Chapter 3
May Love Reach Out to This Ghost Girl!
1
I was heading for one particular place, Aqua close behind me.
I had Darkness camped out at the Guild, the better to grab any juicy quests as soon as they came along.
Megumin had been off somewhere all morning. She had a way of disappearing once in a while, and I had no idea where she went.
Our party was not well-balanced.
It was pretty one-sided, at any rate.
Aqua was a decent Priest, but our main tank, Darkness, was so tough that healing magic was rarely called for.
Megumin at her most powerful could hold her chin up against any other Wizard—but she could be at her most powerful only once a day.
What we needed was reliable firepower.
Which left me to learn relevant skills, but even with a sword, I could only do so much in battle. Adventurers aren’t known as the weakest class for no reason.
I’d really like a skill that could be a main weapon for us.
That was what brought me to that shop, flush with an unexpected new level-up from the dungeon crawl the other day.
“All right, we’re here. Now listen up, Aqua, because I’m only saying this once. Don’t make trouble. No fights. No magic. Understand?”
We were in front of a small shop dealing in magic items.
Aqua looked at it and shook her head at my warning.
“Honestly, Kazuma, what makes you think I’d do any of that? What do you take me for? I’m not some street punk or bandit or whatever. I’m a goddess. Divinity!”
With Aqua still whining behind me, I opened the door of the shop.
The little bell on the door gave a pleasant jingle, announcing our entrance to the shopkeeper.
“Welcome to—Whaaa…?!”
“Huuuh?! There you are, you stinking undead! You have a shop here?! I, a goddess, have been sleeping in the stables while you’ve been running a business?! How brazen for a Lich! In the name of the gods, I ought to burn this place to the grouwowow!”
Aqua had forgotten my instructions to not make trouble as soon as she walked through the door. I gave her a gentle smack with the hilt of my dagger.
She crouched there, rubbing the back of her head, while I greeted the cowering shopkeeper.
“Hey, Wiz, it’s been a while. I told you I’d come.”
2
“Hmph. It looks like you don’t even get tea in this shop.”
“Oh, p-pardon me, I’ll b-bring some right away!”
“No, you won’t! Who ever heard of a magic-item shop that served tea?”
I stopped Wiz, who was all too ready to take the bait of Aqua’s malicious attempts to get her out of the way.
I’d never been in a magic-item shop before. I looked around, nonchalantly picking up something close at hand.
It was a small potion bottle.
“Er, that explodes if you hit it too hard. Please be careful.”
“Erk, seriously?” I quickly put the bottle back.
When I picked up the one beside it…
“Oh, that explodes if you open the stopper…”
I set it down gently and took the next in line. “What about this one?”
“It explodes if you add water.”
“A-and this one…?”
“If you heat it.”
I stopped.
“Is there anything in this shop that doesn’t explode?”
“O-o-of course! That shelf just happens to be my Explosion Line!”
Oh, so it was. Magical items weren’t what I had come here for, though. I ignored Aqua, who had taken it upon herself to make the tea, and turned to business.
“Wiz, I recall you said something about teaching me Lich skills. Well, I’ve got a few skill points lying around now. Think you could teach me something?”
“Pfft!”
“Eyyaah!”
Aqua had done a spit take at my request, and her tea was now all over Wiz.
“Hold on, Kazuma, what are you thinking?! Lich skills? Lich skills?! I wondered what you two were talking about when you took her business card! Well, Liches don’t have any skills you’d want to learn! Nothing good would come of it! You hear me? Liches love damp, dark places, you know—they’re basically giant slugs!”
“H-how could you—?” Wiz was on the verge of tears after Aqua’s furious tirade.
“Hey, slugs, snails, I don’t care. You don’t usually get a chance to learn skills from a Lich, right? And they’d have to be pretty powerful in combat. Think about our party—could we handle a crowd of powerful opponents right now?”
“Hrk… As a goddess, I cannot stand by and watch one of my followers learn…Lich skills…,” Aqua muttered, but she reluctantly stepped back.
Wiz got an uneasy look and said tremblingly, “‘As a goddess’…? Is—is that why you were able to eliminate me so easily with Turn Undead? Are you really a goddess?”
Uh-oh.
I guess a Lich would recognize a goddess. Even if I personally doubted her credentials.
“Well, I guess you’re not likely to go spreading it around. I am Aqua—yes, the very goddess worshipped by the Axis Church! Stand back, Lich—!!”
“Eeeek!”
Wiz dove behind me, looking more terrified than ever.
