Chapter 2: A Quest for These Noobs!
A true adventurer wakes up precisely when he intends to and for Kazuma Sato that meant roughly the crack of noon. The otherworldly boy stirred and sat up in his bed, stretching with a loud yawn. Blearily opening his eyes, Kazuma took a moment to appreciate the fact that he actually had his own bed now, a nice big one in a bedroom that he had all to himself in the no-longer-haunted mansion that he now owned*. Gone were the days when he and that useless blue-haired goddess had to slum it out in that old stable. His life in this new world was finally getting started and there was nothing that would stop him from finally being able to relax and enjoy the easy life he so rightly deserved. Nothing but the crippling pile of debt that his party had accumulated while 'saving' the town.
*Kazuma's landlord and Belzerg property ownership laws disagree with this statement
"Damn," Kazuma grumbled as he fell back into bed. "Probably gonna have to take a new quest today. I hope they have an easy one with a big payoff. Ah, who am I kidding, of course they won't."
Kazuma rolled over and stared at his dresser, contemplating whether or not he had time to give his trusty old sock a workout to help relieve his morning frustrations.
"Kazuma! Kazuma! Kazuma!" A familiar voice sounded along a frantic pounding at his door.
Of course he didn't. Not with his party.
"That's my name!" Kazuma shouted back as he pulled himself out of bed. "What is it?"
"Are you up yet?"
"No, I'm still fast asleep. You're just imagining my voice right now!"
"Then wake up, you lazy NEET!" There was a pause for a moment as Kazuma walked up to the door, quickly pulling on his trousers. "Hey, wait a minute!"
Kazuma opened the door, to see an angry Aqua staring back at him. Her light blue hair was done up with the normal decorative loop held up with a hairclip that took Kazuma far too long to realize was supposed to look like the chemical composition of water, and she was already dressed in her usual attire which included that dangerously short skirt that did nothing to hide the fact that the blueberry bimbo refused to wear any sort of underwear. Kazuma really did think it was a shame that he couldn't get himself turned on by her, because she would have had a lot going for her in the department.
"Yeah, I'm up." Kazuma glared at his companion. "Now what is it?"
"I'm bored!" The goddess whined. "I want to go on a quest, but Megumin and Darkness already left without us!"
"Yes, and?" Kazuma cocked an eyebrow.
"So, get dressed already so we can go!" Aqua demanded.
"I fail to see how my being dressed affects your ability to go to the guild." Kazuma slammed the door in her face.
"Because if you don't come with me then I'm going to tell all of the other adventures at the guild about that one time in the stables when you-"
Kazuma opened the door again, fully dressed and glaring daggers at his former stablemate. He didn't even want to know what specific incident she was about to blackmail him with this time.
"Fine, let's go." Kazuma marched out towards the living room.
As they made their way out of the house, Kazuma briefly wondered if he could manage to snag a new party member. One who wasn't technically overpowered but heavily specialized that they looped right back around to being useless and, more importantly, an actual well-developed and stable human being. Probably not. With their reputation, everyone in Axel already knew not to get involved with his party. But dammit, a man could dream!
Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!
The trip to the guild hall was mostly uneventful as by this point Kazuma knew the route like the back of his hand. However, he ended up walking in alone, as Aqua had the attention span of a squirrel with ADHD and managed to get distracted before they got there.
"Good afternoon!" Luna greeted him from behind her desk, hunched over a stack of paperwork she was filling out. Kazuma ended up getting a good eyeful of her massive cleavage hanging there and he briefly wondered just how she managed to keep those massive bazongas from popping out of that low-cut top she always wore. Probably magic.
"Yo!" Kazuma waved half-heartedly before walking over to the main hall. Quests could wait, he needed food.
It was still winter, meaning that most of the adventurers were still coasting off their vegetable harvest money while hanging out at the guild hall instead of taking on quests. No one wanted to run the risk of running into the Winter Shogun, as Kazuma had discovered painfully and fatally. That made it especially odd that the place seemed almost empty. Something must have happened that morning and Kazuma had absolutely no intention of finding out what that was.
