Kazuma blinked in surprise as he appeared in his usual chair across from Eris, momentarily shocked by the realization that he had just died a seventh time. That's...gotta be a record, right?
"At this rate, I better get a prize for how many times I've kicked the bucket already…"
"Kazuma?" Eris addressed with a sickly sweet tone, sitting across from him with a forced smile on her face. "If you recall, what was the last thing I asked of you after your previous death?"
Kazuma gulped, realizing he was in deep shit this time. "Uh...to not do that again?"
"Yes, that sounds about right, doesn't it?" Eris agreed, her smile straining further by the second. "So pray tell. Why, exactly, are you sitting across from me for the second time in seven days?"
Kazuma was getting more and more uncomfortable by the second. He wasn't used to seeing the normally kind-hearted Eris restrain herself from throttling him before. She was beginning to frighten him a bit. He'd have to play it cool if he wanted to get out of here unscathed.
He scratched the back of his neck, a bad habit of his whenever he knew he was in trouble. "Uh, well...alcohol really makes a man say the stupidest things, huh?"
"Well, I suppose I wouldn't know, would I?" Eris retorted, before sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Kazuma, I just...how is it possible to die once in one week? Truly?"
"Don't look at me like that! Aren't you the one who blessed me with a ridiculous amount of luck? I don't even know why or how I've managed to die this many times! Honest!"
Eris sighed again, but seemed to compose herself slightly as she sat up straighter in her seat, fixing Kazuma with a long, hard look.
"Well, if you really have no idea how you've managed it, then I suppose that means there's only one course of action." She stated, the smallest of smiles finally gracing her face. "I will contact Lady Aqua, and the moment you are revived, you will effectively be on 'house arrest'."
Kazuma didn't know what that meant, but it couldn't mean anything good for him. "E-Eris-sama, could you define 'house arrest', please?"
"Oh, certainly!" Eris chirped, now far too pleasant for Kazuna's liking. "You will be restricted to the confines of your mansion and the surrounding grounds. No more adventures, no more picking fights with generals or megalomaniacs. For the foreseeable future, until I am convinced you are capable of going any larger amount of time without dying, you are effectively grounded."
Damn, Kazuma hadn't felt this kind of shame since the first time his parents found out he was letting his grades slip. He really screwed up royally this time if Eris of all people was grounding him.
"I...I don't really know what to say." He admitted bashfully, truly feeling remorseful and (slightly) embarrassed. "I'm sorry it got this bad, Eris."
"I know you are, Kazuma, and I appreciate that. However, until I'm sure you're safe, there will have to be restrictions." The goddess of luck assured him, before standing and making her way over to his side, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Just until we know that you're safe. After all, your friends are quite worried about you."
Friends...Normally, that would've made Kazuma feel slightly more relieved, but with the way his friends have been behaving lately coupled with the wet dream he had about them last night...that only made his heart sink into his stomach.
"Eris-sama?" He asked quietly, meeting the goddess's eyes with slight hesitation. "My friends...do you think they're acting weird? You've mentioned checking in on our adventures before, so I was wondering if you had any idea why they've been acting so bizarre lately."
Eris blinked once, then twice, then gave the boy a reassuring smile only a true goddess like her could give. "Well of course, is it not obvious? They care about you, truly and deeply. That's never changed, Kazuma."
...To be honest, he was expecting a little more than that. Kazuma knew Eris was a trusted source, probably one of if not the only sane individual he's ever met on two worlds, so he knew she could be trusted.
So why was he still scared on the inside?
"I, uh, I know that. I...care about them too, obviously." Kazuma replied with a slightly nervous chuckle. "But..is there something else? Like...maybe they're being controlled somehow, or something like that?"
Eris blanked for a moment as she stared at Kazuma, trying to work out whether or not he was being serious. After about ten seconds of awkward silence, she determined that he was.
"What on earth makes you think that?"
"I mean, it kinda makes sense, doesn't it?" Kazuma insisted, clearly thoroughly convinced. "They've never really acted this far out of character before I died in that dungeon, so maybe there was some kind of entity or dark magic in there! I'll admit, I don't really know how magic works, but it's not impossible, right?!"
Eris paused before slowly responding, "...No, nothing's impossible when magic's involved, but Kazuma- -"
"So that's it, right!"
"Eh!?"
