The Winter Shogun Steps Forth:
Another week went by and Maximus was sitting at the table within the Guild Hall. He and Aqua had wrapped up a performance where she would control water and he used fire for a show that dazzled everyone. The two made each element take on different forms and danced above everyone. He smiled after remembering how everyone complemented them and sat there wondering about the rest of his party.
"It's still strange how no one has seen Kazuma for several weeks since we left town a little while back. Even Darkness, Megumin, and Wiz are having troubles finding out where he has gone to. I had first thought he was still under the employ of Lord Alderp, but that has not been the case." He paused his thoughts as he glanced at the Quest Board.
He noticed nearly all of the easy quests had been taken down. Due to winter arriving a lot earlier this year than previous, one adventurer had commented. The snow was already gathering all around and a vast majority of the weaker animals began to hibernate until spring leaving only the tougher ones around. He then thought about their money situation and how they were now in debt with the entire town.
"What a load this has turned out to be, Aqua's flood darn near destroyed some houses and ruined the streets in town. The officials tallied it out to one-hundred million in debt. I manage to store the water into large storage containers by the Guild Hall, rebuilt the homes, and cleaned the streets, but they insist I owe them something. I was able to talk them down to half that, even though it should have been no harm no foul after everything was repaired and meticulously cleaned. These folks are quite the greedy bunch to say the least." He paused as he saw Aqua walk in with the other two.
He waved them down and they began to make their way to him.
"Then again, the Headman of this town is under the employ of Lord Alderp and he is just as greedy and rotten. From the few stories I have heard about this Headman, the two might as well be carbon copies of each other. It seems I am in an uphill bout to escape every foul thing in this town now. I manage to repair my reputation with ease, but still everything is far from great." He finished his thought and both Darkness and Megumin greeted him.
"Maximus, it is good to see you are ready to go on our next hard quest with an impossible monster to battle against. Oh, how I have missed going on any quest with you and Aqua gone for so long. Please, can we go on a super hard one!?" She took hold of his shoulders and begged as though she were a child.
Maximus sighed, remembering how peaceful it was with just him and Aqua spending time together without the others.
"Right on cue as always with your unbelievable masochist thoughts and attitudes." He said feeling annoyed with her tone and took hold of her arms. "If we do go on a quest, I have half a mind to let you live out one of your fantasies of being captured. In fact, I just might purposefully allow it to happen so you can be tortured in all ways that I can only describe it as deeply disturbing; an ordinary person would squeal at the mere thought of it. Not to mention if you want it so badly, I would bet no one would give it to you because of the enjoyment coming from it rather than not wanting it." He paused once more, standing up from his seat. "In fact, why don't you go pick out a quest where you would get ravaged by a pack of wolves. I am sure you will not be in any real danger considering how tough you are and have displayed in the past." He began to walk away from her, heading to the bar.
His annoyance was churning into anger as all her moments of delving into her masochist ways began to reappear in his mind. He sat down on the stool in order to get away from her.
"Goodness sakes, it has not been even but a minute and she is already getting under my skin." He said to himself and wondered how he was going to handle being around her again.
"Did I say something to upset him?" She asked out loud.
"It's more of he was used to being away from the rest of the party while at the beach with me. I guess you could say he is still in the vacation mindset for when we were there." Aqua said with a grin seeing the reaction he had towards Darkness. "I don't have to worry too much about her trying to snag him away from me. Ever since that one night before all this craziness began and the times we spent together and the couple of times he has rescued me. I know he will always come back to me. For a Goddess such as I, once a bond has been completely established nothing will break it." She said to herself and began to think about the two of them.
"By the way Maximus, we need to pick out a quest since you did agree to go on at least once per week. We are already at mid-week and we haven't gone on one yet." Megumin said with a sad tone as she stepped to his side.
"Hey, you're right, let us go on one right now!" Aqua said with excitement. "Besides, I need money in order to pay off the debt I tallied up from my flood spell last week. We should pick one with a huge payout!" She said looking serious and showing a rare little display of responsibility.