Apparently, Liches and goddesses were age-old enemies.
“Hey, Wiz, you don’t have to be so worried. I mean, I know Liches and goddesses are like oil and water, but…”
I was trying to comfort her, but Wiz said, “N-no, it’s… There’re a lot of crazy people in the Axis Church. Everyone knows you don’t want to get involved with them…and now the goddess of the Church is here…”
“What did you say?!”
“I-I-I-I’m sorry!”
“We’ll never get anywhere at this rate…”
I dragged off the enraged Aqua and insisted she go look around the store or something. She obligingly began hunting through the shelves, picking up potions, sniffing their contents.
Wiz collected herself, keeping a wary eye on Aqua.
“Come to think of it, I heard just recently that you and your party took down Mr. Beldia. He was supposed to be quite the swordsman, even among the generals. That’s really impressive!”
A quiet smile came over my face as she spoke…
…Huh?
“Mr. Beldia, did you say? You make it sound like you knew him. Is it—? I mean, do you undead all know one another?”
As if it was the most natural thing in the world, Wiz answered, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m one of the Demon King’s generals.”
And she said it with a bright smile.
There was a long, long pause.
“You’re mine!!”
Aqua ceased puttering among the shelves and dove straight at Wiz.
“Waaaait! Aqua, milady, please listen to me!” Wiz screamed, caught in Aqua’s grip.
Aqua wiped the sweat from her brow as if she’d been hard at work and cried, “We did it, Kazuma! We can kiss that debt good-bye! With cash to spare! Forget an inn, we can buy a house!”
She was thrilled.
I leaned over toward the captured Wiz.
“Hey, Aqua, let’s give her a chance to explain… What do you mean, general? If you’re some kind of spy for the Demon King, I guess we can’t very well turn you loose…”
Wiz began to talk frantically. “I’m not! I’m responsible for the spirit barrier that protects the Demon King’s castle! I’ve never harmed a person, and I hardly even count as a general! There’s not even a reward for killing me!”
Aqua and I looked at each other.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aqua said, “but I think I’ll get rid of you just for good measure.”
“No, milady, wait!” Wiz wailed at her captor.
I put out a hand to stop Aqua, who had begun to chant something.
“Hmm, okay. You see this all the time in video games—you have to defeat the lackeys to open the path to the Demon King’s castle. Right? And Wiz has been tasked with maintaining the protective barrier.”
“I don’t know what a video game is, but yes, that’s right! Mr. The Demon King knew I wouldn’t quit my peaceful existence running a shop in a human village, so he asked if I could just take care of maintaining the barrier. He said it’d be a big help, and I’d be safe because no one would suspect the Demon King’s general was living right in town!”
“Hmph. What you mean is, as long as you’re alive, no one can attack the Demon King’s castle, and we have a problem. Let’s finish her, Kazuma.”
Wiz burst into tears.
“Wait, please wait! Lady Aqua, with your power you could probably break through a barrier supported by two or three generals! But the Demon King had eight generals to start with! If you kill me, there will still be six left, and even you won’t be able to get through the barrier. Even if you send me to the next life, you’ll need to keep fighting them before you can attack the castle! So please—at least let me live until you’ve taken out enough of us that you’ll be able to get through the barrier. I still have things to do…!”
Even Aqua looked a bit unsure at the sight of the captive, tearful Wiz.
I stared at her. It looked like it was up to me to make the call.
“Uh, looks like we can just leave her, right? I mean, even if you take her out, it’s not like anything’s gonna happen to that barrier. Sure, you’d usually have to defeat all the generals to get through, but with you along, Aqua, we can break down the barrier even if there’s a couple left. Let’s just be patient until someone takes down some of the generals besides Wiz.”
An inexperienced party like ours wasn’t going to be taking on those generals, let alone the Demon King—and I had no plans of getting involved in anything that dangerous, anyway.
If we just sat tight, the kids who had brought actual useful items with them—like Mitsurugi with his magic sword—would take care of the lackeys for us.
The one thing they wouldn’t be able to do, as long as Wiz was here, would be to break the barrier and get at the Demon King himself.
If I wanted to go back to Earth, we would have to deal with the big guy ourselves.
We could afford to wait until we got strong enough to handle him.
Totally oblivious to my calculating thoughts, Wiz looked thrilled at my words.
“You sure you’re okay with this? I mean, the generals are friends of yours, right? You’re not mad that we killed Beldia or anything?”
Wiz looked just a little concerned by my question.
