Chapter 6
Eris’s Blessing for This Crusader!
1
“Check it out, Lowly Assistant! Look at that gigantic inn! Let’s stay there tonight.”
Chris had seemed oddly excitable ever since she’d linked up with us.
“You have the money to stay in a place like that, Chief? You strike me as the type who squanders her cut of the loot the moment a job is done.”
Chris and I were sitting behind Darkness, who was still driving, and scanning the town for a place to stay for the night.
“Of course I don’t have any money. I gave most of what I did have to the Eris Church, and I drank the rest.”
“Bad Chief. So what are you going to do about tonight?” I asked, but Chris only smiled.
“Come on, Lowly Assistant—we’re pretty good friends, right? We spent all night running around town together. Just like best buddies, am I right? So we’ve gotta stay together, too!”
Pay for my room, huh? Very subtle.
I didn’t particularly mind, but before I could answer, Darkness looked back and said, “I’ll cover Chris’s portion. She did come all the way from Axel to help me… Sounds like you’re just as faithful to the Eris Church as ever, Chris, and I appreciate that, but don’t you think you should set aside a little something for the future?”
“Yay! Thanks, Darkness! The future? Eh, I’ll get there.” She hugged Darkness around the neck.
“‘Thanks, Darkness,’ indeed. I worry about you, you know. I have a home of my own, on top of Kazuma’s mansion and his considerable resources. He’s taking care of Aqua and Megumin, too. But you, Chris, where do you spend your time? You don’t seem to live anywhere, and you have zero savings. I guess that’s pretty typical with adventurers, but you should think about coming to live at our place one of these days…”
Chris didn’t quite meet Darkness’s eyes. “N-nah. I appreciate it, Darkness, but I’m fine, really! I have places to crash. I’ll get by.”
“How will you get by? That’s what I’m asking! You haven’t turned to crime again, have you? If I catch you, even I won’t be able to look the other way. I know how I used to be, but I’m starting to learn to use my authority to get what I want. Don’t make me have to pull strings for you.”
“What happened to you, Darkness?! How did my sweet, hardheaded Darkness…? This must be your fault! You’ve led Darkness down the wrong path! Give her back! Give me back my dense, innocent, gullible sweetie pie!”
“Don’t try to pin this on me, Chief. She’s been a little funny all her life.”
As we argued by the town gate, a bell tolled twilight.
“All right, Chief. Let’s do a quick inspection. Anyway, when you think about it, we don’t really need anywhere to stay. We’ve got a kid dependent on some medicine, so once the job’s done, we’ll be leaving town in a hurry.” Considering Chris was here, I knew what I had to do. Naturally…
“Ugh, I’m going to be an accessory to a crime… With my own hands…” Darkness, who had been in a despairing mood for some time now, was holding her head and muttering.
Chris patted Darkness on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Darkness. This is to help that little girl, right? We don’t have a choice. I feel bad for Zeeleschilt or whatever his name is, but we need to get the ingredients for that medicine!”
Why had she come here? “No special reason,” that was what she’d claimed. But I knew. Darkness had gone to pray at the Eris Church before we left on our trip. And that meant…
“You really do look after your own, don’t you, Chief?”
“Huh…? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, but thanks, I think.”
How, you ask, could Chris be quite so calm when we were just about to try to break into a demon’s personal castle? Easy: We hadn’t told her about Count Costume’s true identity. Darkness said Chris lost her head when she saw a demon or an undead and went nuts trying to attack them, so I was to keep my mouth shut if at all possible. As for me, knowing Chris’s true identity as I did, I was worried that if she knew, she wouldn’t stop at stealing knickknacks. She would want to deal with that freak in the costume, too. So sure, I’d keep my mouth shut.
“Listen, Chief, stop staring. You’re not some tourist from the countryside. That silver hair of yours could get you in a lot of trouble.”
Chris normally worked alone. Maybe she was excited—or nervous—to finally be in a party again, because from the moment we got inside, she could hardly stay still, looking at everything in sight and fidgeting around.