"Huh, how come you are being serious just now?" Darkness inquired.
"Oh, well, you see, ever since being informed about our debt, Maximus has put me on, how do you say, timeout from buying nice things, such as the really expensive and super rare wine and other things." Aqua giggled with her index fingers pressed against each other with an ill attempt to look innocent.
"I still cannot believe you bought all that wine yesterday! All of our tip money we got from our little shows we do every day got wasted on the most expensive wine imaginable! How are we supposed to eat let alone buy winter clothing now when are money has run out?" Maximus snapped at her and she flinched as he approached her. "That money was supposed to last us until spring, but no you had to go and waste it on those beverages. How, may I ask, did you even get enough money to pay for all of it. Because I checked the price on each of those bottles when I went to return them and noticed they all were more than what we had. So how did you do it?" He inquired trying not to let his anger explode.
Aqua looked up at him with an innocent smile. "I created some money from the creation magic I observed you doing and briefly told me about during the few times on vacation."
Maximus was astonished she was capable of employing such a spell and was speechless for a few moments. "To think she somehow learned such a basic yet complex spell as that, wait a minute," He paused his thought. "How did you learn it so fast, usually creation magic takes months to learn, even if it is a small object. There is a lot that goes into it. You have to learn how to analyze an item, figure out its structure, materials, and so on, then summon the materials to you. How did you do it?" He inquired feeling a little impressed.
"I learned it through my adventure's card." She replied showing her card to him and it displayed a list of spells she had learnt and the last two were listed as Analysis and Creation. "Since you told me how to do it and showed me as well as informing me that it is such a basic spell, my card picked it up and I had enough points to learn them. So, I learned how to do it and the card allowed me." She finished explaining.
"I thought her intelligence was too low for it, but then again, she has learned other spells for her class as an Arch-Priestess. So, it would stand within reason to assume she could learn other spells, to a certain degree, I guess." He thought to himself.
"What is wrong, why do you have a 'I could not possibly learn anything' look on your face? Do you really think that low of me, do you really think I cannot learn anything?" She asked and her mind finally registered what he said earlier. "Wait, did you say you returned all of the expensive bubbly, literally all of it?" She inquired with distress on her face.
"Yes, I took a large amount back. It took some convincing mind you, but I returned nearly all of it!" He replied folding his arms.
"I don't believe it," She paused for a moment and quickly latched onto him. "How could you Maximus, why would you do such a thing?" She cried shaking his coat.
"It was because we needed that money to eat, maybe not the whole winter, but enough to last us a few days at most. So, how about you don't do such a thing next go around. Also, that was rather selfish of you to think only for yourself and not the most important person in your life living right beside you. If we were not in some kind of relationship, I would almost have half a mind to leave you in the stables while I live in our home." He snapped at her.
"No please, don't leave me there! I am sorry for acting in such a way, I promise I'll do better from now on, I will be a good party member!" She cried, grabbing a hold of his coat as tears formed.
After a few moments he sighed, feeling himself give in to her crying.
"And there's the charm she carries around, I cannot stay mad at her for too long, at least not today, I'm not in the mood for it. I will discipline her later." He paused his thought momentarily. "Geez, what a softshell I am turning out to be." He gently took hold of her shoulders to get her attention and she turned her eyes up to his. "Look, it's ok to screw up from time to time, but at least make the effort to better yourself even if only a little each day." He said with a caring tone.
She stopped momentarily with her face puffed up in a cute way, sniffing her nose. He sighed to let out the small amount of frustration and patted her head.
"One other thing about creation magic in regard to money, promise me you will not use such a spell again to escape hardship." He said.
"But you used it while we were at the Resort Town." She complained.
"That was because we were on vacation. Besides, if you use it too often, you will never learn anything or feel grateful for all the hard work one would put in when you achieve or are rewarded with something." He turned his gaze upon the Quest Board. "Now, how about we choose a quest to go on and leave this philosophical concern behind."
"I thought you would never ask, let us go on one with an extremely difficult monster that would be impossible to defeat!" Darkness nearly shouted with excitement.
