This took me way longer than anticipated.
I have no real excuse besides being busy with real life.
Have fun reading!
EDIT November 6th: This chapter is a repost. Issues with the site on October 30th kept most people from reading the chapter. If you were one of the few who could access this chapter, there is nothing new here.
KONOSUBA!
The glowing cut in the air and tear in reality warned the citizens of Arcanretia about their pontiffs' return. Kazuma and Darkness would have loved to spend more time together, but a development needed their immediate attention in the spiritual capital of the axis faith.
A sudden strain on his magical power during breakfast.
Then and there, Kazuma had recognized it as a certain explosive menace firing her signature spell and using his mana through their contract. He didn't think much about it after the first wave of fatigue. The second wave a few moments later had him annoyed. By the fifth he had trouble holding the spoon calm enough to hit his mouth with cereal.
The drain stopped after that, making him in equal parts relieved and worried about the reason. The quickest way to find out was to shorten their stay at the Dustiness estate, which Darkness agreed to without much resistance. She had gotten what she wanted and then some, blasting past the others in terms of progress to a comfortable lead.
Dustiness Ford Lalatina, first girlfriend of Kazuma Satou.
The portal closed behind them and they held hands to avoid getting separated in the fast moving crowds on the street. "Do the people seem more panicky than usual to you?" Darkness asked, sidestepping two guys carrying large planks of wood.
Kazuma watched a nearby priest putting on platemail armor. "Even crazy axis priests seldomly are armed this heavily during day-to-day business." Both stopped dead in their tracks to let a column of five trebuchet roll by at a crossroads. "Or push heavy war equipment for that matter. Something is wrong."
Their answer appeared in the form of a well endowed chimera. Silvia looked ready for war in her jetblack battle armor, every ounce of defeatism gone from the demon general brandishing an axe. Darkness grabbed Kazuma's hand tighter when the woman towering even over herself stopped before them with salute.
"Preparations are almost complete. We will be able to withstand anything within these walls."
"That's good." Kazuma steeled his face into a determined expression. Whatever was happening, it wouldn't look good if the man in charge had no idea what was going on. "Report, what's the situation outside?"
Darkness caught on and put on a similar expression when Sylvia started her briefing.
"The city remains under siege by the royal army. No activities have been reported since the initial forming of the blockade yesterday."
Kazuma wasn't surprised about an army gathering at his doorstep when he finally had something to be happy about. He hadn't known about what kind of obstacle, but experience made him expect nothing less. If anything, the timing was way off from the usual, crashing down on him after he spent two wonderful days with his new girlfriend.
Destiny was getting sloppy with spitting in his cornflakes.
"Estimates of troop size?"
Sylvia paused and her hesitation made Kazuma concerned in an instant. The inability of a seasoned army general to gauge the enemy numbers meant she had never encountered this size before. "I would guess pretty much all they have? It very well looks like every soldier fighting against the devil king across the continent has come."
It showed how much his priorities and worldview had changed when his first thought wasn't to run away and hide after hearing this news. He simply didn't want to fight thousands of people for the sake of having a little peace and quiet. The half-devil would, if he had to, but nothing about it sounded like a fun afternoon for anyone involved.
Just a huge bother.
"I get the picture."
The tired acceptance from her leader settled the chimera in a more relaxed state. "Obviously nobody can get in or out by normal means and standard teleportation magic has been blocked. Support from outside is limited because the other demon generals aren't fully on board yet."
Darkness watched the exchange between the chimera and her new boyfriend with mixed feelings. The poker face of their party leader was as flawless as ever, exuding confidence and control over the situation.
"How much of your act is for our sake?"
"How often have you been lost and let nobody know?"
"Would you ask for my help now?"
"Or continue to persevere alone?"
The crusader kept those thoughts to herself and close to her heart.
"Have they said what they want?" Kazuma asked.
"We received demands this morning," Sylvia said with disgust in her voice. "The royal family wants to speak with the highest authority and negotiate our surrender."
Kazuma sighed. "That would either be me or Aqua. Where is she? Where are the others right now?"
"The goddess doesn't want to speak with anybody and remains in her room with the silver-haired thief." Sylvia bit the inside of her cheek, contemplating how to best describe what Megumin was doing. "The crazy crimson demon sits on the city wall with her better developed friend and casts occasional explosion magic to keep our enemy from advancing."
"This must be her personal heaven. I bet Yunyun is the only reason Megumin holds back against such a satisfying target."
Kazuma turned to Darkness for the first time since the conversation had started, his demeanor changing from distant and businesslike to warm and friendly. "Darkness, would you help Yunyun have an eye on Megumin? I will drag our useless goddess out of bed in the meantime. The earlier this problem is solved the better."