“…I didn’t especially care for Mr. Beldia… He liked to roll his head toward me while I was walking so he could peek up my skirt. There’s really only one general I’m very close to, and he… Well, he won’t die easily. And…”
She added, “…I like to think my heart, at least, is still human.”
And she smiled, a bit sadly.
3
“Um, all right. I’ll show you every skill I have, and you can learn whatever you like. It’s the least I can do to thank you for sparing my life…”
But then she gave a start, like she’d suddenly thought of something, and looked nervously at Aqua and me.
“What’s up?”
Wiz answered with a frightened look at Aqua.
“My skills all require an opponent, so…I need someone to use them on…”
Ah, I get it.
“Hey, Aqua, sorry, but could you help out here?”
“Oh? And what skills does the undead propose to use on me?”
Wiz shrank back, properly intimidated by Aqua, but said, “H-how about Drain Touch? Just a little, I promise! That should be enough for him to learn it, right?”
The more intimidated she got, the faster she talked. A truly malicious smile came over Aqua’s face. I knew one of these two was a Lich and one was a goddess. But to look at them now, it was hard to say which was which.
“Fine,” Aqua said, “I don’t care—drain as much as you want. Go ahead!” She held out her hand, and Wiz took it tremblingly.
“All right, here goes…” There was a long, confused pause. “Huh? Wh-what?”
I couldn’t tell what was happening, but apparently it took Wiz by surprise.
“Aww, what’s wrong? Weren’t you going to drain my HP and MP? Aww, the big, powerful undead can’t even use Drain?”
Aqua seemed confident and relaxed; tears gleamed in Wiz’s eyes.
“Wh-whaaaat?!”
Aqua seemed to be resisting the drain, making it impossible for Wiz.
…I wordlessly went up and smacked Aqua on the back of the head.
“Ow! Hey, Kazuma, butt out! This is a showdown between a Lich and a goddess! Mock my divinity if you will, but I won’t be drained that easily!”
“Come on, we need to get on with our lives. Just let her drain you already. Sorry, Wiz, I guess she just likes her job too much. Can’t abide an undead.”
Wiz shook her head as I tried to apologize on Aqua’s behalf.
“N-not at all! I-I’m sorry for being a Lich…!”
Once we had all composed ourselves, I had Wiz show me her skills.
She grasped Aqua’s hand and performed Drain Touch again.
Drain Touch was an ability unique to undead that allowed them to absorb HP or MP from their target.
Apparently, it could also transfer some of their own HP or MP to the target.
With the right applications, this skill might help balance out our party’s lack of firepower.
Once I’d seen Wiz perform the skill, I checked my Adventurer’s Card.
DRAIN TOUCH was indeed listed there.
I didn’t hesitate to put my skill points into it and learn it.
“Ah, um, Lady Aqua? Y-you can let go of me now… P-please let go of me… Your touch makes my hand tingle for some reason…”
Aqua was silent.
I looked over and saw that not only was Aqua holding Wiz’s right hand in her left; she had placed her right hand over it as well and was holding tight.
“L-Lady Aqua? M-my hand is getting pretty warm… Actually, it—it hurts! It—hurts! Y-you’re cleansing me by boiling my body from the inside, Lady Aqua! I’m going to disa—disappear! I’m going to vanish!”
“You’re one hell of an opportunist, Aqua.” I gave Aqua a thwack on her bullying head.
“That hurts!”
Was I imagining things, or did Wiz look slightly transparent?
At that moment—
“Pardon me, is Miss Wiz in?” The bell over the door jingled as a middle-aged man came in.
4
“Evil spirits?” we all asked in unison.
Evil spirits, apparently.
The man who had come in asking for Wiz was a real estate agent.
It seemed that vacant houses in town had become the dwelling places of evil spirits lately for some reason.
He had tried consulting the Adventurers Guild, but they had never encountered a case like his before and didn’t know what to do. Even if they put out a hunt quest on the spirits, new ones would just move in as soon as the old ones were gone, the Guild said.
“I have them cast out, exorcized, but new ones just pop up to take their place. I can’t even keep the house ghost-free, let alone sell it!” The man sighed, looking tired.
Fine, but what had brought him to Wiz’s place?
Maybe he could see the question on my face, because he started to explain.
“Before Miss Wiz opened this store, she was a renowned magic-user. Merchants who had a problem would always go to her. I heard she was a particular expert on the undead. That’s why I thought I’d try asking here.”
I see. Liches were called the kings of the undead, after all.
This man might not know what Wiz really was, but he was right that she’d probably have something to say about this.
