Kazuma was ecstatic…
Jumping around with his card held high as he marched to the guild.
You might wonder why he's like this…
Well, when they came back home after the whole ordeal with the Winter Shogun, Kazuma realized that 1) he need to rest for a while as even though Aqua healed him, he still might get anemic, and 2) he needed to keep the dragon egg somewhere safe 'cause Aqua might try and sell it for booze money.
So was he happy because he now had a reason to just lay in his room all day?
Yeah, that's part of the reason.
But the main reason was that he had won the jackpot.
Kazuma was just glossing over my adventurer's card, you know, like when you open the refrigerator even though you know there's nothing new in there, when something caught his eye in my kill records.
According to his card, he had killed the Shogun…
At first he was just confused.
He didn't kill it.
Well, he did dent its helmet, but that was it.
It wasn't even a fight.
He tried to think of a reason, but eventually just shrugged it off. If the card says that he killed it, then he killed it.
Which meant that he could claim the bounty.
And if Megumin was right, then its bounty might be around the 100 million mark.
This must be karma for not selling the egg or something.
So that's what he was intending to do as I went towards the guild, skipping like a little girl.
He dashed through the guild doors like a bullet, stopping in front of a perplexed Luna.
Kazuma handed her my card and she raised an eyebrow.
He felt good how her eye practically bulged out as she read his kill feed.
"I'll be back in a moment," she said to him as she went to contact someone.
He was finally free from this stupid debt.
Darkness woke up the next day to a pretty strange sight.
She had slept late last night after getting roped up in a drinking contest with Aqua.
She didn't know how, but through some godly power, Aqua drank enough alcohol that could kill 2 grown men.
And by doing so, she had burned through a sizable amount of her share of the reward money.
Darkness and Megumin had actually not asked for a share, 'cause well, they didn't really participate in it.
At least Aqua can say she had healed Kazuma.
She moved towards the door and opened it, only to stand still in confusion.
There were pentagrams drawn on the floor.
There were ominous looking black candles lit at the corners of the pentagrams with the dragon egg placed in the middle, with Kazuma chanting something in some weird language.
Kazuma was wearing a black robe with a hood that covered his head.
She bolted towards Aqua's room and barged in without knocking.
"Aqua! Some vile demon has possessed Kazuma! Hurry!"
Aqua was in her bed still sleeping, hugging a bottle of alcohol.
Hearing Darkness's yell, she lazily opened her eyes, let out a yawn and stretched like a cat before following Darkness outside.
"Well, I'm not reading any bad spirits, so… I think he's finally lost it," Aqua said as they both spied on Kazuma's activities from a little bit away.
"Umm, Kazuma… what are you doing?" a third voice asked from the stairs.
Kazuma finally noticed the audience he had gathered and let out a girlish scream.
"I mean, your outfit is definitely cool, but you might get in trouble if you start dwelling in dark magic," Megumin said as she stood on the stairs.
"What? No! I'm not doing dark magic, where did you even get that idea from?!"
"Ah… the pentagrams," Aqua said as she joined the conversation.
"Oh, that's just for a ritual to hatch a dragon egg that I found," Kazuma said as he showed them a dusty book.
"Wait, let me see that," Aqua said as she yanked the book from Kazuma's hands.
"It says you need the blood of a virgin, which you have plenty of, then some salt and other ingredients that you'll never find in a kitchen," Aqua said as she passed the book to Megumin, who also wanted to see it.
"Wait, you're a virgin? I can't possibly believe someone as perverted as you can be a virgin!" Darkness said to Kazuma, who was pulling on Aqua's hair for the virgin comment.
"What do you mean by that?!" Kazuma said as he let go of Aqua's hair.
"I mean… like… umm… this is embarrassing, didn't you go to a certain establishment?" Darkness asked as she kept fidgeting for some reason.
"..."
"..."
"What kind of guy do you think I am?! Like yeah, I'm a horny teenage boy who has done some questionable things, but do I really look like a guy who would go to brothels?!"
"Yes," Aqua and Darkness said in unison.
Megumin though was busy reading through the book, paying no attention to the conversation going on around her.
She finally found something as she sighed and said, "This ritual isn't going to work."
Seeing Kazuma giving her a look that asked for elaboration, she continued.
"This book was written by Arue's dad."
"The one who keeps writing those stories?"
"Yeah, it kinda runs in the family."
He had spent at least two hours setting this all up, and not to mention that goddamn book cost him half a million eris, and Megumin was telling him that it was some fiction book…
Who the hell said he had a high luck stat?!
He had bought that book from Wiz, as it talked about dragons and rituals.
Seeing the forlorn look that Kazuma had, Megumin sighed and took him by his hand and started to drag him outside.
"Wait, Megumin, what are you doing?"
"You're obviously going to need my help like always, so I'm going to help you before you get in trouble for doing some illegal magic."
"But where are we going?"
"To the library, there must be some books on dragons there."
They spent the whole day rummaging around the library trying to find the right book, but they didn't find one.
I mean, there were a lot of books on dragons, but they were all just works of fiction.
And boy were there some weird stories.
He found a book that told a story of how a dragon captured a princess to take revenge on the king, but then they just ended up dating each other.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg…
There was a book named 'Two Orcs and One Sword' that he didn't dare to even open.
So Kazuma came back empty handed, Megumin having found a book on explosion magic in that maze of a library.
More importantly, who even wrote that book?
He opened the door to his room where he saw Chomusuke carrying a stick in her mouth like a dog.
He had so many questions seeing that, that he started to follow behind her as she moved towards the corridor next to Megumin's room.
When he reached there, he saw that the egg was lying there in the corner.
How did it get here, he pondered.
Chomusuke, by the looks of it, was carrying sticks and placing them around the egg.
Aww, she's making it a nest.
Chomusuke placed the last stick and then started to blow a burst of fire on them.
The sticks caught fire and now looked more like a bonfire than a nest.
It clicked way too late in Kazuma's mind that the damn cat was trying to eat the egg.
I mean, you can't fault him, he just saw the cat breathe fire like it was nothing.
He cast Create Water on the fire and snatched the egg.
"You damn cat! That's a dragon egg! You don't just go around eating- agghhh!"
His rant was cut short as Chomusuke scratched him on his arm and bit into the dragon egg.
I mean, she tried to, but the egg was strong enough to not crack under the pressure of her jaws.
"Hey, let go of it you stupid cat!" Kazuma yelled as he started to yank the egg around while Chomusuke still held onto it with her teeth.
"Hey, what's going on here?! Kazuma! Leave Chomusuke alone!" Megumin said as she came around the corner to check what the commotion was.
"I leave her alone?! She's the one who was trying to eat the egg!"
"What are you talking about? She's a good child and would not do something like that!"
"I saw her just spit fire and try to cook that egg."
"... Kazuma, you must be tired."
While we were busy yelling at each other, the egg had started to crack.
Chomusuke tried to eat it again, but a small hand burst through the crack, punching Chomusuke in the face.
Seeing the cat fly past us made us look back towards the egg as more and more cracks appeared, and out came a white coloured, scaled…
Chibi dragon.