AN: I hopeyou enjoy :D

Part 1

We left for Keele's dungeon the next day, with the smallest possible amount of hope in our hearts. Why? Because of the rumors.

The word on the street was that a demon kings general had moved into the dungeon. Great, that makes two of the bastards. As we got to the clearing where our fate resided, and a little hoard of enemies shaped like dolls waddled around the green expanse.

One quick spell from Aqua cleared those out, but not before we saw one kamikaze. This was going to be trash wasn't it.

We saw another that Aqua had missed, but I decided to try a skill I had picked up recently to take it out, snipe was it's name. It was exactly what it sounded like, it let you snipe things, but it did it by maximising the effectiveness and distance traveled by the arrow shot using the skill. It quickly dealt with the doll, and I kept the bow on my back in case I needed it again.

In preparation for going into the dungeon, I had learnt a night vision skill.

Even with that, it would still be a pain in the ass to do this mission, but it had to be done.

As I made my way into the dungeon, detect enemy started triggering constantly, around the same rate as a gun or the money leaving the bank accounts of the players of that Gacha game I used to be addicted to.

They were all small flags, the same creatures I had noticed outside. I made sure Aqua was on full alert but I wasn't in the highest hopes.

Using detect traps we had been safe so far and then, a massive flag appeared. Even worse, it was making its way towards us.

"Shit, run!" I shouted to rest of the group.

We bolted up the stairs, and the signal disappeared.

Strange.

We made our way back down repeating the process for he same thing to happen again.

This repeated a few times, until at one point at the mouth of the cave I shouted "Oh for fucks sake, this is getting annoying"

And then I froze.

Why, you ask?

Because I heard the words, "My my, that's the whole point!"

Part 2

Turning around, a tall figure wearing a mask and suit stood in front of me.

"Ah you could be of use to me!" Vanir proclaimed in an booming voice, probably just to piss me off. "Would you be able to be able to remove the small magic barrier from the centre of the dungeon?"

We didn't make the barrier, and if a demon kings general couldn't break it there was no way we could.

To be frank, we were fucked if we fought, but I couldn't see this playing out any other way.

So I said fuck it.

I thought he would probably have some kind of weapon, so I used steal and jumped backwards, expecting an immediate attack except I didn't get a massive blade or any weapon in my hands.

I got a black and white mask and there was a pile of dirt where the general stood.

And then, more dirt formed around the mask making me drop it, and watch in horror as the same general formed again from the mask.

Was he... invincible?

"So you really want to pick a fight with moi? The general rumoured to be stronger than the demon king? Quite a brave one aren't you to challenge the all seeing Vanir?"

You WHAT?! Stronger than the fucking demon king?! Shit, shit, shit!

I went for a slash with my blade, and he just used his strange abilities to duck under it at an impossibly low level to the ground. Then I had an idea. This guy was a demon right? Then Aqua should be able to hurt him.

I back stepped again, screaming at Aqua to purify him.

And she tried. A few times actually, but he was unfazed.

We were fucked. Darkness tried to hit him with his sword, and missed by a mile as she normally does. Megumin had started to chant a few times, but I had stopped her each time. If she used explosion at that close a range, we'd be ash before we knew what his us.

This went on for a while, with our fates hanging in the balance, until we were all exhausted. During the entire fight, we hadn't landed a single hit and he hadn't even tried to attack.

"Ah well, it was fun while it lasted" he said.

"Wa- What do you mean?" Aqua replied, notable terror in her voice.

"Round one of course!" He shouted back, obviously holding back laughter.

And so, our nightmare started again as he used a stamina spell on all of us, recovering all our stamina and mana.

Round 2 was upon us.

Part 3

Attack after attack, round after round, he stood untouched as our sweat drenched us and our bodies ached. Every facet of my being wanted this to end, and I was going to numb that I had stopped caring who would win. And then it happened, we had cornered him to the point when we attacked in unison, the bastard hadn't made it out and I had pierced him with my blade. A shinning hope in this void of existence. While it didn't have too much effect, it rallied our spirits for the first time in hours, and an idea sprang to the forefront of my mind.

If I could get Aqua to bless my dagger, hitting him again would do some damage.

I placed smy dagger in the floor and slid it towards Aqua with my foot while making a prayer pose. Hopefully she understood. I fought with the general alone using a small knife I kept for cutting vines and the lot, it wasn't that sharp but it'd have to do.

After some more back and forth of slashing and dodging. I got a strange instinct to duck down, and as I did I saw my blade gleaming a toned down rainbow of colours flying over my head with the blade pointed towards where my head had just been, but this was my chance! I grabbed the handle of my blade and swung forward, keeping the momentum it already had while adding some force of my own, and plunged it deep into the generals chest.

Yes!

But when I pulled my blade out,

He had already regenerated.

Horror filled my soul, and then left nothing but a void where my feelings were supposed to be. But then, anger. Pure seething anger.

I lost control, and launched a flurry of attacks, moving faster than ever before and every graze and cut I landed on fueled my rage as I watched them heal in an instant.

"Oh my, may I have finally found the one I was looking for?"

The pompous sound of his voice angered me more and more until I felt a true feeling of... madness.

Then, an idea popped into my mind, god please let this work.