“I keep wondering,” Darkness said to Chris, “since when did the two of you get so close? I look away for a moment, and suddenly you’re thick as thieves. From my recollection, you hardly even know each other…”
Chris, smirking, poked a finger at her and replied, “What’s the matter, Darkness, worried about what’s going on between my lowly assistant and me? Come to think of it, you haven’t told me how far you and he have gone. Spill the beans, and I might see my way to answering your question, eh?”
What a thing to say! Darkness glanced at me, then turned away again. Chris, totally observing this, murmured to me, “Saaay, Lowly Assistant, Darkness is acting a little funny. What’d you do to her?” They really were close friends: Chris had picked up on the awkwardness between us right away.
“I didn’t do anything. In fact, that’s the whole reason things are so weird. Okay, short version: Darkness fessed up to me about her feelings, but I’m in a good place with Megumin right now, so I sorta turned her down…”
“Whaaaat?! You rejected Darkness?!”
Darkness, holding the reins up front, flinched visibly.
“Keep it down, Chief! I told you things were weird! Why would you shout about it?!”
“But she—! But you—!”
There was no further obvious reaction from Darkness up on the driver’s bench, but I could see the tips of her ears flushing a faint red.
See?! This is obviously bugging her!
“So you’re dating Megumin, then, Lowly Assistant?” Chris asked eagerly, strangely excited about this.
“Not really. Our current status is ‘more than friends but less than lovers.’”
“Gee, that’s pretty anticlimactic. So how far did you go with Megumin? Didja kiss her?”
Some goddess! What was she doing, pressing me for details on my love life? I’d seen Darkness’s ears twitching, even though she didn’t move anything else. I guess she was curious about our hushed conversation.
“I still haven’t done anything with Megumin…”
Okay, so we’d shared a bath, held hands, and cuddled up under the covers, but still.
“That’s funny. I always took you for a real no-qualms, grab-opportunity-with-both-hands kind of guy.”
Gee, sorry I’m not, you know, grabbing anything. I still didn’t have it in me to take responsibility for going all the way.
“Huh, so that means you still have a chance with Darkness.”
“Nah, I’m loyal. I know you’re just trying to egg me on, but still…”
Yeah, it had hurt when I had to turn Darkness down. I’d honestly thought I was going to cry.
…Okay, so I know it wasn’t really my place to speak, seeing how excited I got after that. Chris, though, was grinning again. “You seem like the responsible type, surprisingly. And I’ll bet you can’t leave a good thing alone, can you? If you crossed a certain line, you’d take responsibility, wouldn’t you? So, hey, say Darkness gives you another kiss. Not on the cheek this time but right where it belongs…!” She kept jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow as she spoke.
“Oh, Darkness and I have crossed that line already.”
“Whoa, hang on! What did you say?! I thought it was Megumin you were getting into that sort of thing with! So how can you be like that with Darkness when you haven’t even done anything with Megumin?! You’re not making any sense!”
I ignored the flustered Chris. “Hey, Darkness, how about you park the carriage in that abandoned lot over there? There aren’t that many people coming by. No one’ll see it.”
“Right, good idea.”
“Hey, don’t try to weasel out of this! Tell me! Hey, Darkness, we’re best buddies, right? Tell me how this whole kiss thing happened!”
“Kazuma, what the hell have you been saying to her? Don’t you start asking me about that, Chris!”
Darkness went beet red again.
2
Once we’d parked the carriage, Chris slammed Darkness with questions. Then Darkness took her turn, interrogating Chris as to where she usually was and what she spent her time doing. All of which cost us time…
And that brought us to the present. We were standing in front of Count Zeeleschilt’s castle once again, this time under the cover of night. Chris and I had broken into enough buildings by now that I was starting to become something of an expert on infiltration. And so I stood, considering the best way to come at this castle…
As I mulled it over, Darkness, who had a mask around her face just like Chris, tugged on my sleeve. “Why do you look so worried, Kazuma? We’ve come this far; we can’t back out now. Those children are suffering even as we speak… My mind is made up. If we’re going to do this, let’s get going.” She sounded a little uneasy herself.
She’d taken off her heavy armor. The tight black outfit underneath was surprisingly sexy, not to mention a lot more burglar-ish than what Chris and I were wearing.