Kazuma glanced around and took all of two seconds to spot his other companions sitting at a table near the middle of the hall: Megumin, the red-eyed hellspawn of a witch who refused to learn any magic except the single most situational spell Kazuma had ever heard of, and Darkness, the perverted masochist of a knight who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with her sword. The two incompetent ladies seemed to be sharing lunch with another pair of adventurers that Kazuma had never seen before. One was a girl with a long brown ponytail and a skull-designed hairpin and one of those pink scarf-like things that Aqua had, while the other was a rather generic-looking dude in glasses. Both were dressed in bright red outfits that Kazuma noticed looked like high school uniforms, making him realize that the pair were probably Japanese like him. He didn't recognize the design, but they must have been from some high-end school given that the guy was wearing a cravat of all things.
As Kazuma walked closer, he could see that the new girl was engaged in conversation with his party members, and was pretty cute now that he got a good look at her, while the guy she was with seemed thoroughly disinterested, focusing instead on… Wait, was that a PSP? How the hell did he manage to bring one of those here with him? Kazuma suddenly needed to know everything and, more importantly, if he would be able to con that guy out of what was most likely the only game console in Belzerg.
"...and that's why you should become my apprentice and devote yourself to the wonders of Explosion magic!" Megumin declared as Kazuma walked up to them because of course she was already trying to corrupt one of these newbies with her stupid gag spell.
"I already told you I'm not doing that," glasses guy replied, not looking up from his game. "While a spell as powerful and destructive as you've described could be useful in some circumstances, it would be situational at best and simply not worth the drawbacks. It would be better to learn a variety of spells that could be useful in any circumstance than one spell with virtually no use and that you can only use once a day."
Good news, this guy had a brain. Bad news, that meant getting his PSP from him was going to be harder.
"What you're failing to consider is the sheer overwhelming power and beauty of-"
"Oh, hey Kazuma!" Darkness interrupted the explosion loli as she noticed him walk up to the table. "We were just introducing ourselves to the guild's newest members. Why don't you grab a seat?"
"Don't mind if I do." Kazuma sat down next to the blonde Crusader. "The name's Kazuma, Kazuma Sato."
"I'm Elucia, but you can call me Elsie!" The girl introduced herself. "And this is my brother, Keima! We're here on a mission to defeat the Demon King!"
"She's here to stop the Demon King, I'm just here because it sounded like a better option than reincarnating." Keima clarified.
Well, that answered that question.
"So, I take it you guys are from Japan, too?" Kazuma asked. "I know getting settled here in Belzerg can be a bit of a challenge, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask ol' Kazuma for advice."
Keima looked up at that. "I'll keep that in mind."
"What are you playing, anyway?" Kazuma asked, deciding to jump straight to what he really wanted to know. "And how did you even get a Play Station Portable here? Is that your cheat item or what?"
Keima frowned and held up the white handheld. "This is my cheat item, but what's a Play Station Portable? This is a Play Field Personal."
Sure enough, the PSP logo underneath the screen read PFP instead.
"Huh?" Kazuma wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Is that like a Chinese bootleg version?"
"What, no," Keima said defensively. "It's the PFP, made by NEK. One of the biggest handhelds on the market. Do you not know anything about the gaming industry?"
"NEK? Is that like NEC?" Kazuma asked, even more puzzled. "But the PSP was made by Sony. And I will have you know that I was a diehard gamer!"
"Then you would have at least heard of my blog, The God of Conquest?"
"Nope." Kazuma shrugged. "Should I have?"
"Do you have any idea what they're talking about?" Darkness whispered to Elsie as the argument continued.
"Not really," Elsie admitted. "I've played a bit of Dragon Quest and Pokémon, but I wasn't really that into video games."
"Stupid boys, arguing over a stupid magic box." Megumin crossed her arms, flustered. "What they really should be arguing over is the greatness of explosions!"
"No one cares about your explosions!" Kasuma snapped at her, then sighed and turned back to Keima. "Look, I think we're getting off on the foot, here. You guys are new adventurers, right? Let's just focus on that for now. Want some pointers? Maybe we can take you on a quest to help show you the ropes?"
'And maybe you might be competent and gullible enough to recruit', he thought.
