Chapter 31

With that, Rex guffawed loudly, like a little boy, and walked away with his companions. Perhaps this was our baptism into this town of novices. Under other circumstances, I might have struck fear into them by beginning to chant my spell, but I was going to have to work with them on this hunt, so I didn’t want to rock the boat too much… “Megumin, don’t! Calm down!” “What?! Wh-what are you doing?! Stop that!” As I watched Rex and his party walk away, Yunyun suddenly grabbed me from behind. She must have thought I was going to do something terrible to him. “I am not particularly planning to do anything, so let me go! Even I am mature enough not to lose it just because some guy laughed at me. In fact, what do you think I am, some kind of outlaw?! Even more importantly, I wish you would stop pressing your chest against my back; it is very upsetting! Let me go right this instant, or I will squeeze your prided chest so hard that it will shrink down in size!” 2 Yunyun and I were back in the dim, overgrown woods, bringing up the rear of the hunting party. “Sniff… Sniffle… Sob…” Beside me, Yunyun was sniffling quietly, a hand clutching her chest. “Quiet down already! You cannot keep sniffling forever. We have to watch the rear.” “Wh-whose fault do you think this is…?! Snf, I thought you were going to yank them out of my body…” About ten different groups were participating in the hunt. Each one had six to ten people. At the very head of our group was the party with the handsome guy and his magic sword. And at the very back… “Oh-ho, fancy seein’ you here! If any monsters show up, you can feel free to run and hide. Just try to keep it down, eh, kids?” Rex was smiling broadly as his party went along, keeping a vigilant eye on our surroundings. “Oh! S-sorry…” Yunyun shrank into herself. Rex’s party was famous in its own right, it seemed, but all its members were front-row types carrying weapons. There was Rex with his huge sword, while the others had a spear and an ax. “It seems to me that you do not have a wizard,” I said. “Did you know there are slimes in this forest? If any slimes show up—they will be impervious to your weapons, mind you—you may all feel free to run and hide while Yunyun here takes care of them.” “M-Megumin!” Yunyun hissed, but Rex frowned a little. “You sure know how to talk, kid. All right, I’ll take you up on that. Slimes are dangerous, that’s for sure, so if we see any of them…” And then, as if on cue, the vanguard of the hunting party started shouting. “Monsters ahoooy!” Rex and the others were immediately on their guard. If the notorious demon appeared, we would work to surround him, and each group’s priests and wizards were to attack. If the group ahead of us had discovered the demon, then I wanted to go right to them…! But instead I heard, “Shit, what’s with this horde of small-fry monsters?! Hey, let’s hurry up and kick their asses! If the forward group’s found that demon, then we need to get up there…” Rex and the other adventurers were suddenly occupied with a barrage of monsters that had appeared seemingly from nowhere. I recognized this phenomenon. When an especially powerful monster appeared, lesser creatures ran away from it—the same thing Arnes had taken advantage of. That meant the demon had to be close. Then I saw something drop from a tree branch toward Sophie’s head. She rolled out of the way as a gloopy green thing hit the ground. “Lightning!” The slime that had tried to ambush Sophie shuddered from Yunyun’s attack and was reduced to a puddle of goo. Everyone looked up into the tree the slime had come from…! ““Heeeek?!”” There were so many Green Slimes above us that they almost seemed to be growing from the branches. “Noooo! I can’t take this anymore! I’m going back to the village!” “Yunyun, stop crying and do something about those things! I know they are disgusting, but there are too many for me—if I tried to blow them up, I would only rain slime on us! You have to fry them with your magic!” I tried desperately to talk Yunyun down, then gave her a helpful shove. “Stop! I get it! I’ll deal with them—just quit pushing me!” “H-hey, aren’t you Crimson Magic Clan, too?! Why don’t you use your magic?! You don’t have to bully that girl—!” Rex exclaimed. He was interrupted by Yunyun’s shout of “Fireball!!” She must have been really terrified of the gloopy, gloppy slimes, because she let loose with her full power. There was a roar, and the bevy of slimes went up in flames. “H-holy crap…!” “I told you, didn’t I?! Expert wizards, all of ’em!” “W-way to go…!” “Isn’t she that girl, y’know, who’s always playing cards by herself…?” Rex, Terry, and everyone else in the vicinity gazed at the flaming trees in awe. “Hmph… Not a bad job, Yunyun. You are a credit to the Crimson Magic Cl— H-hey, what are you doing?!” “Whyyy, youuuu!” Yunyun, having successfully roasted the slimes, now turned on me. As he and his party busily extinguished the conflagration in the trees, Rex said, “Hey, we owe you one. Sorry about earlier, makin’ fun of you. Is your pint-size friend there as good as you are?” “A-ahem, my magic is of a special kind… Consider it to be a trump card to play against a powerful foe, not the sort of thing suited for a moment like this…” Rex raised an eyebrow at my mumblings. “…Huh, so you only talk about magic.” “How dare you!” “Megumin, calm down! Back at the Guild, you said yourself that you were too mature to get upset about a little jab!” As we scuffled, shouting came from ahead. The direction, if I was reliably informed, of the handsome sword guy. Had they finished with the monsters up there? …Then we saw one of the adventurers from up front running our way. “This is looking bad! No way we can beat that thing! The demon showed up out of nowhere and got the drop on the guy with the sword. Now he’s hurt! That thing even used advanced magic! He’s gotta be at least as strong as a general of the Demon King! Everyone fall back!!” At that, the parties in the rear, including our own group, started buzzing like a hornet’s nest. 3 The group shambled through the night like a horde of undead. “Pfeh… Enchanted sword, my ass. He got done in like a newbie on his first day. If we’d been there, we coulda hit back at that thing, am I right?” We were on our way back to Axel. The mood of the hunting party was as dark as night, and Rex in particular was voicing his displeasure. This person with the enchanted sword was, it seemed, quite famous indeed. The demon had attacked him the moment he had appeared. Word was that the man with the enchanted blade was known by name even among the Demon King’s army. The hero with an enchanted blade… The hero with an enchanted blade? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt like I’d heard such a thing before. A hero in waiting who wielded a blade overflowing with magical power… Yes, that was it—I was sure I had been a student still when I first heard the tale at school… Sophie tried to calm Rex down. “Okay, sure, but he still managed to take a swing at the thing even though the demon had wounded him. They say he cut off one of his wings. Don’t you think we owe him for giving us the chance to escape? If that thing’s as strong as a general of the Demon King, then I think we should just wait for the Guild to call some higher-level adventurers from another town.” Rex just spat on the ground as if he still wasn’t satisfied. “Welcome back, brave adventurers! We’ve already received a report—it sounds like this creature is a fearsome foe…!” the receptionist woman greeted us when we got back to the Guild. It sounded like the wielder of the enchanted sword was badly hurt, while another ten or so members of the hunting party had sustained minor injuries. Such was the extent of our casualties. Priests were intoning healing magic and handing out potions, but it didn’t look like we would be going in for a rematch anytime soon. The fact that our most powerful fighter had been torn to shreds the first time out wasn’t very promising. One of our adventurers shrugged. “So it goes. That thing was a high-level demon, just too much for a bunch of novices like us to handle. I say we sit down like good boys and girls while we wait for higher-level adventurers from some other town to come back us up. You’ve put out the word, right?” His tone was light, but the receptionist looked distinctly uncomfortable. …Gee, somehow I have a bad feeling about this. “Ahem, everyone, I want you to listen calmly, all right? We just received information alleging that Beldia, the Dullahan general of the Demon King, has left the Demon King’s castle with a massive number of undead.” At the words “general of the Demon King,” a buzz ran through the Guild Hall. “At the current time, Beldia’s destination and objective are unknown. The one thing we are fairly confident about is that he won’t attack this town, considering its strategic insignificance and population of novices. However…” She looked apologetic. “Until the matter of the Demon King’s general is cleared up, we can’t expect help from anyone else. Meaning we’ll have to deal with this demon problem on our own…” The Guild went from gloomy to completely silent. “Don’t lose hope,” the receptionist said quickly. “It isn’t all bad news! We’ve had some new adventurers register recently… One of them, believe it or not, is an Arch-priest, that all-too-rare class that specializes in exorcising demons!” An Arch-priest. Even among advanced classes, they were unusual. They were the mortal enemies of demons and the undead, the perfect antidote to this nasty little problem. There was just one catch… “Jussa second. You said they registered recently… So they’re, like, a Level-1 Arch-priest?” Indeed, if they had only just registered, their level would be low, and it was unlikely they possessed many skills. As for their stats… “No, listen to me! With only one exception, this person has incredible stats and knows every available skill—the most accomplished Arch-priest I’ve ever seen!” Everyone froze. And then… “Who is this Arch-priest?!” “You gotta be joking! If that’s the case—this demon is done…!” “Who is it? Tell us how to find them!” Among the babbling crowd of adventurers, a man who had been drinking until that moment stood up. “… ’Ey, an Arch-priest like that should even be able to heal our torn-up swordsman in a hurry, right? Then he can come back and they can fight together. This one’s in the bag…!” The gathered adventurers looked at one another. “The distinguishing features of this Arch-priest include blue hair the color of clear water and beauty befitting a goddess…!” “““Whoo-hoooo!””” Almost before the receptionist finished speaking, adventurers went dashing out of the Guild. …All of them men. “…Looks like they’re all gone,” Yunyun said. “What do you think? Should we go look for her, too?” “…They’re so eager, I’m sure they’ll find her before long. I must say I’m rather tired…” “Yeah? I think I’m going to stay here awhile longer. You know, I…I think my magic actually came in handy back there, don’t you? So I…” She must have been talking about when she took out those slimes… Aha, so she was hoping one of the parties that had seen her work earlier might try to recruit her. But I just wasn’t sure… I looked around the virtually empty Guild. “V-very well, but do not stay out too late, all right?” “Of course! It’s fine—I’ll be back by morning!” “Th-that is much too late!” 4 Adventurers were running all over town. It was evening. The laborers had finished work and were just going home for the day. And now the evening rush was compounded by rowdy adventurers hurrying every which way. “A goddess with blue hair! Find the goddess with blue hair!” It was a refrain that could be heard all over town, until there was a crash and the sound of a girl screaming. I guess some overeager adventurer had bumped into a bystander. “Geez, watch where you’re going! Thanks to you, I dropped my day’s pay! Come on—hurry and help me pick it up! I got ten thousand eris today, and if even one eris is missing, I’ll expect you to commit ritual suicide as penance!” “L-listen, you…! How can you live with yourself?! I know you aren’t— Hrrgh?!” I looked up at the familiar voices, and indeed, it