“I have received a prophecyyyyy!!”
“““?!”””
✦ ✦ ✦
Everyone was startled. Zesta had been so quiet and composed until that moment. Now he was visibly trembling, his eyes wide, as if he’d had the most astonishing insight. What was this prophecy or whatever? I had nothing but bad feelings about it…
“I’ve realized the most astonishing thing. This must surely be a revelation from Lady Aqua…”
“What’s the matter, Lord Zesta?”
“Yes, what revelation have you received?”
A stir swept through the Axis believers, while Zesta looked straight at Serena. “Miss Regina Follower. It seems that when someone does harm to you, that harm rebounds back on them. Is that correct?”
“Huh? Y-yeah…that’s…that’s right.” She spoke very quietly, intimidated by the force of Zesta’s gaze.
“One more question, then,” he said. “Are you a virgin?”
“You don’t mince words, do you?! I may serve a dark deity…but she’s still one of the gods. I think you can glean your answer from that,” Serena replied, sounding just a little embarrassed.
At that, Zesta grabbed his head in his hands and fell to his knees. “Aaahhhh, what a revelation! In other words, I myself—a man! Were I to defile the purity of this follower of Regina…! At that very moment, I, though a man, could know the sensation of being deflowered! Is this not a miracle akin unto virgin birth?!”
“You’re not making any sense! I don’t understand what you’re saying! And I don’t want to!” Serena exclaimed.
I didn’t get it, either.
“Lord Zesta, p-please let me! Please afford me this opportunity! Then I might taste what it is to truly be a woman!”
“That’s no fair! You always keep the best stuff for yourself, Lord Zesta!”
“Naw, let me do it! I’ll probably never get another chance at this priceless opportunity as long as I live!”
First the goth-Loli person, then the other believers started clamoring.
“Eek! Stop! St—! Th—they’re…they’re gonna violate me! Kazuma! Kazumaaa! I was wrong! I’ll tell you everything! Just stop them!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Power Up! Protection! Blessing! Now that Regina follower’s chastity is mine! If you think you can defeat me in this state, then go ahead and try!”
“You filthy cheat! Lord Zesta, borrowing Lady Aqua’s power to use buffs like that is a dirty trick!”
“Traitor! Monster!! Using your Arch-priest position in this way is a clear abuse of power!”
While the Axis followers started a really juvenile fight over Serena, I ignored them and crouched down in front of her where she was trembling helplessly. “All right, Serena. I’ve got one idea that might save you. Cough up the info about the Demon King. Then maybe I’ll help you.”
“Y-y-y-you mean it?! You’ll really get me out of the clutches of those fanatics? I’m trusting you here. I’m trusting you—do you hear me?!” Still tied up, she looked at me with pleading eyes. She must have been really terrified. I just nodded, and she started spilling the details. “The Demon King… He’s old enough that his combat power isn’t actually that great. But the special abilities passed down by his tribe…those are powerful. I’d go so far as to say that it’s that power that allows him to be the Demon King.”
“Special powers?” I asked, and Serena nodded.
“Yeah, that’s right. The Demon King has powerful abilities, just like you guys with the weird names. Like…just by being around him, monsters and demons power up to the point that even a puny goblin could take on a decent adventuring group all by itself.”
“That’s broken!”
If even a goblin could get that powerful, how strong must the guards around the Demon King be?
“But that’s not all. He can also confer protection on his subordinates. You remember how the Dullahan Beldia had unusually high resistance to holy magic, right?”
What, so he could grant status enhancements that even eliminated a monster’s weaknesses? That was just lazy game design.
Serena smiled a little, seeming to guess what I was thinking. “You ought to give up the idea of beating him in a fair fight. If you want to take out the Demon King, a better plan would be to attempt to assassinate him when none of his friends are around. You should know, though, that his daughter inherited most of his abilities. That’s why she’s leading the bulk of the army in the attack on the capital. As he is now, the Demon King wouldn’t be able to extend his powers across the whole of his army. But I doubt he’d have any trouble strengthening a monster in the same room. So as long as he’s around, you’d best consider every personal guard he has with him to be as strong as one of his generals.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Well, shit.
✦ ✦ ✦
I’d thought I might consider taking out the Demon King if it didn’t seem like too tall an order, but that whole idea was obviously out the window now. In other words, once we had Aqua back, I would talk to Megumin and the others who were all fired up until they came around; then we could all escape using Yunyun’s and my Teleport abilities.
I thought I had an idea of how to persuade Aqua: I could tell her that the Demon King was already getting up there in years, and we could just sit around and enjoy our lives until he kicked the bucket due to natural causes. Yeah, that seemed like the most realistic plan.
Okay, that was what I would do. If I told everyone else what Serena had just told me, they would have to see the sense in it.
“How about that? Happy? I don’t know much else about the Demon King. Just that as he’s gotten older, his daughter has become the apple of his eye, and that it’s made personnel management kind of tricky.”
“Oh yeah, you’re fine. Anyway, it looks like they’re almost done arguing,” I said, glancing toward Zesta and the others.
“Ha! Ha! Ha! O great Lady Aqua, look upon me! Watch as I vanquish these evil heretics!”
“You old bastard, treating us like unbelievers!”
“Just ’cause you can use a little magic, you let it go to your head! We have Lady Aqua’s blessing, too! Do it! Get him!!”
Zesta, despite being alone and barehanded, was handily beating the rest of the believers into submission. He might have been a pretty crappy excuse for a human being, but the old guy was still Most Important Whatever, and with all his buffs, he looked like he could take on an ogre.
Finally, Zesta wiped at his brow with a towel, like he was working up a sweat at the gym. “How about it? Have you finished your little talk? We’d like you to hand over our heretic now.”
“Eek!” Serena trembled; the female believers came and stood near her. Their eyes were even more terrifying than Zesta’s. They looked ready to kill her on the spot.
“Kazuma… K-K-K-K-Kazuma…!” Serena looked at me beseechingly, probably hoping for that plan to save her that I’d promised her. In answer to her unspoken plea, I produced a sheet of paper.
The Axis profession of faith that had been in our carriage.
In other words…
“Do you hereby repent of all your former deeds, reject all religious faiths you’ve embraced to this point, and promise to worship, venerate, and revere the goddess Aqua? How about it? Feel like becoming a devout Axis disciple?” I asked.
Serena, looking like she might burst into tears, whispered: “Y-you can’t be serious…”
✦ ✦ ✦
“C’mon, lackey! Stop sniffling! We haven’t got all day!”
“Y-yes, sir! Sorry, senior!”
“Senior, huh? I like the sound of that! Call me senior, too!”
“Eek! Wh-what can I do for you, s-senior…?”
“Now listen here, lackey! Don’t let it go to your head just ’cause the boys are soft on you. First things first: Go buy everyone here a Neroid. I’ll have a Hellishly Heavenly Sweet-n-Sour Neroid—the one they only sell in summer.”
“B-but, senior, it’s almost winter…”