Kazuma's turn
It turned out that even Crimson Demons can't party hard on back to back days. So compared to Seresdina's celebration, the Moguunin's defeat was a much more restrained affair.
By Crimson Demon standards.
"BEHOLD!" Komekko cried from atop the corpse of her kill as a pair of flatbed freight wagons lashed together bore it into the Village square that evening. Doing a smooth pirouette, I noticed she'd ditched her boots in order to pull it off properly, she flared her cape with practiced flourish in spite of the unstable footing. "Know that a menace long suffered to roam our forests is no more!"
A rousing cheer from the assembled villagers answered her. Along with a somewhat smaller one, though probably more heartfelt individually, from the visiting adventurers that were the ones actually in danger from the thing.
It had been a few hours since we'd brought news back, plenty of time for some quick decorations and the local bar and restaurant to get to work in anticipation for a busy night. There was even a platform of earth compressed to a stone like hardness and surfaced with cement to receive the beast that a pair of golems began unloading as soon as Komekko hopped down and began regaling a group of her clanmates.
"So! The hero of the hour!" a hand smacked my back with solid emphasis, though not so much to make me stumble thankfully. Looking beside me, I found a slender green eyed blond man wearing welding goggles grinning at me. "Bennet, right? Sorry, I…"
He laughed, though thankfully didn't give me another smack. "No prob, call me Benny! You had a busy morning it sounds like!" he waved me off and pointed over to the bar, called 'Succubus Lingerie' now that I looked at it. "Let's grab a drink, you look like you could use one."
With a name like that I wasn't about to turn him down, but still. "Ah…does your wife…" I had to ask.
"It's fine, you'll see once we're inside," he assured me.
Once we passed through the doors, I saw his point. There was neither lingerie, nor succubi anywhere that I could see. Instead it was a pretty typical tavern, polished wood paneling with a stout wooden counter at the back behind which was probably a very nice selection for a village of maybe a few hundred people. Ahead of that were varying sizes of tables and chairs to match, all well made but not anything fancily carved or finished. Beside the fireplace along one wall was a raised platform, probably a stage for singers and such but now just holding a few extra tables. Given that across the square was a bathhouse called 'Mixed Bathing' I'd been meaning to try, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up there either.
After ordering for us while I was looking around, Benny came back with a pair of mugs in one hand and two small glasses filled with something pretty damned flammable smelling in the other.
"Right, here we go. Traditional Crimson Demon victory drink. We call it the Explosion," he said after setting everything down. Taking a mug of beer for himself, he took a quick pull off of it. "You give yourself some room in the mug, and then you drop this in like so," he dropped the shot glass in with a small splash. "And then, the Explosion!" he snapped his fingers and with a 'whump' a small fireball erupted from the mug. "You've got Basic Magic, right? Give it a try," he suggested, blowing out the residual flames on top of his mug and taking a longer drink.
I did, so I followed suit. I had to chant 'Kindle' to get mine to ignite, a reminder that I really did live in a Village of amazing wizards now.
"Never thought this would be my first drink," I chuckled, taking a pull. It wasn't bad, even if the process was a bit over the top. Like everything here, really. I'd cleaned up when we got back, and wandered the village before meeting the others over dinner to go over our first adventure together when Benny caught me watching the grand entrance.
"No lie? You're what, at least Komekko's age right?" my new drinking buddy asked.
"Turned 20 a few days before I came here. That's the drinking age back home so," I shrugged. "A lot happened, never got the chance."
Benny shook his head. "Wild. Well, in that case it sounds like you need another one." He signaled the girl behind the bar to do just that, then turned back. "What else is different? We don't get many Otherworlders coming through here, though that might change now that the Moguunin isn't around to attack them."
Humming to myself, I thought. "Well…there's no magic of course, but we did have…"
I regaled him with some of the things Iris had seen at home, and what a day in rural Japan had looked like before I became some kind of budget Chosen One.
"You said 'we' earlier, but you don't," I pointed to my eyes, "have the color. Is it not everybody?"
"Nah, I married in about eight years ago. Used up my whole lifetime's worth of luck getting the chance to," he smiled softly, and I had the sudden urge to kick the real normie in the room. Bet mecha didn't try to murder him either.
"No, really," Benny went on at my obvious skepticism. "I totally did. Here," he passed over his much more worn adventurer's card.
I glanced over it, great stats but…holy hell.
"Yeah, that's the usual reaction," Benny chuckled, taking his card back. "You should've seen the look on the clerk's face when she saw my luck stat. Asked me to list my next of kin on the spot." He tucked it away in his belt pouch, then took another drink. "But, here I am by the grace of Eris. All that praying must have paid off, I met the Thief that eventually introduced Yunyun and I not long afterwards." He frowned. "She kept saying something about a 'triumph of shipping' but no river around here is big enough for more than barges, so I dunno." He shrugged. "She was weird, but good people."
"Lots of those lately," I observed to myself. "What about around here, is it always like this? Killing ancient weapons from forgotten civilizations and thwarting demon generals?"
