I really missed the konosuba story. The crimson demons are a pretty good motivation to keep writing, something about a village full of chuuni mages, half of which are waifu bait calls to me.
P.S: The following message is addressed to SilentX115 who read my 'reading' fic. And to my other readers to a lesser extent. I respond to reviews through the PM feature, the mentioned reader had his PM's disabled so I couldn't respond to his question in the usual way.
I'll do it here on the off chance that he reads all of my fics and not just the 'reading' one. I wrote the plot for ch 36 myself, If I ever do a multiverse chapter and 'dont' credit anyone, it either means that it was a self made work, or I just plain forgot.
"Watch closely. The mug I placed upside down on the low table will move around like so!" Aqua performed her usual party tricks to the captivated audience of Komekko and Iris who was acting her age for once.
Good for them, I was busy being stared at by Megumin's parents who both had hungry looks in their eyes. Literally. Hyoizaburaoo gave a dry cough to catch my attention which I freely gave, rubbing my head sheepishly in apology for not paying attention.
"… Thanks for taking care of my daughter. I express my sincere gratitude for that." Hyoizaburoo said as he lightly bowed to me. Besides him was a beautiful lady who resembles Megumin, with a head of black hair and slight wrinkles on the corner of her lips and eyes.
"It's obvious that you've been a good influence on her. The daughter I know would have shot off an explosion at the invading soldiers without hesitation, instead she just sat back calmly. I almost couldn't believe my eyes!" Yuiyui praised, looking genuinely shocked. I'll admit Megumin was pretty bad at the beginning but she wasn't that bad! Right?
"… Well then. What is your relationship with my daughter?" Hyoizaburoo asked, though his tone gave away that he already had suspicions.
"She's my teammate, one of my best friends, and my girlfriend." I answer honestly, which to my surprise brought tears to the grown man's eyes.
"It finally happened.. MY LITTLE GIRL HAS FINALLY SNAGGED A RICH HUSBAND!" He yelled to the heavens, slamming his fists on the table, cracks forming immediately. "My dear, hurry! Serve him our best tea!"
...Eh?!
"Hubbyyyyy! Stop! Don't hit and damage the table! Our finance is really tight this month!" Yuiyui begged, trying to calm her husband down before he causes any more damage. Wait their finances are low? "Besides you can't jump to conclusions like that! It might scare him away! Besides, we only have one type of tea.."
A-Are things really that bad? Oh wait! I forgot to bring them a gift for letting us stay here! "Ah my apologies I completely forgot to bring a gift to thank you for the hospitality! Allow me." I start by placing my hands on the wooden table and fixing any cracks that formed from earlier with transmutation. Afterwards I grabbed an arrow from my pack, transmuting it into pure gold before holding it up to the two wide eyed parents.
Hyoizaburoo grabbed the arrow from my hand and applied a bit of pressure, the soft, pure gold molded itself easily into his hands causing his jaw to drop. "T-This is pure gold! OUR DAUGHTER'S HUSBAND JUST TURNED WOOD INTO GOLD!" He screamed to the heavens before tackling and lifting me over his head, swinging me around in a bone breaking hug.
'Ok bone breaking might be a bit of an exaggeration. *sigh, why did I think anything related to Megumin was going to be easy?' After another few minutes of being swung around like a flail, and several more of Hyoizaburoo apologizing profusely we came to the topic of dinner. Another mistake of mine, I should have known that it would be difficult to provide for so many people on such short notice!
"Again I'm very sorry! I'm usually a lot more organized than this.. Yunyun-chan, can you teleport us to the mansion? I'd like to pick up some food for everyone." The cry of 'mansion!' was ignored as Yunyun grabbed onto me and teleported us without complaint.
Upon reaching the mansion we noticed the peculiar sight of All Might, Senna, and Darkness doing paperwork while crying from the sheer amount. I gave them a quick solute and ran away to live another day, not wanting to risk being caught up in any of that.
"Any ideas for what to bring?" I asked Yunyun who was already collecting an assortment of various seafood along with some spicy herbs and other spices.
"Crimson demons have a strong preference for spicy food. Fish will do nicely with that, too bad we don't have any lemon." She explained catching my surprise. Even more evidence that the race wasn't natural, then again it could just be a chuuni thing about withstanding the pain.
"Don't worry about the lemon, the chemical formula for citric acid is easy enough to replicate, I'll just turn some dust into crystals and sprinkle it on the food while cooking." Not quite understanding what I said but going with it anyway she finished packing the food while I went and grabbed some wine. Aqua would kill, revive, then kill me again if I didn't.
With that done I decided to grab the stove and a spare electric generator to bring with us. Megumin's house didn't seem big enough to cook all this food in so we teleported outside the village gates then hauled what we brought on my back.
By the time we reached the outside of Megumin's house we heard the booming voice of Hyoizaburoo screaming: "FOOD! So much food! Tonight we eat like gods!" A boisterous approval of Aqua follows soon after. I did the only thing I could do. Shake my head and get to cooking before they got hungry..Hungrier.
The meal I prepared was nothing special, at least compared to what we usually had at home but with the limited tools available it was the best I could do. The main dish was a simple grilled with a nice coating of butter and citric acid crystals on top.
Mixed vegetables including cabbage, seaweed, and fresh cucumber were served on the side and to top everything off the fish were cooked separately. Each covered in a progressively hotter coating of hot sauce, that I created along with a few servings of plain fish for those that didn't like spicy food.
Though I must admit, creating hot sauce was surprisingly complicated. The basic formula for capsaicin was simple enough, but all of the other ingredients that gave the condiment it's taste had to be accounted for as well. It made good practice for my transmute skill.