“Listen, Darkness, we’re pros. And this sort of thing isn’t your specialty. So leave this to us and do what we tell you,” I said.
“He’s right, Darkness. I’ll bet you’ve never done anything like this in your sheltered life, have you? It’s all right—just let me handle everything. I mean, Lowly Assistant and I have even broken into the royal castle.”
In spite of our assurances, Darkness looked very concerned. “Yes, you got in, but they chased you right back out.” Ouch, that stung.
Chris pointed at me and said, “That’s because Lowly Assistant—!”
“Chief, I don’t think this is the time to be digging up the past. Think of those poor kids…”
“That’s true, but I don’t want to hear it from you!”
I ignored the jabbering Chris, using my Second Sight skill to try to find a way in. The castle was surrounded by towering walls, the front gate was shut tight, and I didn’t see anything resembling a back door. There was no way we were going to be able to tunnel under the walls, so that left us only one option…
“You bring any rope, Chief?”
“Naturally. A true Thief never goes anywhere without some rope handy.”
Chris and I nodded at each other, and each produced a length of rope seemingly out of thin air.
“You guys just walk around with that? No, I’m sure you brought it along because we were planning on infiltration…”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Darkness. Any Thief worth a damn has some rope on them at all times,” Chris replied. Darkness froze.
“Remember, Chief, she’s a pampered young lady. She doesn’t understand our ways…”
“Oh yeah. Sorry, Darkness.”
Darkness didn’t quite seem ready to accept what we were saying, but she went along with us anyway. There was a guard in front of the castle gate, but I doubted he could see everywhere all along the walls. We went around one side, then flung ropes with grappling hooks up to the top of the walls. I tugged on mine to make sure it was secure.
Darkness watched us work with real appreciation. “You’re both good at this,” she said as Chris and I grabbed our ropes and prepared for a nice, easy…
“Damn, the rope’s slipping! This is tough!”
“I don’t have the strength to climb this, Lowly Assistant!”
“Chief, maybe we can tie some knots in the rope. That should make it a little easier to get up.”
Darkness watched us flail, then suggested hesitantly, “Hey, you two, I think I can climb the rope with my strength. How about you let me go first? Then I can pull you up.”
“Amateurs should keep their amateur ideas to themselves, Darkness,” I said.
“He’s right,” Chris added. “If you let your attention lapse for even a second, it could spell your demise. You’re still an inexperienced beginner. Watch before you attempt. Just leave it to me, remember?”
“R-right, sorry. I didn’t mean to butt in.”
At least she was finally getting into it. Considering her sudden burst of motivation, we decided to have Darkness go first after all. She managed to scramble up the rope on strength alone, then pulled us each up. Then we carefully made our way onto the castle grounds.
“Okay, Darkness. You just follow us, all right?”
“The chief and I have the Ambush skill, but you don’t, obviously. Don’t let go of my hand, okay?”
“G-got it!” Darkness said and grabbed my hand.
“Okay, I know more about this than you do, so for tonight, I want you to call me Boss.”
“Boss.”
“That’s the stuff.”
“C’mon, Lowly Assistant! We don’t have time for your silly games,” said Chris when I had forced Darkness to practice her “Boss” one too many times. “Let’s get going!”
“I remember how many times you made me say your name when you designated me as your subordinate.”
“That was then; this is now. Point is, Lowly Assistant, we have to hurry.”
I got myself together and explained to our crew’s newest member, Darkness: “Listen up, newbie. At this time of day, the ruler of the castle is most likely to be on the top floor. Important people and big bosses always like high places. It’s just the way they are.”
Chris nodded in agreement at my brilliant deduction.
However, our newbie had the gall to contradict me. “Actually, I’ve been here a few times, and I seem to remember Count Zeeleschilt likes to live down with his monsters in the arena. Maybe we should go there first.”
“Okay, Darkness, we were giving you a general overview about these things. Obviously, we both knew where the big bad was. We have the Sense Foe skill, after all.”
Chris nodded again.