"Such a broken record with her." Maximus said to himself. "Well, let's see what they got and pick one out." He said and they stood before the board.
After a few moments, he noticed the ones left were hunting extremely difficult monsters.
"Wow, so many extremely high-level ones are the only types left on the board." He said feeling surprised to see so many.
"Maximus, this one is requesting aid to hunt down a pack of White Wolves! Oh, the agony of being torn apart by their vicious teeth sounds exhilarating!" Darkness proclaimed imagining the joy of her tormentors ripping her about and gnawing on her.
"Sound as though it's right up your alley, go ahead and take it for yourself. Once it is all over let us know how it all turned out." Maximus said sarcastically.
"Wait, you would let me go at it alone, but what if something happens to me?" She inquired feeling surprised he would suggest such a thing.
"I am confident you can handle it alone and should danger arise, I highly doubt you will be in serious danger." He replied with his eyes closed and his arms folded across his chest. "At least when you die, I will have one less idiot to deal with. I never thought I would lose my patience with her in such a fashion. Perhaps being away from her too long has changed me in some way or it might just be because I am worried for Aqua's safety more so than others, I have lost my touch in dealing with her." He said to himself.
"But surely you would not let a young virginal knight to be defiled by such horrific beast. To be ravaged physically and eaten in a vicious manner?" She asked.
"Seeing as how the noble high-born lettuce and cabbages proved to be more than a match for your armor, but not your bear skin. Not to mention Megumin's Explosion spell into the mix, I rather doubt your skin would suffer any damage at all." He continued and placed his hand on her shoulder. "So, go ahead and hunt the wolves to your hearts content." He finished and turned back to the board.
"Well, if that is the case, then I should not go alone." She said turning to the side. "I wanted him to berate me on how silly the idea of going on such a quest would be suicide. However, he has chosen not to. I feel so conflicted, I want to go on this quest, but the idea of not having his eyes lust after my naked form would be unbearable!" She said to herself and felt a little depressed.
"Oh, for Heavens sakes, is that all she is going to be concerned about and she seems Hell bent on the idea of having me fall for her masochist ways. Well tough luck, cause I would never go for someone who has a sadistic side such as that to chase after." He said to himself after reading her thoughts with a mind reading spell he had wanted to practice on.
"Maximus look at this one. It's about a quest to slay a One-Hit-Kill Bear." Megumin suggested with excitement and spun around with her staff pointed high in the air. "I will show that bear who has the strongest one-shot attack in all the land. No one can withstand or is even a match for my Explosion spell!" She proclaimed.
"You are as insane as Darkness." Maximus quickly said. "Why, just the name of such a creature would imply it has enough strength to kill you the moment its eyes rest upon you, much less taking a hit from it. Do you honestly believe that quest is even worth undertaking? I bet the possibility of dying is so high, you might as well just quit the business right here and now. No way are we going on this quest!" He informed her and she felt depressed from his decision.
The next moment a flyer caught his attention and he began to inspect it further.
"Duo Thieves Strikes Again!" He read out loud and they all looked at the flyer he was reading. "It mentions about two thieves who has robbed another Lord's manner and stole a large portion of gold and precious belongings. A reward for the information and whereabouts will be given to anyone so long as it pans out." He finished the brief description on the post.
"I wonder who could those two be and how much are they offering?" Aqua peaked in front of Maximus as she inspected it further. "One million for the information leading to their identity's or four million for their live capture, this would be great for us to take!" She said with excitement.
"I agree, however catching any thief is no picnic. You have to be very crafty and clever to catch one, let alone spot one out of the crowd. How about we just keep our eyes on this as it unfolds, maybe when more information about this duo comes forth, we will take it. For now, we will have to focus on something else." He informed her and she felt bummed after being shot down.
