The first bell of the day was tolling out when I snorted awake in the town jail.
Thanks to the loli's pointing out our connection to her at the top of her lungs in front of multiple witnesses, the town watch decided that playing 'he said, she said' at an ungodly hour of the morning wasn't worth the trouble. Understandably, I guess and it did solve the problem of where we were spending the night…
I called it a jail, but it was really more of a holding area to throw rowdy drunks until they sobered up than anything particularly secure. Just a pair of big, small windowed rooms with sturdy wooden doors barred from the outside, and a guardroom separating them from the outside entrance. Either way, it was sadly a lot better than some places I'd slept in the past few months, the blankets were patched but warm, and our straw pallets were free of bugs as far as I could tell. Maybe Dust was on to something when he talked about getting arrested deliberately when his debts got too steep…?
No, no. I wasn't that desperate just yet I finally decided. Besides, I'd never get anywhere with Chris if she thought I was like him. Girls might like bad boys, but I needed to be the exotic man of mystery, not a penniless man of homelessness.
Speaking of my favorite angel, she wasn't in the room anymore, but Yunyun and Darkness had obviously been up for a while, the wizard was doing up her hair ribbons and smiled shyly noticing I was awake, while the Knight of Depravity was still washing her face, all of us still in our clothes from last night since our packs were either trashed in the explosion or sitting in the guardroom.
Not long after I finished stretching and took over from Darkness at the wash bowl, I heard the Watch Sergeant rattling his keys as he unlocked the door while his turnkey slid the bar aside and heaved it open. Glancing at the barred window high in the wall, the sun was well up in the sky. Maybe that hadn't been first bell I heard?
"How you lot managed to sleep through that racket twice I'll never know," the sergeant grunted. "I guess it's true you adventurers really do learn to sleep anywhere."
Third bell then, ouch. That was basically lunchtime, I hadn't slept that late since I came to this world. Of course, it had been a while since I'd had a night as busy as yesterday, so I shrugged off any criticism about my habits and ambled out to join the others.
Almost all the others.
"TYRRANY!" the other wizard bellowed from the other cell "ABUSE OF POWER! Release me at once lest I rouse my eldritch might to right this injustice!" she ranted from behind the still locked door, banging on the wooden cover over the porthole.
"I'll rouse myself to feed your bread to the dog if you don't pipe down, girl!" the young turnkey stomped over and snapped back from the other side of the door, met by indistinct but dark mutterings. The sergeant in turn ignored the byplay and gestured with a slip of paper in his hand at us.
"Captain sent a message to let the lot of you out, now that your leader has settled things at the town hall. He'd half a mind to let her loose as well, but the Grange wouldn't hear of it."
"Maybe for the best," I admitted. The volume coming from the other cell had gone down enough I couldn't make out anything, but the tone wasn't any better.
"I'd be happy to take her place, if it's a hostage for our good behavior they're asking for!" Darkness suggested a bit too quickly.
"It's not just that reason, but your loyalty does you proud." the grizzled old soldier nodded at her with respect. I for one turned aside to hide a roll of my eyes, catching Yunyun looking at the floor to hide an embarrassed flush. If only the poor man knew…
"The market is right up the street, your leader will be along to pick the loudmouth up once the letter of credit is drawn up. Gear is in the cabinet over yonder." With that he seemed to be done with us, so we did as he said and grabbed what was left of our belongings after a brush with incineration and headed out to the street.
The town square outside of the jail was bustling, several large tents and converted wagons shared space with a public fountain carved in the shape of a woman in flowing robes with an expression of maternal concern on her face. Passersby gave us some skeptical looks given how rough we looked after last night, so we made our first stop the public baths across the square.
The one good thing about being on the bottom of a girl pile was that my backpack had pretty much survived intact, so I was able to clean up and get my change of clothes on after a decent scrub down. Darkness wasn't so lucky, but since Chris had left her bag behind when she went to meet the high and mighty she was at least able to borrow a few things even if none of the clothes were any use. Must be nice to have friends you're close enough to do those things with.
After a bit of loitering around out front, the two girls came out looking a lot better and we headed further on along the square to the nearest tavern. We'd gotten ourselves a table and ordered a round when our fearless leader arrived.
"Chris!" I called out, waving a hand on spotting her at the entrance.
"Morning," she greeted glumly, sliding onto the tavern bench with a thump. She looked about as worn out as my boots; they must have called her in first thing that morning.