“O-oh yeah, sorry. Guess I should have kept my mouth shut,” Darkness said.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. You’re new to this; no one blames you. Besides, sometimes new blood means new ideas: stuff only a newbie would think of. If something’s bugging you, speak up. Okay, let’s hit the basement. Oh, but before that…”
In front of us was a door leading into the castle. Even though there’d been a guard at the gate, I didn’t see one in front of this door or anywhere else around. Maybe just because we were out in the sticks, where you didn’t expect to need a lot of guards. Or maybe because the ruler of the castle was a devil who could take care of himself…
“It’s my time to shine,” Chris said confidently. “My Lockpick skill will bust this thing wide open.” She stepped forward, and… “Lowly Assistant, this is bad! This door doesn’t have a keyhole!”
“You’ve gotta be kidding, Chief! You think maybe we need a password or a magic spell to open this thing?”
We held a quiet conference about the unexpected obstacle. But that was when our newest member stepped up.
“Erm, I think it works like this…”
Darkness walked past us and lifted up the door.
“Lots of old castles have lift doors like this. They’re pretty heavy, so they help prevent break-ins because you need someone else to lift them up for you… U-um, what’s wrong, you two?”
Chris and I were staring at her wordlessly.
“Hey, Darkness, just what were you planning to do if there was a trap in there? It’s thanks to my good Luck that there wasn’t, but…”
“He’s right, Darkness—you can’t open things carelessly in a place like this. Thankfully, my Luck is some of the best in Axel, so there was no trap, but still.”
“S-sorry about that. I admit it was pretty careless of me.”
How nice of her to apologize.
“Ahhh, don’t worry about it. Like I said, you’re new to this. Just try to use your head a little more.”
“Yeah, you might be new, but we’re going to let you take point today, Darkness. Don’t worry—we veterans will be close behind to support you.”
“R-really? Well, don’t mind if I do, then…” Looking ever so slightly puzzled, Darkness started forward. After that, and thanks to those prior visits she’d apparently made to this castle, Darkness was able to lead us easily through the hallways with minimal light.
“Say, Lowly Assistant, do you get the feeling we’re the liabilities here?”
“Our time will come, Chief. Darkness talks a good game, but sometimes she chickens out at the last minute. Us pros know how to follow through.”
Though to be fair, following was about all we’d been doing all night.
That’s when it happened—Chris and I came to a halt at the exact same moment. We both felt the presence of monsters ahead.
Come to think of it, that costumed freak had been able to order his monsters around. He had human guards outside the castle, but it looked like he left the inside of the building to his little pets.
“Hey, Darkness. There’s something watching the stairs to the basement up ahead. I know you can’t hit the broadside of a barn with your attacks. Let the chief or me handle this. You keep an eye out and make sure no one else shows up.”
“Got it! I can’t wait to see what you can really do!” Darkness was practically bubbling with excitement. As for Chris and me, we gave each other a thumbs-up, then activated our Ambush skills and started creeping toward the aura. Standing there was…
“Lowly Assistant, Lowly Assistant, it’s an orc! A male orc! I thought they were an endangered species! Huh, you think it’s okay for us to take this one out?”
A couple of orc dudes (the ones who had been afraid of a simple human female, probably due to trauma at the hands of lady orcs early in their lives) were standing there.
“Good point. I’d rather leave my orc bros in one piece if I can.”
“Uh, what do you mean by ‘orc bros’? …Never mind—I understand. I’ll take the lead here. They can’t deal with women, right? I’ll slap Bind on them, Lowly Assistant. You just go keep watch with Darkness.” She took a Bind rope from her hip…
* * *
But the moment she showed herself to the orcs, they grabbed her.
“Lowly Assistant! Lowly Assistant, help me!”
The orcs promptly tore off Chris’s clothes.
“This isn’t what you told me, Lowly Assistant! I thought these orcs were supposed to be afraid of women! H-hey, stop! Lowly Assistant! Darkness! They’re tearing everything off!”
Chris was reduced to hot pants and an undershirt after the orcs ripped off her equipment. That’s when Darkness and I charged in!
