so much about. But it’s not the death of the hydra that’s made me feel better.” She smiled for the first time in days. “I remembered how much I like the people in this town. That’s helped me get over my hesitation. I’m not afraid anymore, and I won’t have any regrets.”
“Every once in a while, you manage to keep a straight face saying something that would embarrass anyone else.”
Darkness pinched my side gently in response to my teasing. Then she said:
“I can’t tell you how happy I am.”
Again, someone else might feel silly making a declaration like that.
“Hey, venerate me more! Praise me! Say, ‘Thank you so much for so generously bringing me back to life, Lady Aqua!’”
“Yo, Kazuma! It’s great to be back from the dead and all, but this priest of yours is really getting on my nerves!”
Chapter 3
May I Lecture This Runaway Girl!
1
“All adventurers who participated in yesterday’s battle—your work is very, very, very much appreciated! Our heartfelt congratulations on your defeat of the giant bounty head, the Kowloon Hydra! In light of your actions, you’ll all receive a huge reward!”
““““Whooooooooooooo!!””””
The Guild employee’s announcement prompted the adventurers present to fill the Guild Hall with cheers.
With the hydra safely dead, we had all gone home to rest from the massive battle before reconvening here at the Guild. All in attendance had been at the previous day’s fight, and they all looked very happy. That made sense, given the reward they were about to receive.
My party was camped out at a table in the center of the hall. “I don’t get it,” I said. “We’re gonna pick up a huge sack of cash, and Darkness isn’t even here. Did she forget we were having a party today? Or is she embarrassed about that stuff yesterday?”
“That might be it,” Aqua said. “I felt like there was a little more…tension than usual with Darkness yesterday. Like maybe she was embarrassed even around us. She hardly ever drinks, but yesterday she really hit the bottle. She even tried to get me to drink, even though she usually yells at me when she thinks I’ve had too much wine.”
Aqua was holding her egg in her hand, which, as ever, gave off a faint glow. She seemed to be trying to act grown-up as she said, “Darkness is the oldest person in our party, but she can be so childish, you know? She’s clumsy and quick to be embarrassed. If she doesn’t feel she can show her face around here yet, there’s nothing we can do about it. Best just let her watch after the house. Maybe we can bring her a souvenir.”
“How can you act like she’s the oldest and the youngest member of our party at the same time? Anyway, which of you is the lady who’s so old she won’t even tell us how old she is?”
“Mr. Kazuma Satou. Didn’t I warn you that the next time you brought up that subject, you were going to get some serious divine punishment? I hereby declare: May all your cold beverages be lukewarm!”
I didn’t know how she could say such stupid things with a straight face, but I mostly ignored Aqua. Instead, I looked around at the adventurers gleefully awaiting their reward. The bounty was a billion eris, to be split among all those who had participated.
A billion eris.
That sum represented what they felt the defeat of the hydra was worth. With the monster gone, the area around the lake would become fertile again; the money was proportionate to the benefit of having rich new soil to farm.
Approximately fifty people had been part of this latest monster-slaying expedition. That meant twenty million eris each.
They called the adventurers up by name, one by one, until finally it was our turn.
“Mr. Kazuma Satou and party! In addition to the reward of eighty million eris, representing four shares, by special request of those who participated in the battle, you are also to be awarded one extra share, for a total of one hundred million eris!”
“Thank you so much! All right, everyone! Let’s put this extra twenty million to good use right here and— H-hey! Leggo! You didn’t want to hand over the last bag of money, either!”
I had to pry the cash out of the unwilling hand of the Guild employee.
“Thanks again for your help yesterday, everyone! Now let’s party!”
“““““Whooooooooooooooo!!!”””””
The whooping and hollering filled the entire Guild Hall.
It was only noon, but I foresaw myself having a late night…
2
It was well after sunset as we walked through the streets of Axel, making our way back to the mansion.
With the hydra defeated, for once we hadn’t a care in the world, and we had bought some stuff a cut above what we usually got. I thought we could use it to have ourselves a little after-party with Darkness at home.
What did we get? Speckled crab! I hadn’t had it since Darkness’s family had sent us some as a gift. Aqua had been exceptionally excited ever since she saw it.
When we got back, though, Darkness was nowhere to be found.
“Hey, Darkness, we’re…home? Huh? What, did she go out?”
