Kazuma's turn

The problem with being a badass warrior and a queen is that sometimes you need to be in two places at once.

The celebration of the Founding King Balthasar's coronation was coming up soon, and anyone who was anyone in the nobility or general upper crust had to be there. Keeping Iris on standby near our new defectively divine guest was politically as much a non-starter as the prime minister back home ordering everyone to work over Golden Week.

In the meantime, an extra company of the city garrison was being deployed as security at the Parade Grounds where they'd be celebrating and all three companies of the royal guard were on standby split between there and the palace. Whether Wolbach would take those odds before tangling with Iris, who could say?

Until the dust settled from all that, Megumin was in a separate building from the palace proper but built as long term quarters for visiting foreign delegations. Eventually we were going to have to move her outside the capital, either to a garrison town or even the Village, but for now it was the best we could do. At least the suites were swanky, plus easy to secure and discreet.

Claire had also decided, and I for once totally agreed, that introducing the three of us to the assembled movers and shakers just yet wasn't a good idea. So Sylphina, Komekko, and I were playing wizard chess and basically killing time in turns while 'guarding' Megumin for the day. Who seemed to be napping for now, but the way her ears followed Komekko every time she shifted or traded spots with one of us made me suspicious.

That calm lasted until the first bells rang out to the east of us.

"Fire?" Sylphina wondered. Komekko and I shared a look and shrugged. She was the native, or might as well be.

"The mage corps is going to be busy if so," Megumin agreed, now deigning to be awake.

Komekko ignored her and went back to her book, Chronicles of the Crimson Crusader. One of Arue's products, and pretty much what you'd get if Batman was a Gothic romance. Not my thing, but she knew how to keep you turning pages. She'd have been a killer soap opera writer back home.

Sylphinia and I went back to our game, which I was winning because I'm awesome and not because she kept deliberately missing moves like she was playing with an eight year old. She only did that in her first game with Komekko, after I started suggesting penalties for losing too many times she started playing like she meant it.

It's no substitute for a console, but playing with real people was a lot more fun than I expected. We'd never really done 'family night' back home, and the few meatspace friends I had before dropping out I met at the arcade or somewhere, not really at home. But this was kind of similar.

Komekko scared me a little too much to see her as a woman, and Sylphina was determined to treat me like a little brother. So it really was like I was meeting up with the guys for a chill game night instead of the awkward singles mixer I'd been terrified of.

"My Arch Priestess casts Purification! Your foul Lich Queen is no more!" Sylphina crowed, knocking my piece off the board with a flourish. Stupid tall women, her arms were long enough to reach all the way across the dining table to my pieces on the back row.

"Ah, but there you've erred! For You See, my Lich sacrificed herself nobly for the cause of liberating all from the tyranny of living! Her Death Curse takes…"

"Clerics are immune to status effects from that!" our own cleric protested, but I overrode her.

"...my hobgoblin."

"And kills it?" she asked, frowning in total confusion. "Sweetie, are you sure?"

"And upon the roll of this dice, activates its Stone Skin ability at point of death…"

"You haven't rolled yet, and that is NOT how a Death Curse gets used!" she protested vehemently, now seeing what I was planning.

"Rules don't say I can't, read 'em and weep. As I was saying, upon this roll, I get Stone Skin for this turn on …"

The dice rattled across the table, and to this day I'm certain it would've given me the natural 20 I needed to activate that ability and break her line of pikemen, letting my Dullahan into her back rank.

The building shuddered, like someone had bounced us on a trampoline, rattling everything in the room and knocking over the bottle of wine on the side table with a crash.

Startled cries filled the air, and I wasn't the only one. Megumin had hidden under the bed with amazing reflexes, while Sylphina had dragged me under the table almost as quickly.

Komekko, meanwhile, marked her place and dropped the book to the carpet beside the chair she'd annexed to the Crimson Demons. Her words.