Aqua had cast a spell on my blade, using her arch priest abilities. What if Megumin could do the same with his mask? That could work, but he was too close.

Hold on... that would work!

"Aqua, strength buff me and magic buff Megumin to the max!"

"On it!"

"Megumin, start casting explosion on his mask and only his mask!"

"Kazuma, it's too close!"

"That doesn't matter, just do it!"

"Darkness get ready to brace us!"

"Okay!" She shot back.

With it all ready, I didn't have long to act but I could do this. I had realised I had to destroy the mask, but I couldn't do it until I got it away from us, and now that plan was in motion.

"Okay, let's go! Steal!"

Using steal on Vanir, his mask entered my hands and using some rope, I tied it to an arrow. Then, using a combination of max strength and snipe, fired it a few miles away, right as Megumin's explosion triggered. We grouped behind Darkness as the shockwave hit us, but thanks to her durability, we were okay. A small piece of shrapnel few nearby, and I recognised it immediately. It was a chunk of Vanir's mask, showing to me my plan had worked.

I screamed with joy, and exhaustion and so many other feelings because I had done it, no we had done it. We had killed a Demon Kings General.

Part 4

I checked my adventure card to check how much exp I had gained, due to us being officially registered as a party, we shared it between us and the kill would appear on all of our kill lists.

Looking at my card though, I noticed a section I hadn't noticed before, a cursed section. And under curses I saw some text which confused me quite a lot. In strange, glitched text, I spotted the words 'Curse of Madness'

Weird.

"Huh, since when was there a curses section on the adventures card?"

"There isn't." They all replied.

"There is its right here-" as I went to show them, it had disappeared.

"Huh never mind, I must be too tired."

We made our way back to town as I tried to forget about what I had seen, but it had all seemed to be so real, too real for it to be my eyes playing tricks.

We made it back to town, and wondered why we were getting concerned looks until I realised that we all looked like shit.

We stumbled our way into the tavern, and showed our kill lists to the guild lady.

"Kazuma-san and his party have defeated Vanir, a demon general!" She announced.

From there, a massive party started, I'd never seen such a crowd.

At one point the guild lady pulled me aside and asked me something I hadn't thought about.

"Where would you want the money to go?"

"Eh?-" Oh shit! The bounty!

"Oh uhhhh... you guys have banks here right?"

"Of course! The guild manages money for adventures most of the time but you could have the banks sort it if you'd like?"

"Nah, I'll just let you guys handle it if that's alright."

"Sure!" She smiled sweetly.

"Wait a sec... How much actually is the bounty anyway?"

"Oh you didn't know? 12 million eris"

I froze. I. Was. Rich!

I shared the good news with the rest of the tavern, and for the rest of the night,unsurprisingly, drinks were on me. I spent 1 million eris in total that night. And the next morning, I left to do something I'd wanted to do for a while.

Part 5

I bought a nice cottage for a million eris in the outskirts of axel, still within the city walls but on the nice side, with a nice front and back garden. It had two bedrooms, which was unneeded, and a massive bath! Once that was built into the ground and could house multiple people without them touching. I split the money evenly between everyone (and split the bill for the drinks between us all) leaving me with 2.75 million eris to spend.

Aqua spent most of hers on alcohol, but also bought the cottage right next to mine. Just great.

Darkness placed most of it into a savings account, but bought some clothes and jewellery.

The only problem was Megumin. She sent 3 million eris to her family (apparently they were quite poor) and spent the rest of it on a new staff without thinking. So poor Megumin was still living in some dusty shack on the furthest edge of town. Also she was completely broke, without a single eris to her name.

I felt bad for her, and would have suggested she moved in with Aqua but Darkness had already moved into her spare room, so despite the fact I knew I'd get no end of shit from the others, I invited her to live with me.

And of course she said yes.

Sigh. This could only end badly.

Part 6

I spent half a million eris decorating the house and buying furniture for me and Megumin, but it was worth it. The others hadn't given me much shit because even they could tell I was just being nice to a good friend. Megumin was a great roommate too, clean, doesn't need much and is good company. We grew a lot closer in those first few weeks, and I'm glad we did. As a group we had game nights weekly, and spent a lot of time together. And due to me only living with Megumin and no Aqua to piss me off, life was genuinely great. I was happy, really happy and things between me and Megumin didn't really change.

Until they did.

We had just been fighting giant toads for a quest, and we both came back slimy and gross, so of course we both raced to the bath. And after a short argument and Megumin almost seeing what she called my 'Excalibur', we ended up wrapping ourselves in a towel and going in together with the towels still on so we could bathe without seeing each other nude.

You know, I really had just seen Megumin as a friend and nothing more until then. But there was something about how her cheeks flushed and her pale skin glistened that made me feel a feeling I had only ever felt for one person before now, and that went so bad that I became a shut in, I took those feelings and shoved them out of my heart and into oblivion so that I may never feel them again, but I am sure of one thing.

After that day, that moment, I don't think I'll ever be the same.

AN: Hello! I'm not dead, well on the outside at least. This was the first fight scene I've ever written so I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry for the long waits it takes me a while to write because some days I can't be arsed and some days I can't find the right words. Sorry about that. Anyway have a good one and I'll hopefully see you soon with the next chapter :D