"That would be great!" Elsie beamed.
"Yes, we were just discussing that before you arrived," Darkness explained. "There's a quest to take out a large goblin camp. Megumin and I were going to lend them some of our old equipment and go with them, but you and Aqua can come as well. Perhaps there will be more goblins than we're expecting and they might overpower us? They could all gang up on me and turn me into their personal plaything!"
"Ooh, I haven't seen Haqua since school. Where is she?" Elsie asked, though no one seemed to notice as everyone's attention was firmly on Darkness, who was breathing heavily and turned beat red.
Kazuma instinctively slapped Darkness upside the head to get her to shut up, then immediately regretted it as she shuddered in pleasure. "Ooh, Kazuma~! You're such as brute, flying off the handle and assaulting me like that~!"
Nononononono! This was all going so wrong. This was Kazuma's one chance to finally get some reasonable party members on board but was all falling apart. There was no way that it could get any worse.
"GOD BLOW!"
It got worse.
Elsie was sent flying into the wall by Aqua, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Darkness immediately sprung into action, grabbing the rogue goddess by both arms to hold her in place, while Kazuma and Megumin both jumped to their feet. Even Keima set down his game and got up to defend his sister.
"Hey, let me go, let me go!" Aqua struggled to get out of Darkness' grip, but the lady knight was too strong.
"Aqua, what the hell?" Kazuma shouted at her furiously.
"What? I didn't do anything wrong!" Aqua said defensively. "That thing was a demon!"
The 'demon' was crying in a heap in the corner. Surprisingly, Megumin was the first to run up to her to check if she was alright.
"Really, Aqua?" Kazuma groaned in exasperation. Why couldn't he just have normal party members? "You think that girl is a demon?"
"Actually, she is," Darkness admitted, throwing Kazuma off-guard. "Her brother explained this before you arrived. Their mother was accosted by a group of demons and Elsie was born as a result."
But weren't these two from Japan? Since when did they have demons in Japan?
"What?" Aqua stopped struggling and seemed to calm down for a moment. "That's awful! I'll kill that demon!"
Elsie walked back over to the group, bawling her eyes out. "Ow, what was that for?"
Darkness loosened her grip, allowing Aqua to slip away and run up to Elsie, pulling her into a comforting hug.
"I'm so sorry, my child," Aqua whispered and for a moment she even managed to sound like the goddess she was supposed to be. "I know this world can be a cruel place, but please don't let that get you down. If you seek guidance, then please consider joining the Axis Order so that- OW!"
Aqua cried as Kazuma's first just happened to slip and hit her on the head.
"Stop trying to recruit people into your damn cult!"
"I was just trying to help!" Aqua whined.
"Um, thanks?" Elsie tilted her head in confusion. "Who are you?"
"I thought you said that you went to school with Aqua?" Darkness questioned.
"This isn't Haqua," Elsie said.
"What are you talking about, of course I'm Aqua!" the goddess started crying again. "Why does everyone keep saying that I'm not me?"
"No, you're not!" Elsie insisted. "Haqua has purple hair, not blue, and she's a demon like me!"
"I'm not a demon, I'm a goddess!"
Kazuma groaned and buried his head in his hands. Why did these things always have to happen? "You do realize that you guys are saying different names, right?"
"Huh?" Both girls turned to him in confusion.
"This airhead," Kazuma gestured to said airhead, "is Aqua, with an A. Like water. Whoever you're talking about is Haqua, which sounds like it has an H in it. Capishe?"
"Ca-what?" Aqua stared at him.
"Oh, forget it. Let's just bale and get on that quest."
"Ahem!"
Everyone turned to see Luna standing there with her arms crossed and anger in her eyes.
"We'll pay for the damages," Kazuma spoke up immediately.
"Good," Luna turned around in a huff. "You can do the repairs yourselves, as well."
Kazuma groaned. Why couldn't anything ever go his way?
Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!