"That just hit the guardhouse at the front gate," she muttered, her gaze turning inward as she took over the view of one of her minions outside the palace. I hadn't asked what, reasoning what I didn't know I couldn't get burned at the stake for. "And it's…that we need to deal with!" she said louder. Springing from her chair, she grabbed her cloak and strode for the door.

"Wait, what is it?" I asked, clambering out both from under the table and Sylphina's attempts to make sure I wasn't bruised.

"A slime," she said simply, a grim set to her jaw at total odds to her usual antics.

"Oh no," Sylphina breathed, and they both reflexively turned to look at Megumin.

"What, like a herd of them?" I protested. "So we get our rain boots and go do some stomping or what?"

"Bite your tongue, one of them is bad enough!" Sylphina snapped. "Didn't you listen to a thing Lady Rain said?! Slimes are practically unkillable, and eat anything smaller than them. Which is almost everything!"

"And if that's General Hans out there, just touching a few drops of him will poison you." Komekko agreed, eying her sister and I coldly. "You know her majesty's orders, get her out of the way and don't let her be taken," she said to me after a second. "We'll see what we can do out front. I'll be sending distress flares as well, but with all the fireworks Eris only knows if they'll get seen in time."

With that, they both bolted out the door.

Wolbach's turn

The best way to deal with an ambush is often to trigger it on your terms.

The little nut job from the Crimson Cockroach Clan lived up to her namesake, Hans apparently failed to kill her after all. I was surprised it took her this long to turn up, usually they couldn't resist returning at a dramatic moment any more than a drunkard could free beer.

I was outside the palace walls, and my handful of lieutenants had dispersed to their positions. Only twenty, but good men and demons. They should be enough, between the challenges and countersigns we possessed for some of the garrison companies to keep them in barracks until it was too late, and some strategically placed arson and sabotage to occupy the others.

Months, years in a few cases, of steady work getting people in the right places, or replacing those that got caught. All the intelligence we would have been able to gather from those moles. All sure to be gone in the purge that would follow tonight whether we won or lost.

All for this. One chance to reunite with my other half and be complete for the first time in decades. To be the Goddess of Sloth and Violence once more, not just Laziness and Short Tempers, as my partner for tonight too often joked.

To be me.

And if I or the gelatinous battering ram at the gates sent some of that trickster goddess' worshippers to her sooner than they intended to go, so be it.

The alarm bell inside began to toll, and I slipped out of the alley. Time to go to work.

I was neither stealthy nor subtle as I crossed the cleared area outside the walls. I needed to be inside before the palace barrier, and its attendant teleport area denial spell, went up and they wouldn't hesitate once Hans started his attack.

The Royal Guard itself was the biggest hurdle, but split between the Parade Ground and the palace they'd be as weakened as they ever got. One company spread out on wall patrols and holding the gatehouses, the other in reserve inside. The reserves and gate guards would be Hans' problem, but I had to assume a squad or two would be in easy reach of me.

One sharp eyed guard spotted me before I'd taken more than a few steps. A Lightning spell lanced out at me as I pushed myself along with a haste blessing, but it went wide with a twitch of my footing as I bounded closer. More joined it, along with an area effect fireball that must have been cast by one of the more senior wizards. Bad luck to find one on this section of wall.

But not bad enough, I could see them perfectly well in the dark. My other half only got most of the catlike traits, and I replied in kind with a Cursed Lightning, and another, and a third that shattered a four meter section of crenellations alongside its defenders. A few more spells rained down in reply, along with a handful of arrows, but I outsped most of it and reached the foot of the wall with my cloak tattered and more mana spent on wrecking that bit of wall and keeping my resistances active than was probably healthy this early on.

No matter, from here on only a few could attack me, and none on the section of wall I'd attacked directly above me, the murder holes that let the defenders shoot down at the wall's foot safely gone with the rest of the masonry. Now it was my turn to shoot a magic volley at anyone who poked their heads out.

