"Yunyun where were you? I was looking for you in Axel for quite some time you know? Did you seriously follow me all the way to the capital?"

The moment Yunyun arrived at the table she was bombarded with questions she could not possibly answer. Could she truly tell her best friend/rival she had been tailing after her in fears of getting left behind?

"U-um way you see I was planning on heading back to our village since the Demon King was defeated but.. um... I saw you at the capital's teleportation services and decided to change lines?"

Yunyun recognized how bullshit her story was, especially considering she had been bragging to Megumin about learning teleport to visit home whenever she wanted. Yunyun began nervously touching tips of her index fingers together, cold sweat made its way down her forehead as she awaited her friend's response.

"My my, my self proclaimed rival! Did you miss me so much that you felt obligated to pay two different teleportation fees just to meet me again? You poor poor girl, we met each other only met 3 days ago!"

A taunting smile painted on her face, Megumin did not miss a beat to start mocking the person she considered a good friend. She knew this is how she would have reacted had this exact event occurred a couple days ago. Before the tragedy occurred and before she started her journey. She knew every word she was saying has no real feelings behind it. Yet, to protect her childhood friend, she is more than willing to do at least that much.

She did not want Yunyun getting mixed into her journey to get back Kazuma. Megumin was more than willing to commit acts that could get her considered an outlaw, and getting an innocent girl like Yunyun mixed up with her personal affairs didn't sit right with her.

With a face tainted slightly red, the next heir to the Crimson Demon's Chief pouted at the other girl.

"Megumin you meanie! I don't have to teach you these spells you know? And I know you've been waiting for a while to have this quest accepted by someone. Just tell me what spells you want to learn and I'll teach you them!"

To Yunyun's sudden threat, Megumin backed down. She'd been waiting for someone to teach her for hours and she'd never forgive herself for wasting such an opportunity just to keep up an act. Slightly relieved she no longer had to keep up her farce, Megumin surrendered.

"Well, I want to learn create water, create earth, tinder, wind breath, fireball, freeze, lightning, teleport, and light of saber, at least for now."

"W-wait just that? Besides the last three all are skills an average low level adventurer and use Megumin! Actually for the first four you don't even need to ask me. You should be able to learn them through the adventurer card from the moment you get it! And also you should be able to learn the rest as well due to your multiple exposures to all of those spells."

"Huh? What? I just waited all those hours for nothing?"

Confused, Megumin pulled out her adventurer card, and sure enough every spell she wanted to learn was already learnable on the skill tree. To think she would put up a request and waited all those hours and it never crossed her mind to check her card... How embarrassing. But it wasn't all sad news. This meant she no longer had a reason to get Yunyun involved in her personal problems. For as comforting as it would be to have Yunyun by her side, Yunyun will become the future ruler of the Crimson Demons and ruining the girl's future for her personal selfish reasons was not what Megumin seeked to do.

"Well, Yunyun thank you for your services. Since you said you didn't require pay I'll be keeping the reward money and I'll write you a good review or something later. Until next time!"

Bidding her farewell, Megumin stood up and nonchalantly walked out of the guild with a wave of her hand.

Finally processing what just happened, the Yunyun broke out of her shocked state.

"WAIT."

But Megumin was already long gone.

Sorry for such a short chapter...(it's not even 1000 words I know) however, I know my life is going to get very busy starting next week and would rather post something before I go on a hiatus until next year(2024). The hiatus won't be absolute and I'll most likely upload if I have the time to write a chapter but don't expect frequent nor consistent uploads during that time. On another note, if this chapter felt worse than my previous two please tell me. Unlike the other two, for this chapter I sort of rushed it get it finished before my hiatus and did not take to liberty to revise it carefully. If this chapter truly is lackluster compared to the rest(excluding the word count) I may just unpublish this part and repost it after the hiatus.

Yours truly - Hoooodi

Reviews:(from now on reviews from previous chapters will be answered in the next. I discovered the reply feature but found it very inconvenient to use so I'll just do this. If you are a guest reviewer please add a nickname or something I can use over "guest". If multiple guests leave a review I mess up with my answers.)

Guest - I hope to upload this story once a week(excluding my upcoming hiatus). However, as I also do not want to loose inspiration for this story and begin writing out of obligation over entertainment, my upload schedule will have no concrete upload dates. About Megumin not noticing I thought no one else would notice xD. Glad you caught that detail. Finally, no matter what, I plan on finishing this story as I hate it when stories I get interested in never end. Nonetheless, I cannot guarentee anything as life is unpredictable sometimes.

YTshashmeera - That question will be answered in time and thank you!

guerilla sam - While I did answer is PMs, Kazuma will only be shipped with a single character(I find having multiple wives disgusting). And as for the reply feature as I am mostly on mobile I will no longer make use of it.

BetweenandGirl - Thank you for the information but I don't think I'll be using it.