was them. The girl with blue hair was there, holding her hands over the young man’s mouth. “S-sorry ’bout that. I’ll find it for you… But I don’t think there’s any way you really dropped ten thousand— Hold on, you’ve got blue hair?!” “Hmm? What about it? Do you have a problem with my blue hair? Nobody cares what you think about it—just hurry up and find my money! Be quick about it, or I won’t be in time to be first in the bath, and I worked really hard today, and I want to wash up!” “Aww, s-sorry! …She’s got the blue hair all right, but… No way she’s a superpowerful Arch-priest, is she…? I thought she was supposed to be as beautiful as a goddess… Nah, can’t be her. She’s all muddy; no way a great cleric would get dirt under her fingernails…” “…? What’s that? Did you say something?” “N-nah, nuthin’. Look, we’re in a big hurry right now—just take this and forget about it. See ya!” The adventurer who had bumped into the young woman gave her ten thousand eris for her trouble, then went running off. “Whoo-hoo! Look at this! Now I’m moving up in the world! Come on—let’s find the money I dropped, too! …? Hey, why are you crying?” “…You… People really worship someone who acts like that…?” “Oh, what? You should know at a glance that I’m an object of veneration.” “Like hell I should.” The young woman, still clutching her money, started to argue with the young man. We had been told to look for a superlative Arch-priest with blue hair and looks befitting a goddess. …Well, that girl might have had hair of similar hue, but even I could tell that wasn’t her. I dragged my exhausted body back to the inn and up to my room. Huh, I hadn’t even unleashed my daily explosion yet. I would have to get Yunyun to go do it with me when she came back. I was still thinking about that when I went to unlock the door to my room… “Welcome home, Miss Megumin. Would you like a bath? Or me? Or perhaps you’d like to join the Axis Church?” I closed the door again. I tried to anyway, but it burst open with a bam. “My dear, sweet Megumin, you’re embarrassed! It’s so cute! My lovely little angel!” I was confronted by a priest I had met in the city of Arcanletia. Someone who had gotten me into a lot of trouble and gotten into a lot of trouble with me—a woman from the Axis Church. 5 “Miss…” “You can feel free to call me Big Sis if you want.” I sat on my bed and pressed my hands to my pounding head as I addressed the woman sitting in a chair in front of me, holding Chomusuke and smiling brightly. “Miss, I have a lot of questions for you.” “Cecily—it’s Cecily. It’s all well and good, you referring to me as your sister, but I really think we’re close enough to take the next step and start addressing each other by name.” “Miss, why are you here?” I was sure I had locked the door when I went out that morning. So how had she gotten in? And anyway, back in Arcanletia, hadn’t she been effectively committing terrorism under the guise of inviting people to join her church? “It’s Cecily. And… Well, if I told you the whole story, it would take forever…” She put a finger to her lips in thought. “What a pain to explain. Let’s just call it Lady Aqua’s guidance.” “Let’s not! For one thing, I want to know how you got in here when I locked the door!” Cecily looked very serious at that. “As a matter of fact… Megumin, I came here because I have a request for you.” “You can’t throw me off just by looking all serious.” This was Cecily’s story in a few words: Zesta, the highest official of the Axis Church, had allegedly heard the voice of the goddess Aqua. Cecily insisted that this was possible—Zesta might be pathetic, but he was also one of the top Arch-priests in the Axis Church, and he possessed the ability to receive prophecies from his goddess. “Fair enough. I mean, I took him for a simple deviant, but he was powerful enough to intimidate even Arnes. Prophecies, huh? That’s surprisingly…” …priestly, I thought, once more revisiting my opinion of him. “So what did this prophecy say? Is catastrophe coming to Axel? Or perhaps, has the hero who will defeat the Demon King been born?!” “Lord Zesta did mention this town. He said Lady Aqua was broadcasting holy waves from somewhere in Axel. He claims the voice said, ‘I am Aqua. Yes, the goddess Aqua, the very deity worshipped by the Axis Church! If you be my follower…! …It would really be a big help if you could lend me some money!’” “This prophecy is beginning to sound like a confidence job.” It was strange enough to be receiving a “broadcast,” but then it turned out to be requesting money from the Axis followers? “We weren’t sure what the transmission was supposed to mean, but the one thing that was clear was that Lady Aqua is truly in trouble. If there’s one thing I can vouch for, it’s that Lord Zesta would never invoke our lady’s name for personal gain… I don’t know why Lady Aqua needs money, but I, the beautiful Axis priestess, have been dispatched to this place to discover the reason!” “I see the Axis Church still has plenty of time to kill.” The whole beautiful-priestess schtick was too much trouble to even comment on. Anyway, I didn’t see how this mysterious prophecy and I were even connected. “Now that I’m here, I understand the meaning of Lady Aqua’s message. This town is in the grip of a demon, the great enemy of the Axis Church.” Still holding Chomusuke and still looking grim, Cecily came over so she was beside me where I sat on the bed. “It’s true that there’s a demon in the woods who has been causing no end of trouble for the adventurers around here… You think that’s what your prophecy was referring to?” Still looking very serious, Cecily wormed her way under my sheets. …She seemed to be able to do anything with a stern face. “Yes, and one of the ironclad precepts of the Axis faith is ‘Thou shalt kill demons.’ Lady Aqua wants money in this town. Lord Zesta claims something is going to happen here. Put those two facts together and… Yes!” Now she had established herself so firmly between my sheets that only her head poked out. “I’m to take the money entrusted to me by the Church, hire some people, and kill the demon in this town—that’s the meaning of the prophecy!” “A-are you sure about that…? And incidentally, could you get out of there? This is my room, and that’s my bed…” Cecily ignored me, happily burying her face in the sheets and taking a deep sniff. …Hey. “The first thing I thought of when I got into town was you and all you had done for us, Megumin…” “Excuse me, but I do not care, and I would very much appreciate it if you got out of my bed.” I tried to pull the sheets off her, but Cecily resisted me fiercely and with surprising strength. She was indeed a pretty person—when her mouth was shut. Why did Axis followers always turn out to be such good-for-nothings?! “But there are hardly any Axis followers in this town. Not even enough to run a proper church—so there’s no one I can ask for help! And that’s why I came to you, Megumin!” “Absolutely not—count me out! I want nothing more to do with you all! And stop smelling my pillow!” Deprived of the sheets, which I had finally wrenched away from her, Cecily rolled over in my bed and produced a pouch from her bag. “Five million if you help me find the Arch-priest rumored to be staying in this town. And once we defeat the demon, ten million.” “Done.” And so I found myself once more joining forces with the Axis Church. 6 Cecily and I were walking around town. “Hey, how’s it going? Did you find her?!” “You mean the incredibly talented, unbelievably beautiful Arch-priest with blue hair? Ain’t seen her! I did see a drunken street performer with blue hair! Dammit, where is this beautiful Arch-priest we keep looking for…?!” Apparently, the hunt was ongoing; adventurers continued to swarm everywhere. “It looks like all their searching hasn’t gotten them anywhere. You really think we’re going to be the ones to find her?” I said. “Where do they think they’re looking?” Cecily said. “I think they ought to try somewhere new. Megumin, when I say Arch-priest, what kind of place comes to mind?” “Places an Arch-priest might be… Hmm… Maybe praying in church or holding services at the communal graveyard to soothe wandering spirits…?” We were, allegedly, looking for an exceptionally talented Arch-priest. Someone like that must have great, purehearted faith… “As a priest of the Axis Church, let me tell you what I would be doing about this time of day… For one thing, I’d be rushing to the public bath in order to be the first one in. Then I would grab a nice, cold Crimson Neroid with a side of fried frog, pick a fight with the drunk eyeballing my luscious body, and then finally I would throw some rocks at an Eris church before I went home, full and satisfied.” “And you call yourself a cleric?” Was there really a chance that this Arch-priest was a member of the Axis Church, just like the woman beside me? No, the receptionist had said our quarry had tremendous stats, not to mention she was as beautiful as a goddess. That would seem to make it exceedingly unlikely that she was an Axis follower. …Unlikely but not impossible. “Ahem… My intuition is never wrong. If we go to the places I just mentioned, I’m sure we’ll run into that Arch-priest. So let’s go, okay? The baths should be empty right about now…” “You sure it’s not just because you want a bath? Come on—let’s try going to the church first or something.” “Ahhh… Megumin, the search can wait till tomorrow—come take a bath with your dear big sis, okay?! We can wash each other’s backs!” “If you aren’t actually interested in looking for this woman, then I’m going home!” The first place I headed was the Eris church, but I promptly regretted bringing Cecily there. “C’mon—open up! I know you’ve got an Arch-priest in there who can slay that demon! If you don’t want me to break this door down, then let me in!!” Cecily was busily pounding away on the door. The agonized shouting of an Eris priestess could be heard from within. “No, we don’t! And I’m afraid Axis followers and anyone else associated with their Church are forbidden from entering this building! Go away! Go away, I tell you!!” Cecily tsked and looked at the implacable door. “Megumin, you’re up. I know you can do this. Use your magic to blow this church to bits.” “I can’t do that! …You could have just talked to them like a normal person—why did you have to start by pounding on their door? The more trouble you cause, the worse things get for us, so just stop.” I sighed and stood in front of the door. “Um. I’m an adventurer; maybe we could talk?” “Are you also looking for this Arch-priest? I’m afraid you’ll just have to go home; there are no gorgeous Arch-priests here! I swear, every adventurer in the city has come by here…!” …I guess we were all thinking the same thing. “I apologize for the ruckus,” I said. “It so happens that a very powerful demon has appeared near this town, and we were hoping to enlist the aid of this Arch-priest in eliminating him…” There was silence from the other side of the door, which I took as a sign that they were listening to me. “We pinned our hopes on a powerful adventurer, but he was wounded. We need someone to help us heal him and go after that demon, but…” Then, at last, the door of the church opened just a crack. “…I’m afraid there’s no one like that in this church.” A woman, who I assumed was a priestess, peeked out, looking worn. I bowed and was about to turn and go when she said, “She’s not in this church, but…there’s an orphanage nearby where they’re doing food distribution for the needy. I don’t know for sure she’s there, but itinerant priests frequently stop to do good works at places like that.” Then the priestess smiled at me. “…! Thank you very m—” I was interrupted by a chak sound from within the church, followed by a scream. I tried to get a glance at what was inside… “Strike!” Cecily declared, looking very satisfied about the window she had broken with the stone she’d picked up off the ground. We were on our way to the orphanage. “Are you stupid?! Why is every single follower of the Axis Church a complete, inveterate moron?! Strike, my foot—I know you don’t have the best relations with the Eris Church, but where was the call to go that