Chapter 01.

Axel.

The city where all adventurers start their new stories. With the demon king's army on the rise, the city was booming with adventurers. With a steady line of customers, the local economy kept afloat.

But recently, the town economy was booming thanks to a certain group of whacky adventures. With demon kings commanders falling like dead leaves in their paths and squashing the mobile fortress Destroyer, Axel economy flourished like never before. With the bounty money, wealthy consumers lined the streets. With the news of the bounty money, more wanna-be adventurers lined the streets.

The market days in the purse-opener square were festivals of exotic goods and street performers. Yes, every merchant's purses were jingling. Well, all but one.

It was a nice morning in Axel. Clear blue skies with a wisp of pastel pink and perfect silver linings in every cloud. Perfect market day conditions. Though the sun had barely risen the streets were full of life. And through the bustling crowd, a young man bustled through them. His brown hair swayed in the early morning breeze as he passed the early sales of the day. Though his forest green eyes swirled here looking at the colorful goods for sale, he never lost his pace.

He turned off at a corner, finally out of the crowd and walked into a less populated ally. Seeing his destination at the end of the road, he walked faster. Noting the 'Welcome, we're open' sign, he opened the door and entered. Listening to the silver bell ring, Satou Kazuma entered the store.

The store was empty. Empty of customers, he was not surprised. But there was no demon wearing a pink apron and, "Hey, Wiz? Are you here?"

"Oh, Kazuma-san! Welcome." The pure shopkeeper walked out of the back smiling as usual. She had long brown hair that was slightly curled at the end had eyes the same color. She was a beauty in life and after.

Kazuma had laid down the paper roles and packages he was holding. He was about to state his business when he was cut off by the lich.

"What brings you here? It's quite early. I didn't even open the shop yet."

"Eh? What do you mean? The sign says the store was opened." "No one comes to our shop so I never thought about changing the signs." "But the door was open. Did you forget to lock the door?" "No, the robbers never seems to steal from us. I wonder why…."

Well, this was laughable. He knew no customers were coming here in the first place but he didn't know even robbers avoided her store. Just how bad was she? Still, it was unwise to leave the door unlocked. What if an unfortunate thief came in and got blasted by one of Wiz's exploding bottles? Did Vanir forget to remind her on purpose? Possibly. There was no way to predict the demon's move when he knew all of theirs. And speaking of the devil….

"Speaking of Vanir, is he here?" Wiz got confused as she never mentioned her partner but answer in her usual cheerful voice. "Well, Vanir-san is not here today. Anything I can do in his stead?" "Not really. I brought some blueprints and samples for 'new projects'."

Though he had limited knowledge about how things worked back in Japan, he managed to make some simple samples and draw up some few drafts. He had spent all night coming up with ideas. A chance to make money without getting dragged into another crazy situation? How could he refuse? And here was the first results, ready to be made and sold.

Wiz looked at the scrolls and packages on her counter before looking up at him with a bright smile. "Ah, that's great! Vanir-san told me about these before he left. I'll go put them in the safe. Please wait here." Wiz scooped the things up and went back to the back.

The store became silent again. Kazuma took his time to look around. Under the new management of Vanir, the store looked a bit better. It looked like Vanir had gotten rid of Wiz's exploding bottle collection. And the shelves were more organized with price tags under the items in question. Finding a new metronome on the counter, he nonchalantly flicked it. The silver needle sways back and forth, back and forth. The giant eye on the star of David waved back and forth from the point of the needle. Back and forth, back and forth, back and-

"Kazuma-san!"

Wiz clapped her hands hard in front of Kazuma's face. Forced out of a trance, Kazuma's knees buckled and swayed. Knocking down a few bottles from the counter with a sickening crash. Thick shards of glass littered the floor, Kazuma was about to fall on to them…!

"Kazuma-san!"

Wiz cried as she grabbed him by the color, moments before he fell to a painful doom. "Wiz… What, was that?" "I'm so, so sorry, Kazuma-san! That's 'Puppet master's metronome' I accidentally stole from the demon king's treasury. I was going to destroy it… But not fast enough, it seems." "…It's okay. It's my fault for carelessly handling with your things." "…"

Wiz pulled a face of guilt as Kazuma rose to his feet again, huffing loudly as if he had run a full marathon.

Wiz gingerly picked up the metronome and put it beneath the counter. Her face was still wry with guilt and worry. "Kazuma-san, you better sit down. I'll go get the broom." "No, I'll help you. It's my fault-." "Kazuma-san, you've almost been hypnotized by a dark artifact of a puppet master, one of the four highest class of dark magic. You need to rest."

Pressured by guilt and the full weight of her words, Kazuma went and set down on a chair by the window. He watched a woman opening a window and dusting her blankets. Wiz pulled out a broom and started to sweep. He watched as glass and something black roll into a neat pile. Wiz hummed as she swept.

"Hey, Wiz. What did I exactly smash?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just my breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next month."

"Your WHAT!?" Kazuma sprang up in incredulity and pointed at the black somethings gathered among the glass. "That's what your meal!? For the next month!?" "Yes, that's right." Wiz cocked her head in confusion. "Is there something wrong?" "Wrong? You're eating… something that looks like leeches and you don't think that's wrong?" Wiz pouted once more and put her hands on her hips, not liking her friend's tone. "Gross! Liches don't eat leeches! Whatever you heard about liches, they don't go off eating disgusting things! They're breadcrumbs!" "Bread…" Kazuma shook his head again, trying to clear out the fact that Wiz misunderstood his point and she was eating breadcrumbs for granted and those crums looked so stale not even a hungry pigeon would eat them.

"Yes, breadcrumbs. Since all my money goes for purchasing goods for the store and paying off my debts, I can't afford more things, like clothing or food…"

Wiz sheepishly scratched her head.

"Since I'm a lich, I don't need to eat… but it's one of the things that makes me feel alive… So I've been buying spare crums and hoarding rainwater." "…And what did Vanir said about the matter?" "Vanir-san said we really couldn't spare any money for unnecessary luxuries…."

Kazuma felt pity for Wiz. She was a hard worker. As far as he knew, she spent all her time trying to make her business a success. And from what he head, to help Vanir build his dream dungeon. But she didn't have any business sense. Some people, many people didn't have a business sense as business required guts and taking risks; it was like Russian roulette, …That's what he had thought of the matter, anyway. But Wiz, Wiz was getting off on a wrong foot from the start. She made mistakes, critical mistakes that veered out from on course. Because she was a diligent person, she accelerated her mistakes to the extreme. Thus resulting in… this.

Satou Kazuma, contrary to the popular belief, was a fair man. Yes, he may abuse his position and go overboard. Several times. And while he enjoyed this, that's something he justified as it mostly resulted in harassing three major troubles of his life; his party. But on multiple occasions, he abused people he thought was good people. Like Yun Yun, or Wiz. Wiz. One of the people he considered normal; in comparison to his crazy party. She truly was a good person. Too good, that he sometimes felt bad and felt in debt to her as well. And comparing the crabs he had for dinner last night and her 90 meal worth of breadcrumbs, he felt like he should help her out. Help her earn her share of the money. Help her buy some edible food. And buy her some new clothes. Perhaps a white summer dress with revealing- no, he was going off track.

Kazuma looked around the shop He didn't need to look at an inventory to see it was full of unsellable goods. And it needed to change.

A/N 2019, Project Augustus. In courtesy of Sammo909.