Kazuma wanted nothing more than to continue resting in bed until, at least, noon, although it would be better if he could laze around until two or three.

Unfortunately, he was quite sure that Aqua had done something to him. He couldn't feel the pervasive scratchiness underneath him provided by the hay they slept on, he couldn't hear Aqua either getting up, trying to wake him up, or snoozing away next to him, and he could feel a warm light on his face, which didn't usually happen with his back to the window.

More than that, the absolute silence around him was also odd – the sounds of adventurers getting ready for the day had died off some with the onset of winter, but there were plenty who had decided to try and wait the winter out in the stables… or they'd purchased Degurechaff's insulated sleeping bags.

He sighed internally. What to do…

Well, he could pretend that he had woken up naturally and try to dodge whatever Aqua was about to do to him – she'd been a much bigger pain in his ass recently than when they'd first arrived – or…

He flew out of bed, his eyes snapping open as he raised an arm, ready to smack Aqua with a Drain Touch…

He stopped yelling. He seemed to be… in a featureless, infinite void that he couldn't see any details in. He frowned – had he died? In his sleep? Aqua would mock him for this no doubt-

Then the void ended, and his eyes widened. He was not, actually, in a dark void he couldn't see the end of, but instead on a stage being watched by a crowd which was now… cheering?

Although he panicked for a moment, he soon realized that he was both in his regular clothing instead of his pajamas and that, as the only person on the stage, they must have been cheering for him.

Just as he began to smirk and ready himself for a bow, a puff of smoke surrounded him, leaving him coughing for a moment. When it cleared he saw…

Well, they looked quite… odd. It was a… person, probably, whose skin was glowing blue and see-through, although Kazuma couldn't tell exactly what their face looked like. One eye was glowing brighter than anything Kazuma had seen besides the sun, while the other looked mostly normal, besides the fact that it looked sort of… diseased?

That, and the second eye was also slitted like a cat's eye. Additionally, whatever this thing was was also naked – not that it did anything for Kazuma; its blue outline was masculine and, additionally, it didn't appear to have anything below the figurative belt. The only thing it had on were a pair of white gloves.

All in all, Kazuma had to conclude it was either a very unfortunate person, or one of Aqua's coworkers. Or maybe it was a Demon or some kind of weird undead?

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Gods and Goddesses, Deities of all ages! Please give another round of applause to our guest today: Kazuma Satou!"

There was another round of applause, and Kazuma did get the chance to bow this time as the Russian-sounding announcer stepped back to allow him his time in the spotlight. The being began to walk around, and Kazuma very suddenly realized that his bed had disappeared while he'd taken a look at the announcer.

"Hey, can I know what's going on?" he asked.

The announcer continued to pace around the dais they were on. "As you all know, we're here today to witness the skill and guile of the chosen contestant! How many of our chosen games will they be able to complete before time runs out? We shall see!"

"Hey, listen to me! What's going on? Who are you?" he asked again. Once more, he was pointedly ignored-

The crowd began to laugh at his questions, and Kazuma scowled as the announcer smirked at him. "So, are you ready to play, Mr. Kazuma?" he asked.

"Of course not, blue and dickless! Tell me where I am! My teammates won't let me rot here, you know-" he said, cutting off his own sentence as another light illuminated an area shrouded in darkness.

On second thought, his teammates probably didn't have a say in that, considering all three of them were tied up and gagged, suspended above a giant pit.

Of course, one of the three seemed to be enjoying the experience far too much, and when the pit began spewing fire out, Kazuma could have sworn that that muscles-for-brains Crusader swung herself towards a particularly tall pillar of flame.

Kazuma turned towards the being in blue that seemed to be waiting for a different answer. "So, are you ready to play, Mr. Kazuma?"

"I don't think that's the question you should be asking, but sure."

The next few hours passed by him in a whirlwind. Sometimes, he was playing games against varied, indescribable things even more weird than the announcer – the announcer went by Seban, if the others he had played poker with had offered genuine information – in games as simple as Texas Hold 'em and games as complicated as Takeshi's Castle.

Other times, he was playing very simple games against the announcer – Chess and Ro-Sham-Bo being the ones he recognized the most. He won all of them, of course, but when he didn't win fast enough, his party members would be lowered towards the pit – which wasn't just full of fire, but snakes, male orcs, needles and hay, and The Void – not that Darkness minded, of course, but he was fairly sure they'd keep her out of the pit and have her nag him to death if they really wanted to punish her.