The man, though, was looking at Wiz with concern.
“But…Miss Wiz, you don’t look well today. You’ve always been a bit pale, but it’s worse than usual. In fact, you look…you look as if you might disappear at any moment.”
“…”
I stared silently at Aqua, who just moments before had been about to send Wiz to the next life. She looked away and fidgeted uncomfortably.
Wiz smiled painfully and pounded herself on the chest. “I’m just fine, thank you. Let me handle it. You want me to deal with the evil spirits in town, is that right?”
“Oh, no—not all of them necessarily… Just the one house… You know the place.”
“Oh, there?” Wiz said, nodding as if she understood. “All right, then.”
She knows the place?
“I’ll take care of it. Just the evil spirits lost in that house.” Wiz stood, then stumbled as if she’d lost her strength.
“Oh! If you’re not feeling well, Miss Wiz, then please don’t worry about it! Don’t overexert yourself, now!”
The man rushed to support Wiz, and Aqua strained to look anywhere else, pretending not to see what was going on. I shoved my face up close to hers and stared silently.
Finally, Aqua couldn’t take it anymore. “I-I’ll handle it,” she said in a small voice.
5
“Is this the place?”
We were at a mansion standing on the edge of town.
According to what the man had told us, it didn’t contain that many rooms for a mansion, but there were still plenty of them.
The building, which was several times the size of a one-story house in Japan, had once been the summer home of a certain noble family.
They had given up the place, but when an attempt was made to sell it, this business with the evil spirits started.
“Not bad, not bad at all! This looks just about right for me to live in!” Aqua exclaimed excitedly. She carried a small bag, as did Megumin, who seemed to be blushing faintly.
Aqua wasn’t crazy: We were going to live in this house.
It was a big place filled with an equally large number of spirits, and it currently had an unfortunate reputation as a haunted house.
As a reward for our night of exorcizing haunts, we would be allowed to live there for free until it lost its bad rap.
In other words, if we pulled this off, we wouldn’t have to keep saving money to get us through the winter.
I thanked my Luck that our discussions had taken that turn.
“Do you really think we can get rid of all the ghosts?” Darkness asked. She hefted a large bag over her shoulder. “The talk around town is that as soon as the spirits are driven out of a place, new ones show up instead.”
She was right; it would be best to find out where the evil spirits were coming from and cut them off at the source. But we’d been asked to deal with only this one house.
And practically speaking, the longer the exorcism took, the longer we got to live indoors.
“I must say, though, this house seems to have been uninhabited for a very long time. And yet our ghost problems started only recently, yes? Perhaps there is a story here that goes back to before the town’s present troubles with the restless dead.”
Megumin’s observation made my flesh crawl.
“W-well, whatever,” I said. “This house can have all the stories it wants. We’ve got Aqua with us. Right? Our anti-undead expert. We’ll be fine…right?”
I only freaked myself out more as I talked, but if nothing else, I knew Aqua was a qualified Arch-priest.
…Mostly.
“Leave it to me… Oh, I see it! I can see it! My spiritual sight discerns that a child lives here—the child of the nobleman and the maid he toyed with, their offspring locked up in this house! The father, always weak, died of an illness, and the maid disappeared—no one knows where! Left here alone, the girl finally succumbed to the same sickness as her father and died never knowing her parents’ faces. Her name was Anna Filante Estroid. She liked stuffed animals and dolls and adventurers’ stories! But don’t worry—she’s not a bad spirit. She means us no harm! Oh, but she does like things that make her feel grown-up. She’d like to try some sweet wine, for example. So break out the alcohol to offer her, Kazuma!”
Aqua reeled this off like one of those fake psychics you see on TV. While fixing her with a stare that let her know I smelled a rat, I asked Darkness and Megumin what they thought.
“What do you think? Where d’you think she pulled out that ridiculous name and backstory? …You think she’s really okay? Or have we bitten off more than we can chew?”
Silence.
Maybe they were wondering the same thing, because neither of them answered my question.
6
It was past midnight.
We’d all removed our armor and made ourselves comfortable in the mansion.
After deciding who got which room, everyone moved their luggage in.
For my part, I basically expected some kind of apparition to pop out at any moment, now that Aqua was living here.
Or maybe they’d do us the favor of congregating in her room, since she seemed to hold such a special attraction for the undead.
She was an Arch-priest and a goddess. Not the type to let some evil spirits run roughshod through her own house.
I was in the space I’d claimed for my own—the biggest room on the second floor—feeling relatively relaxed.
