Nobody in the guild had seen Kazuma for almost two days and the guild lady Luna felt a healthy amount of anxiety about it.

Apparently, the young man had been going on a solo quest, most likely dangerous, without telling his party the details. Aqua had said something about monster hunting, but it was almost impossible to get useful information out of the weird girl on a good day. Ever since his disappearance, the archpriest was downright paranoid and jumped in fright from every loud noise or sudden movement in her proximity.

Luna's sting of guilt turned into a full blown stomach ache. Kazuma wasn't a bad person, despite his reputation as lazy pervert. While always in the center of some kind of trouble, he almost never was the catalyst for it and did his darndest to fix the problem.

Luna seriously considered letting him off the hook, until he returned late on the second evening in his wrinkled tracksuit and majorly disheveled hair.

"The guy looks like he just fell out of bed. I was worrying about him and the lazy bum slept all day!"

She watched how Chris approached the lethargic boy, most likely to ask him about his wellbeing. The thief always had a deep interest in Kazuma's adventures, although she never mingled much with the rest of his party and especially when Aqua was around.

Luna couldn't blame her for avoiding the weird archpriest.

Chris and Kazuma parted ways with the former looking a bit dejected, but any thoughts Luna had about their interaction seized when Kazuma's tired eyes fell on her. He shuffled to the quest board in a slow manner and stared at the available tasks.

"Finally feeling like doing something?" Luna thought, getting her hopes up for Kazuma changing for the better.

A feeling of false hope she wanted back as soon as he started ripping off almost every quest from the board and tossed them in the nearby trash bin.

"Hey!" Luna yelled at him across the guild hall, angry and disappointed because of this cheap attempt. "Removing them from the board doesn't mean they aren't active anymore!"

Her words seemed to stir up something in the young adventurer. His gaze became more focused and awareness of his surroundings returned during his short trip to the counter.

"Sorry, forgot how this works… haven't slept since leaving… not sure if I need food anymore… the grumbling just stopped… here's my card for looking at stuff..."

Luna took the card out of his quivering hands and averted her eyes from the manic stare to scan the menu for most recent monster kills.

While she checked the card, he began to drone on in a monotone voice. "There should be one-shot bears, manticores and griffons, followed by the fire-resistant armored sandworms, several dragons in all colors, a few high ranking vampires and a lich, plus a bunch of things I lost track of after the large lake hydra. After that, I just kept swinging on anything bigger than a house until it was dead."

The whole questlog read like an encyclopedia with almost every notable danger of this world present in some capacity. An adventurer card couldn't be forged and the fact he gained almost thirty levels checked out with the mind boggling amount of monsters.

"Kazuma, I…"

His fist fell down on the counter with force, shattering wood and most of the wall parting the guild hall with the office space. "Oh come on! I know the Destroyer is missing but I couldn't find the damn thing! Why is a moving fortress so hard to locate?"

Luna stood in the rubble of her booth and gulped hard. She had front row seats for seeing a person get undone by the seams.

"Ok, I will keep looking… rip it limb from limb… put the repair costs on my tab!" Kazuma grabbed a piece of wood with lifeless eyes and turned to leave, dark clouds of energy emitting from him like smoke.

It was a herculean task for Luna to keep the air of professionalism over her building nervous breakdown. The woman had realized the fundamental mistake she had made by getting involved. Forget the bad press of employing a devil, should push come to shove, this town could turn into a wasteland if Kazuma was pushed over the edge.

"Kazuma, consider your contract fulfilled!" Luna congratulated him and tore the contract frantically to shreds. "Any money you make from now on is all yours!"

"And the repair costs?" The black clouds started to gather at the ceiling and dissolved the chandelier.

"On the house! A small token of appreciation for a good friend and valuable member of this guild!"

"Really?" The intensity of those demonic eyes made Luna feel the urge to hide under biggest rock she could find. "That's great! Finally things are looking up for me! Where is my party? I want to share the good news!"

"They have gone on a quest… eek!" She shrieked in fright when Kazuma's eyes turned to blazing blue orbs and turned the piece of wood in his hand to sawdust by crushing it. "It's a really easy quest! They should be done by now and the reward is a real mansion! Here's the address!"

Blue changed back to green. "Ok then, I left the bodies outside in the backyard."

As soon as the young man had left, Luna locked the front door and tumbled to the back in search of a window. She hadn't noticed it sooner because it was night, otherwise the mountain of corpses would have blocked any sunlight coming in during the day. The backyard of the guild had the size of a soccer field with every free inch now used as storage by Kazuma, but the monster pile was still two stories higher than the guild hall.

Luna sat down on a nearby chair. One of the barmaids found her minutes later, still in the same pose staring into the void. After questioning her what was wrong, the guild lady had one thing to say in a haunted voice.

"I just remembered that short summaries of adventurer cards are sent magically to the capital for recruitment purposes. The crown family will get the name Satou Kazuma and a list of slain monsters adding up to over a billion eris in reward money. What do you think will happen when they come here to investigate him?"


KONOSUBA!


"I don't trust this. Something that good doesn't happen to me."

It was already close to midnight when Kazuma entered the front yard of his new home. The mansion looked old but well maintained, easily several dozens of rooms and nice view over the city. His eyes kept darting around for the obvious twist to emerge at any point. He arrived at the doorstep without any complications. The sigh of relief build inside of him, begging for release which he stopped at the last possible moment.

Nothing ever went well.

Kazuma took another step and was violently thrown back, landing several feet away on the grass.

"Yeah, I figured that would happen," he said with a glance at the now visible anti-devil barrier surrounding the mansion. "Why is that useless goddess only competent when she tries to agitate me?"