As they finished and Kazuma won their fiftieth game of RPS-1001 in a row, the clapping died down yet again. The announcer sighed and pulled out another chess board – it was a much more common eight by eight board, but that didn't mean the pieces wouldn't be wacky for some inconceivable reason – but as Kazuma got up to stretch, the announcer cleared his throat as the crowd began to quiet down.

"Are you ready to play?" he asked.

Kazuma sighed. "Yeah." He hoped this wasn't some kind of purgatory, because this was getting pretty boring, if he were honest.

"Wait!" he said, and Kazuma stopped his hand. He had been about to make the first move – the pieces had appeared suddenly, but he'd gotten used to things popping in and out of existence after the first hour.

"Kazuma, I have to admit to you… in contrast to you, I cannot play games."

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, I think that was pretty obvious," he muttered, wary of the fact that the thing's expression didn't seem too torn up about that fact.

He wasn't the easiest person he'd ever played a game against – Aqua took the cake – but he wasn't that good.

Speaking of her, the three of them were being raised up to the ceiling, while five red curtains he hadn't noticed before had the spotlights focused on them.

"That's why we found strong rivals for you."

He was grinning now. Kazuma was not. The curtains began to rise,

"I invite Tet, previous God of Disboard!"

A child, dressed in tacky clothing with weird eyes and weirder eyes.

"Blank, the current God of Disboard!"

A brother-sister duo who wore ill-fitting clothing and two halves of a crown and couldn't look more unalike.

"Revi, Prince of Elroad!"

An even younger kid with red hair and wearing clothing that looked vaguely familiar.

"Eris, Goddess of Luck!"

Hey! He'd just seen her recently… though, he wasn't sure how long ago-

"And… 12th World Champion, International Grandmaster, Merited Master of Sports of the USSR: Anatoly Karpov!"

An aging man in a business suit.

All of them looked eager as they stepped down, waving to the crowds or bearing down on him. Four more chess sets had appeared around him, and-

"W- What!? Where'd you go?! You're- This is- WHAT'S WITH THE DARK SOULS MUSIC!?"

-OxOxO-

With a start, Kazuma shot up, blinking rapidly…

What a strange dream… though, he couldn't remember much. He knew it had been… highly distressing, though…

Wings flapping outside his and Aqua's room startled him out of his thoughts, and, after glancing out the window and realizing how early it was – it was only 10, probably – he decided to curl up in the pile of hay for as long as Aqua wouldn't bother him.

He didn't feel like doing much – he was still recovering from getting his head cut off, after all – and though the thought struck him, for a moment, to find a place to gamble and earn some money, he quashed it quickly.

No, he was still recovering from getting his head cut off. It was only right he got to stay asleep as long as he wanted…

Though, how far could he push it? He wanted food soon, after all… could he guilt Megumin or Aqua into feeding him while he laid about, or maybe he could ask Darkness to, and she'd rationalize it as getting humiliated as a maid…?

He shrugged. He'd decide later. For now…

-OxOxO-

As she crouched down, Lolisa tried not to let her trepidation show on her face. She wouldn't – couldn't – know what Lolisa had actually done, but…

"Thank you, Lolisa. I'm sure he won't try to blackmail me or Visha again?" she asked.

Lolisa shrugged. "Probably not, but who knows? I'm sure you'll throw him in prison if he does it again, right?" she asked.

Absently, she nodded, and Lolisa left quickly.

As punishment for blackmailing Viktoriya into not telling Tanya about her affections early, Lolisa had been hired to give Kazuma a horrible nightmare.

Lolisa… couldn't. Kazuma was one of their best customers, and it wasn't really in her nature. Besides, what Tanya didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Not that Lolisa knew, either. She'd just set her spells up like normal, but instead of giving them direction or substance in order to fulfill either his own or Tanya's wishes, she'd simply willed the dreams to be… wacky.

She didn't know what he'd seen, and, in all honesty, Kazuma would probably forget soon, if he hadn't already.

Happily, she drifted into town, unaware of the fact that, in several weeks' time, she would wish that she had given Kazuma the best dream of his life for the punishment Viktoriya would enact on the Succubi of Axel.

-OxOxO-

A/N 1: If you were wondering what nightmare Tanya was talking about in Chapter 45 of TTtC, this is it.

I mostly wrote this as a reference to that one hilarious meme of the kid having to play Anatoly Karpov on some Russian game show. I found it funny and wrote this months ago.

Also, 'Seban' is a twisting of the letters S, B, and A, or 'Smash Brothers Announcer.' His design also takes from that series, with his hands being the Master and Crazy Hand, his body being Tabuu, and his eyes being Galeem and Dharkon. Don't ask where I got the idea, because I do not remember.

A/N 2: A big thank you to lekille and WarmasterOku for being Ultra Patrons.