1 A rolling plain just outside town. These lands were full of minor monsters, including the overgrown frogs known as Giant Toads. But, perhaps afraid of the stalwart guards in their striking armor, none of them dared approach the town. Here I was, just outside Axel’s front gate… “Explooosion!” “Hey! You there, what do you think you’re doing?!” A guard rushed up to me after I had suddenly unleashed an explosion. “Young lady, what in the world—? Yikes! First you cast a spell at random, and then you collapse? What’s going on? Stay with me!” The guard supported me as I slumped over for lack of magic. I had just enough energy to lift my head. “P-pleased to meet you… I am Megumin of the Crimson Magic Clan, and I recently moved to this town. I believe I will be setting off many more explosions in the coming days, so we will be seeing…a good deal of…each other…” “Oh, come on!” the guard groaned. “At least save your magic for when there are actual monsters around! Don’t just set off explosions for no reason!” I tottered back into town, carrying Chomusuke in my weak, MP-less arms. The explosion helped dispel somewhat the gloom I had been feeling recently; I walked along mumbling to myself. “Another day with no new seeking-group flyers. What could be going on? Could it possibly be that every adventuring group in town already has all the wizards they need…?” A week had passed since I had arrived in this town. And recently, there had been no posts at all seeking wizards. The only thing left on the board was Yunyun’s flyer that she was hoping would get her either party members or friends. (I still couldn’t tell which.) Wizards were a comparatively rare class to begin with. I couldn’t imagine demand had dried up so quickly… Feeling better after I relieved some stress with my explosion, I arrived at the Adventurers Guild. It was afternoon, the time when most adventurers were out making money. And I, once again, was slumped over a table at the Guild. “What should I do…?” I sighed. Over the course of this week, I had joined more than one party and gone on more than one quest, but…at the end of each one, the parties had acted unimpressed and refused to allow me to join them. Nobody, it seemed, needed a wizard who could use only Explosion. Nobody needed me. Me! The one who had been called a genius. “Meeeeeee!” “Eeeek! Gosh, Megumin, don’t just scream out of nowhere! I’m putting together my masterpiece here!” Yunyun did not take kindly to my throat-scratching, hair-pulling shout, evacuating the table where she had been entertaining herself. It looked like she hadn’t had any more luck finding a party than I had. She was constructing a house of cards on the table, her face scrunched seriously, taking ever so much care not to knock it down. I had to say, Yunyun had gotten very good at entertaining herself lately. In fact, maybe people were politely steering clear of her because she looked so absorbed in what she was doing. I picked up Chomusuke where she had curled up at my feet and set her on the table. She seemed very interested in the card Yunyun was holding in her trembling hand. She trotted over to the house of cards, and… “Mrrrow.” “Ahhhh!” My inky-black magical beast was evidently unable to control the waves of destruction that emanated from her, because she immediately destroyed Yunyun’s masterpiece. But who was going to blame the cat? I gave Chomusuke a congratulatory pat on the head. She seemed quite pleased with her destruction of the little mountain of cards. “I really don’t know what I am going to do…” “Well, you can start by apologizing to me!” Yunyun was yammering about something, but I ignored her, lost in my own thoughts.
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2 “That reminds me. Megumin, have you heard? They say they’ve put out a bounty on that demon who showed up in the woods.” Yunyun eagerly cut the deck. This was something that, strapped for cash as I was, I couldn’t afford not to investigate. “Oh-ho… Tell me more.” “That forest, see, it used to be full of monsters. But most of them were wiped out a long time ago. Ever since then, the only monsters left have hidden deep in the woods and don’t come anywhere near town… Except, apparently, they’ve started showing up a lot closer to Axel just recently… That’s made the woods a tempting hunting ground again. Rumor has it, though, that maybe it’s that demon that’s driven the other monsters so close to town.” …Monsters from the woods spilling out right up next to town? I thought I remembered a very similar phenomenon occurring near Crimson Magic Village. Could the monsters have come out because they were scared of the demon? I remembered how a demon named Arnes had used the fear she inspired in other monsters along our travel route to drive them toward us. Was this her doing again? Perhaps not—I highly doubted she could have withstood my heartfelt explosion… It didn’t seem likely that this incident had anything to do with me specifically, but I still had a nagging feeling. “Yunyun, about this demon. Do any of the rumors describe its appearance…?” Just as I was asking that: “Ooooh, look who’s got himself two cute girls. Just a newb and he’s already got a harem? You’re makin’ me jealous—toss one of those sweet things my way; you don’t need ’em both!” The Guild practically reverberated with dialogue that sounded like it belonged to some simpering plot fodder. “Geez, what’s wrong with you?!” “Get away from us, you drunk!” The voices must have belonged to the women in question. When Yunyun glanced in the direction of the commotion, I said, “Don’t! Yunyun, you must not meet the eyes of the likes of them, or we will get drawn into this.” “M-Megumin, how can you live with yourself?! Don’t you want to try to help them?!” She was welcome to criticize me, but this was the Adventurers Guild. This kind of scuffle was the daily bread of many of the rough-and-tumble types who came through here. It seemed a novice was involved this time; well, consider it his baptism as an adventurer. However… “Hmm, what do we have here…? I’m actually not a newbie. I admit I don’t look like much, but I like to think I’m fairly well-known… I’m in this town hoping to find a priest who’ll join my party. I don’t see any around the Guild here, so I’m just heading back to my inn…” The voice sounded downright composed. “Whazzat? ‘Fairly well-known’? Then how come I don’t know ya? I’m fairly well-known around this town myself!” “Yeah, for all the wrong reasons. C’mon—leave him alone, man. He looks like a Sword Master or something. That’s an enchanted blade he’s got. I can feel crazy magic coming from it.” This new voice must have belonged to one of the friends of the man who was busy getting himself in trouble. It sounded like a girl trying to stop them, but…