“Yaaaah! Eyyaaaaahhh!”
Until I heard screaming from our nominal protector, Aqua.
“What’s wrong?! Hey, Aqua, what happened? Are you all right?!”
I dashed down to Aqua’s room and pounded on the door.
No answer. Thinking she must be in dire trouble, I burst through the door.
To find…
“Hrk… Sniff… K-Kazumaaaaa!”
Aqua was in the middle of the room, clutching an empty wine bottle.
…Sheesh.
“Um…what happened? What are you doing with that bottle, anyway? And if you tell me all that yelling was just because you were drunk, I’m gonna douse you with Create Water to sober you up.”
“I-it wasn’t! I’m not the one who drank this bottle! This was my special reserve; it cost a lot! I was so looking forward to having a nice little sip when I got out of the bath! But when I came back to my room, it was—it was…emptyyyyy!”
Time for bed.
“Oh, is that all? Okay, g’night, see you tomorrow.”
“What?! Kazuma, wait! It was those evil spirits! This has to be their doing! Either it’s the feral ghosts who moved in or it’s the nobleman’s bastard daughter who lives here! It’s got to be one of them! I’m gonna go look around and sock any spirits I find!”
I wasn’t sure there was even such a thing as feral ghosts, but if Aqua was going to get rid of them for us, I wasn’t going to stop her.
“…What’s this? What’s going on?”
“It’s rather late now; please keep it down. What is happening?”
Darkness and Megumin showed up, presumably drawn by Aqua’s scream.
“She thinks some ghost drank her special wine. She’s swearing vengeance. I’ve got some questions, like why a ghost would even drink alcohol, but it’d be a pain to ask, so I’m going to bed. You guys can handle the rest.”
As I turned to leave, Aqua piled invective on me from behind, but I didn’t care. If the worst thing these specters did was drink her precious wine, as far as I was concerned, we could just leave them be.
7
I had no idea how long I had been sleeping when my eyes opened. It was still dark out.
A deep stillness lay over the house; it must have been well into the wee hours.
I need to go to the bathroom.
I made to get out of bed…
…and found my body wouldn’t move.
What was going on here? Sleep paralysis…?
I tried to speak, but only a grunt came out; I couldn’t even call Aqua for help.
As I lay there, a terrible realization came over me. I really needed to go to the bathroom.
No! You can hold it! You’re an adult!
The only times you didn’t have to hold it as an adult were at some very specific business establishments or if you were a really old man!
I gritted my teeth, trying to endure, unable to move—when I heard a sound from one corner of the room.
Thunk.
The noise seemed extremely loud in the silent house.
My eyeballs, at least, could move; I looked in the direction of the noise. In the shadows in the corner of the room…
…there was a small Western-style doll. Huh? When did that get there?
“…!”
I swallowed involuntarily. I was covered in an unpleasant sweat.
What’s going on? Why is that doll there?
I didn’t remember leaving anything like that lying around. Had Aqua put it there as a prank while I was asleep?
Yeah. That had to be it.
That useless goddess. She was gonna pay for this in the morning. Once I’d concluded this was Aqua’s doing, I proceeded to squeeze my eyes shut and attempt to escape reality.
Thunk.
The sound was impossible to ignore. Nonetheless, I kept my eyes shut even as my sweating intensified.
Right. Right. It was silly to blame all this on Aqua. She always worked hard. Maybe I could try being nice to her every once in a while.
Thunk.
She was a goddess, after all, you know? And she was living in this house now.
Evil spirits? Whatever! We could just set our dear Aqua on them and she’d blow them away like a gust of wind. Our Aqua could even send a Lich to the next life, couldn’t she?
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk…!
You know what? In the morning, I’m going to apologize to Aqua for everything I’ve done until now. I’ve hardly treated her as a goddess deserves. But I’ve seen the error of my ways! Really!
Thunkthunkthunkthunk whumpwhumpwhumpwhump!
Yaaaaaaahhhh I’m so sorry for everything I’ve dooone!
I’m sorry, Lady Aqua, so please save meee!
…Maybe someone heard my desperate prayers and repentance, because the noise from the corner of the room stopped.
Phew. I knew there were no evil spirits.
I relaxed a little.
At the same time, a need welled up in me.
I want to open my eyes.
I had to know what had happened to that doll. It was a move my intuition opposed with all its might.
What should I do? I really wanted to know, but I was afraid to look, but I was afraid not to look…!
After arguing back and forth with myself for a minute, it occurred to me that with my eyes shut I would never be able to get to the bathroom.