The party (and guests) ended up having to postpone their goblin hunting trip to the following morning, Kazuma letting Keima and Elsie stay over at the mansion for the night. The two newbies didn't have any equipment yet, meaning that Darkness had to lend Elsie a spare sword while Keima was borrowing Megumin's old staff from when she had first joined the party. And, because things couldn't cease to get any weirder, Elsie's cheat item turned out to be a goddamn FIRE TRUCK that they ended up riding in on the way to the goblin camp. This proved to be a particularly novel experience for Darkness and Megumin, who had never heard of a car before, let alone ridden in a truck. It also played a big part in convincing the two that Kazuma, Keima and Elsie really were visitors from other worlds.
"I never would have imagined that I'd ever get to see a carriage that doesn't require a horse, let alone ride one." Darkness looked around the interior of the vehicle from her spot in one of the seats lined up along the back. "And you say these things are common in your homeland?"
"That's right," Kazuma said smugly from a few seats over. "Most are smaller than this, though. I don't think I've been in a fire truck before, now that I think about it."
"I imagine that getting hit by one of these 'trucks' must hurt a lot more than a mere wooden wagon," Darkness gasped in pleasure because, of course, she had to make it weird.
"That's how Keima and I died yesterday," Elsie said a bit too cheerily from the driver's seat. Kazuma was a bit surprised to find that the girl did seem to be a fairly decent driver despite only having a few hours of practice. He wondered if there was a skill for that which she somehow managed to learn.
"This thing's cool and all, but I still don't think you guys are from another world," Megumin argued. "Kazuma's way too lame for that, and there's no way Aqua's really a goddess."
"I am too a goddess!" Aqua pouted.
"Yeah, the goddess of party tricks," Kazuma said sarcastically.
"I am not the goddess of party tricks!" Aqua shouted at him. "I'm the goddess of water! It's right there in my name: Aqua!"
"Do you people ever shut up?" Keima yelled back from the front passenger seat, where he was still playing with his totally-not-a-PSP.
"No!" Kazuma and his three party members all shouted back at the same time.
"Hey, I think we're here!" Elsie slowed the oversized vehicle to a stop. "Is that it?"
Kazuma unbuckled his seatbelt and walked up to the front, looking out the windshield. "Yeah, that looked like a goblin camp, alright. Everyone out!"
Kazuma ended up having to help Aqua and Megumin get their seatbelts off and he was pretty sure the only reason he didn't need to help Darkness with hers was that she had refused to wear it in the first place, the masochistic freak. He could only pray that she didn't find out about how they restrict when pulled too quickly. He wasn't sure who he would pray to, though. Eris, maybe?
Once everyone was out of the fire engine, Kazuma gathered everyone in a huddle.
"Alright, here's the plan," he said. "Darkness and Elsie are going to rush in first. Elsie, I want you to try and get as many of the goblins as you can. Hopefully, that won't be too difficult. Darkness, you're going to cover her, make sure she doesn't get hit too much. And don't be weird about it."
"I'm not going to be weird about it," Darkness argued, though the way she was blushing and quivering with anticipation showed that she was being weird about it.
Kazuma sighed before continuing. "Then Keima's going to start attacking the stragglers with… what spells do you have?"
Keima shrugged, not looking up from his game. "I don't see why I need to be a part of this."
"Don't you want to increase your level and get stronger?" Elsie asked her brother.
"No," Keima said bluntly. "I thought I made it clear that I don't want to go adventuring."
"Truly a man after my own heart." Kazuma nodded, then frowned. "But seriously, Belzerg's basically a death world and if you don't get your stats up then you will die. When that happens, I call dibs on your PSP."
"It's a PFP," Keima insisted. "And fine, I got a girl to teach me a few basic spells last night."
"What girl?" Megumin yelled at him. "Have you been seeing other Arch Wizards behind my back?"
"I don't know, I didn't ask for her name," Keima replied. "She was hiding in the bushes outside your mansion. And it wasn't behind your back because you are not my sensei!"
"Stay on target," Kazuma said before the argument could continue. "What spells?"
"Tinder, Freeze, Wind Breath, Create Water and Create Earth," Keima said.
"Alright, that's actually pretty good variety," Kazuma noted. "Unfortunately, none of those can do much damage on their own. Aqua, we're going to need you on support. Use buff spells on Keima so that he can actually do some damage. That just leaves me to pick off any stragglers that try to get away. Any questions?"