“U-urgh… Thanks, that was an awful close one…” Chris was crouched in her underwear, sniveling, while the orcs I’d trapped with my Bind flopped around on the floor.
“Y’know, the moment those guys saw Darkness, they got terrified, so I think they’re still perfectly scared of girls. It just means they thought you were a guy, Chris, the way you look…”
“Shhh! Kazuma, that’s enough! Come on, Chris—it’s all right now. Put your clothes back on,” Darkness said, gathering up Chris’s gear.
“Sniiiff… Darkness, I’m not sure I can ever get married now…”
“It’s okay, Chris. It doesn’t count if it was monsters who did it.” I couldn’t help noticing Darkness glance longingly at the orcs as she spoke.
“Whatever, now we can head downstairs thanks to your noble self-sacrifice, Chief. So come on! Let’s get moving!”
3
Even though it was the middle of the night, the basement was brighter than it had been that afternoon, and we could sense monsters all over.
“Say, Lowly Assistant, is it just me, or is there something weird about this castle? I know you guys mentioned a noble who keeps monsters for pets, but I don’t think most orcs would let themselves be domesticated and used for guard duty. And the monsters I’m detecting don’t seem to be locked up in cages or anything…”
That was because this entire castle was controlled by a demon.
“There’s a good reason for that, but I can’t tell you right now. Let’s just say our best bet is to avoid any fighting.”
If Count Costume was like every other major boss, he would be in the innermost chamber. I looked at Darkness to make sure she’d understood and received a nod, so we started forward quietly.
“I know you have Sense Foe to find the monsters and Ambush to avoid them, but I assumed we’d end up in at least one skirmish,” Darkness murmured, surprised.
“Yeah, it’s going great right now. How do you like what the chief and I can do together, Darkness?”
“Good point, Lowly Assistant. With our combined Luck, nothing can touch us.”
……
“And yet, somehow you struggled to get up the walls, struggled to get through the door, struggled to defeat those orcs…”
“Quiet, Darkness. Everyone makes mistakes. I know you, for example, spent all night worrying that the reason Sylphina got sick was because you asked her to come to Axel and she ended up catching something on the road. And you were extra upset because then the illness spread to all the other kids. So yeah, nobody’s perfect. The point is, don’t spend all your time moping about it. Bounce back like we do.”
“Great advice, Lowly Assistant! He’s right, Darkness. So what if you screwed up a little? If it gets you something big in the end, it all works out. You can’t just go around moping about it.”
Darkness’s eyes welled up with tears at our encouragement. “You guys… You’re right. I’ve got to get out of my own head and focus on obtaining the ingredients for that medicine…”
……
“…Hey, just a second. Yes, I have messed up in my life, and I’ve been depressed, but I’m not sure what any of that has to do with this exactly…”
“Hush, Darkness. This passage only goes one way. Count Costume’s room has gotta be at the end of it, right?”
“Yeah, the room down there definitely gives off a boss-chamber vibe,” Chris added. “That’s my intuition as a veteran thief…”
“You’re right. Count Zeeleschilt’s bedchamber is this way for sure, but… Hey, you two, I can’t shake the feeling that you’re just throwing me off the scent…”
Chris and I ignored Darkness (I didn’t know what she was muttering about anyway) and tried to make ourselves as invisible as possible. Then we went ahead…
The design of the passageway seemed cruel itself, somehow, and at the end was a pitch-black door that just looked sturdy and heavy. Darkness and I nodded at each other, and then I pressed my ear quietly against the door.
As I stood there listening, Chris tugged on my sleeve. “Lowly Assistant, are you sure the owner of this castle is an ordinary nasty noble? Everything about this place—the decoration on the door, the construction of this hallway—makes me feel more like a general of the Demon King would live here than anyone else…” Chris still didn’t know the truth about who Count Zeeleschilt was, but she was managing a pretty good guess.
“You’re right; he’s not exactly a bad noble. But listen, the point is, if we don’t get out of here with a certain thing this guy has, those kids’ lives will be in danger. That much is for sure.”
“Kazuma is right, Chris. Our objective is to get out of here with the ingredient for that medicine. Just focus on that…okay? Please do me a favor and don’t lose your head, all right?”