His eyes soon discover a flyer about a Scouting Quest. "Need information about the Mobile Fortress Destroyer which has been sighted in the neighboring countryside. Information about its projected path and timeframe of arrival will be highly valuable." He read out loud and studied the picture. "The darn thing looks as though it resembles an arachnid, I wonder why that is?" He said to himself with a shiver moving up his spine and turned to the others. "So, what's a Mobile Fortress Destroyer anyway?" He inquired.
"Not A Destroyer, The Destroyer." Darkness corrected him. "An ancient mobile fortress that lays waste to everything in its path. Entire cities have been razed to the ground whenever it tramples through one. All who have attempted to stop it, fail miserably." She explained.
"It moves around wandering from place to place, aimlessly, without any care to those below it. Many people have attempted to communicate with it, only to be vaporized the moment they are too close as it is protected by a massive and powerful barrier that incinerates any and all who touch it! It's also weirdly popular with children too." Megumin added in a serious tone waving her arms around as if to imitate it.
"Something like that actually exists in this world, it's a wonder anyone is still left alive at all!" Maximus said with amazement. "I guess something such as that would be best left alone, however, if it's sighted already, then there is a possibility we could be staring it down in the future. We should probably look to deal with it sooner though." He said to himself and took hold of the flyer.
"Are you actually considering taking such a quest?" Aqua asked feeling a little concerned and began to protest the idea.
"It only calls for its whereabouts, general location, and the direction it's headed. Although, I might know of a way to deal with it when the time comes. However, employing such a thing would be extremely risky. We'll keep this in mind for later as well." He said placing it back.
She turned away and saw a quest that caught her eye. "Hey why don't we take this one." Aqua said peeling a flyer off the board. "It's a quest to kill Snow Sprites, they are offering a hundred thousand per kill." She informed them.
"Hey, that's a great idea! I heard with every sprite you kill Spring arrives half a day early!" Megumin said with a cheerful tone.
"Yes, that would be a great idea!" Darkness added as she tried to hide her overjoyed smile which Maximus noticed before it faded.
"Why would she be interested in a silly quest such as this. For one who enjoys torment from others, this raises much concern and must be taken with the utmost care." Maximus said to himself wondering what the brief moment of anticipated joy could be for. "Very well, let's go on this quest for today, we cannot be too picky on what we choose, so let us go." He said still keeping his suspicious eyes on Darkness.
The four of them arrived in an open valley not far from the castle Maximus and Aqua were living in. His gaze was focused on it in the distance and a part of him began to regret the choice of going on a quest.
The bite of the winter air was sharp, piercing upon his face as though needles were jabbing into his cheeks. His hands tingled at the same sensation as they pressed forward. Aqua was wearing a white hat, a coat over her normal attire, and white winter thigh high boots. She was sticking close to him not wanting to be too far from him.
"Hey, by the way, what are those for?" Maximus inquired after noticing she was carrying a container strapped to her shoulder and holding onto a net.
"Oh, I plan on capturing and storing them to make ice for snow cones." She said with cheer.
"What's a snow cone?" He inquired as he tried to imagine what they would be like.
"Oh, that's right, on your world you have nothing like that, huh. Well allow me to explain, first you take some crunched up ice and put them in a paper cup in the shape of a cone. Then you add food coloring, which is sugar water in different colors and presto, you have made a snow cone." She smiled after walking backwards.
The next moment she tripped over her own footing and Maximus instantly caught her. His right arm was around her back and his left hand took hold of her right hand. Her body was leaning back at an angle and she began to giggle.
"I knew you couldn't resist helping me." She said.
"Oh, so you did that on purpose I see." He paused and let her fall down.
"Hey, what did you do that for, you big meanie!" She shouted feeling a little angry.
"Whoops, my grasp seems to have slipped, for I thought I saw a dangerous creature a short distance ahead." He shot back to tease her.
"Where, where is this dangerous foe, I am ready you fiend!" Darkness interrupted their little playful moment as she jumped in front of the two.
"There she goes again." Maximus said to himself.
Megumin looked back and the three of them had no expression on their faces for the expected reaction Darkness would do.
