Kazuma really wished he had listened to his mother. She nagged him everyday about his choice to stop going to school and play videogames all day, before she gave up on him to focus on making his little brother a respectable heir for the Satou name. Maybe he shouldn't have spent his days as a shut in neet- living vicariously through his cherished media- because when he spotted an opportunity to emulate his heroes he did. Now he really knows how right his mother was when she used to scold him.

It wasn't even truck-kun that sent him to another world. Nope, it was his own stupidity. When the goddess overseeing his death laughed at him-admittedly it was hard not to, looking back on it- he got angry and scammed her into helping him. He thought he was so smart, but it turns out he was the one scammed into babysitting heaven's resident problem child. She can heal; which is useful when they come home from getting their asses kicked all day.

They embarrassingly started off as beggars only let into the guild out of pity; it took them weeks to even graduate from construction work. When the day came that they received their first quest Kazuma was very excited, his time of heroism finally started. Then it turned out that the frogs- which were low level from what he could gather- were too much for a low level adventurer without a long knife and a useless goddess whose magical punches didn't even cause the beast to flinch.

Kazuma really regretted admiring heroism. He had a noble image of himself fighting bad guys in an escalating level of threats. Gaining more teammates, experience, powers, and wealth as he went along. The worst part was that it was no one's fault but his own. After all, the only common denominator in his failed life as a neet and failing career as an adventurer was him.

It wasn't all bad. Even if Aqua was stapled to his hip at least he had guaranteed companionship who could never leave him all alone in a world with no internet. She might give him headaches but at least her complete uselessness made him look heroic in comparison, at least he told himself.

Heroism was a stupid self engradizing concept. Everyone wanted to slaughter their foes, to sate their blood lust. They wanted attractive companions, he did anyway. Then they wanted to be rewarded with gold and titles. It wasn't about actual good will, it was about glorifying their own selfish desires and being patted on the head for it. The only thing that kept him from giving up on this "mission" was the promise of a wish for defeating the hero king. That and Aqua would never let him have a moment's peace until she was allowed to go back to heaven.

Kazuma resigned himself to this drudgery. At the very least it was interesting and it wasn't completely a world devoid of the fun he had hoped for.

"Why does our strategy revolve around me getting eaten?" Aqua whined.

"It's going to happen anyway," Kazuma pointed out. "If anything this is your way to punish the frogs for that."

"Okay," Aqua muttered, dejected. She inserted the vial she was given into her skirt pocket.

Kazuma was really lucky Luna pitied the loser newbies. He luckily remembered from middle school science class that Frog can only live in freshwater, salt water would dehydrate them and kill them. The recollection that this was a medieval world made him worry about the feasibility of his plan. Salt was going to be very expensive in a time before industrial salt mines. Luna luckily offered them two vials of salt on the house since she was impressed by Kazuma's thinking and wanted to throw them a bone.

He was going to have to look into salt prices since Luna's charity wasn't going to be anything other than a novelty. If the prices were too high then maybe it was time to move onto another quest. This was the lowest ranking quest the guild had and they were going to have to take the next step eventually.

"What's the plan?" Kazuma asked her to make sure she didn't mess anything up again.

"You're to commit sacrilege by making a goddess into a diversion while you pick away from the life force of the frog chasing me."

"Good," Kazuma said, ignoring the whine. "Let's go." He had his own vial of salt in his pocket.

The frogs were waiting on the river banks as always. Kazuma always aced his test whenever he studied or "applied himself" as his mother would say. Aqua had even managed to rescue herself whenever she was in the maw of the frog. A sprinkle of salt from her pocket and the frog spat her out, which she was oddly offended by. The salt even damaged the frogs since he was able to kill them faster than normal.

"Mission completed," Kazuma said. Aqua was covered in less slime than she would have been. He hadn't needed to use any of his salt on the monsters.

. . . They had actually made progress. He actually felt like a true hero for the first time since he came here.

"Kazuma. This was really icky," Aqua sobbed, on the verge of tears. "Please tell me we don't have to do this again." Kazuma ignored Aqua.

Kazuma did some mental math. The reward for this quest should be enough for them to afford a room. Granted, it would be the size of a closet but it wouldn't be litter with cow dung like the barn. Aqua had even managed to not completely waste her salt, there was still a finger full on the bottom.

If they conserved the supply they could streamline the process. They could actually take one step in the journey of being real adventurers. Maybe before long he could buy an actual sword and be ready for a higher level quest.

Nothing could ruin this.