far?!” “It’s all very strange, I admit. I’ve been just bubbling ever since I got to this town. It’s like I’m in even better form than usual. Maybe it’s a gift from the great Lady Aqua?” “If that ‘form’ is a blessing from your deity, then when I meet Aqua at the end of my life, I swear I’m going to sock her.” “Phew… That was a close one, though. I can’t believe such a sedate-looking priestess would have it in her to strike back…” “Of course she would! What do you hope to gain, making even the nicest people upset?! When that friendly priestess finally snapped, I can’t tell you how scared I was!” Evening was coming along; it was already getting dark outside. The bars and restaurants we passed were noisy with people having dinner. We went to a bar with some particularly loud shouting coming from inside. Cecily seemed drawn to it like a moth to a flame… “J-just a second—where do you think you’re going?! We don’t have time to play around; we have to get to that orphanage before the evening distribution ends!” “Yes, but they just sound like they’re having so much fun in there…! My Axis intuition is telling me our Arch-priest is right in there…!” “What would someone like that be doing in a place like this?! Traveling performers drink in this bar, not purehearted and unbelievably amazing clerics!” “Aww, but—but—Lord Zesta, one of the most unbelievably amazing clerics in our entire religion, goes to an even worse tavern every few days…” “Don’t besmirch the good name of the clergy by acting like he’s one of them!” Cecily finally gave in, and I dragged her away toward the orphanage. When we arrived at the orphanage that was distributing the food, however… “Mmf… I thee, tho she didn’f come here, either… (Gulp!) Seconds, please, an extra-large scoop!!” Looking very serious, Cecily demanded seconds of the food she was stuffing her face with—food that was supposed to be going to the needy. I knew she talked about doing whatever you wanted, but really. Were all Axis followers this way? “No, I’m afraid no one matching that description has ever come to help serve. But hair the color of water, my goodness… There is someone with blue hair who comes to get food here all the time… Could that be the person you’re looking for…?” I highly doubted a beautiful, capable Arch-priest would stoop to scamming the dole. Which made this another dead end. Cecily thanked the woman doing the distribution, then, patting her bulging belly, said, “Hoo… Best meal I ever served myself. Megumin, I’m sort of sleepy now that my stomach’s full. I’m sure our Arch-priest is getting some nice shut-eye right about now. How about we go back to the inn and call it a night?” C-curse her…! The only other place left to search was the communal graveyard. It was perfectly dark by this time, and the graveyard, located on a hillside outside of town, had an uncanny atmosphere. With nothing but a lantern for light, Cecily and I stood smack in the middle of the cemetery, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the whole place. I knew it had been my suggestion, but I was starting to doubt whether an Arch-priest would really come to a place like this. “Eeeeek!” Cecily screamed, and startled, I exclaimed, “Bwaaaah?!” I almost dropped the lantern but caught myself and looked quickly around. “Wh-what is it? What’s wrong?! Did an undead appear?!” I hid behind Cecily and looked around like my life depended on it…! “Hee-hee, pfffft! Megumin, you went ‘bwaaaah’! ‘Bwaaaah,’ she says! My goodness, it’s just the cutest little eeeyow-ow-ow! I’m sorry—I was just making a little joke; I won’t do it again, so stop that! Forgive me!” Just as I was smacking Cecily with my staff, Chomusuke, who had stuck close to me ever since we left town, looked up to the sky and froze. She was looking just behind Cecily and me. Staring, not moving a muscle… “…Miss. Um, you’re a priest, right? I have something to ask of you.” “G-go ahead. I warn you, though, I only know simple healing magic. I haven’t practiced Turn Undead enough to use it, and I don’t remember the incantation anyway, all right?” Geez, some priest. …In the moonlight, I saw a shadow, and it wasn’t from the lantern. It shifted and squirmed like fox fire… “…Will you turn around on my count?” “…Okay. We’ll turn around at the same time, and whatever’s there, we’ll fight it together. Sound good?” “Understood—here I go, then.” I took a breath. At the same moment, there was a scrape of something stepping on the earth behind us. ““One… Two…Three…!”” We shouted, then dashed away without turning around. “Hey, Megumin, this wasn’t our agreement!” “Look who’s talking! It’s your job as a cleric to stay behind so a young girl can escape!” We argued as we ran along, never looking back, straight toward town! “But I’m basically your employer!” “I haven’t received any payment, and anyway, the quest was to find someone, not to be a bodyguard!” Then we heard it. “U-um…” Or anyway, it seemed we did: a frail, lonely voice calling to us as we fled. “Y-you’re awful… Hff, hff…! When did you get so cynical, Megumin? You used to be so sweet and gullible!” “I learned my lesson after taking enough licks from you guys!” When we had finally reached the town gate, we stood there, out of breath and dripping sweat. “By the way, I thought I heard a woman’s voice when we ran off… Do you think it was the Arch-priest we were looking for?” Cecily, fanning her sweaty face with her hand, said, “No, it wasn’t. I glanced back just before we got out of the cemetery. There was a pretty girl standing there in the moonlight, with wavy hair and a face as pale as an undead…!” “Ugh, no more! I don’t want to hear any more!” 7 It was the day after Cecily and my lengthy but fruitless search. I found Yunyun, who had apparently waited at the Guild all night, slumped over a table, sniffling. “Sniff… Sniff… I didn’t know what else to do…! I kept thinking if I just waited another hour, someone might come back who had seen what I did and want to talk to me, so I kept telling myself: just a little longer, just a little longer…!” “And that’s how you ended up not going home at all last