Aqua provided us with fresh water along with a generous helping of salt water to make salt with. She got an extra bottle of wine and a head pat for that one. Though I must say I do feel kind of bad for adding the hotter varieties of hot sauce on some of the fish. This world wasn't exactly the most advanced when it comes to spicy food so most people probably had no experience with 5 million+ scoville hot sauce… Oh well, Yunyun asked for it.
"Foods ready! Eat up everyone, there's plenty to go around." I called out, the crimson family and my party walked out of the small home to the sight of veritable feast waiting for them. At least compared to what the crimson family was used to.
"A-Amazing.. Wait, what's that smell? It's so..Strong.." I explained that the smell came from the fish furthest to the right. And that they were covered in a powerful sauce from my homeland. I warned them that it was thousands of times hotter than the usual spices used on the fish in the middle.
Of course, being the prideful people that they were Hyoizaburo immediately tried to eat the hottest one without any preparation whatsoever. The screams were heard throughout the village and rumor has it that even the enemy fort nearby heard the horrific noise, further cementing the need to surrender.
Even more so when Megumin took the screams as a challenge and ate the second hottest piece. The only difference it made was the pitch of the screams, which I noted caused an early migration of the local birds.. I should probably help them with that. They already tried to use milk to quench the burning but that wouldn't do much to that level of capsaicin.
"Here take these." I handed them some capsaicin neutralizing tablets, they were fairly complicated to make but not much more than the spices they were meant to negate. I really shouldn't have been surprised when they denied the medicine.
"NO! We crimson demons have our pride damn it! We shall endure this torture and become stronger for it!" ...Well that was what the father said but Megumin was looking at me with barely contained desperation in her eyes. I just shake my head and toss a pill to her while the others weren't looking.
The earlier screams also happened to summon the rest of the crimson demons, each looking hungrier than the last when they saw the small feast we had prepared. And if the looks they were giving Hyoizaburoo are anything to go by, they were ready to test their own tolerance for the sake of pride.
There were no survivors…
Looks like I was right, none of the villagers could truly handle the stronger sauces. Though to be fair they were literally the spiciest things in the world, this one or my own. Even I could barely handle the ghost pepper sauce, mostly due to Kacchan's influence. You can't be friends with the guy without gaining at least a decent tolerance to spicy food. 'I can't believe I'm saying this but I kinda miss him.'
"Can I have one?" Komekko's innocent voice asked tearing me away from my thoughts. She was staring at some of the spicier foods. A part of me wanted to say no and spare her the pain, but the other, much stronger part was telling me that saying no would cause her to cry which was a thousand times worse. In the end I relented, worst comes to worst I'll hand her some of the medicine.
None of it was necessary though as the pint sized girl downed the whole thing in one bite without so much as a whimper. "Mmm, So good! Thank you Izuku-nii-sama!" Silence reigned for a bit before the girl's fallen father muttered out. "That's my girl."
From that moment on Komekko gained a decent amount of respect from the rest of the village, little did they know this little girl was going to rule them all in time...It was just a matter of time.
After everyone recovered from the inferno that they ingested I was introduced to the rest of the villagers. Including a certain writer who owed us an apology. She was a slippery one, but with my help Megumin, Yunyun and I managed to corner her. Usually a prideful crimson demon wouldn't apologize but this time we had leverage. She was the only one who wasn't offered the anti-capsaicin pills.
"You can end the burning feeling at any time Arue-san. Just apologize to these two for that story you wrote." I told her in a calm voice as she was panting from the heat. She looked willing but was confused about something.
"I-I'm sorry! B-but, why is Megumin-san mad? I can understand Yunyun-chan being angry, but why her?" After she apologized I handed her the tablet and let Megumin explain her anger. I had a pretty good idea as to why.
"There are two reasons actually. First I resent the fact that only Yunyun survived the destruction of the village even though I LEFT MONTHS AGO!" Ok, Arue flinched from that one, looking genuinely sorry for forgetting her.
"But above all that, Yunyun-chan isn't the only one who's dating a hero!" She announced before slamming her lips on my own, shocking both Arue and Yunyun the latter of which looked equally happy and jealous for her first friend/rival. Eventually the jealousy won over and she came in closer, hugging my other side. 'Oh boy.. I have mixed feelings about this..' These kinds of situations could flip flop easily.
"W-wait! You're telling me that what I wrote was true!" Her face went from shock to complete elation when she realized that her chuunibyou tendencies were spot on for once. Before the situation could devolve any further though, three more crimson demon girls showed up.
"Wait wait wait! Yunyun-chan and little Megumin-chan have a boyfriend before me?!" The girl with twin tails, Funifura if I remembered correctly, exclaimed while pointing her finger at all of us. Her friend, Dodonko I think it was, stood there equally shocked but was staring at Arue instead, probably shocked that one of her friends stories actually did come true, if only partially.
Finally there was Nerimaki, a kind but nervous girl that sold us some more liquor for the impromptu party that our dinner turned into. She just stared at me with barely contained curiosity while trying to stay at the back, not wanting too much attention.
Apparently Funifura has had enough and demanded to duel her former classmates for the right to be my girlfriend…'Don't I get a say in this?' Apparently not since Megumin immediately accepted on the condition that I would be the one to fight them on the girl's behalf.
*Sigh, all I wanted to do today was to help out the town, meet Megumin and Yunyun's family, and have a nice dinner.. I guess I did get what I wanted but the world needed to balance out my good fortune with some chaos. 'Eris was right, never a dull moment for the lucky.'
No rest for the lucky indeed little green. This one took me a good while to write and if it were up to me I'd have kept going, but I do like to keep my chapters fairly short while compensating with faster uploads so it will have to do.
Next time we'll have the legendary duel between the crimson Demon Village's strongest students and the legendary hero of Belzerg! A battle that shall be spoken of in whispers and quiet chuckles for decades to come!