"SPIT ME OUT THINE FIEND!"

Kazuma instinctively turned toward the sound of the shout. He saw a scene of two frogs they had missed loitering about. One clearly had a human person occasionally popping out of its mouth to scream.

"YOU'VE NO IDEA THE ENEMY YOU'VE MADE TO-" The mouth closed again.

"That's it!" Aqua grabbed back the vial he had confiscated from her. Unfortunately, she accidentally grabbed the vial that was full. She palmed the glass container in her hand and began to charge. A shriek resonated in the field as her hand glowed.

"Goddess Salt Palm!" Aqua smashed the glass against the frog eating what sounded like a kid. Kazuma heard the crunch and smelled the burn. The frog actually vomited the kid out in pain. It flopped about like a fish in water; it writhed to the ground twitching like lightning. It's movements soon stilled like stone. It stretched one final time before lying dead.

"Aqua!" Kazuma screamed in absolute despair. "That was a full vial of salt you wasted! It was supposed to last us several more missions!"

Aqua paused her victory dance. Her mouth fell open as she processed what she did; She staggered back at the sight of the absolute seething rage in Kazuma's eyes and shocking disbelief in his stance.

Neither party was able to focus on the other frog left that gobbled up Aqua.

"Kazuma! I'm sorry! Help!~"

Kazuma clutched his cranium with his nails and tried to suppress a scream.

"Genius idea to use salt on these things, Sir Kazuma." The girl snuck up to him while he was inconsolable. Kazuma was finally able to take a good look at her, albeit a slimy one.

The girl was still very much a girl. She had only tipped her toe into the waters of womanhood by the sight of her; she could still be classified as a loli. She looked like she was 12 years old. Her hair was braided into golden twin tails with red clips pinning her chin length bangs. Both her eyes were drops of ocean blue. She was a bit above average for her age but still over a head shorter than him. Her breasts were only just beginning to bud and her body was clearly in shape. Her young arms and legs weren't tone yet but not exactly twigs.

Kazuma's NEET mind quickly categorized her as a sunny bubbly little sister.

Kazuma had quickly picked up the culture of this world. As an avid RPG fan and otaku he knew the price of armor just by looking at it. This was his only fantasy preconception that actually held firm. The girl must come from wealth or have some very wealthy benefactors. Her armor was built on a black bodysuit he could see peeking out. Her lower half was wrapped in a knee length white skirt with some grey boots. Her top was covered with a white and gold breast plate with grey and white shoulder pads; her shoulders had wings like cloth sprouting from them. Her torso was otherwise draped with bright orange tapestry like piece with white lines that flowed down to her skirt.

"How do you know my name, kid?"

"The guild's receptionist mentioned you when she prescribed me a beginner level quest. She stated these dastardly things could be a lot to handle as your blue haired archpriest always comes home covered in their digestive juices." The kid shook her fist at the frog eating Aqua.

"Yeah. . .. " Kazuma tried not to think about how they were probably thought of as total jokes by the rest of Axel. "Well I read a long time ago how salt dehydrates them so I managed to get some vials. Most of our supply was wasted by the blue haired idiot just now."

"HELP!~"

"Why did you come here alone?" Kazuma knew that child labor laws were probably not existent but the kid looked far too wealthy and groomed- not including the slime- to be on her own and unwanted.

"I have no party." The kid spoke proudly. As if she didn't need one and didn't need to be rescued from being eaten.

"Let's shelve this for now," Kazuma sighed. "I'm going to use the rest of this salt to free Aqua, help me kill that."

Kazuma accepted the blunder and hurled the salt vial into the frog's mouth when it opened. The monster immediately coughed Aqua out; the goddess couldn't get up and laid there crying. Kazuma charged at the monster with his long knife while the kid pulled out a very impressive broadsword; he lied to himself and claimed he wasn't jealous.

Aqua ran past them, finally able to move. The frog was pretty dazed by the salt so Kazuma didn't hesitate to charge in.

He took the right flank while the kid took the left. Kazuma quickly went to work making quick stabs and pecks with his knife. The blade did it's job and easily found purchase with the amphibious flesh. Kazuma made sure to keep an eye out for when the frog recovered. That eye quickly spotted something else, though. He was hearing the kid make grunts and swing but not the impact of steel hitting.

Kazuma curiously peeked his head around to look. And. . . Kazuma had to ask himself what he was looking at. Back in his NEET days most of his interactions were on message boards. Memes were as mundane as greetings back there. He remembered an ancient meme from the early days of the internet he once saw being posted when hype around Star Wars flared up again. It depicted an overweight geek twirling a broom around in an imitation of a lightsaber that probably guaranteed he would never get laid. The kid must have received her tutelage from that guy.