Then I noticed a single sheet of paper on the table. It was a note in Darkness’s handwriting, and it said she had gone to the local lord to report the slaying of the hydra. (The mansion of the local rule
r, which I had destroyed some time ago, had finally been rebuilt.)
Now that we were back home, Aqua took her egg out of her pocket, sat on the couch, and got back to the business of trying to hatch it, but not without urging me to hurry up with the food, like a puppy waiting for her dinner.
“Hey, pipe down,” I said. “We have to wait till Darkness gets home before we can eat anyway. And another thing. Stop trying to hatch your dumb chick for a few minutes and help out around the house a little! Have you been cleaning the bathroom like you’re supposed to?”
“Hey, Kazuma, you could afford to be a little nicer to a woman who’s practically on the verge of childbirth. And I want you to stop calling him a chick already. You’re so mean to Emperor Zel, and he hasn’t even been born yet—when he gets big, don’t be surprised if he eats you.”
Finally, Megumin and I decided to make dinner on the assumption that Darkness would be home sooner or later. The remaining member of our party was too busy hatching an egg to help, so she just lazed around on the sofa.
At last our nicer-than-usual meal was ready and laid out on the living room table.
“Hey, Kazuma, Darkness is pretty late. I don’t think I can hold out with the food sitting in front of me like this. Hurry up and find Darkness! Go find her!”
“You’re awfully demanding for someone who didn’t pay for the food or help make it,” I replied.
Meanwhile, Megumin got silverware and tea for four. “This is a rather special meal. Even a daughter of nobility like Darkness doesn’t get speckled crab very often, I should think. Heh-heh-heh! I look forward to seeing her reaction when she tastes my cooking!”
“You just shook some salt over it and then got the silverware.”
I couldn’t blame Megumin, though, for seeming pleased. We were eating well tonight, if I did say so myself. I had started to acquire refined tastes from constantly going out to eat, so finally I had shelled out some money to learn the Cook skill.
After all, from here on out, I intended to engage in adventuring only as a hobby. That meant skills that would improve my quality of life were worth more to me than combat abilities. Maybe I could take some of my loads of money and open a restaurant or something…
I mulled over the idea as all of us waited eagerly for Darkness to come home.
Finally, the curtain of night had well and truly fallen, and Darkness still hadn’t come home.
“Hey, Kazuma! The food’s gone all cold! Heat it up again!”
“Forcing someone to wait for their food… I’m not Darkness, and I do not enjoy this kind of ‘play’ at all. As punishment, when she gets home, I shall make her sit in front of the sofa and watch while we eat first.”
“I don’t think she would find that as punishing as you hope. In fact, I think she might… Er, forget it. She really is pretty late, though. She said she’d be back by dinner. What is she up to? Maybe something happened at her home, just like Vanir predicted? She could at least send us a message or something.”
None of us was very happy to be waiting. At length, irritation turned to anger, and we convened an impromptu conference about how we would get back at her for this. It was a surprisingly thorny question, given that she took most punishments as more like rewards. What would work on someone like that?
The only thing none of us suggested was that we go ahead and eat.
We settled on forcing her to wear an absolutely adorable outfit (coordinated by Aqua) and then parading her through the Guild and town, taking photos with a magical camera, despite the fact that such equipment would be very expensive to rent for even a day.
By the time we had figured out what we were going to do to Darkness, today was about to turn into tomorrow.
“Boy, she’s really late,” Aqua murmured. And still no one touched their food.
How could it take this long to report the defeat of one hydra? I knew the guy she was reporting it to was a famous lecher, but I didn’t think even he would try anything with Darkness, who was nobility, after all.
It looked like she wouldn’t be coming home today, no matter how long we waited. That meant she’d be getting back in the morning again, and then we would really let her have it.
“I don’t think she’s coming back today,” I said. “I wish she’d at least let us know. Hey, let’s just eat already.”
But despite my suggestion, Aqua and Megumin didn’t budge. They just sat there looking disturbed.
Ahh, dammit!
I’m gonna make that big, dumb masochist cry for real. Maybe I can rent Vanir for an hour and have him ask her every embarrassing question he can come up with.
Okay, I’ve got it. The longer she takes to come home, the longer I’ll let Vanir interrogate her.
Now I had a plan. But Darkness didn’t come home that day. Or the next day. Or even the one after that.
For days on end, she didn’t come home at all.
