When we got to the guild, an interesting sight greeted our eyes.
"Huff… huff… I can't, can't take it! The magic power from this staff made from manatite, the colour and glister… huff… huff… power of explosion spell would increase by twelve percent!."
Megumin was humping a staff that looked different from her old one and grinding her face against it in a suggestive manner.
"Kazuma, look. I sent my armour to be reinforced with adamantite. How is it?"
Darkness showed me the armor she got back from the locl blacksmith happily.
"Honestly, it makes you look pretty buff."
"...buff?"
An awkward smile graced her face, unsure if I complimented or insulted her.
"So this is the mansion."
Being the abandoned villa of a family of nobles, it was really big. Built entirely of bricks and painted white, it made for quite a sight.
You could probably fit a condo in one of its wings.
"Not bad! This place is great! This is where someone like me should be staying in!" shouted Aqua.
Because it was so big, plenty of wraiths dwelt within its walls. And the reward for the exorcism was a free stay before the stigma of the mansion been haunted had faded.
"But can we really exorcise the evil spirits? I heard new ones would keep coming no matter how much you clear them." said Darkness.
While I wasn't well versed in spritual evocation, finding the reason why the wraiths are attracted to this place and resolving the issue was the best strategy; though the longer we dragged on the quest, the longer we could stay in this villa.
"But it feels like this place had not been occupied for a very long time. Didn't the disturbance of the spirits only happen recently? Could it be, this mansion already had issues before the spirit problem hit the entire town…?" Megumin said uneasily.
"We have Aqua with us, right? We should be fine then."
Despite not acting like it, Aqua was still a Divine Spirit after all.
"Leave it to me! … Fufu, I can see it, I can see it! From the observation of my spiritual eyes, a maid who had a relationship with a memebr of the gentry and bore a child, who was kept here in this mansion! The noble died from illness and the maid went missing. The young girl left here contracted the same disease as her father, and died without ever seeing the faces of her parents! Her name was Alice Filante Margatroid. What she liked the most were her dolls and the stories of adventurers! But please don't worry, this spirit won't pull pranks on us. She will not harm us! Ara, she might be a child, but she's really quite mature for her age."
Seriously, is she claiming to have Pure Eyes now? Some kind of Spirit Perception?
Darkness and Megumin were also looking at her with doubtful eyes, but they didn't question her.
Late at night.
"Ahhhh!? Wahhhhhh!"
"What is it!? Hey, Aqua, what happened! Are you okay!?"
I rushed to Aqua's room and rapped on the door.
No reply. Judging that something was amiss, I rammed the door open.
"Ka-Kazumaaaahhhh!"
Aqua was cradling an empty wine bottle and crying at the foot of her bed.
"Are you drunk?"
"Of course not! I didn't drink the wine! I was looking forward to enjoying the wine after my bath! But it was empty when I returned to my room!"
"I see, good night."
"Wait Kazuma! A spirit! This must be the work of an evil spirit! The ones that congregated here, or the illegitimate child that is bound to this mansion! It must be either of these two! I will make my rounds around the mansion and destroy all the spirits I see!"
"What happened, what's with that ruckus?"
"Is something wrong? It's getting late, so please behave yourself."
Darkness and Megumin had arrived, probably drawn in by Aqua's wailing.
Briefly noting how Darkness's nightgown accentuated her figure, I shrugged and returned to my room.
I fell towards The Door. Beyond it was the truth, a beautiful insanity. I knew that if I opened it, I would cease to be; sublimated. I wanted to stop, but it felt so right. It opens and I fall through to see that Akasha is the many! But akasha is the one! Akasha is the all! But akasha is the none! AKASHA IS THE TRUTH! but akasha is a lie! FOR AKASHA IS CONTRADICTION, and it cannot be denied!
I shoot up from my bed, covered in cold sweat.
A figure looms over me and I automatically react, kicking it off me and tackling it off the bed.
Grappling with the assailant, who was moaning in pain, I looked down at their face.
Oh, it was just Megumin.
"Oooowwwwww... what the hell was that for, Kazuma?"
"That should be my question! Why are you watching me sleep; are you some kind of pervert like Darkness?"
"It's not like that!"
I got off her and sat down on the bed, leveling my best glare at her.
"What were you doing then?"
She got up and composed herself, a smug grin emerging on her face.
"I get it now. You're the apprentice of the Sage of the South!"
"..." How does she know?
"No mage has a mana capacity that large, and only that Sage could manipulate space like you do! The others may not have realised, but tales of the abilities of the Sage of the South has been passed down the Crimson Demon clan for generations!"
"Assuming that you're correct, why are you telling me this?"
"I want you to teach me how to generate bigger and more powerful explosions! The legends of the Sage described him been able to crack a large island in two and destroy mountain ranges with an explosion! And he had infinite mana, so if you teach me, I could spam explosion again and again-" Megumin's eyes flared a bright red as her tirade went on.
"No."
The smug grin dimmed a little, but didn't leave Megumin's face.