"Hey, what about me?" Megumin asked. "You didn't give me anything to do!"
"That's because you can't do anything," Kazuma pointed out. "You can't fire off an explosion on the goblins without the rest of us getting caught up in the blast."
"But that's not fair!" Megumin whined.
"Well, maybe if you were more proactive and bothered learning different spells like Keima here, you would get more to do," Kazuma snapped. "Now, any other questions?"
Everyone else shook their head, except Keima who was too focused on his game. So much for him not being as useless as his party members. But at least he could theoretically make up for Megumin's lack of versatility. Between the two of them, he might end up with the equivalent of one functioning Wizard. He also still had his hopes up that Elsie might make a better Crusader than Darkness, even if she was technically a Dark Knight.
"Alright, charge!"
Or she would Leroy Jenkins her way into battle. Typical. Then again, that was basically the plan anyway so Kazuma couldn't complain too much. Well, he could, but that was because he was Kazuma and there was nothing that he couldn't complain about.
Elsie and Darkness ran over the hill that had been blocking them from the goblin's view, and the rest of the party followed. There were around two dozen of the small green demi-humans, more than Kazuma was expecting but not so much that they couldn't handle them. The main issue was the cave next to their camp. Who knew how many more could be lurking in there? If things got ugly, Megumin might have to let off an explosion after all, but hopefully it wouldn't come to that.
It didn't take long for the team to decimate the large group of monsters. It was amazing just how much of a difference having a knight who could actually hit things with her sword and a wizard who didn't refuse to learn spells could make. Kazuma sincerely hoped that Darkness and Megumin would learn a thing or two from the new adventurers. He knew they wouldn't but he hoped.
"This is fun!" Elsie laughed as she drove her borrowed blade down to bisect an unfortunate goblin whose leg had been trapped in ice from one of Keima's spells. To a reasonable person that would probably be seen as worrying behavior but a reasonable person wouldn't have been in Belzerg to begin with.
"For you maybe," Keima grumbled as he used Wind Breath to suck the air out of a goblin's lungs. For someone who didn't want to be an adventurer, he sure seemed creative with how to use his spells. Then again, Kazuma could relate. "I just want to get this over with."
The final goblin's head rolled across the ground after a swift strike from Elsie, split cleanly from its shoulders. Was this really what it was like to have a real adventuring party? Kazuma felt that he needed this, badly. He was going to get them to join and that was that. All he had to do was-
"Look out!" Kazuma's detect enemy skill had suddenly triggered. There were two monsters headed straight for them from the cave. He barely had enough time to call out to Elsie before a dark mass of fur sprang out and sank its massive fangs into the demon girl's side. She let out a shrill scream of pain and Darkness tried to tackle the large black cat away from her only for the second Rookie Slayer to pounce and knock her to the ground.
Kazuma swore under his breath and pulled out his bow but Keima acted quicker, using Create Earth to throw a wad of dirt into the first Rookie Slayer's shining golden eyes. The beast released its grip on Elsie and backed away, blinded by the attack, and Kazuma didn't hesitate to use Snipe to sink an arrow into its eye socket. Meanwhile, Darkness was grappling the other giant sabertoothed panther and wrestling it to the ground with her herculean strength. With that one immobilized, and Kazuma and Keima keeping the other distracted, Aqua was able to rush in and start repeatedly using Heal on Elsie.
"Ahha!" Megumin yelled, holding her staff in the air as she struck a pose atop the nearby hill. "Now that you've been overwhelmed it is finally time for my explosion magic to shine!"
"Don't even think about it!" Kazuma snapped, while Keima kept splashing the Beginner's Bane with Create Water. "If you use that now, then we're all going to be caught in the blast!"
"If that happens then Aqua can just revive you all," Megumin argued. "Oh blackness, shrouded in light! A frenzied blaze clad in night!"
"Heal! Heal! Heal! Heal!" Aqua looked up from the injured girl as the sky darkened and layers of glowing magical circles manifested above them. "Hey, I can't do that if I'm over here, too! Heal! Kazuma, make her stop! Heal!