So I steeled myself and ever so slightly opened one eye…
My eye met those of the doll, which was staring at me from inches away.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!”
I screamed so loudly I thought I would scream the life right out of me, and with my suddenly mobile body, I shoved the doll away.
8
“Aqua! Milaaadyyy!”
I dashed down the hall to Aqua’s room, my feet bare.
I could hear something following behind me.
I was scared out of my wits! What was going on here? Why did this have to happen to me?
Thunk! Whuuump, thunkthunkthunk!
With that awful noise behind me, I found the door to Aqua’s room and burst in without so much as a knock.
I slammed the door shut again and locked it. A second later, something thumped against the door.
There was no sign of Aqua.
Sitting in the middle of the dark room was a girl with black hair and two glowing red eyes.
“Eyaaaaghhh!”
“Yaaaaahhh!”
At my scream, the black-haired girl let out a shriek of her own.
I recognized that voice. On closer inspection, it was Megumin, sitting there in her pajamas.
After a moment’s yelling, both of us were able to calm down a bit.
Outside, something was scratching at the door. Terrified, I tried not to think about what it might be.
“G-geez, don’t do that to me, Megumin, I almost wet myself!”
“The same to you! Why did you come storming in here? I thought you were Aqua coming back…”
Suddenly, I had a thought.
“What are you doing in Aqua’s room, Megumin? And where is she?”
“Oh, uh, there’s a—a doll,” she said. “It’s been moving around the house…”
So Megumin had run into the same thing I had.
“And so I thought…for my safety, maybe Aqua could t-take me to the…the toilet…”
“You too, huh…?”
Megumin caught my murmur and seemed to realize the same thing had happened to both of us.
“Was a doll chasing you, too, Kazuma? I think that Aqua and Darkness are likely patrolling the house to drive out the evil spirits.”
“Aqua, sure, but Darkness… Well, I guess she is a Crusader, at the end of the day.”
Darkness was a Crusader, even if she didn’t always look it, and Crusaders were holy Knights, servants of the gods. As such, she was a pious follower of her religion. She was no Priest, but she had a measure of holy power.
I doubted that our Defense-nut Darkness had taken any magic skills, but at the very least she could make a show of praying to the gods.
That left Megumin and me in a tough spot, though.
I’d fled my own room in such a rush that I’d left behind any weapons. Megumin didn’t seem to have her staff, either.
Even if she had, she could hardly use Explosion here.
Just as I was fretting about what to do, Megumin seemed to notice something. “Kazuma. The sound outside the door has stopped. Perhaps the doll is no longer there?”
She was right; I couldn’t hear the noise anymore. But honestly, I was still scared to go out.
I was pretty sure there was no way the Lich-banishing Aqua could be done in by some doll. Which meant that if we just sat tight, eventually she and Darkness would come back from their patrol and deal with it.
There was just one teensy problem.
“Hey, Megumin…face the door and cover your ears for a second. I’m gonna do something kind of inappropriate on the veranda…”
I put one hand on my belt, eager to solve that problem as soon as possible, and made to head outside…
…but Megumin grabbed me by the belt from behind and refused to let me leave.
“Hey, what’re you doing? Let me go! Let me go, or my pants and this rug are in big trouble!”
“I will not let you go. What are you thinking, trying to go off on your own? Are we not comrades? Be it the toilet or wherever, let us go together…”
She had a strange smile on her face.
“Nah, lemme go! The bonds of friendship totally don’t count when it comes to the bathroom! Didn’t you say members of the Crimson Magic Clan don’t use the bathroom, anyway? If you need it—there’s an empty wine bottle right there!”
“What a thing to say! What are you suggesting I do with that wine bottle? I shall not let you go! At the least, I can guard your back while you are taking care of your bus…i…ness…”
I felt Megumin press up against my back. That was odd. I looked at her.
She was staring out the window to the veranda.
…I looked with her, even as I got a very bad feeling…
What I saw there was shocking, if not really unexpected.
A whole crowd of dolls was pressed up against the veranda window, looking in at us.
“Yaaaaaaahhhh!”
The two of us screamed, and then—sticking together like good comrades should—we dashed out of the room.
9
“Oh… Kazuma, are you still there? Please don’t leave me…!”
“I’m here, I’m here. I won’t leave you, not even if those creepy dolls show up. Just hurry.”
Megumin and I had run around the mansion until we found the nearest bathroom.
Both of our bodies were at their absolute limits.