Speed, always speed. The barrier would be going up any second. Climbing was out, even a goddess' physical stats wouldn't let me scale 10 meters of wall in time. Jumping it in a single bound was out of the question even for Belzergs, but the Dragonslayer got her fame and pre-coronation fortune for good reason.

Dragon hide is amazingly rare, expensive…and versatile. A set of gloves or boots in it makes the best protective gear you can buy short of adamantoise, but it has another useful property. The long coat of it I wore cost more than most adventurers would make in their lives, but right now it was worth every diablo as I channeled magic into it.

In response, gravity became a suggestion.

A hop, skip, and jump up the wall, and past the bewildered swordsman that never had a chance to recover from his shock, and I was over the top and kicking off the inside surface as the palace barrier snapped and fizzled into being behind me.

Hitting the flagstones with a roll, I came up with a Cursed Lightning primed in my hands and unleashed it on the backs of the defenders as they frantically dove for the catwalk inside their defenses.

That errand taken care of, I set out for the ambassadorial annex, confident nothing my enemies had left would slow me down.

Kazuma's turn

Megumin was part way out from under the bed when she heard the news about our attacker at the gate, and there she stayed after the other girls bolted out to help the defense.

"Don't let her be taken, huh?" I muttered. I didn't want to think about how that could be interpreted.

"Come on, this is the first place anyone will look," I told Megumin, wrestling a pair of manatite crystals from my belt pouch. She looked up, face drawn and pale, but finished crawling out and stood as I finished thinking.

"Given my way I'd give this place more traps and decoys than a Tomb Raider level and let the bitch try her luck," I growled as we stepped into the hallway. "But we don't have that kind of time and nobody would let me borrow a few hallways to practice on ahead of time."

"I heard the maids begged the majordomo to refuse that," Megumin muttered back. "Something about 'trap dungeons' and 'marriage prospects'."

"They knew what they were signing up for when they went to work at Noble Central," I replied, just the tiniest bit of embarrassment coloring my face. Really, most of those ideas I'd put in just to see what they'd let one of Iris' companions get away with. Turns out, not much.

"Anyway! Instead, I'll have to do this," I said quickly, making a show of checking each way down the hall. I held up one of the manatite pieces, the other I kept in hand. "How much of this would you say you radiate if someone scanned for magic?" I asked.

"What? I…I don't know, maybe a third if I'm not doing anything. Why do…"

I dropped that piece on the floor and smashed it under my bootheel. Megumin squawked in outrage, but I ignored her and tossed a piece about the right size into the room behind us before sweeping up the rest. The first one I pulled on, and chanted "Create Water! Wind Breath! Freeze!" a few seconds apart.

The humidity spiked, and then the temperature plummeted below the dewpoint, causing a thick fog to form and start rolling down the corridor and into her suite. The broken manatite should leak enough mana to keep it going long enough to matter.

"Do…Do you have ANY idea what t-that cost…" Megumin said weakly.

"Ok, that's one," I overrode her, dropping the spent manatite in my other pocket, and leading us on. "Besides, how much is your life worth?"

She didn't have an answer for that, but it turned out it was quite a bit.

I repeated the process twice more on that floor, and several more times over the next floor up in the servant's quarters when I heard the snap and crash of a Cursed Lightning spell below us in the main suite. I thought I heard a scream of frustration as well, but that might've been my imagination.

Still, I only had one more piece of manatite left plus a few shards too small for much. Not enough for another decoy, and besides, one suddenly appearing would be a dead giveaway.

Six remaining decoys, plus us.

Belzerg being the place it is, 'all the kingdom's movers and shakers' overlaps pretty closely with 'all the kingdom's warrior elite'. Outside help or not, she didn't have all day to look for us.

Time to roll the dice.

Wolbach's turn

I vented my full fury at the second piece of manatite under the bed of the attendant's room next to the main suite, and realized I was going to need a new plan. Smash and grab had been the name of the game on this trip, and I'd done too much of one and not enough of the other.

