Chapter 21

A wry smirk curled Burton’s lips as I finished chanting my spell… “Since you taught us a lot about monsters today, allow us to return the favor by telling you how women think. The reason Barbera was only turning down your advances was because…” Before I could even finish my sentence, the King Toad leaped into the air, as if it was trying to crush me with its massive weight. “Explooosion!!” 6 “I’m back.” “Oh, hey.” Kazuma welcomed me home from the couch he was lying on. Sitting next to him was Aqua, who was tenderizing his back with her fists while wailing. “You’re late today. Where were you? You didn’t do anything weird like Aqua, right?” “Apologize! Tell the Megumin doll you’re sorry!” What the…? “Hold on. I cannot simply pretend like I didn’t hear that. And why do you need to apologize to it?” “Megumin, wait till you hear what this gross, moist NEET did! He took my paper Megumin doll, and he gave it to Chomusuke to play with! Now it’s ruined…!” “Don’t call me ‘moist.’ You make it sound like mushrooms are about to grow on me. Sigh… She made a doll that looked like you to ward off the rain, but I don’t want it to be sunny tomorrow, you know?” Unbelievable! “I thought you said this morning that you’d go on an adventure with me once it stops raining!” “Oh, right. My bad. But didn’t you just get back from an adventure? You smell surprisingly good, though. Did you take a bath before coming home or something?” Darkness, sitting on the couch, appeared to be knitting dolls of everyone to ward off the rain for Aqua. I glared at Aqua and Darkness out of the corner of my eye and said, “I just went on the best adventure ever, Kazuma. You would be so jealous if you knew how fun it was. I took a bath before I got back to…hide the evidence, I guess you could say.” My ambiguous reply seemed to pique his interest. “Oh, really? Well, it’s not like I can go outside, since it’s raining anyway, so let’s hear it. Yo, Aqua. I’m sorry about what I did, so do you think you can forgive me? I’ll go grab the booze I’ve been saving, so let’s have a few drinks while Megumin tells us about her adventure.” “You mean the bottle of liquor you were hiding in your chest’s drawer? Yeah, that’s gone. I randomly found it yesterday and figured I’d enjoy myself!” …… I watched in disdain as they began to grapple until, all of a sudden, Darkness apparently pricked her finger with a needle. She stared at the wound as if she was disappointed it wasn’t bleeding. “I would love to hear about your adventure as well, Megumin. I noticed you’ve been doing your daily routine at the lake in Axel lately, but did you decide to go farther out today?” Darkness sweetly smiled at me as if she was enjoying the relaxing rainy day. “I did, but it’s a long story, so I’ll tell you about it during dinner. It’s a story of how we defeated monster after monster before eventually helping a man get the woman of his dreams. Before we talk about that, however, I need to ask Aqua for a favor.” I smiled at Aqua and Kazuma, who suddenly stopped fighting. “Do you think you could make Aqua, Kazuma, and Darkness dolls, too, to ward off the rain? Because I need it to be sunny outside tomorrow just in case.”