3
“Hey, Kazuma, what’s that? What are you making?”
I was at the living room table, where I had been working industriously all morning. Aqua picked up the product of my labors and inspected it.
It was basically imitation dynamite. It was back-to-basics stuff, like the kind Nobel had first made: nitroglycerin mixed with sand and a hardening agent, wrapped in paper and topped with a fuse.
But then, nitroglycerin hadn’t yet been discovered in this world, and I couldn’t find anything that would make for a good fuse, so even if you lit this thing on fire, it wouldn’t explode. I didn’t actually know how dynamite worked, so I couldn’t exactly build some for myself…
“It’s… You know. I have kind of this vague idea of the shape and what’s involved, but we don’t have the right materials, so I can’t make the real thing. But I thought if I could make something with the right shape, maybe some visionary would be able to find something to use in place of nitro.”
“I see! You’re bringing hypermodern weapon technology into a world that knows nothing of it! Kazuma… You terrify me…!”
Actually, it was more like I’d decided to go ahead and revisit a few ideas I had previously rejected on the grounds that no one would want them. But who knew? Maybe they’d sell.
Aqua held her egg to her stomach with one hand and picked up the dynamite in the other.
There was a reason I was doing this.
Early this morning, a letter had arrived from Darkness.
“That thing that Aqua is holding, what are you going to use it for?” Megumin looked up from her intent perusal of Darkness’s letter.
“This is a replica of something called dynamite. Dynamite basically has the same effect as explosion magic.”
“?!”
Megumin grabbed the item out of Aqua’s hand. My words seemed to have provoked a pretty serious reaction.
“Dynamite is great, because anyone can use it,” I went on. “It’s so simple, it doesn’t even need MP! We still have a ways to go, but as far as making it—”
“Grrrarraaahhh!”
“Ahhhhhh! How can you do that to something I worked so hard on?!”
Megumin had run over to the window and flung the dynamite out with all her might.
“Shall I abide the ‘simple’ reproduction of the ultimate magic?! I will not allow the development of such evil weapons!”
“Y-you’re such a pain…”
Megumin stood with rasping breath for a moment before she remembered the letter.
It had come from Darkness, addressed to all of us. Megumin had read it over more times than I could count, sure there must be some hidden meaning. Now she placed it on the table.
“Darkness really intends to leave our party… To never come back…”
Aqua and I were both silent at that.
Finally, I said, “…There’s nothing any of us can do. Family is family. She should never have been able to go adventuring with commoners like us in the first place.”
“No! I’m sure there’s something strange going on here,” Megumin shot bac
k. “Darkness would never just leave us without saying anything! We’re too close for her to say farewell with nothing but a letter!”
“She’s right,” Aqua said. “You know what I think? I think Kazuma’s over-the-top sexual harassment finally went too far. At the very least, he could stop filling the bathtub with our laundry and then diving in while crying, ‘Whoo-hoo! Underwear baaaath!’”
“What?! I have never once done that! Yet!”
“‘Yet’?”
I grabbed the letter off the table and reviewed the contents once again.
I’m sorry for springing this on you so suddenly.
As I read it over…
I can’t tell you exactly what’s going on, but it’s complicated. It’s something I have to deal with as a noble.
…I crushed it into a ball and prepared to throw it into the trash bin.
I can’t be with you guys anymore. I know how selfish it sounds, but count me out of the party. I hope you’ll find another fine frontline defender.
Seeing me like that, Aqua and Megumin looked a little scared. Dammit, what was I so angry about?
I’m grateful to all of you. I can never express just how thankful I am. I truly enjoyed our adventures together. This has been the best time of my life. I promise I’ll never forget the experiences we shared together.
She was nobility, after all. She lived in a different world than we did. She’d just gone back to it.
Yeah… Yeah. Now we could get a real tank, someone whose attacks actually landed. That was the plan.
I sat down at the table and started on my next product.
Thank you for everything. Signed, Lalatina Ford Dustiness. To my beloved companions, I express my gratitude from the bottom of my heart.
There was a crack as the tip of my box cutter broke. I had been pushing harder with it than I’d realized. That caused Megumin to say, “I believe you are bothered as well, aren’t you, Kazuma? Why not be honest? And then let us go once more to Darkness’s mansion!”
She clenched her fist in determination and came closer to me.
110-Million Bride Page 7