Unless whatever bastard set these up was a complete idiot, there would be traps on at least some of them. I wasn't about to keep approaching them to find out what, and the danger of frying Megumin by accident attacking indiscriminately was just too high.

I'd sooner be damned to Vanir's personal Pit than share my head with that little megalomaniac for the rest of my days because I couldn't undo whatever sorcery she'd twisted my other half with.

Plus, confusion could only reign for so long, and the Dragonslayer was nothing if not decisive. Unless I wanted to fence with her once she returned, it was time for the bigger hammer option. It smacked of Seresdina's methods, but I wasn't in a position to be picky.

Hopping out the nearest window and giving a healthy wind gust to slow my fall, I strode to the nearest large open space to clear my sight lines, then primed an Explosion spell and held it aloft in one hand. In the other I raised a voice amplifier, the trickle of mana it needed about all I could spare with my magic tied up.

"HEAR ME! I am General Wolbach in the service of His Majesty the King of All Demons! I demand the one known as Megumin be brought before me! You have a ONE HUNDRED count to comply! Should you fail me in this, I shall level the palace with Explosion and depart!

Choose wisely."

Megumin's turn

"Is she serious?" Kazuma asked me, like I wasn't a has-been arch wizard.

"I..I don't know! I haven't cast Explosion in years! Why are you asking…"

"Because I don't have time for this! Not for your issues, or about how much you've pissed off your sister, or even the random flunkies about to get murdered alongside us. What I DO care about is surviving the next minute! Now are you a Mistress of Explosion Magic, or do I go find one of those flunkies who've never cast it in their LIVES and ask them?!"

I wanted to punch him so much I could taste it for saying that, he had a punchable face and no judge would ever say differently. "You're an asshole, you know that?" I hissed.

"Never pretended differently. Clock's ticking," he snapped back as the count reached eighty.

I glared up at him. He was still a jackass, but he wasn't wrong. I shook my head sharply. "Shut up and let me think."

He swallowed a retort that was probably something about being quick about it, but thankfully he did shut up.

I haven't been a practicing wizard since I was sixteen. Eight years ago now, a third of my life. Long enough for my baby sister to become a woman, and my parents to seemingly learn how to run a business without starving. Even long enough to go from a king, to another king, to a queen.

But not long enough to forget Explosion.

I hadn't, couldn't, cast it. I knew that as soon as I came back inside Chomusuke. The first thing Wolbach would look for besides any weird looking black cats was probably an unknown source of Explosions reshaping the landscape even if I could. But I'd dreamed about it. Repeated the chant to myself at work once in a while. Sometimes when a customer decided I needed a greasy handprint under my skirt.

I still remembered the feeling of the greatest magic the world had ever known, and those memories told me one thing only.

"She's bluffing. There's no way she can cast the Explosion and Teleport out before it kills her, even with an item ready. She can't Teleport then cast Explosion either, because even if the palace barrier failed you still have to see what you're aiming at, and any place high enough to see over the walls is guarded."

"Good, and she can't just drop the spell and start casting the second she's under attack?" He pressed.

"No, she'll need at least a few seconds to un-cast her Explosion and do anything else."

"That's all I need. But I doubt the average flunky knows that, and she's gambling they'll panic and sell you out to save themselves. She also probably thinks all the fogs are decoys by now, so it should be safe to hide in one and wait this out," the jerk said over one shoulder as he made his way to a window and started unwinding a rope.

"And you're going to do what?" I asked skeptically.

He gave a hollow laugh and kicked a windowpane out. "What else? Something really fucking stupid."

The twit probably thought that was a cool line to end on, because he Vanished right after, off to the sound of the counting echoing across the palace grounds.

For a moment I was tempted to do as he said. I'd been a waitress and bartender until now, outside of the odd monster I'd taken with my sling and knife. I didn't belong out there in the middle of the danger, not anymore.