night? You are the most pathetic!” After the adventurers had gone rushing out of the Guild, it seemed they had dispersed without ever coming back. As for Cecily, who had been so riled up yesterday, she was lounging at the inn today. I had woken her up—she was staying in the same building—and she said she was going to catch a few winks and immediately went back to sleep, claiming that she had been up all night worrying about how I had been hardened by the tribulations of life. She could try to pin this on me, but I knew it was because she had been up drinking at the bar at our inn until late last night. Axis followers certainly did love their freedom. Did they have any concept at all of structures or rules? In any event, having officially accepted her request, I couldn’t afford to just kill time. Unfortunately, as far as what to do about the demon, at the moment, it seemed like my only real options were to wait for the adventurer with the enchanted sword to heal up or to find that Arch-priest. …I was as lost as the sulky Yunyun, who still had her face planted on the table. “Yo, if it isn’t the all-talk wizard. Not going out to look for the notorious Arch-priest?” Who should appear but Rex, a stein of beer in his hand despite the fact that it was still morning. “Oh,” I said, “if it isn’t our very functional adventurer friend, the one who went running off with this all-talk wizard the moment we heard our swordsman got done in! What’s the matter with you? Has your crippling fear of the demon driven you to drink first thing in the morning?” “H-huh…?! You’ve got big nerve for such a little girl!” “Excuse me, but I would like to know what exactly you mean by little. Depending on your answer, I may ask you to step outside!” “Gosh, Megumin, can’t you even go one minute without getting into a fight with him? I’m sorry—she’s been in a bad mood since yesterday…!” Yunyun tried to cover for me, but Rex frowned. “Aww, it’s… Look, I’m sorry. I’m not feeling my best, either. I didn’t see hide or hair of that Arch-priest everyone’s looking for. I shouldn’t have let myself get sucked into that. Sorry.” He was supposed to be some big-name adventurer, and he couldn’t find the Arch-priest? For that matter, an entire Guild’s worth of adventurers conducting a town-wide manhunt couldn’t find her, either? Maybe our Arch-priest had already moved on to another city. “Anyway, hey. I didn’t come here just to pick a fight with you. I’ve got some business… Truth is, I have some juicy info on that demon. I don’t know how good you really are, but I saw how powerful your friend was yesterday… How about it? You interested?” Then Rex grinned at us. A certain monster had been sighted at the foot of a mountain some ways from town. That, it seemed, was Rex’s “juicy info.” “Tell us already. What was this ‘certain monster’?” “Heh-heh, one that’s pretty dangerous for novices. I’ll understand if you want to pull out, ’kay? I think the three of us can manage by ourselves.” Yunyun and I had joined Rex’s party and headed for the mountain in question. The man called Terry had the reins of a horse he was leading, which was pulling a gigantic cage. “Here’s a hint: This thing is black and huge,” Sophie said. “You should know what that means—after all, you were the ones who told the Guild, right? About how that demon was looking for a big, black magical beast?” I felt my blood run cold. Yunyun had stopped dead in her tracks. Based on her facial expression, I could see we were on the same page. “Excuse me. This monster we’re about to go looking for, could it be…?” “Oh-ho, caught on, have ya? That’s right—it’s a Beginner’s Bane.” Yunyun and I did an about-face and started heading back the way we had come. The Beginner’s Bane. It was called that for a reason—and we were beginners. “H-hey, I thought you Crimson Magic Clansfolk were all supposed to be expert wizards! I know I joked about you going home, but I didn’t expect you to actually do it!” “It’s precisely because we are expert wizards! Beginner’s Banes are clever and wary, not to mention extremely fast. They’re smart enough that sometimes they even set ambushes, and they know to attack the weakest-looking members of a group first. That means poor, defenseless wizards are often the first thing on the menu.” “Their speed also means they can close in on you in an instant, so being in the rear guard doesn’t help much. And our levels are still pretty low…” For all those reasons, Beginner’s Banes were dangerous not just to beginners but to wizards in general. Considering that we were both low-level wizards, we would almost certainly be its first target. “C’mon—you’ll be fine. We’ve hunted lots of Banes in our time. We just want you to use a little magic on it when we capture it. We’ll take care of you—I promise.” Rex sounded relaxed, but I doubted whether someone with more muscle than brains like him was really equipped to evade a Bane’s surprise attack… “…Um. So you just want me to use Sleep on it so you can capture it? But what are you going to do with this Beginner’s Bane once you have it?” Rex jabbed a thumb at the steel cage the horse was dragging. “It’s obvious, ain’t it? We put the Bane in the cage, then take the cage back to town. That demon is looking for a big, black magical beast. It’s not a coincidence a Bane shows up at the exact same time. It’s gotta be the one he’s looking for, right? Maybe like his pet or something?” So they planned to use the Beginner’s Bane as bait to draw out the demon. “We ice the fiend or we chase him outa that forest. Either way, the Guild gives us the reward, and we split it fifty-fifty. What do you say? Not bad, eh?” Rex gave us a pointed smile. 