Of course, that had to be it, there was no other explanation! Nope, none at all! It may have been a working theory at best, but it certainly was better than the alternative.
"So the girls are being manipulated by some dark force. That's...tricky, obviously, but maybe Wiz can help them!" Kazuma rambled, completely missing or willfully ignoring Eris' blatant confusion. "And I'd have to do it in the house, right? Since I'm still grounded and all."
The goddess of luck eventually ceased her attempts to get Kazuma to listen and let out yet another sigh. She did, however, straighten herself once more and made sure the boy was at full attention before getting a word in edgewise.
"Kazuma, you're a bright young lad, and I don't want to insult your intelligence by spelling it out for you. If every goddess did that, then everybody would know all the secrets of the universe. But I know that, in due time, you'll figure it out. I have complete faith in you."
"Uh..thanks, Eris-sama." Kazuma replied, the slightest edge of what might have been realization in his eyes before a bright, blue light appeared above them, followed by a familiar and very agitated voice.
"KAZUMA SATOU, GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK OUT HERE THIS INSTANT!" Aqua shrieked, making both the goddess and adventurer flinch at her booming voice.
"And that's my cue to leave," said Kazuma, internally relieved to hear the familiar shrieking insults of his blue-haired idiot. "Thank you again, Eris-sama. I'll try to be on my best behavior going forward."
"I should hope so. Until we see each other again, then." Eris agreed with a nod, before jabbing the young man in the chest with her finger as she scowled playfully. "And do not come back here for at least a month! I would prefer never, but...I'd miss our talks."
The virgin adolescent's heart fluttered in his chest at that last bit. Why did Eris have to be so damn cute? It's just not fair!
And then he was drifting upwards towards the light, bracing himself for the very angry goddess and likely irate mage and crusader he would have to deal with when he returned to the real world.
Eris watched him disappear, and sighed to herself while shaking her head in disbelief and slight amusement. Only Kazuma Satou could manage to be so smart and so dense, all at once.
As he feared, Kazuma regained consciousness and opened his eyes to reveal three distraught ladies crowding him. With nothing substantial to say at the moment, he tried to alleviate the tension the only way he knew how: by joking.
"H-hey, that's the seventh time I've died, right? Lucky Sevens, huh? Maybe that'll boost my luck stat."
All three women glared venomously at the boy before them. Megumin looked about ready to throttle him before Aqua beat her to the punch, grabbing Kazuma by his shirt and shaking him violently, babbling all the while.
"YOU STUPID SHUT-IN NEET DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED WE WERE?!" She screeched mercilessly as Kazuma sputtered uselessly in turn. "I SHOULD STRANGLE YOU RIGHT NOW, HAVE ERIS SEND YOU BACK, AND THEN DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!"
Despite being shaken ruthlessly by an angry goddess, Kazuma was eventually able to remind Aqua that his body was still recovering and that shaking him like a piggy bank wasn't helping the healing process. Reluctantly, she released him, though the scowl on her face never faltered.
"You are lucky that another mage was present in the hall, Kazuma!" Darkness interjected as Kazuma was hauled to his feet, the crusader fixing him with her own withering glare. "Had they not used Teleport to get you here faster, it is quite likely that...that…"
Darkness faltered and trailed off, shaking her head and muttering something about a foolish boy before Megumin grabbed Kazuma by the arm, earning his attention as she leered up at him.
"You have no idea how much you freaked us out just now." She growled, eyes surprisingly red, and not the normal kind either. She...actually looked like she had been crying. "You better have a good explanation for whatever happened to you."
Purposefully dodging the question, Kazuma surveyed his surroundings. True to Darkness' word, he had been teleported back to the mansion.
Now that his eyes were wandering, Kazuma spotted some sort of anomaly on his right ankle. It was almost invisible, but the outline made it out to be an ankle bracelet, like the kind people are forced to wear when on...house arrest…
I was wondering how Eris was gonna pull that off, he idly thought to himself, trying to reach down for it only to have it dematerialize before his fingers could graze it.
"Did you see that!?" he shouted suddenly, shocking his party just enough to take them out of their pissed state.
"No, what?" Megumin asked, confused but still the faintest bit annoyed. Darkness and Aqua shared the Crimson Demon's sentiment.
It was at that moment that Kazuma connected the dots. Eris must've cloaked it with her goddess powers to make the ankle bracelet imperceivable to everyone but himself.