But I've also been part cat even longer, and they're famous for one thing.

Chomusuke, take over. Get us out there and don't let us be seen.

My partner pounced on the chance. She might be more a goddess of sloth than violence these days, but she'd never turn down watching a good fight.

We flitted from shadow to shadow in the gathering evening gloom, then up to a roof with a flutter of wings timed to be covered with the counting. I beat Kazuma there, but only barely. Wolbach was just passing thirty and the handful of Royal Guard spared from the fight out front looked like they might be about to take their chances and rush her, threats or not. We settled in with our eyes peeking just over the roofline from the opposite side. Just a little black shadow against the dark roof tiles, the closest thing to invisibility known to man or demon.

A ripple against a glow light caught my eye, just for an instant as it sped across the courtyard.

Wolbach noticed too, but he was already too close for her to let her Explosion fail safely before he was on her and I agreed with what seemed to be Kazuma's plan. If she'd wanted to commit suicide there were easier ways. He appeared a moment later, shortsword drawn and empty hand priming a spell. I hadn't known he knew any magic.

I do know one of my most cherished memories in my creaky old age after another two or three decades, if I'm that lucky. The look on Wolbach's face when she realized he really didn't care that she was holding enough power in one hand to level towns and planned to fight her anyway.

She backpedaled away from his first swing and started frantically stepping down her now useless Explosion before she lost control of it and vaporized herself along with the rest of us. As the spell dimmed and flickered, the Guards realized what he was doing, and charged in to join the fun.

Wolbach had better footwork than you'd expect from a wizard, though at her age she'd had plenty of time to practice. A real swordsman might still have taken her, but Kazuma had the bare basics and nothing else.

"Create Water! Freeze!" he barked as the last of her spell flickered out. She caught part of it across her face, and for an instant wore a mask of ice across her mouth and nose before her magic resistance undid it.

"Cheap tricks won't save you, boy," she growled back. A Cursed Lightning spell flared past him, striking a squad of Guardsmen charging to join the fray and out for blood.

Kazuma might've been fine with her Teleporting out to be someone else's problem if she'd been willing, but the Guards weren't having any of it. Their families lived in the barracks within the palace walls with them, and if those walls would've saved the rest of the city by channeling the blast upwards, that was no consolation to anyone trapped inside.

"Steal!" He shouted in reply, leaping back as she raised one hand, something in her fist. He grabbed something, but not what he was aiming for because a second shockwave centered on Wolbach knocked back him and the closest guardsmen. The fireballs and ice missiles the wizards hurled at her to cover their comrades also fizzled out on contact. Only Intermediate Magic, but a lot of it. Human wizards that reached Advanced Magic in their prime years like my old boss Wiz the Ice Witch or Lady Rain were prodigies even by Royal Guard standards.

In place of the saturation barrage was a crackling barrier of arcing lightning, like a permanent series of ever shifting lightning strikes. It made me sick just to look at it, I knew that effect anywhere. During my time working for Wiz I'd even heard of her using it in action, when she attempted to trap General Vanir. Only to learn that like most of my dad's devices it was totally useless for its intended purpose. Blocking any attacks from both directions, unable to be turned off until the user's mana ran out.

Worthless for its purpose, but just the thing for catching a breather in a tight spot if she'd fixed it.

I couldn't lip read well enough to tell for certain, but by the look of it, blocking anything meant anything. Even teleport denial. I all but screamed in frustration, after all this she was going to get clear using something my former people, my family made? If there'd been so much as a pebble in arm's reach I might've tried to throw it at her, paws or not. But that was all I could have done. The only attack spell I knew was still Explosion, for all I'd grudgingly picked up a few utility skills to help my new life.

The evening gloom brightened, the blue white of the lightning cage matched by a red gold ball of pure destruction throwing stark shadows as it streaked overhead.

"SACRED EXPLODE!"

Blocking almost anything, that is.