Her sword strikes were clumsy beyond words. It looked like a baby learning how to coordinate her limbs for the very first time and delighted to do so. Her stance was something you'd see a whitebelt in a subpar dojo doing. Yet she looked so happy and satisfied as if she was having some sort of epic fight.

Kazuma cringed hard at what he was seeing and looked away. He put his second hand embarrassment into his knife striking at the frog. It was thankfully on its last legs and quickly followed its friends.

"Good job, Sir Kazuma." The girl congratulated him.

"Please don't call me Sir." It made him cringe even more.

"Very well, Kazuma."

"Let's go back to the guild and tell them to collect the corpses."

"Finally," Aqua moaned. "I'm taking a bath when we get back." Kazuma supported that idea.

"So I guess this was fun?" Kazuma didn't know how to describe this without being an ass to the kid. It was certainly memorable.

"It was great to meet you Kazuma. I've heard you mentioned before but I'm glad to meet you. Are you truly a hero on his way to conquer the Demon King?" Kazuma knew that the kid was too dumb to grasp sarcasm.

"You betcha," Aqua bragged. Aqua for all her whines and moaning, for all the way she insulted, seemed to be very protective of him verbally to outsiders. The Kazuma she painted to her drinking buddy made him feel very embarrassed, and not just because she was probably saying that to intimidate her debtors. "Kazuma is going to slay the Demon King one day with his very own archpriest supporting him. He may not seem like much now but he got here with nothing but the clothes on his back."

"Really." The kid sounded very impressed.

"Given enough time the Demon King will be a faded dream in this world thanks to Kazuma. It's why he's here."

The kid was either very naive or foolish. Given her age it was definitely the former but given everything he's seen of her it was definitely also the latter. She looked at him so starry eyed it could blind.

"Then the hero Kazuma now has a new addition to this party." She proclaimed.

"Uhmm, no. Why don't you try scouting with other parties first. You just got here didn't you?" He really didn't need another problem child to babysit.

"I've already consorted with other parties. In fact I've been her for weeks."

"You were kicked out of each party instantly for your skill with the blade," Kazuma said, out of patience.

The girl puffed her cheeks. "My style is befitting that of a holy crusader. Experience and time will fix it." She looked back up at him. "That and the tutelage of a true hero."

"Why don't you go back home and get some lessons. You look like you could afford them, and I don't think you would be a good fit for this team. I don't even know your name."

"You may call me Darkness." That was probably an adventuring name. It wasn't uncommon for adventurers to invent aliases for their adventures. "And I can't return home in shame."

"What do you mean?" Kazuma probably shouldn't be asking questions about a kid he was trying to ditch.

"My father was quite opposed to this occupation selection," Darkness confessed. "He asked me to at least wait until I was 16 to try my hand at this lifestyle. There was arguing but we reached an agreement. I would be allowed to adventure but in the event I find nothing but failure I am to never try again." Darkness looked sad and pained to have said this.

Kazuma probably should have walked away. He really wished he could have walked away. Unfortunately, the kid brought back some memories and delusions he thought he had burned and thrown away. She looked at him with pure beaming hope, unnerving him.

"Let's bring her along." Aqua chimed in. "It would be good to have another attacker. The more party members the better and I don't see anyone lining up to join us anytime soon." Why does Aqua find a brain at the wrong moments.

"I promise to even waive my share of the mission if limited funds are the issue." Darkness gave him a wide smile, fully expecting to be let in.

Kazuma just turned and walked away. He heard Aqua follow at his side, but there was another pair of footsteps behind him. He looked at her and she was still smiling, anxious and happy to be a member of a party with a true "hero". Kazuma pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Fine," He breathed. "Don't say I didn't warn you." Darkness internally squealed in delight.

Things could only go uphill from here. Right?

This is the end of the story. It was inspired by a thread on spacebattles. It was basically an AU idea where Darkness and Megumin swapped ages. Darkness is not going to be a complete masochistic pervert since I don't want to be arrested by the FBI. She will still be a complete wannabe weirdo but think closer to Adorabat from Mao Mao. I'm still musing over ideas for older Megumin. She needs to have that chuuni streak but I am thinking about giving her obsessions with explosions a sexual tinge, which wasn't not present. If you think I should continue this please comment and maybe tell me what you think I should do with older Megumin.