"So much for our little moment we were going to have, way to go Darkness." Maximus said helping Aqua to her feet. "By the way, I cannot help but notice you are extremely underdressed for this quest. What happened to your armor and why are you not wearing it?" He inquired to address why she was only wearing regular attire.
"There is no need to worry, besides, it would have been extremely cold to wear it today." She said still trying to hide something.
"Something is up, her usual self would revel at the prospect of enduring intense pain. With her armor, she would have said something on the lines of the cold metal is peeling the skin off my naked flesh and what not. But here it's as if she's anticipating on something to arrive and has opted out wearing her armor. Something about this quest is off, as though I may be the only one here who does not know something important. But the other two have yet to say anything or give off any notion. I should tread extra careful and be on alert for anything." He said to himself keeping a sharp eye on them, especially Darkness.
"Hey, here they are, lots of Snow Sprites!" Megumin shouted with joy and began to chase after one.
Darkness also joined the hunt and was unable to hit her target. Maximus was reminded how pathetic her aim was and he began to feel embarrassed being near her.
Hah, I got you." Aqua shouted and giggled showing Maximus a jar full of sprites. "Look how many I have caught so far Maximus."
He gave her a thumbs up and a half smile. "Well, I guess it's about time I join in, although they are so harmless, I almost feel bad about the thought of slaying them." He said to himself as they floated around him. "I'll just make it fast."
He formed a small fire disk and threw it forth like a frisbee. The next instant the fire disk chopped the two dozen that were floating around him. He soon noticed more were floating towards their direction, gathering near, and spinning around them. They twirled upward forming a funnel stretching up to the sky.
"I wonder why they have gathered together and not retreat from us; this is a strange behavior." Maximus whispered out loud.
"This would be the perfect time to use my spell in order to vaporize them in one shot!" Megumin shouted.
Maximus sighed. "Very well, just don't get us while you are at it okay."
"Of course not," She said and began to ready her spell. "By my efflux of deep crimson, topple this white world of snow and ice! Explosion!" She shouted.
The next moment the sky turned dark and sparkles of lights glittered the air around them. A stream of curious visible mana flowed to and fro and soon after a large spark ignited before them. It quickly expanded into a fireball that grew with every second. The loud thunderous boom echoed throughout the valley as the flames engulfed the Snow Sprites in its wake. Aqua braced herself by holding onto Maximus as he shouldered the blast.
"That was too close to us you buffoon!" He shouted into the deafening echo.
The air began to calm as a sudden heat wave encircled around them and soon the cold air returned to bite their refreshed skin.
Megumin fell flat on her face as, giggling ecstatically. "Oh wow, I almost forgot how amazing this feels."
"So, after that display how many did you get?" Maximus inquired.
"I only got eight of them as the rest were blown away. But I managed to level up." She replied and gave him a thumbs up.
The others began to recollect themselves and Aqua inspected the jar she had several of them in.
"Maximus, would you be able to send these back home so we can store them?" Aqua inquired.
The moment before he could say a word or perform the simple teleportation spell, a violent gush of stinging cold air flowed directly to them. A snow cloud barreled past them as the winds continued to pick up speed. The whiteout from the blizzard was so thick they could not see past their noses.
Maximus held Aqua close as he wondered if a freak blizzard had been conjured up because of Megumin's spell. Soon he could sense a presence closing the distance towards them, slowly as if walking in the distance. His body was beginning to shake from the intense surge of power he was feeling.
"What is this strange presence that is before us? It feels so strong, I cannot even move an inch at this moment." Maximus said to himself.
"He is here, I was hoping we would run into him while being out here!" Darkness was overjoyed, knowing who was heading for them.
"Who is she talking about, who is here?" Maximus inquired of Aqua.
Her grip was more noticeable as he could feel her pressing against him tighter. "It's the Winter Shogun!" She replied with fear in her voice and he took notice of her tone.
"This should be interesting, although I wonder what this shogun would look like." He said to himself unsure of what to expect as the winds kept howling upon them. Soon after a pair of bright blue eyes illuminated in the distance before them. Maximus kept Aqua close to him, while preparing for the unknown foe.