The tall blonde frowned at the mention of Aqua, walked up to him with a red face, bent down slightly to compensate for their difference in height, and gave Kazuma a chaste kiss. Showing affection in public still clashed with her image of a proper noble lady and prevented things from escalating towards usual Darkness levels of horny. Keeping in tone with the theme of awkward first romance, her mouth remained pressed against him a moment longer than necessary, showing the subliminal resistance to part ways.
"You can count on me, Kazuma. Always."
Sylvia stood in awe from the display of sweetness. It was more becoming of school children crushing on each other than an almighty devil and his trusted crusader. The two separated and Kazuma watched Darkness vanish into the crowd with one last longing glance before the softness vanished from his features.
All business from now on.
"Walk with me Sylvia and share your concerns."
"Sir?"
"Doubt is written all over your face."
Gone was the earlier levity and spring in his step, as if some part of him had left with the blonde. This was the half-devil she remembered facing in battle; a reserved and distant boy always watching the world like it didn't concern him.
"How are we going to deal with the siege, sir?"
"You're not. I will."
Sylvia stopped in her tracks. "I don't understand…"
Cold shivers ran down her spine from the look on his face; the expression of a man who discarded any pretense of courtesy. "Why should I risk losing anything by involving others in my problems?"
The statement had the expected outcome. Facing an enemy like the royal army of Belzberg alone was madness and Silvia showed visible regret for betting the survival of her kind on the delusions of one unstable and suicidal teenager.
Understandable, if slightly annoying to the half-devil being doubted. "I can see your unconvinced, so let me tell you a secret to calm your nerves. Have you ever wondered why I gave you all adventurer cards and how it's working?"
Of course she had and still did. During the war, they considered every possibility to gain the advantage over the enemy, so the idea wasn't new but nobody ever managed to make cards and their job classes available to monsters.
This world followed video game logic. An rpg to be more specific and mmorpg to be exact, although the divine creators hadn't been thorough in the design process, which left a lot of room for exploitation.
And as fate would have it, the draw fell on a very generous free-to-play model.
"Sylvia, imagine somebody wanting to try being an adventurer without committing in full. Whoever invented adventurer cards considered this option and also made trial cards, adventurer cards with virtually no requirements and many limitations. Limitations so steep in power level and practicality, they made them pointless beyond testing the waters."
A surprisingly predatory practice for supposed benevolent gods. It's a tried and true approach of greedy companies in his world to offer free to play options and hamstring players until they break and open their wallet. Trial cards reeked of the same motivation to Kazuma, only with a much more nefarious reason than money.
"You see, there is a way for somebody with a trial account to get full access. As long as you are partied up with somebody with a real card, your lesser cards function the same."
Sylvia pulled out her adventurer card and studied the item with furrowed brow. "I'm not in anyone's party. I checked the thing from top to bottom when I got it."
"Check your party screen again and tap the empty space above your name." Kazuma said and watched her do it with mirth. Kazuma's stat screen illuminated her face and the chimera stared at him in hope for an explanation.
"The party screen has the interesting function of choosing a nickname to show amongst your party. I happen to choose a couple of empty spaces for mine."
The frustration of being tricked so easily didn't last for long in view of the data presented to her. She became lost in the spreadsheet of Kazuma's abilities and skills, her mind not comprehending what she's seeing in terms of power.
"Every monster with a card is part of your party?" Sylvia gulped, slowly grasping the ramifications of this little trick.
The smile on Kazuma looked more sinister than he intended. "And everyone is sharing a small cut of their gained experience points with me. All thousands upon thousands of good little monsters doing their part."
Mathematically, Sylvia could extrapolate their difference in power, just not imagining how it would look in practice. How much stronger is a dragon compared to an ant? At a certain point, trying to compare becomes pointless.
"You are all already helping me without getting yourselves in unnecessary danger. Isn't that wonderful?"
Many adjectives ran through Sylvia's head to describe the situation, none of them polite enough to utter around children. Being ordered to stand back while others fought her battles insulted the generals on many levels, but their new leader made it very clear that she was given no choice in the matter.
They stood and fell with Kazuma Satou.
"Please, don't disappoint us."
"I won't. There's too much at stake."
KONOSUBA!
Sylvia went back to her troops to oversee the defense and Kazuma took the long trip towards their hotel.
The first sign that something wasn't quite right came the second he arrived at the floor they were all staying on. Kazuma found Eris slumped against a wall and half asleep, chocolate smeared around her lips and cradling a large bottle of nondescript alcohol. The red, puffy eyes and tear stains on her face quickened his step towards the deity in disguise.