Kazuma shook his head and turned to the deranged lunatic, thrusting out his hand towards her. "Bind!"
A rope shot out from his sleeve and wrapped itself around Megumin, interrupting her spell as she ended up falling over and rolling down the hill toward the rest of the party, unable to break free of her restraints.
"How dare you interrupt my most glorious explosion, Kazutrash!" Megumin fumed as she wiggled around indignantly. "I shall pay this slight back unto you one-hundredfold!"
At the sound of the new voice nearby, the blinded Rookie Slayer rushed toward her. Kazuma drew his sword and instinctively charged the beast but it turned out he didn't need to.
"Freeze!" Keima shouted and a blast of frigid air blew from his outstretched hand, reacting with the water he had already drenched the Rookie Slayer in to encase the monster in a thick layer of ice.
Kazuma didn't have time to stop running and crashed head-first into the frozen cat, knocking himself out on impact. Meanwhile, Darkness stood up from where the other Rookie Slayer lay still on the grass, its neck snapped and ribs fractured.
"That was exhilarating!" the Crusader declared, wiping her disheveled hair out of her scratched-up face and panting heavily. "That monster was an absolute brute!"
"That was fun," Elsie agreed, sitting up now that she'd recovered from her injuries thanks to Aqua's magic. "I could do without the getting impaled part, though. That really hurt."
"Yes, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to take that blow for you," Darkness blushed. "We will need to get you proper armor when we return to Axel. I should also be able to teach you some of my resistance skills as well."
Now that Elsie was up again, Aqua rushed over to the unconscious Kazuma and placed her hands on his chest. "Heal!"
"Did we win?" Kazuma groaned and held his aching head as he slowly rose to his feat. He looked around to see that Megumin was still struggling with the rope she was bound with, Keima had gone back to playing his game, and a very beat-up-looking Darkness and Elsie were looking over the younger girl's Adventurer Card while sitting atop the corpse of one of the dead Rookie Slayers while the other was thawing at his feet. "It looks like we won."
"We totally won," Aqua grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Nice." Kazuma dusted himself off and walked over to the new adventures. "Well, what do you say? Do you want to join our adventuring party? I promise it's not usually this chaotic."
That wasn't even technically a lie. Usually, it was even more so. But they didn't need to know that.
"Of course!" Elsie beamed and Kazuma suddenly noticed that she had a lot of skin showing thanks to how torn up her school uniform had gotten. "That was great! When do we get to go again?"
Keima didn't even look up from his game. "That means that we get to stay at your place for free, right? Sure, unless I get a better offer."
"You won't," Kazuma assured him. After all, this guy was probably going to be seen as just as much of an outcast as the rest of them with how antisocial he seemed to be. But at least he was competent, unlike the girls. "So that settles it, then! Welcome to the party!"
"Will you come untie me already?" Megumin yelled as she wormed her way over to Kazuma's feet, then started biting his leg.
"Ow, what the hell!"
And thus their party grew to include the dating sim addict and the energetic demon. Kazuma thought that his life of adventuring was about to become a whole lot easier with their help. But of course, things always had a way of turning around to bite him in the ass. Little did he know just how much this would ultimately turn his life upside down.
Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!
On the next exciting chapter of God's Blessing, God Knows: Settling In This Wonderful World!
Elsie smiled up at her senior knight and new role model. She hadn't known the blonde Crusader for very long but it was clear to Elsie that she was the epitome of knightly valor and honor, everything that else now wanted to be. Though she did think it strange that everyone else seemed to treat Darkness as if there were something strange about the saintly young woman.
Elsie's eyes widened with awe once they stepped inside the tailor's shop. It was like setting foot in a Renaissance fair's wardrobe department, or perhaps a cosplay shop. A wide assortment of adventuring outfits and wizard robes were on display. A woman stepped out from the back, alerted by the bell which rang as they opened the door.
"Holy Mother of Boobies!" Kazuma's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets and he couldn't help but start to drool. If this were an anime, he would have passed out from the fountain of blood bursting forth from his nose. But this was reality, so instead, his pants suddenly tightened as Lil' K rose to attention. "Darkness, what the hell are you wearing?"