I’d done my business first, and now I was standing by the door waiting for Megumin to come out. She’d been babbling to me nonstop since she went in there, maybe afraid I would go off someplace.
“…Um, Kazuma, I do find this somewhat embarrassing. Perhaps you could sing a song? …Loudly?”
“Do you know how pathetic it is to stand outside a bathroom singing in the middle of the night? As if this is the last time we’ll be in this situation—think of all the wildernesses and dungeons we’ve got ahead of us!”
Much as I teased Megumin, I was actually feeling a little awkward myself standing right there—so I started to sing.
For better or for worse, I knew only Japanese songs, though, so I just sang whatever, loudly, completely a cappella.
“…Phew. Um, you can stop now, Kazuma. What a strange song. I have never heard anything like it. I have been wondering for some time now—where is it you come from?”
“A wonderful land called Japan, where our traditional activities include singing outside of bathrooms in the middle of the night. Come on, let’s go. We’ve got to link up with Aqua.”
Megumin scampered after me and my ridiculous explanations.
As it stood, Megumin and I had no defense against any evil spirits.
I wanted to find Aqua and Darkness as soon as possible.
That was when we heard it.
Megumin and I were just about to leave the vanity room attached to the toilet when…
Thunk… Thunk… Thunk…
It was that awful sound again. I stooped down near the door to the hallway.
Megumin clenched my sleeve and drew close to me, trembling.
Those dolls were scary as heck.
They probably couldn’t kill you—I figured—but being chased by them in the middle of the night was a whole new level of fear.
Quivering, Megumin let go of my sleeve. She held both hands in front of her and began quietly…
“Hey! What are you chanting? You’ll blow this whole house to Kingdom Come!”
In an excess of terror, Megumin had been about to intone Explosion. I slapped one hand over her mouth to stop her, then held her back with the other to keep her from fighting me.
At some point, the thunk-thunk noise near the door had stopped.
Megumin, still shaking, grabbed my hand and looked up at me.
Dammit, nothing to it but to do it…!
“Megumin, when I open the door, you run! I’ll use my new Drain Touch to get any magic power I can from the dolls. They might attack me, but I don’t think it’ll be fatal!”
Megumin, still gagged by my hand, nodded.
“Heyyy! Come and get it, you evil suckerrrrs! Just wait’ll I sic my rabid goddess on youuu!”
I flung open the door as I bellowed. There was a whack as it hit something. It was probably one of our pursuers being thrown back.
I grabbed Megumin’s hand and dashed out the door, ready to run like hell………!
“Aqua! H-hey, Aqua, are you all right?!”
As I made to run, I discovered Aqua, crouching on the ground and clutching her face. Next to her, a doll, its power gone, had tumbled to the floor. And there was Darkness, calling out to Aqua. I stopped in my tracks.
10
“Phew! That ought to just about do it. There sure were enough of them. It’s already morning,” Aqua muttered. She looked out the brightening window as she sent the last of the evil spirits on its way.
As expected from our undead expert, she’d cleared out all the spirits from this huge mansion in a single night.
“Hmm, we should make a report to the Guild. We may not have taken a quest or anything, but this is the sort of thing they normally deal with. They might give us a reward anyway, for cleansing a haunted house. And I do want to know why the number of hauntings in this town went up so suddenly…”
We all nodded at Darkness’s suggestion.
I left her and Megumin to clean up the mess in the house, while Aqua and I went to inform the Guild.
On our way there, the two of us talked about the house’s ghostly residents.
“Hey, whatever happened to that story about the bastard daughter of some nobleman? Didn’t you say she meant us no harm and wasn’t an evil spirit?”
Aqua clapped her hands.
“Oh yeah! There was a little girl, wasn’t there? Don’t worry—the stuff we dealt with this time was all caused by feral ghosts who just wandered in. But I think it was the little girl who drank my special wine! Say, Kazuma, how about we count that wine as an expense for our ghost-busting trip…”
I ignored Aqua’s babbling and put my hand on the door of the Guild…
“Good morning! I know it’s a little early, but we’ve got something to report. Is that okay?”
Even at this hour, a receptionist was already at the desk.
“Yes, please, what is it?”
We explained the request from the real estate agent and what had happened at the mansion. The receptionist looked at Aqua’s Adventurer’s Card and nodded.
I’d almost forgotten that your Adventurer’s Card listed the type and number of monsters you’d killed.
“It’s true there’s been an outbreak of evil spirits lately, and a number of people have raised concerns with us. Since you defeated some of the monsters in town, there is a reward, albeit not a very large one. Good work!”