Wonder why Aqua hasn't already sensed it then, he pondered briefly before answering his own question. Oh wait, that's right, it's Aqua. She couldn't sense her way out of a paper bag.
"It's nothing, don't worry about it." He assured them, though none of the girls looked particularly convinced. "Listen, I know that I kinda messed up this time, but I swear to you it's not my fault!"
"You actually expect us to believe you?" Megumin questioned, still looking very unimpressed. "What killed you this time, then?"
"One of the Demon King's generals, that's what."
Immediately, all three of the girls startled slightly, which almost made Kazuma irritated. How the hell were they expecting he died?
"One of the generals was here? In Axel?!" Darkness questioned, one of her hands dropping to her sword as if attackers would leap out of the shadows at any second. "Why didn't you tell us?!"
Kazuma deadpanned. "Really? You're asking the guy who just came back to life that question?"
Embarrassed (and almost definitely taking pleasure out of it), Darkness fidgeted for a microsecond before slowly removing her hands from her sword's hilt, her flushed face becoming drenched in sweat.
"G-g-good point. I retract my previous comment…"
"Good god, you really are a freak." Kazuma groaned, earning him an ecstatic moan and further souring his mood. Well, at least that was par for the course when it came to Darkness. "And back to the point at hand, there were two of them. Some snooty priestess who zapped me with a murder ray and this tall mage lady with pink hair and yellow eyes."
Aqua seemed to perk up at that last description. "Hang on a sec, 'pink hair and yellow eyes'? And she's in allegiance with the Devil King? Don't tell me it was that hussy, Wolbach."
Kazuma's eyes widened. It was so unlike Aqua to be observant like that. Maybe his theory on the three of them being mind-controlled had some credence to it. "Yeah, actually, you know her?"
"She's just some two-bit dark goddess who thought she was hot shit for a while before getting booted out of the Heavenly Council. Serves her right for practicing smelly dark arts."
"Huh. Well, that's...something." Kazuma admitted, surprised by Aqua's apparent knowledge. She really did have her moments, mind-control or not. "Now that I think about it, she didn't seem particularly pleased to be there in the first place. She kinda looked...uncomfortable, I guess?"
"Well, I can't imagine why." Aqua scoffed, apparently thoroughly miffed at the very reminder of Wolbach's existence. "Probably just mad she didn't get to smite you herself."
Kazuma frowned, as that really wasn't the feeling he had gotten from his brief experience with the dark mage, but Aqua was a goddess, so useless or not he trusted her judgment to a degree.
"So, clearly this death wasn't my fault, right? Since they were sent to kill me and all." He defended, earning him three sparse glares. "Ok, fine. Not entirely my fault then."
"Regardless," Darkness began, "we have agreed to make sure you stay put and get rest. You still have yet to fully recover from your last accident."
"Oh, come on! Isn't Resurrection supposed to be a cure-all anyway?!" Kazuma sputtered in exasperation, vehemently fighting for any amount of leeway he could earn given his 'house arrest'.
"Yes and no. Physical wounds are typically completely healed when someone is Resurrected." Aqua confirmed, before crossing her arms and leaning forward with a point grin. "But you'll still be mentally exhausted for a few days, especially considering you didn't finish healing from your previous injury. Put simply, you're going nowhere for the foreseeable future."
With no strong comeback, Kazuma's shoulders sagged and he sighed in defeat. He had to accept that, until further notice, he was going to be trapped in a mansion with three pissed off women who are almost definitely under the influence of dark magic. It wouldn't surprise Kazuma if this somehow tied back to Serena and Wolbach.
A few minutes later, he was practically dragged to his room and ordered to rest, much to his annoyance. However, while Darkness and Aqua filed out while quietly bickering, Megumin stayed a few moments longer, not really saying anything.
"Uh...is there something else you need?" Kazuma asked, making the young girl jump slightly like she had been shocked, before she cleared her throat and nodded.
"Yeah, actually. There...kinda is." She admitted quietly, looking quite nervous. Kazuma's stomach started to feel ever so slightly butterfly-esque as he waited eagerly for the question. "Wolbach. The other woman who attacked you. You said she looked uncomfortable?"
Oh. That wasn't what he had been expecting.