"That b-bad?" Yunyun asked cautiously.
"Not great, not terrible" the thief admitted with a shrug and wobbled and hand back and forth. I slid across the beer I'd just ordered and signaled for another, and she nodded gratefully.
After a long swallow, she clunked it firmly on the table like a gavel to start a meeting.
"So, the good news is that we're going to get paid for the request we were contracted for in full," she started, after we gave a brief cheer she waved us down. "The bad news is that's all we're getting. The bounty on the rest that Megumin ashed is going towards reimbursing for all the expensive produce she turned into dust on the wind too. The farmers were out for blood over losing that crop, never mind anyone telling them that with so many schumils running around those crops were lost no matter what else happened that night. We're not on the hook for all of it, at least. The town watch is in hot water too, letting things get that bad, recent cull or not."
Taking a drink from the mug, she gave a feral smile "Speaking of, the captain of the east gate resigned first thing this morning 'due to personal difficulties'. So there is a little justice to be had in all this. Anyway, I picked up our little pyromaniac on the way out, now that the farmers aren't going to burn her in effigy. Or worse."
I craned my neck looking for said public menace, finding her at the bar picking up a platter with an absurd amount of spiced pan fried potato wedges piled atop it before hustling over at a trot. Now that I got a look at her in good light, she was even smaller than I thought, 145cm at the absolute most and built out of nothing but straight lines. Even the big, billowing cape she trailed behind her as she juggled the platter a little to keep her hands from burning didn't hide how thin she was. That and the intense, glowing crimson stare she leveled at the food from under her wide brimmed witch's hat made me think good meals were a bit of a once in a while thing for her.
"Thanks, these look good." I reached out to snag a wedge from her peace offering, only to get my hand smacked away.
"Mine, get your own." the tiny terror growled, eyes glowing balefully as she pulled her prey close.
"Megumin!" Yunyun protested in horror at her manners as she began stuffing her face with grim determination.
"Right, since she seems to be busy, allow me to introduce," Chris began, only to be interrupted by a clatter as her seat mate jumped onto the bench and with a heroic effort swallowed the potato stuffing her cheeks like a chipmunk's in one go.
"I require no assistance! But YOU should gasp in amazement at the opportunity to meet the one and only Megumin! Mistress of Explosion magic, genius of the Crimson Demon Clan!" she exclaimed with a billowing flourish of her dark cape, throwing her arms wide with a flurry of arcane gestures as she smoothly turned in a circle on one leg.
It had been a long, long time since I'd seen someone let their freak flag fly like that, and I have to say I was impressed. Not enough to do more than smile and wave back with Chris right in front of me, but impressed. I took a quick look around the tavern, and needless to say that was a showstopper. Megumin was eating the shocked stares up practically with a spoon, while Yunyun looked like she wanted to vanish on the spot until Chris grabbed hold of the nut's cape and dragged her off the bench.
"And that's why I'm not letting you wander alone until we get back to Axel. After that, you're not my problem anymore. So," she turned a winning smile on me "can I get you two to keep her busy for the afternoon until we can catch the evening coach?" Chris asked hopefully.
"Coach? Fancy. What's the occasion," I asked.
"I get the feeling the city council wants us out of town as fast as possible," Chris replied. "Can't imagine why."
"Fair enough," I conceded. "Ok, sure. You aren't coming along, more business?" I asked disappointedly.
"Nothing exciting, just visiting a friend in town. I took the quest in the first place wanting to kill two birds with one stone." she answered quickly. "You four have fun, the market here isn't bad for a town this size, I'm sure you'll do fine for an afternoon." With that, she finished her drink and left some silver on the table to cover her tab on the way out.
Huh. Well, that was disappointing, I was hoping to spend a nice afternoon on the town with her and let the others do their own thing, but those are the breaks I guess. No reason to get down about it, I told myself.
"So," I began in the silence that followed "You're both in the Crimson Demon clan, are you actually related?" Side by side there was definitely a family resemblance even without the eyes, Megumin being the younger looking of the two by a little but at our age that didn't mean anything.
"Sort of, t-there are only a few hundred of us, so we're all connected somehow. Megumin and I share a great grandfather, Pylori, I think?" Yunyun gave her relation a questioning look, only to receive a shrug of total indifference.