Kazuma was so done with everything, his mood did a full reversal to indifferent as he rolled onto his side to sleep on the lawn.

"Kyaaaahhh!"

And was denied his indifference by the ear-splitting cry of his archwizard.

"Megumin!" Kazuma forwent moving with his feet and smashed into barrier via teleport, sword pressed against the blue energy field until sparks appeared and his skin caught fire. This stupid sturdy thing was in the way and for the first time since getting this power he felt the pull of something different from his insides.

With a roar, his whole body burst into blue flame and transformed into Vergil's devil form, a fiery blue demon with four wings and silver scales. The barrier shattered instantly under the onslaught of demonic power and Kazuma transformed back as soon as he entered the mansion to navigate easier through the narrow corridors.

Another scream showed him the right direction and with a leap he burst through the next door on the left.

"Kazuma help!"

There was just enough time for one glance to assess the situation. Megumin hid under sheets of the nearby bed and pointed to the balcony where an unidentifiable black mass needed just a few more seconds to crash through the cracking glass. Throwing caution to the wind, Kazuma took a stance and unleashed a wave of energy at the attacker by drawing his sword. The attack hit the target and most of the balcony evaporated in a blue vortex with the enemy.

Silence reigned for a few seconds and Kazuma relaxed when no immediate danger was visible. Some bits and pieces of his opponent landed around the room and he poked the remains to reveal a broken porcelain face.

"Dolls?"

Megumin jumped from the bed and stood behind Kazuma. "Those things are evil spirits! Aqua was supposed to take care of them but she only drew a magic circle around the house!"

Instead of fulfilling the quest, the useless goddess had prepared against his revenge with everything she got, so far so expected, but Kazuma wondered what her next step would be after he smashed through the barrier? Aqua wasn't the type of person to plan in advance, her whole existence and mantra centered around living in the moment after all, which made predicting her extremely difficult.

She always behaved either completely pathetic or devastatingly effective in the wrong areas.

Like a coin toss of doom.

"Why are you fidgeting?" Kazuma asked Megumin, forcing his thoughts away from the blue-haired harbinger of chaos and towards his late night company.

"I need to get to the bathroom…"

"..."

"It's just down the hall! Please?"


KONOSUBA!


"Are you still there? Kazuma?"

"Yes I am, and I haven't moved an inch since the last time you asked and won't until the next time or the one after that."

Kazuma made his tone irritated on purpose although he felt a sense of fulfillment while staring at the closed bathroom door in front of him. A shy and adorable Megumin satisfied his protective instincts. Being the lowest level and weakest class of the party didn't give many opportunities to contribute in quests after planning was over.

He hadn't been capable of taking a hit for the group like Darkness, dish out real pain like Megumin or even provide support as Aqua could on a good day.

He was just plain and average Kazuma. Never good for anything. Never amounting to anything.

"My gratitude knows no bounds, cute devil-chan…"

A smile formed on his lips when she called again. "This is a little embarrassing… so could you sing a song or something in a loud voice?"

Noise from both ends of the corridor announced the arrival of more dolls and Kazuma drew his sword. The small animated objects weren't any danger to him but Megumin seemed deathly afraid of them, so the next step in this situation was quite clear.

"A song huh? Yeah sure, I have something in mind. Ignore the other noises."

So it happened on a cloudless night, that the adventurer Kazuma Satou sang loud and proud while he defended the toilet break of his party member, not even close to what he imagined using his new powers for but beggars can't be choosers. Standing guard for a defenseless girl beat mucking around with monsters on his own by a landslide.

The last doll hit the ground just in time for the last line. If anyone asked, Kazuma would deny he had done that on purpose to be more dramatic.

"... bang bang bang… Kazuma where is that song from?" She came from the toilet with a big smile and sparkling eyes, careful not to step on the hundreds of doll pieces scattered around.

He sheathed his weapon with a flourish. "It's from the latest entry of a story that is near and dear to my heart. It was one of the last things I enjoyed before coming here."

"I see…" She went suddenly quiet, staring at the wall and glancing at him on occasion. "Can… could you bring me to my room?"

Here, at this moment in time, nothing mattered more than to preserve the cuteness that was barefoot Megumin in her pyjamas, asking a favour with a quiet voice and upturned innocent eyes.

"S… Sure! Sorry for destroying your balcony."

"Oh, that was Aqua's room. Mine is three doors further down."

And suddenly, Kazuma felt somebody had put a cherry on top of this evening.

Their shared walk to her room was uneventful and ended much to quick for Kazuma's taste. Ready to say goodnight, she dropped a bombshell on him by asking if he could stay at her bedside until it was sure no more dolls would attack.

A nearby chair was pulled closer and he sat down, watching her drift in and out of sleep. "Hey Kazuma…do you… want to hear my new chant?"

"Sure…"

"Darkest of nightfalls…" her eyes closed and a lot of words became unintelligible. "...frustration growing bigger… devil… trigger…"

Megumin had fallen asleep with a smile.

A few more dolls decided to interrupt the nighttime peace now and then, which Kazuma took care of quietly and without waking the young girl. Another day without sleep didn't make a difference and functioning as glorified bug zapper wasn't bothering him either.

What bothered him was another unannounced nightly visitor in form of a silver-haired thief. "Kazuma we need to talk. I heard some weird rumours about you."

She appeared out the darkness like a ghost, all dramatic and mysterious, which would have garnered interest and excitement from his adventure loving soul on any other occasion.

Tonight he had other plans.

"I had a long day and Megumin needs me. Come back tomorrow."

Chris was about to protest, but a single mumble of the sleeping archwizard shut her up. The female intruder vanished back into the shadows with a frown and Kazuma had the hunch she didn't want to ask him if he was still single.

He wasn't that lucky.