Only to notice the disguise being gone.
Short silver hair was now long and flowing down to her hips. Her clothes had become a weird mix of the usual thieves' outfit tank top and booty shorts combined with clerical accessories like a big purple nun veil, making her the first woman of the cloth he had seen sporting an underbutt. One cream-colored breast pad laid on the floor with the matching other still safely stuffed under her shirt.
"I can't go back…" She whined into the pattern wallpaper, the smell of booze and sugar hitting him in strong waves. "The gate is closed… they locked me out..."
The prim and proper goddess was completely undone at the seams. Although very sad circumstances for Eris, Kazuma could now say with certainty that she wasn't involved with whatever had happened with Mei yesterday. It also meant there was nobody who could tell him what heaven had planned for him. They had recognized Eris as a weak link and dropped her like a hot potato, not unlike another deity waiting for him.
"I went to get some snacks for Aqua and me... can't find my way back… everything is spinning…"
For a cynical bastard like him, crying girls were rapidly becoming his kryptonite. "Come on, you can rest in Aqua's room."
Eris hadn't been that far off from her destination despite the high level of intoxication. Three doors further left and he stood in front of the royal suite with the luck goddess carried bridal style in his arms. Kazuma didn't bother with knocking and pushed the ajar door open with his foot.
She mumbled into his chest and rubbed her nose on him. "You have my blessing, but make my senpai unhappy and I will make you wish I'd really killed you back in Axel."
"Sure, whatever makes you happy."
A nearby couch was the perfect place for the drunk girl and Kazuma put her down gently just in time before Eris succumbed to unconsciousness. His gaze wandered over the messy hotel room and his eyes got stuck on the bed. The remarkable feature was the person-sized lump under the bedsheets. Kazuma lifted the sheet at one corner and crawled under towards the pouting archpriest underneath.
"You finally decided to come back, Neet."
Aqua wore light pink pajamas and had her hair undone in a tousled mess. An assortment of stains told a story of binge eating ice cream and flushing it down with various hard liquors. Nothing out of the ordinary for her, and yet, the whole scene missed the usual vitality and merriment.
"It's been two days and I told you where I was going. Don't be so dramatic, numbskull."
Kazuma took pride in his ability to prepare for any eventuality life could throw at him. Never hoping for the best and expecting the worst had served him well thus far in mastering the game of life. Aqua was destined to be the game piece which never fit in his strategy and always caught him on the wrong foot.
"I still remember everything."
An angry Aqua he could have handled.
Lazy and bitchy Aqua belonged to his daily ritual.
"Why do they don't want me, Kazuma?"
Sad Aqua hurt his soul in ways he believed to be impossible. The deep black rings under her eyes from lack of sleep worried him more than the army outside the city.
"Come here…" He scooched closer and gave the somber girl a hug, who buried her face in his shoulder and started to sniffle.
Sniffles turned to sniffing.
Sniffing turned to growling.
"You smell like the blonde bimbo. What did you do?"
Directly asked, he couldn't lie to her to soften the blow. He told Aqua everything in excruciating detail, down to the nitty gritty of where, when and how often him and Darkness made love like horny animals. The final amount embarrassed him by how little self-restraint it showed, but a man dying of thirst is prone to drinking too greedily given the chance.
Needless to say, his goddess lacked any kind of sympathy for his plight. "She took your innocence… she defiled my champion…"
The biting stench of burning ozone filled the air as the bedsheets turned to ash. Blue glow illuminated the room in blinding light as Aqua's body ignited like a torch. Temperatures rose high enough to make every window in the room warp under the heat.
Old Kazuma would have run or cower in fear. New Kazuma wasn't wasting effort on the thought when she raised her hand against him.
"Purification!"
The clothes exploded off his body with the skin underneath getting red and tender like a sunburn. Before Kazuma could voice his displeasure, Aqua grabbed him by the arms and shoved him on his back as if he weighed nothing, showing how not only her magic had increased from getting so many new worshippers.
Strangely enough, she had become maybe the only being strong enough to end him and It made the half-devil nervous when she ripped the nightwear from her body like paper. Aqua loomed over him in all of her glorious nakedness as the harbinger of fury with two bottles of amber liquid in her hands.
"Take this you heretic!"
She doused him with their contents and his skin burned for a second like molten lava. Kazuma felt sticky all over, taking in the smell of honey, morning dew and malt liquor. The exact scent replica of the angry goddess standing before him.