“Hey, what’s with you guys? Why are you so worried I’ll get upset? What’s on the other side of that door?” She was looking more and more distraught. Darkness and I nodded at each other again and…
…rushed the door and burst into the room beyond!
Our adversary was a demon. I could almost guarantee he wasn’t asleep, not even at this hour. The best plan, then, was to surprise him and make our move before he recovered. Maybe some devilish power told him when something funny was going on in his castle, though, because Count Costume was standing there proudly in the middle of the room, arms crossed.
“Well met, my dear intruders! You must understand, of course, where we are. Heh-heh. O mysterious intruders whom I have never met before…”
This was somewhat unexpected. I had assumed he would at least take off the costume while he was relaxing in his own room, but maybe I’d underestimated him. Now we would have to get the suit off him before we could grab his fingernail. And besides, from the way he was talking…
“Dammit, he knows exactly who we are!”
Chris, staring at the costume, exclaimed, “Lowly Assistant, what’s going on?! Is this what you meant about not losing my head? That’s impossible—you know I can’t attack anything this cute!”
No, that wasn’t what I meant!
“Don’t let your guard down, Chris! He might look lovable, but there’s something awful under that suit! Our objective is to get a piece of his nail! We can use it to make a medicine to treat choleran!”
Chris froze at that. “A piece of a nail to make a medicine to treat choleran…” She blanched. It was almost as if she recognized that description.
“I’ve got it, Chris!” Darkness said, stepping in front of us. “You pin Count Zeeleschilt in place with Bind! I can absorb any attack he can dish out…!”
“Like the true shield you are, intruder! I admire your passion! But let us see how much a mere human can endure when I get truly serious…!” Count Costume spread his arms wide, sounding awfully confident. But just as he made the dramatic gesture—
Chris rushed past me and Darkness, racing up beside Count Costume…
…where she raised her dagger in both hands and drove it in up to the hilt.
“Eeeeeyowch!” Count Costume howled. “H-hold on—!” He managed to throw off Chris, who was trying to climb on top of him, then pulled the dagger from his side and threw it away. Instead of blood, some kind of black miasma drifted out from the tear in the side of the costume with a nasty hissing sound.
“H-hey, Chris, what do you think you’re doing? Bind would have been plenty! We just need the tip of his fingernail! We don’t have to kill him! In fact, when you kill a demon, he goes back to hell, which means his body disappears! And then we won’t have any nails at all!”
I remembered Aqua saying once that Eris was even more merciless toward the undead and devils than Aqua herself was. Chris made it to her feet, albeit unsteadily. I grabbed her arms to keep her from taking another stab.
“Argh! What are you doing, Lowly Assistant?!”
“You know what I’m doing! You’re forgetting why we’re here! We need his nail!”
That seemed to snap her out of it. “You’re right! If I’m going to take him down, I have to do it after we have the nail!”
Okay, so maybe she hadn’t quite snapped out of it. We didn’t need to “take him down”! But that didn’t seem to matter to Chris. She just turned calm eyes on Count Costume.
“Who brought this crazy kid along?” he demanded. “Who is he?”
“I’m a girl!” Chris shot back, and Count Costume trembled.
“I couldn’t care less what you are! Was that a magic dagger you just stabbed me with? Or a cursed item, perhaps? The mere touch of it tingles! I detect the sour stench of demon-slaying intent!”
“It’d be more flattering if you’d guessed it was blessed with holy prayers! It’s a special, extra-powerful dagger I made specifically to use against demons!” Chris grabbed the dagger off the floor and prepared to attack again.
“I don’t know why, you mad child, but I sense a great chill from you!” Count Costume spun around to display the fasteners on his back.
“Watch out!” Darkness cried. “He’s trying to take off the costume!” She pressed the fasteners down as hard as she could. She looked like a girl hugging her favorite toy, but they definitely weren’t messing around.
“I’ll slow him down with Bind, Chief! You try to cut off his wings!” Knowing who and what this creature was, I knew what bad news it would be if he got out of his costume. I readied my special binding wire.