Kazuma's turn

I've never really believed in gods, any more than many of my people do outside vague cultural baggage. But Iris in that moment backlit against the evening sky as she launched her attack was probably the closest I'll get to seeing a Goddess of War.

The thunderclap of her sword skill impacting Wolbach's barrier still echoed across the square as she jumped down from the roof, landing with a whump and flutter of fabric.

Her ball gown looked like it had lost a fight with a weed eater, and her shoes were long gone to who knows where. The tiara was still in place by some miracle or more likely magic, but the rest of her hair had blown out of its braids and clasps to stream around her shoulders like a comet's tail as she landed. And I was certain all of the blood on her was someone else's. Maybe several someones.

Wolbach was tired, frustrated, and I'd made sure to tangle with her holding a huge advantage and with some professionals backing me up. Exploiting the True Power of Friendship, as Chief Yunyun would say.

She still almost handed me my head, and if she hadn't decided I was a lesser threat than the guardsmen I'd have become a smoking corpse at least once.

I've seen the best the Crimson Demon Clan has to offer in action, and though they'd probably never admit it to their dying day, Wolbach was a little better. More experienced, more versatile, and at least as powerful. The fact she even had Explosion at all meant she'd already mastered any other magic she cared about and had the points just lying around.

Maybe that was why Iris spoke no witty remarks, no offers of honorable surrender or appeals to sparing life. Her enemy was in front of her, and her people behind. And that was all that seemed to matter. Iris went at her like a blonde Terminator, and didn't even bother dodging anything that wasn't Advanced Magic.

Wolbach didn't bother with much that wasn't. She cycled out Cursed Lightning and Light of Saber the way other mages would send a common Wind Blade. The rest of us who weren't superhuman killing machines took cover where we could, if we could, and let the two titans battle it out in what was left of the courtyard while the handful of remaining Royal Guard rallied and went to assist their Queen.

I contented myself with looking busy doing some splint and bandage work after my Lesser Heal ran dry. Hopefully doing a little good until a priest could come along to do the real heavy lifting. I'd had enough brushes with death for one day.

I remember parts of that fight, in between seeing to some luckless soldier or servant who didn't run fast enough.

Marble spawning shrapnel from a sword strike that I couldn't even follow, but Wolbach somehow managed to stay away from.

A decorative oak that was probably older than my grandfather shattering and spewing burning splinters the size of my hand as the sap flashed to steam under a Crimson Laser and burst like a balloon.

Iris running along a sheer wall, kicking off and launching herself at Wolbach like a ballista bolt. The general lost track of her for a crucial second, and that was enough. A flash of the royal sword, and General Wolbach was done.

—-

It felt like hours later I was in the middle of trying to tourniquet an arm like I vaguely remembered practicing, back during one of my Wiki walks through dangerous and/or useful sounding skills ages ago. I heard someone approach from behind and grunted a distracted 'hang on a minute' as I tried to get the stupid thing to stay tight before finally yanking a cloth out of my pocket and adding it on hastily.

After another moment of knotting, I turned around to find Iris looking down at us quizzically.

"So tell me, Kazuma. Is there any particular reason you're tying a…comically oversized brassiere to that man's arm?" She asked dryly. She'd found an intact cloak somewhere, I noticed with a little disappointment.

I looked back down, startled. Sure enough, a G cup wonder was wrapped several times around his bicep with a bit of halberd shaft through the arm loop things to keep it tight. Sadly, the swordsman was too out of it to realize he had the most amazing medical device ever. Maybe he'd appreciate it when he woke up.

"I…huh. I wonder where that came from…oh."

"That sounds like a story I'll want to hear," she replied with a wan smile. "Along with the rest of this…" she gestured around "ongoing disaster. The walls might be rated to resist an Explosion, but the buildings inside certainly aren't. We'll need to relocate to the cathedral. Come on, the Eris acolytes can take it from here. You've done enough."