"Axis brand ritual oil. Just the right tool to get rid of the stench from this woman." Aqua growled in a tone so threatening it led him to believe she would brandish a match and set the oil on fire. Instead, her palms rested on his chest while she crawled on top of him, pushing Kazuma down with the gentleness of a kitten.
"The oil has to be rubbed in for the full effect."
She straddled his limbs. "Arms and legs"
She took his hands and interlaced their digits. "fingers and toes"
Aqua pressed her exposed chest against his in circling motion before putting his head firmly between her boobs.
"Torso and face."
Soon, her whole naked body was writhing against him to smother every inch of his body with oil. How he ever had managed to ignore her curves and stay completely asexual towards Aqua until now would be a mystery lost to time. It didn't take long for all of her tender attention to result in a rapidly stiffening part of his anatomy poking into her stomach and slender fingers traced along the sensitive underside of the twitching spire.
"Especially this lust-filled piece of traitorous flesh needs a lot of cleansing." Her fist closed around him with just enough pressure to feel uncomfortable before the other hand found an even more vulnerable target which made Kazuma's heart rate skyrocket. "You've got some huge balls fooling around with another woman."
"I think you can feel they are of average size for somebody of my age."
The promise of harm to his jewels burning in her eyes dampened his enjoyment of getting fondled somewhat. This wasn't remedied by her first lick and smacking of lips, because her frown deepened after every stroke of the tongue hitting his sensitive flesh.
"I can still taste her." Aqua's head bobbed up and down in his lap, determined to scrub the markings of Darkness from existence. She smiled with a full mouth when her efforts bore fruit with his taste and smell returning to something familiar.
Kazuma ran his calloused fingers through blue hair and she leaned into him with a content hum, only to suddenly deprive his member of the warmth from her mouth to speak. "Who allowed you to touch me, sinner? You've got me, a goddess, doing this for you. You should grovel on your knees in gratitude and repent for your transgressions!"
Instead she kneed on him, squishing his exposed and wet manliness and digging into the bulbous tip with her immaculate fingernails. "Beg me for forgiveness and I will make you ascend to heaven as a reward!"
The difference between Aqua and Darkness became evident. Darkness liked to be dominated and led in bed, while intimacy between Aqua and him resembled how they argued. Constant squabbles with yelling and lots of hair pulling.
And the prospect turned him on.
"Don't get cocky useless goddess!" His hips bucked and threw Aqua off the bed. Now face down on the carpet, Kazuma appeared behind her in a flash, grabbing two handfuls of her beautiful butt raised in the air. "Don't pretend you're doing this out of charity when you're dripping like a leaky faucet!"
Aqua vigorously rubbed the starting nosebleed away. "Stupid Neet, I hate you! You, and your unfaithful limp noodle!'
The moment he saw her bleeding, Kazuma's face and heart dropped at the same time. Gone were the snarky comments and cocksure behaviour, replaced with complete silence and shaky hands touching her bloody skin. She watched him spellbound as he kept wiping the blood from her upper lip with a frantic thumb. Unadulterated fear and worry about her well being stared Aqua in the face and it made her physically ill to see Kazuma this upset.
"It's just a small nosebleed! Make me feel good already! I've waited long enough!"
She sat on his lap and hilted him inside her gooey warmth in one thrust. No warning and no foreplay. Something halfway through resisted for a whole second before it teared and the last part of his manhood slipped in with a high pitched yelp.
"Are you crazy?!" Kazuma snapped out of stupor and grabbed her by the waist to prevent any movement. "This must hurt like hell, doesn't it?"
The stimuli almost overpowered his concern, her velvety insides milking him as needy and greedy as everything else about Aqua. Different than Darkness but heavenly all the same. Aqua was tight, so unbelievably tight and warm and wet.
"Don't flatter yourself… I can handle your tiny pencil..."
"You're bleeding!"
"Are you still on about that? I said it's nothing!"
"Not your face! Down there!"
Aqua looked and saw the trickle of red pooling where they were connected. Kazuma could feel his eardrums shatter from the piercing scream two inches away from his face. Big crocodile tears and snot joined as liquids staining her face as she shook him at the neck.
"Kazuma, I'm scared! Why is your penis cutting me?"
Words struggled to push past his closing windpipe. "It's normal for the first time and completely harmless! How do you not know this?"
A weird sense of privilege made way for genuine confusion. How could somebody give a naked full-body oil massage and suck dick like a pro, without knowing something so vital about the intricacies of her own body?
At least she had the decency to be embarrassed about it. "Don't yell at me! There is no lewd stuff in heaven remember? I know everything from mortal magazines and they don't linger much on this kind of stuff!"
