“S-so that wasn’t the Demon King attacking the castle from outside at all; it was Megumin? Megumin, you would do that, knowing we were inside?!” Yunyun was shaking, and tears welled up in her eyes. Shoot! I’d forgotten we hadn’t told them about that yet. “You’re awful! Trying to bury us alive along with the Demon King…are you really my friend?!”
“I-it’s not like that! I mean, Kazuma had given me such a nice present, and the way things went, I just— Well, I got a little excited…”
“Uh, Darkness, I don’t mind you mussing my hair… I really don’t, but… With that gauntlet on, it hurts! I’m really sorry for running off on my own, so please just forgive me already!”
Mitsurugi’s spear-wielding girlfriend, ignoring the four of them—who weren’t acting like they were standing right in front of the Demon King’s own chamber—sighed and sat down. “So, like, what are we doing? Are we going on ahead? I mean, I would follow Kyouya anywhere…”
The Thief girl stood close to Mitsurugi and said, “Yeah, I came here for Kyouya’s sake. When we die, Kyouya, we’ll die together. Wherever you go, I’ll follow…”
That sounded cool, like a real party actually facing their final battle. Lucky bastard… From his overpowered enchanted sword to his cool-guy demeanor, Mitsurugi was making me jealous. My entourage consisted entirely of girls who did nothing but jabber, without a shred of sexiness or allure among them.
Megumin had gotten into a scuffle with Yunyun, while Aqua was being worked over by Darkness. How had Mitsurugi and I ended up in such different places in life?
“Lady Aqua, what do you think we should do?” Mitsurugi asked Aqua, who was in the process of having her neck wrung by Darkness.
“Me? That’s a good question… If it wouldn’t be too tough to defeat the Demon King, I think we should go ahead and kick his butt. But I have to admit, now that we’re all back together again, my motivation… It’s not quite as high as it was…” Her voice trailed off until she was barely whispering.
Ahhh. Losing her nerve when confronted with the real Demon King. I understood how she felt, though. I was eager to get back home, too.
“Let’s make tracks, then. We can always come back with real gear and a real plan. Just an idea, but with the barrier already down, maybe I should just register the spot outside the castle as a Teleport destination and then bring Megumin here every day to let off her explosion.”
“Hold it, Kazuma Satou. With the barrier gone, the Demon King has no reason to stay here anymore. There’s a good chance he’ll hole up in some dungeon where he’ll have a fighting chance against the army or any adventurers, until a general emerges with the strength to reestablish the barrier. From that perspective, I don’t think we can let this opportunity slip away.” Mitsurugi patted his girls on the head and disentangled himself from their grip.
I remembered patting Darkness on the head and smiling once long ago, only to be greeted with a sneer and a demand that I not mess up anyone’s hair in the future. Seriously, how did we end up so different?
The memory made me glance in Darkness’s direction.
“Listen up, Kazuma—when I’m done giving Aqua what she deserves, you’re next! That armor doesn’t even look good on you; take it off already!”
“Huh? Big talk when even you were hoping— Eeeyow-ow-ow-ow! Stop that! I’m sorry! Don’t use joint locks on me when I’m wearing armor! My entire body sounds like it’s going to break!”
My joints might have been in extreme duress, but Mitsurugi looked at me with complete seriousness. “You’re the very person who dragged Lady Aqua to this world in the first place, are you not? And yet, have even you given up on defeating the Demon King? Wouldn’t one normally expect you to seek to defeat the king even at the cost of your life, in order to return Lady Aqua to Heaven? Surely you owe her that much.”
This guy was as bad at reading a room as Aqua was, but for once I didn’t have any snappy comebacks. He was right, after all. Because I’d brought Aqua to this world, we weren’t getting any more reinforcements from Japan.
Mitsurugi dropped his gaze and whispered so only I could hear: “Besides, I can’t let you monopolize my beloved forever…”
He probably thought that was some jaw-dropping personal revelation or something.
Whispering so that only he could hear, I said, “Man, you have bad taste.”
The normally coolheaded Mitsurugi was suddenly at my throat, but I fought back by activating Drain Touch.
“Dammit! Must you be this way to the bitter end? I thought that if we battled the Demon King together, it was possible that friendship might blossom, even between us! And yet— H-hey, what skill is that? My strength… It’s…”
“If you want a boyfriend, I’ve got good news. There’s plenty of great catches in Axel! But if I hung out with you, people would think you only kept me around to make yourself look better. So scram!”
I’d managed to drain enough MP from Mitsurugi to be able to use Teleport when Aqua broke in between us, looking uncharacteristically worried. “Listen, personally, I’ve had a lot of fun since I got here, every single day. It doesn’t bother me at all that I got dragged here, okay?” She seemed a little panicky, like she was trying not to look too freaked out.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Why’d you run away, then?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Mitsurugi’s question brought Aqua up short.
A look of sadness crossed her face; then she glanced apologetically at me. “I just wondered what it would feel like to run away from home…” Of all the things I’d thought she would say, that hadn’t been one of them. “It’s like… How do I put this? You know. I wanted to pull the rug out from under some people I thought had forgotten to be thankful for me. That’s why I went on that trip. How about it? Did it work? Did the townspeople say anything? Were they worried about me?”
Aqua pelted Megumin and Darkness with questions, more on edge than usual.
“Well, of course they were worried. How could they not be? After living in Axel for an entire year, you still get lost walking around town, Aqua. No one believed you could survive a real journey on your own,” Megumin said.
“You know why everyone was willing to teach Kazuma all those skills before we left? It was so we could bring you back safely,” Darkness added. “If it hadn’t been for the Demon King’s army planning to attack Axel, I can almost guarantee you we’d have come with a mountain of adventurers at our backs.”
“Huh! I guess that’s what they call being a tsundere. And to think, normally those people hardly have the time of day for me. Gosh! Well… I guess my hands are tied, then! Come on, Kazuma—let’s go home!” Aqua said brightly, turning a radiant smile on me.
✦ ✦ ✦
That smile looked just as cheerful and dumb as it usually did. Except…there was something only someone who’d known Aqua for as long as I had could have noticed. The smallest traces of a shadow…
✦ ✦ ✦
“Very well. If that’s your judgment, Lady Aqua, then I think in this case…”
That was Mitsurugi, who had no sense at all of the darkness behind Aqua’s expression. His two girlfriends breathed sighs of relief. Yunyun raised her wand and was about to intone the Teleport spell.
But I said:
✦ ✦ ✦
“Haven’t you guys ever heard the expression ‘while you’re at it’?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Megumin and Darkness turned back, grinning, as if they’d known all along I would say something like that.
Hey, stop it with those smiles. You look like you’re staring at a tsundere or something.
I’m not doing this for Aqua, I swear! I had my own reasons for defeating the Demon King.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Listen, I spent pretty much every eris I have on manatite. I’m broke.”
✦ ✦ ✦
We’d all known one another a long time now. I didn’t have to say much to explain a lot. No, I figured one more sentence would do it.
✦ ✦ ✦
“How much do you think the bounty is on the Demon King?”