"You all didn't have any reason to come here when you did," The village chief stated as we sat down opposite to him.
We were currently in his house.
Aqua was sporting a lump on her head since I had hit her for what she did during the Destroyer quest.
Megumin was in full chuuni mode, with her face showing a look that was a cross between smugness and satisfaction.
Wiz was politely sitting next to me.
It had been 1 day since the Destroyer was stopped.
The Destroyer was now basically just a big pile of molten metal and circuits.
The mages of the Crimson Demon Clan definitely didn't hold back against it.
"People often come to us when they need our expertise, only to forget about us once the deed is done, yet you came here because one of your party members lived here," the chief continued.
And I kept lapping up the praises.
"Even though you are weak and don't know any good magic.
I felt my eyes twitch a little, but I kept my smile intact.
"But now I find myself in your debt."
Oh! The best part is coming… the reward.
"Hey, shouldn't we have come here with Darkness? She is a member of your party," Wiz said to us after seeing the greedy look on our faces.
"Who is this Darkness, Kazuma?" Megumin asked me innocently.
"Never heard of her."
"Yeah, I haven't heard of her either," Aqua said, pulling off a curious look to the point where I thought it might've been genuine.
Maybe she actually forgot. No one knows.
What will he give us? I started to ask myself after Wiz stopped with the topic of the crusader which we didn't know about.
Some super secret magic that only he knew of?
His daughter's hand in mar-
"So from this day forth, you all shall be honorary members of the Crimson Demon Clan."
Wait what?
"Also."
Okay, there's more. I guess we can still get something out of this.
"Kazuma Satou, as you are the leader of this group…"
I leaned forward in anticipation.
"I allow you the privilege to marry into our clan."
Hey Megumin," I said as I poked her once we left the chief's house.
She gave a faint hmm and motioned me to continue without turning around.
"The chief just dropped some bullshit on us, didn't he?" I asked her.
"Well, the honorary member thing was a first, but it doesn't have any real value. Also, you do need the village chief's approval to marry someone from the village, so it wasn't completely made up," Megumin said while walking.
"At least we gained something," Wiz commented as she looked at Megumin's back.
Yeah, Megumin was already a member of the Crimson Demon Clan, so she didn't gain anything from this.
Aqua had a look on her face which made it look like someone told her that all the alcohol in the world was gone.
"Hey now, we did save the village so that's a plus I guess," I told them in an encouraging manner, but it didn't have any effect on the sulking goddess.
Wiz then teleported us back to her shop as we didn't really have anything left to do in the Crimson Demon Village.
Also because it was getting obvious that Megumin was suppressing the urge to cast an explosion at the chief's house.
I waited for the other two to leave the shop.
"Thank you for your help Wiz, without you, Megumin and I would've been dead right now," I said as I bowed a little towards her.
"Oh it was nothing Kazuma, no need to thank me," Wiz said as she looked embarrassed seeing that I was bowing to her.
"Still, there has to be something I can do for you," I said, to which she kept on denying.
"Hmm… how about I buy something from your shop," I offered, to which she instantly accepted.
Huh, I wonder what that was about.
This was my first time in a magic item shop, so I toured around it for a bit, toying with the merchandise.
I picked up a small bottle.
"Ah, that'll explode on a strong impact, so please be careful."
I put the bottle back in a panic.
I reached for another bottle beside it.
"Ah, that one will explode if you open the cap, so…"
I placed the bottle back gently, removing my hand slowly from its cap and picked up the one beside it.
"What about this one?"
"It'll explode when it touches water."
"... How about this one?"
"It explodes when heated…"
"..."
"Does your shop only sell explosives?!"
"No no no! It's just that the explosive bottle series is on that rack!"
"Then why didn't you put a sign there that says they are explosive?" I asked, to which she just chuckled nervously.
"You forgot, didn't you?"
Seeing her nod her head, I sighed.
"Hey Wiz, did you make all this yourself?" I asked, pointing towards various different items.
"Not all of them, but more like half, but they just never get sold."
They can't be that bad.
I asked her to show me some of them.
Wiz smiled and went somewhere at the back of the shop.
When she came back, she was carrying stuff of various lengths wrapped in some silk like material.
"It boosts a person's strength to ten times they're current levels," she said as she held a sword in her hand.
Woah!
"Cuts virtually anything," she demonstrated by cutting a knight's armour in two.
Woah!
"It can even summon ever burning fire from hell."
She summoned some hell fire and started roasting marshmallows on it.
Woah!
Why the hell have people not bought all this stuff up by now?!
"How much for it?" I asked in a voice which barely contained my excitement.
With my axe and this sword, I would have powers that would make Saitama blush.
Watch out Demon King, 'cause Satou just got a rare drop.
"Oh, just 4 million eris," Wiz said with a smile.
"That's really low for a sword like that, why did nobody ever buy it?" I asked as I handed her the money.
"Oh, it's just that it uses the life force of its wielder to power up," Wiz said, keeping her smile.
Wait what?!
I snatched my eris back from Wiz.
"Why would you create something like that?" I asked before it clicked.
She's a lich, life force is basically like magic power to them.
"How about that one?" I asked, pointing to another sword while I put the previous one down on the table.
"That one kills anybody who touches it."
"That one kills you when you level up."
"Again, it uses life force to power itself."
Wiz kept telling me the reason why the items weren't selling as I went through them.
Man, it's a good thing she isn't a bad guy, 'cause if she was equipped with even half this stuff, she would be near unstoppable.
Even though her stuff was basically unusable to humans, they were still OP in the right hands.
"Hey, what does this pendant do, strangle its wearer or something?" I said, picking up the last thing left in the pile which wasn't deemed deadly yet.
"Oh, that one gives its wearer magical energy, but it can only be used once since the manatite it uses is quite rare."
"I thought you could use manatite directly, what's the point of this?"
"Oh, you can do that, but it has adverse effects in the long run, so I made this to counteract it. It took almost all my knowledge in runes and magic to even make it work."
Hmm, this might just work.
"I will take it, but I want you to do something with it first," I said as I pulled out a small red shard from my pocket.
I walked out of Wiz's shop with 2 million less eris in my pocket, but with a smile on my face.
I just lost more than half my money, so I thought I should head to the guild and take some quest, even if it might be tough.
When I entered the guild, I saw my teammates sitting in our usual place.
They were sulking from the looks of it, which was confusing since they looked fine when we were at Wiz's shop.
Strange.
'Well, the idea of taking a hard quest should bring them out of their funk', I thought as I picked a quest for taking out a pack of wolves.
For some reason, Luna had an awkward expression when I went to her to register the quest.
"Eh, well… Satou Kazuma, we have been waiting for you."
The attitude of the counter lady and the mood of my team made me feel something was up.
"You see, when you and your team were gone, the Demon King General that was around here came to the city."