They sat for a while in the dark hotel room, Kazuma shifting his hold on her into a hug from behind and kissing the top of her hair. Aqua did the same, only rubbing her cheek into his chest instead and taking in more of Kazuma's smell. Slowly but surely, her hips started to grind and stirred the phallus around her depths.
"Stop it, or I won't be able to control myself. I want you so bad…"
"Me too, so fuck me already idiot!"
All of their pent up frustration unloaded as he grabbed her left boob, massaging the perfectly shaped mound while she kept a steady riding rhythm with her hips. Everything just fell into place between them like a key and matching lock. Their instant compatibility stood testament for their whole relationship.
They fought, bickered and yelled at each other since day one, and regardless of that, the thought of parting ways never occurred to them even once.
They deserved one another.
Many guys would tell you the missionary position is boring and milktoast, but Kazuma loved to see her flushed expression up close. Gently laying Aqua down on the thick carpet, he cupped her cheek as he entered again and kept staring into her deep blue eyes. His thumb stroked softly over her rosy lower lip until she started sucking and licking on the digit with moans.
The sudden urge to have his own tongue experience her touch pushed him for a greedy kiss, invading her mouth and starting another layer of competition for control. Hard to say who was the better kisser but both of them had a bias for wet and messy, exchanging lots of saliva in the process.
This continued up to the point Kazuma felt his impending climax. "Aqua, I'm getting close…"
"Don't you dare get off before me…"
"egotistic slob…" Kazuma said and increased his rhythm to a frantic pace.
"Selfish… ah… brute!"
He shut up further tirades about his lack of human qualities with his lips. She responded in kind, nibbling on his lower lip to open Kazuma's mouth for her tongue again.
"Almost there…"
"Me too… finish inside please..."
"Are you sure?"
"Your goo is turning to water anyway."
The familiar feeling of disappointment hit Kazuma like a sledgehammer. He had a better grasp on the reason at the second time around, which didn't make it easier to swallow. The young man lost himself in lucid daydreams of scenes with a blue-haired boy.
"Dad, mom ate all my pudding again!"
"You won't give me a free sample? Don't you know who I am? My daddy will beat you up, asshole!"
"Yes, I'm Kazuma's son."
Mental images of a possible bratty offspring pushed him over the edge and opened the floodgates. Every fiber of him wanted this more than anything in his life and the new intensity from her champion morphed Aqua into a moaning pile of mush.
There was just enough presence of mind to wrap her legs around him like a vice to make his task easier. Two bodies melded into one with echoing wet slaps ringing through the room whenever Kazuma reached the deepest possible part of his goddess in quickening succession.
One splashing droplet from a particular hard thrust flew all the way across the room and hit the nose tip below a pair of purple eyes. Eris watched spellbound from the nearby couch with perfect darkvision, having now her real body in this world. Two slick fingers of that divine body pumped furiously inside her damp shorts at the same speed as the couple making love on the floor.
Drunk Eris was a very horny goddess.
"Fuck me harder you stupid neet!"
"I'm on it, useless goddess!"
"Be glad this goddess loves you so much!"
"That's my line! Be goddamn thankful I adore your sorry ass!"
"Kazuma!"
"Aqua!"
Eris's eyes widened from finishing herself and witnessing the messy process of an orgasming water goddess getting filled to the brim without the sticky proof of their love turning to water.
The two involved were too caught up in the moment to notice this important detail. Naked, out of breath with foreheads pressed against each other, Kazuma and Aqua entered the blissful stage of aftersex cuddles.
"You're mine…"
"You'll have to share." Kazuma nibbled on her earlobe which elicited a tired moan from the sweaty girl.
"I don't wanna…" Aqua's hands roamed on his back.
Lips pressed on her neck to make a love bite and lick over the reddened skin. "Spoiled, spoiled goddess..."
They stared at each other in complete silence, realizing but not vocalizing what they felt. The two had stuck together when nobody else wanted them in an uncaring world and this would remain to be the case until one of them or both ceased to exist.
The useless goddess and her HikiNEET champion.
Time to make sure it stayed that way.
"Where are you going?" Aqua asked him in a tired voice, the aftermath of two days without sleep and the exhausting sex catching up with her.
"Just a shower and a small errant. Do you want something?" Kazuma had to bite his tongue until blood came. The truth enchantment wasn't happy with the answer, although an omission of details technically wasn't a lie. Kicking the royal army off their lawn shouldn't take long and could be classified as an errant in the broadest sense.
"I really want some bubbly."
"It's eight in the morning you boozehound!"
"Muh… I'm so thirsty I could lick it off your skin…"
"I guess one bottle wouldn't hurt. Be right back!"