"I cannot say, that far back hardly matters anyway," the other wizard said around a mouthful of fried potatoes. "I seek my own fortune, unbound by the shackles of family and unmoored from lineage."
"I couldn't agree more, there is nothing more noble than to strike out to seize your own fate with your own hands," Darkness agreed heartily, and for a moment I looked at her with genuine respect. Until I saw how her pupils were a bit too dilated and her breathing a bit too fast for sitting at a lunch table and realized what fate she actually had in mind to be seized by.
Refusing to continue that thought a millimeter further, I noticed Yunyun, who had buried herself in studying the, very short, menu for the last little while and was avoiding all eye contact. "Does anything look good? The potatoes look nice so I'm hoping the rest is too.". Darkness prompted gently.
"M-maybe the boar steak." Yunyun answered softly, "It should have plenty of XP."
"Did you not go up a level from last night?" I asked. She'd made mincemeat of enough monsters to.
"I went up two," Megumin answered proudly.
That I believed, but Yunyun lowered her eyes and replied "Just one. I'm close though, so with a little more I'll get another!" she insisted.
"Buying your way to a mere tie is unbecoming a clanswoman's honor" Megumin sniffed, biting into a potato wedge for emphasis. "It's my victory", she finished smugly.
"At what cost?" I asked, leaning one arm on the table to eye her skeptically. "If Chris hadn't done a lot of fast talking for us we'd probably have ended up stripped of everything we own and then some to pay down the damage you did."
The little wizard flinched and broke eye contact, mumbling "The path of Explosion is a thorny one, and sacrifices must be made…" she trailed off in a mumble.
Incidentally, I hadn't. No surprise given I'd basically just been a canary in a coal mine along with Chris, warning of trouble. No XP sharing among party members was BS design in my opinion, but nobody asked me.
The waitress came over to take our orders, Yunyun did end up getting the boar in spite of Megumin's protest, though that was a bit rich for my wallet. I'd suspected from her gear that she was probably well off, it looked almost as nice as Darkness' for what it was. I settled for some sausage and potatoes, though I didn't like to think what dark acts I'd have committed to get a taste of even tonkatsu broth by that point, never mind rice. There had been other Japanese here before me obviously, it couldn't be that hard. Darkness, incidentally, stuck with a vegetable salad, safely dead so they didn't scatter the dressing, claiming she was trying to cut back on her protein. I couldn't imagine why, with her body the woman could both model swimsuits and probably swim an ocean right afterwards.
Afterwards, we hit the town, such as it was. The market really wasn't bad, Darkness was able to find a good pack to replace the explosioned one, and picked out a few camping supplies to go with it. Megumin just window shopped, but Yunyun found a notebook set she liked.
Overall it was…nice. I'd never been shopping with a girl in my past unless you counted my mom, but this wasn't anything like the griping I used to overhear from some of the boys at school about going out with their girlfriends and getting loaded down like pack mules. Forced to slog through browsing hectares of clothes and mountains of accessories to keep their ladies happy.
Not for the first time, I suspected they'd been full of it.
That evening, we headed for the coach taking us home, only a little more heavily loaded than when we'd arrived yesterday, and with some eris for our trouble. If this is what my life in this world could be like, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stay. I loved my family, and always would, but I couldn't deny that I'd done more here, and lived more here, than I ever had back in Japan.
For the first time in my life, I actually felt like I had something to work for besides the treadmill of "a good high school, then a good college, then a good company, then work until you shrivel up and retire" that seemed to be all that was waiting for me. If even that much given what my grades were like.
The coach was quite a bit faster than that cargo wagon we'd had on the way out, so even though we left in late afternoon we made it back to Axel before the gates closed for the night. As we all swung down to the ground and got ready to head our separate ways, I cleared my throat importantly.
"Ladies, if I may have your attention". I began pompously, and already the eye rolling started.
"Fine, be that way. That was the night from hell, and I never want to do that again. But," I held up a finger for emphasis "if any of you have a job that needs someone to fill out the group, look me up. I'll gladly quest with any of you again. Maybe even you, Mini Megs." I added.
The tiny wizard sputtered at her new official, Subaru approved, nickname, but she didn't refuse before resettling her hat and stomping off.
"Done and done, goodnight Subaru." Chris replied, Darkness nodding agreement before following her. Yunyun made what almost looked like a little bow before hurrying off to her inn, leaving me standing alone in the coach station courtyard.
But maybe not forever, I hoped.