8 Beginner’s Banes often concealed themselves near groups of minor monsters like goblins or kobolds, monsters that would be attractive hunting targets to inexperienced adventurers. When the newbies came for the small fries, the Bane would have its next meal. In other words, if you wanted to hunt a Beginner’s Bane…! “Blade of Wind!” “Whoo-hoo! Look at that power—that’s the Crimson Magic Clan for you! All right, in we go!” Rex, wielding his great, two-handed broadsword, charged into the center of the goblin horde. Sophie followed him with her spear, leaving Terry with his ax to protect Yunyun and me. It turned out that the stories of them being a famous, highly effective party were more than just talk. Rex took out dozens of goblins in the blink of an eye, then looked around vigilantly. Beginner’s Banes generally tried to protect the goblins or other creatures that served as their bait. If the creature was nearby, then our attack on its goblins should… “Terry, behind you!” Rex shouted—and at the same moment, there was a great shaking of the bushes behind us, and a black shadow came leaping out! It was heading straight for Yunyun, but Terry stepped between them. “Grrrrrr!” “C-come and get me, you overgrown house pet!” Terry was buying us some time against the Bane, but Yunyun had to chant her spell, and quick…! “Sleep!” She pointed her wand at the Beginner’s Bane, and the massive black creature slumped to the ground without so much as a yelp. “““Whoa!””” Rex and the others, who promptly moved to capture the beast, were suitably impressed. They surrounded the now motionless Bane. “You said your name was Yunyun, right? You sure know how to handle yourself! Any chance you’re interested in joining our party?” “Yeah, there aren’t too many wizards with power like yours. What do you say? I’m here, so you won’t be the only woman around. I think it could be nice, don’t you?” “We’re all muscle-brained frontline fighters—it would really help us to get a wizard in here!” “What?! Y-you want me?!” Yunyun, totally overwhelmed by the chorus of praise, blushed and stood petrified. She had been so eager to be invited to a group, but when the moment finally came, she choked. Yunyun looked at me helplessly, but I figured this was part of her “training.” I decided to let her fend for herself. “Ahhh, we can sit down and talk about it when we get back to town. First we’d better take care of this thing.” “You’re right. You think that demon will come to negotiate with us when he sees us heading back to town with this thing in a cage? High-level demons are supposed to be intelligent, and I hear this one knows how to talk. You said you had a conversation with him, right, Megumin?” “Yes, well. I must say, looking back on it, he seemed rather friendly, as demons go. But…” They completed the capture of the Beginner’s Bane. All that was left was to drag it back to town and wait for the demon to show up. “What’s the matter? Something on your mind? …Hey, come to think of it, you’ve still been all talk on this quest, just like last time. Is it just me, or have you not done anything to help out around here?” Rex was teasing but looked at me dubiously. I instantly felt as if a vein might burst in my forehead, but I knew that my short temper and eagerness to pick a fight were bad habits. There was indeed something else on my mind at that moment. We were dealing with a high-level demon, even if we did just have his pet hostage, and I wondered if things would really go as smoothly as we hoped. …In a word, something had felt off this entire time. Perhaps this black magical beast wasn’t a Beginner’s Bane at all… “Well, whatever. Let’s haul this thing back to town and at least celebrate capturing it.” Rex seemed oblivious to my unease—and that’s when it happened. “There you are!!” Rex’s suggestion was drowned out by a voice so loud, it seemed to come from everywhere at once. 9 For a second, I couldn’t tell where the voice had come from or what had happened. All of us instinctively froze, and then he appeared. “You little stinkers! What do you think you’re doing to Lady Wolbach—? Ohhhh, you’ll pay!!” His body was massive, such a polished black that it reflected light. I was pretty sure he’d had two giant, bat-like wings before, but now he had only one. He still had the twisted, cruel horns and fangs, though. There was no mistaking it: He was our high-level demon, the one I had met in the woods. And he was charging out of the trees right at us, enraged! “Whoa?! H-hey, this here’s a Beginner’s B—Argh?!” “Agh!!” “Guh?!” The three adventurers surrounding the Bane’s cage were sent flying before they could draw their weapons. In fact, Yunyun and I, not being experienced in close combat, could hardly even tell what had happened to them. Each of them was collapsed in a different place, some ways away on the ground, and none of them showed any sign of moving. The demon, indeed, crouched down near the Beginner’s Bane. “Lady Wolbach! Open your eyes, Lady Wolbach!!” The name he was desperately calling sounded somehow familiar. Wait…Wolbach? “Uh, Megumin, aren’t we in kind of a tight spot here? What do you think—will he let us run away again…?” There was an instant when I thought I might remember why the name seemed so important, but I was interrupted by Yunyun tugging on my sleeve and trembling. “Shh,” I said, “let’s not act hastily—we’ll edge our way out of here slowly so that we don’t give him an opportunity to attack.” As I spoke, I began to back away from the demon, who was still shouting at the Beginner’s Bane. Then, suddenly, the demon cocked his head in surprise. It was an unsettlingly innocent gesture from such a vile-looking creature. “’Ey… ’Ey, ’ey, ’ey, ’ey. This thing’s just a Beginner’s Bane. The hell’s going on here?” The demon got to his feet, mumbling something, then turned his gaze, eyes as blank as glass orbs, on us. ““?!”” When our eyes met, I experienced a fear unlike any I had ever known. This guy was bad news—the worst news. He was vastly more powerful than Arnes, the last high-level demon I’d fought. And suddenly, I connected the dots. “Hey, you over there. What’s the deal with this thing? I caught Lady Wolbach’s scent—I’d know it anywhere—and hauled myself all the way out here… I mean, damn, from a distance it even looks like her.” Wolbach was the name Arnes had used… “Hey, what’s with this? Why do you smell like Lady Wolbach? You friends of hers?” Yunyun and I tried to back up as the demon crossed his arms and thought. …No question now. The thing this demon was