Aqua and I struck victory poses.
But the receptionist wasn’t finished.
“Incidentally, we’ve learned why the number of hauntings has increased so dramatically. You know the town’s common graveyard? It seems some prankster erected a huge holy barrier around it. So spirits spawned in the graveyard have nowhere to go, and instead they’re settling in vacant houses around town…”
Aqua stopped cold and trembled a little at that.
…
“Excuse us for just a minute.”
Taking leave of the receptionist, I silently dragged Aqua to a corner of the Guild Hall.
“Do you know what’s going on? Spit it out.”
“…All right. You remember how Wiz asked me to stop by the graveyard once in a while to help the spirits there reach the next life? But I totally didn’t want to have to go all the way out there every time, right? So I thought, maybe if I got rid of their habitat, eventually they’d just…go away.” She laid out the whole thing for me, unusually subdued.
In other words, the spirits had shown up in town because she was too lazy to do her job.
This goddess had caused this problem, and now we were giving her kudos for solving it? No way was that going to fly.
“We’re not going to take the Guild’s reward, okay?”
“…Yeah.”
She nodded, looking apologetic.
“And you’re coming with me to apologize to the real estate guy. We basically swindled him.”
“…Right. I’m really, really sorry.”
The two of us left the Guild Hall and headed for the realty shop…
Wait, I thought. First we should let Darkness and Megumin know what was going on. But when we went back to report, the real estate agent was there, too.
“Look at this! I was worried what might have happened, so I came to check on you. But it seems you’ve exorcized all the evil spirits!”
He greeted us with a wide smile. I felt even worse knowing he’d been worried about us.
Aqua and I explained the situation and told the real estate agent we would let him have the now-ghost-free house back.
But…
“I see. Actually, though, I’d like to have you all continue to live in this house, if possible. It’s an especially large place, so it had an especially large number of spirits haunting it. And that gave it an especially bad reputation…”
“We’re very sorry about that!” Aqua and I chorused, and got down on our knees in a show of contrition.
“Not at all, not at all!” the man said hurriedly. “Please get up. Erm, listen, here’s what we’ll do. You all go on living in this house for the time being. You must be pretty powerful to have gotten rid of so many evil spirits. And it’s the duty of the citizens of this town to help take care of you adventurers. And then, if you live here long enough, the house might finally outlast its reputation for being haunted…”
Hearing the man’s generous offer, Aqua and I threw ourselves on the ground again in gratitude.
“Oh! Please, don’t do that! Get up—!”
11
There were two conditions for our living in the house.
And they were a little strange…
“When we get back from an adventure, over dinner or something, have a lively conversation about what happened… What a weird request. Not that I mind,” I muttered, bent over in the garden.
The guy seemed to have a thing for unusual requests.
The other condition was…
“Hello, Mr. Kazuma! Looking after the headstone?”
A voice came from behind me as I stooped there, weeding.
I turned to see Wiz was standing there, her color considerably better than it had been the day before.
“Feeling better now? I’m sorry about yesterday. Our resident idiot sure knows how to cause trouble.”
“Oh no, not at all. In fact, I’m quite happy with how things turned out. This way, she won’t be lonely.” Wiz smiled at me, but I didn’t really get what she was talking about.
I was handling the second condition of our living here: tending to the small grave in the corner of the garden.
So I’d thought I would get right to it.
For some reason, Wiz seemed happy to see me weeding away.
I asked if she wanted to come inside, but she said she had to get back to her shop and left with a friendly nod.
I wondered what she came by for. Maybe she was worried about us?
I poured water over the little gravestone and washed it clean. I realized I could make out faded letters carved into it. Must be the name of whoever was buried here.
Parts of the inscription were worn and hard to read, but I could make out the name Anna.
Anna… Anna…?
Who was she? Hadn’t I heard that name recently…?
As I crouched by the gravestone mulling it over, a voice came from the house.
“Kazuma! Lunch is ready—come inside! I worked hard on this, so don’t let it get cold!”
I looked up and saw Aqua waving at me from a window.
“All right, hang on, I’ll be right there!” I shouted back. Then I took a cloth and wiped the headstone dry.
It bore the name Anna Filante Estroid.
I was sure I’d heard that name just the other day…
“Kazuma! Megumin says for every minute you’re late, we’re taking one of your chicken nuggets! Actually, you know what? Take your time—I can always use more!”
“Hey, hold it! You think I’m gonna put up with this kind of extortion?!”
I finished tidying the grave and set off for the house at a run.
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