“Hit us both together, Kazuma! I don’t care!” Darkness cried.
I obliged. “Bind!”
“Hrk! Th-these stupid…!” Count Costume, now bound together with Darkness, was trying to reach his stubby arms back to the fasteners. But then:
“Argh…! Agh…!” Darkness made a sound of distress, like she was straining against something. I saw something emerging, not from the fasteners but from the wound Chris had made: a black tentacle, feeling its way out. It left viscous slime on Darkness’s back, and when it touched her tights, I heard a sizzling sound and saw smoke. I reached for my hip, drew my beloved sword (which I had rarely used since I bought it), and started slicing. I severed the tentacle on Darkness’s back; it fell to the floor, where it flopped around.
“This is one disgusting demon, Lowly Assistant!”
“Then you better hope you never see his true form! It’s really stomach-turning!” Darkness said.
I had a different concern: What part of him was his fingernail? There didn’t seem to be anything that fit the description on the flopping tentacle.
“Darkness, hold on just a little longer! I’m going for his nail…!” Chris, dagger in hand, stabbed Count Costume in his stubby winglets!
“Eeeeyeeeowchhh! Will you stop stabbing me with that thing?!”
Chris picked up the winglet, which produced another groping tentacle like the one from his side. But…
“Listen up. Fighting tentacle monsters has been the duty of Crusaders from time immemorial!” Darkness, still stuck to Count Costume, shoved her hand into the wound in his side. There was more sizzling from inside the suit.
Chris, meanwhile, peered into the winglet she’d chopped off… “Darkness, I found it! A demon’s fingernail! How long will it take for your Bind to wear off, Lowly Assistant?!”
She was awfully excited, but I said, “I, uh, poured all my strength into it, so I think it’ll be a while…”
“Darkness, I’m going to use my dagger to cut that wire off you!” Then she promptly tossed the winglet to me, raised her dagger, and went for the wire.
“Um, I’m real sorry,” I said, “but that wire’s made of mithril, so…”
“Oh, for the love of—!” Chris looked like she might cry.
Meanwhile, that sizzling sound kept going, but Darkness had started to smile. “I’m going to be fine, Chris. What matters is that you and Kazuma take that nail and get out of here.” How unlike her. “Heh, the count here knows who I am. He might torment me a little bit, but he would never go so far as to kill me. Now hurry up…!” Darkness was dripping sweat.
Chris, still tearful, held up her weapon. “If I stab the crap out of him with this dagger—!”
“Then all the wounds will produce more tentacles! Chief, do what she says and get back to the carriage! There’s something I want to try!” I took something out of my bag. Something Aqua had given me when she found out this guy was friends with Vanir.
“Lowly Assistant! Darkness! Just buy me a little more time! I’ll be right back, I promise!” Chris said and raced out of the room—!
“Darkness, take your hand out of one of the wounds! We’re gonna pour Aqua’s ‘juice’ right in there!”
“A-all right…! But then you have to get going! Even I can’t hold out forever against such a powerful tentacle monster…!”
“Hey, stop that! What even is that stuff? It hurts! It’s burning me!”
Chris had left, and now it was only Darkness, grinning despite the extreme circumstances, and me, pouring the “Aqua water” into Costume’s side…
“Show us what you’ve got, Darkness! It’s a contest of stamina! You versus him!”
“I’m on it! All right, Count Zeeleschilt, I might have missed my chance this afternoon, but now you’ll see what I’m really made of!”
“Wh-why are you happy about this, girl?! This is bizarre! It makes no sense! There’s something very wrong with you—!”
4
Back in Axel, we made a beeline for the orphanage.
“My, ahem, senior is at the orphanage, right, Lowly Assistant? I realized I have some…some business I need to take care of…”
Ah, yes. Having Aqua around could make things tricky. Then again, I wouldn’t expect that jelly-brained goddess to notice Chris’s true identity…
“Okay, sure, I’ll let everyone know. Thanks for your help, Chief.”
“Yeah, sure. See you. Keep an eye on this girl for me, will you? Make sure she doesn’t run herself ragged.” Chris patted Darkness fondly on the head as she snoozed in the carriage. “I hope… I hope one day I’ll be able to tell her who I really am, too…”
She smiled, just a little, and then she was gone.