"If you don't, I spread this to everyone I know! There must be a reason why you haven't revealed this to anyone, right?"
I didn't want to because that would reveal my abilities, and take away the advantage of surprise.
"Fine, though you can't just learn the Second True Magic. Even if you're the most powerful magus in the world, and had the same knowledge I had, you still won't obtain it. But, alright, I'll help you with your explosion spell." I thought that her head would be too full of explosions to think about blackmail.
Tap.
The sound of something hard hitting the floor.
I turned and saw a small doll of a little girl in a dress. It would actually seem quite cute, if not fo the fact that it was the middle of the night and it was walking towards us.
Is it the ghost of Alice, or one of the other wraiths?
"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"
Megumin ran and threw open the door, to reveal a veritable army of dolls waiting outside.
The worst thing about this situation was that I had an urge to take a leak.
"Αερο! Αερο! Αερο! Αερο!"
Blades of wind cut the dolls to pieces, clearing a path outside my room.
Dolls began hurling themselves at me, and I reinforced my feet and slippers, kicking them and crushing them under my heel in sprays of porcelain.
"I just want to take a piss dammit!"
As you'd expect, we didn't get much sleep that night.
In a rare moment of dedication, Aqua had stayed up until dawn, exorcising all of the wraiths in the mansion.
"Hmm, I think we should report this to the guild. Although we didn't take on this quest in the guild, this is a job for adventurers anyway. We might get some unexpected bounty for exorcising all the spirits in this mansion. I also want to know why are there so many spirits turning up in town suddenly."
Everyone agreed with Darkness.
I told Darkness and Megumin to stay in the mansion to tidy up the place, and visited the guild with Aqua.
"Good morning. It's a bit early, but I have something to report, is it convenient?"
It was pretty early, but Luna was at a counter.
"No problem, may I ask what is it?"
Aqua and I explained to her how we took a request from the property agent and went to subjugate the wraiths in the mansion. Luna took a look at Aqua's adventurer's card and nodded.
"There are many who are seeking help due to the spread of the evil spirits. Since you have successfully exorcised them, we should give you some bounty rewards. Thank you for your hard work."
Aqua made a quiet victory pose.
"Sorry for taking your time, but we have found out why the evil spirits were wandering around; here is the report. There is a public cemetery in Axel town right? I don't know who played a prank, creating a giant holy barrier on that cemetery. The spirits in the cemetery had nowhere to go, so they had to go to town and haunt houses where no one was living in…"
...
"Excuse me for a moment."
I interrupted Luna and pulled Aqua to a corner of the guild.
"This was your doing right?"
"… Yes. Didn't Wiz ask me to periodically visit the cemetery to send the lost spirits to the other world? But going there every now and then is a real hassle right? So I thought if I chase all the spirits in the cemetery away and let them wander around, they will dissipate naturally over time"
"You do know that it might take months, or in some cases, years, for wraiths to dissipate right?"
"uumm..."
"We won't claim the reward from the guild, understood?"
"Yes."
Aqua nodded guiltily.
"After this, we will head over to the property estate and apologise, since what we did was tantamount to fraud."
"Yes. I am very sorry."
"I see… But if it is possible, could you please stay here from now on? This house is too big, and there are more evil spirits here than other places, so it has a bad reputation…"
"We are very sorry!" Aqua and I apologised and bowed
"Ahh, it's fine, it's fine! Well then, it's settled– all of you will stay here for now. To dispose of so many spirits proves that you are powerful adventurers. Providing support for adventurers are the obligations of the citizens in this town. And if you continue to live here, the bad reputation of the mansion would gradually fade away…"
In the face of that man's generous suggestion, Aqua and I bowed again.
"Ahh, enough, stop doing that!"
There were two conditions for living in this mansion.
"After finishing your adventures, or when eating dinner, you have to chat about your adventures with your companions."
The other condition for living here was to clean grave at the corner of the courtyard.
Which was the reason why I was squatting before a tombstone right now.
"Kazuma-san, morning! Are you cleaning the grave?"
I turned back and saw Wiz who looked much better than yesterday.
"Are you alright? Sorry about yesterday, that idiot gave you so much trouble."
"Don't worry, or rather, it's great it had been settled this way. She will definitely not be lonely now."
When I was about to invite her in, Wiz said she needed to tend to her shop and left after bidding me farewell.
I sat down beside the tombstone of Alice Filante Margatroid and looked up at the sky.
It's been a long couple of weeks.
I died, and was resurrected in another world. I have gazed upon the heart of eternity. I'm in a dysfunctional party with distorted companions. One's an explosion maniac, another a masochist, and the other a Divine Spirit.
I wonder what mum and dad would think of me; that their 'good-for-nothing' son is like this now. Perhaps they would berate me, questioning why I didn't become a merchant instead of risking my life as an adventurer.
I wonder what they would say at my funeral?
My heart clenched a little and a strange feeling welled up inside of me. Was it regret? Sadness?
I sighed.
There's no point in pondering these thoughts. It's better to focus on the battles ahead.