after was my familiar, Chomusuke. Unfortunately, there was no time to be (justifiably) proud of my familiar for being the target of such a powerful demon. We had to get out of here somehow…! My staff was still in my hands, and I started to chant a spell under my breath. With speed belying his size, the demon leaped in close to me. He took a sniff of my clothes. “…Hmm, you smell like her most of all. Fresh scent, too—no later than this morning, I’d say.” Having that awful face so close to me made me desperate to scramble away. But he was too close now; resistance was futile. As the monster sniffed at me, I remembered that Chomusuke had indeed cuddled up to me that morning. I would have to strangle the little fur ball when I got home. “Hey, say somethin’, kid. You know, I think I’ve met you before. You’re the Crimson Magic Clan kid I ran into in the woods, aren’t you?” I nodded, emphatically but silently. The demon nodded back, evidently satisfied. “Huh, I see… The seal was in Crimson Magic Village. And you guys are Crimson Magic Clansfolk. Hey, it makes sense now. It finally makes sense!” I didn’t know what “made sense,” but I felt like I would cry if that face got any closer, so I wished he would back off. In fact, beside me, Yunyun’s eyes were already brimming with tears. “Right, kids! If you’re Crimson Magic Clansfolk, you oughta know something about where Lady Wolbach is. Don’t pretend you don’t; you obviously saw her this morning.” Murderous intent was rolling off the demon now, and I started to fear for my life. “Wh-why do you and your ilk insist on referring to my Chomusuke by this bizarre name, Wolbach? I can guarantee you have the wrong cat. If you like, I can find you a nice, cute kitten instead, so just leave Chomusuke alone!” “Ch-Chomusuke? Whazzat? Hang on, I think I’ve heard that name somewhere. Where was it? …Aw yeah, it was that pip-squeak…!” I couldn’t imagine what he meant by that. Yunyun and I stood paralyzed as the demon shook his head back and forth vigorously, as if he was trying to control something that had welled up within him. “I don’t want to have to go at it with you Crimson Magic kids if I don’t have to… I think the pip-squeak’d come after me anyway… So listen up, okay? I need. Lady Wolbach—bring me Lady Wolbach. If you really don’t know who she is, just bring me everyone you saw this morning. Got that? This is a…what’s the word…? Oh yeah, a trade. You bring me Lady Wolbach, and you don’t get hurt. Oh, and I spare your little town, too.” “We’re supposed to take a demon at his word?!” Yunyun, who had been too petrified to speak until that moment, finally realized he was talking about Chomusuke and gripped her wand fiercely. “Hey, cool your jets. Us demons never break a contract once it’s made. That’s, like, our number one, absolute law. Besides, I think my great, bad self is bein’ pretty friendly, don’t you? Okay, so I roughed up the kid with the enchanted sword a bit. But what else was I supposed to do? He’s a wanted man among us demons.” I restrained Yunyun with a hand on her shoulder—she looked like she might launch a spell at any moment—and said, “A wanted man? This famous wielder of the enchanted blade who’s in Axel right now—he’s wanted among the demons?” The monster responded, “Aww yeah, I forgot. I ain’t properly introduced myself. My name is Host. High-level demon and right hand of the Dark God Lady Wolbach. Enchanted-sword wielders could take down a god if they felt like it—you can’t be too careful around ’em.” 10 “Are we really going to negotiate with that monster?” asked Yunyun as she led the horse by the reins. “…I’m not sure yet. But if we can fix all this just by giving him that fur ball, it might be worth it.” After all, we weren’t just dealing with a major demon here but an accessory to a Dark God. If we weren’t careful, things could turn out even worse for us than for the guy with the enchanted sword. Yunyun went silent when she heard my answer. Rex and the others were sleeping peacefully in the cage formerly occupied by the Beginner’s Bane. The two of us could hardly hope to get them back to town by ourselves, so we turned the cage into a makeshift carriage. The three of them showed no sign of opening their eyes yet. They were a group of hearty adventurers, and they had been simply dismissed in the blink of an eye. And now, allegedly, if we gave Chomusuke to their attacker, neither we nor the town would come to harm. The obvious implication being that if we didn’t give Chomusuke to the demon, not only we, but many innocent townspeople, would suffer as a result. I wasn’t exactly holding out hope that someone would conveniently come along and rescue us, as had happened in Crimson Magic Village and Arcanletia. Rex and his party were down for the count, and if there was anyone else in Axel who could go toe to toe with a demon, I didn’t know about them… The wheels on the cage clattered along. Right about the time we were reaching the town gate, Yunyun, who had been deep in thought, said, “Listen, Megumin, I think we can just ignore whatever that demon says. He’s a demon; we don’t even know if he’ll keep his so-called promise. And I know this town is supposed to be full of novices, but there are lots of good, experienced adventurers here. So we just…” It was an unusual thing to hear from Yunyun, who was generally so naively trusting, eager to do the right thing, and eager to help people even when she was the one who inevitably got burned. Maybe experience really had taught her a thing or two. Never mind whether or not they were good things. She was beginning to learn to make her way in the world, but I was a little worried that she might start hanging around the wrong crowd… I didn’t answer as we passed through the gate. I looked to one side, where I saw those two people again, swinging pickaxes and looking like they were having a nice time as always. If I shirked my duty now, these two—unreliable as they appeared, yet fun-loving—would be among the first to pay the price, just outside the town gates as they were. I clutched my staff and felt the power well up within me.