"Uh, yeah. Kinda." Kazuma confirmed, sitting up slightly. "She just had this really strange aura to her, like she didn't want to be there in the slightest. Hell, those last few seconds before I got whammied by Serena, she kinda looked...surprised?"
"I see." Megumin replied carefully, still looking quite uncertain. Kazuma quirked an eyebrow, and despite his better judgment, leaned forward slightly and offered the mage a concerned look.
"Are you ok?"
"I should be asking you that, you know." Megumin retorted playfully, some of her usual spark returning as she leaned back, shooting Kazuma a small smile. "Get some rest, Kazuma."
A small meow was heard as Chomusuke darted past Megumin's feet and hopped up onto Kazuma's bed, lying down next to him like a small loaf of burnt bread. With bat wings.
"Huh. Look at that." Kazuma hummed, reaching down and stroking the cat's fur gently, shooting Megumin his own cheeky smile. "I have a new best friend."
The young mage narrowed her eyes playfully back at him. "I'll allow my familiar to sleep with you tonight only because you got a boo-boo. But seriously, don't strain yourself anymore, man. We're worried about you…"
"I know, and I promise I'll be more careful going forward." Kazuma assured her, briefly glancing back down at his ankle bracelet with a tired sigh. "I don't plan on getting out too much for a while, either. So don't worry, I'm all good."
Megumin didn't look fully convinced, but nodded all the same and left Kazuma to his rest. The young man finally laid back down on his bed, shooting his newfound feline roommate a small smile. He wasn't sure why Chomusuke was so attached to him, but he didn't mind the company in the slightest.
"I tell ya, there's something about the girls that doesn't sit right with me," Kazuma talked to the cat, who was more concerned with drifting off to sleep than listening to the teen's rambles. "But if Eris has faith in me, then I know I'll get to the bottom of this soon. I hope. Otherwise it'll jeopardize everything I've built up in this world..."
Gradually, Kazuma began to drift off to sleep, silently vowing to himself that he would get to the bottom of whatever was plaguing his friends and making them act so strange. He owed it to them, for being his first real friends in so very long.
Serena was pleased with herself. Quite so, in fact. After all, she had just eliminated the primary threat to the Demon King's plans...or at the very least, a very irritating thorn in her lord's side. Either way, she was more than satisfied with her performance.
Wolbach, on the other hand...
"Alright, out with it." She declared suddenly turning on her heel and fixing the dark mage with an impatient look. "You've been sulking since you teleported us out. Clearly, I've pissed you off somehow, so spit it out."
Wolbach huffed audibly, and Serena quirked an eyebrow in disbelief. While she was entirely devoted to Regina, she was not above admitting that Wolbach was a fearsome force of nature on the battlefield. So seeing the goddess pout like an angsty teenager was immensely irritating at times.
"You didn't have to kill him."
The statement surprised Serena, both due to the actual sentiment of the words as well as the genuine anger that seemed to tinge Wolbach's tone.
"Excuse me?" She sputtered in surprise, prompting Wolbach to repeat her previous statement.
"You didn't need to kill Satou." Wolbach reiterated, scowling in apparent disdain. "There were better ways of solving the problem outside of killing him in cold blood."
"Really? You can look me in the eyes and say that?" Serena scoffed, her surprise giving way to amusement. "He said it himself; four of our colleges have died at his hand or from the efforts of his merry band of morons. He was an imminent threat-"
"That you chose to exterminate instead of entering any other solution!" Wolbach countered adamantly. "You heard him yourself, he cares not for our conflict. You could have bargained with him, even swayed him to our side, but instead you chose to kill him like a dog because he tested your patience."
"Really? Is that what you think made me kill him?" Serena questioned, eyes sharpening as she stalked closer, staring down the goddess with little fear. "Face it, Wol. Satou was a clear and present threat, and I took care of him accordingly. You're just going soft."
Wolbach's fists curled reflexivity as her eyes shone with unholy power, resulting in a tense stand-off between the generals as each waited for the other to move. Their moment ended prematurely when an unamused "ahem" emanated from nearby, prompting both generals to startle and turn in the direction of the noise.
"Well, you two seem to have been busy." The armored woman who had been watching nearby mused, her cold golden eyes piercing both of them as she stalked forward, making both of her fellow general's shiver. "So...what exactly do I have to report back to my father?"
SPEICAL THANKS TO 0NE SWOOD GUY FOR HELPING ME WRITE THIS CHAPTER!