I’d poured “Aqua juice” into the costume for as long as I could while Darkness kept him busy, but eventually she lost consciousness, and I was occupied trying to tear her away from Count Costume somehow…
And that was when Lady Eris had shown up and turned Count Costume into a divine punching bag.
Maybe that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but to be honest, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, either. One thing I can say, though: An angry Eris is a scary thing. Count Zeeleschilt had been hell-bent on emerging from his costume, but one look at Eris and he was desperate to stay inside it. Watching her try to tear him out of there was a sight to behold.
She seemed awfully pleased with herself, having reduced his remaining lives by so many, but I dunno. Other than being a devil, it didn’t seem like that costume had done much harm to anybody, so I was just as glad she hadn’t totally destroyed him. Then Lady Eris, back in Chris’s body, and I had loaded Darkness into the carriage and headed home…
Hefting Darkness on my back, I pushed open the door of the orphanage and…!
“We’ve got the thing for the medicine! Aqua, look after Darkness for me! I just hope Sylphina’s okay…”
Who should I see standing there but…
“Welcome home, Mama…!”
Well, goodness. There was Sylphina, grinning widely.
“Hey.”
What the heck was going on here? Why did this kid look like she could take on the world? Suddenly…
“Wah—wah—waaaahhh…!”
…Darkness started wailing and weeping on my back. I guess she’d woken up without my realizing it and laid eyes on Sylphina. She scrambled down off my back and embraced the girl.
“Looks like Darkness is pretty happy about this. That’s fine, I guess…” Aqua was lying in the center of the room, for some reason, surrounded by what seemed to be offerings. “Oh, you’re back! Look! Just look at these energetic, happy children!”
I still wanted to know what had happened. Actually, I wanted to know a few other things, too: like why Vanir was rocking some of the kids on his back, why Wiz was lying on the floor half-transparent, why Megumin was slumped motionless on a table, exhausted…
“Ah, welcome home,” Megumin said from her table, barely raising her head to see us.
“Yeah, we’re home, and we got the stuff somehow. But what the hell is all this?”
“Well… Aqua got so excited when she started helping the kids that she took up residence here and just kept chanting healing magic with all her strength… I guess the power of the healing spell was stronger than the illness, because everyone has grown surprisingly sprightly. As you can see…”
So why did we go through all that chaos, then?
I was feeling pretty let down, but Vanir, carting a kid around in a sling on his back and shaking some sort of rattle, said, “It seems you collected the necessary ingredients. Without this live-in lady here, I must say half the children in the orphanage might well have died. And the girl clinging to our well-muscled friend, though she may look well, is yet terribly ill inside, so it would be best to make that special medicine as quickly as possible. Had Our Lady of Many Offerings flagged in her interest for a moment, the situation would have been dire… Come now, shopkeeper! It’s your time to shine!”
Inspired by Vanir’s gruesome warnings, I took out Count Costume’s fingernail as quickly as I could and passed it to Megumin.
“Excellent work, Darkness and Kazuma. Just leave the rest to the greatest genius of the Crimson Magic Clan. I stayed up all night researching how to make this concoction!”
During the cooking…
“That is wrong; this one goes in first. That’s what we learned in school, so it must be true!”
“Foolishness! A demon’s knowledge of this world is peerless and infallible. Make the potion as I myself tell you and you’ll not go wrong… You, Problem Woman, what did you mix in there?”
“Stay out of my way, you disgusting demon. I just added a bit of special Axis-brand Aqua water. That’ll power this potion right up!”
“Why, oh why must you always do the most absurd things?! And what if you should happen to touch the potion when it’s finished and turn it into water? All our work would be for naught! Begone from here, Plague Bringer!”
“Listen, everyone, I’m the one who runs the magic-item shop, and I’m sure my recipe is correct! It’s all right! Everything’s fine! Just do exactly as I say…!”
I opened the door of the orphanage.
“I don’t care whose recipe you follow, just finish the damn potion already!”
And then I slammed it shut again.
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