"Only if the Clan is having a slow day," Benny laughed. "But yeah, it's not a dull place to live. We have at least two dark gods sealed nearby, and that griffin in the square? That's not a statue. Somebody petrified it ages ago and it's been in the village square ever since. The Moguunin will be in good company. There's even some sorta weird building on the edge of the forest that's been here as long as the village, but nobody knows how to open it."
I sighed, and drowned my sorrows in my fresh beer.
Iris' turn
When I'd first heard Benny planned to invite Kazuma to go drinking, I'd thought it might be fun to join them later after our meeting.
After seeing the mood Yunyun and Rain were in after we finished recounting our experiences, I thought I'd rather drink poison than stay here a minute longer.
"Now then. Komekko, which part of 'don't go after the Moguunin, and teleport out if you find it' did you not understand?" Yunyun began with a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
"And for your part, Your Majesty," Rain asked with exquisite courtesy from beside her on the couch facing Komekko and I. "I believe we agreed that an expedition seeking anything more dangerous than the One Punch Bears would be most unwise. Pray, do tell what new information you received that led you to reverse that decision?"
"Peace, Yunyun. She was following my instructions," I reminded the chief.
"No doubt. Which is no excuse for not doing a party member's job of being a voice of reason when their leader is about to embark on a 'most unwise' course. Instead of jumping in with both feet as I'm certain actually happened!"
Komekko wilted, unable to refute the charge.
"And as for my reasoning, I judged between myself and an exceptional clanswoman we had enough power on hand to deal with it. As we did."
"Between the two of you you're certainly correct," Rain agreed. "But what of Kazuma? Whom you'd just spent enormous sums of time and effort on?"
"Who was at the time level…12?" Yunyun questioned. "We don't let our children hunt anything more dangerous than a horned rabbit at that level, even with an adult along."
"We only have a month to spare, probably less in truth," I pointed out. "Gaining levels is easy, teaching him to use his skills effectively needs all the time we can give."
Yunyun and Rain merely regarded me skeptically. After a long moment, I relented and added "Fine, fine. And because I wanted a decent fight. That doesn't make me wrong though."
"No, we are short on time, it's true. But, while I never would have thought it, unless I miss my guess he's never used anything more dangerous than a steak knife before he came here," Rain observed.
That brought me up short. The biggest source of recruits for Adventurers, noble retainers, even sometimes the Royal Guard was farm kids who grew up wrangling their crops. By the time they were teenagers they'd had years of experience beating their produce into submission and driving off monster ambushes before bringing it to market with their parents. Who were often retired soldiers or Adventurers themselves. Even city kids had some idea of what to do with a weapon from needing to protect themselves outside the walls to cut firewood and the like.
But that was Belzerg, not Japan. I'd been to Japan, and still I'd assumed he was simply used to different weapons, like that spray, when he looked shocked I'd handed him a sword. Not that he was a total stranger to violence. But…in that case…
I closed my eyes, resting my head in my hands and to hell with royal dignity. "Please, tell me I didn't take a rank amateur out on a boss monster hunt blindly assuming he knew what he was doing."
"Ah, I'm supposed to tell my party leader the truth, Your Highness," Komekko unhelpfully supplied next to me.
I glared at her, but she simply returned a 'what?' expression. "So our whole plan just went up in smoke is what you're telling me, Rain?"
"Skills only go so far," she agreed. "Though it might not be so bad as that. Using Basic Magic as he did was clever. It's intended as a survival toolkit, not attack magic after all. And he didn't freeze or panic. With some appropriate," she stressed, "leveling and experience he should do just fine."
Kazuma's turn
After finding out my life had just become a nightmare of hard work, constant danger, and general craziness, my motivation for my isekai adventure not only plummeted but dug a crater on impact.
We didn't find anything as terrifyingly dangerous as Moguunin after that first day, thankfully. But given I was sitting in a village full of blatant quest hooks there was no way something just as bad wasn't going to rear its head before long. The villagers seemed to even be looking forward to it.
My new schedule over the past few days was first thing in the morning, venturing out in the forest with Komekko and Iris farming monsters and learning which of a seemingly endless variety of horrifying demons our archwizard was going to summon for our entertainment today. Meanwhile Iris did her level best to not gib her targets so I could get some XP from them, but that didn't always work out. Even with her replacement plain iron sword I once saw her take down some kind of tree sized venus flytrap by carving it in half lengthwise. Needless to say, I tried to make our breaks for rest or snacks as long as possible, though my arguments that my people were inherently nocturnal and we should really only start the day around noon didn't get far.
Speaking of beautiful, terrifying women. Komekko was cute in a normal, girl next door way, a solid 7 when she cleaned up a bit. Back home, totally dateable if you liked the petite type. Here, that seemed to be where Crimson Demon women started out. I'd never seen a magazine quality Perfect 10 in real life before I met Iris, but I ran out of fingers and was well into toes to count them on by the time I finished exploring the Village. With about 200 women total even counting all ages, that just doesn't happen outside a pornstar convention. Between that and this 'mysterious facility' Benny mentioned, a man had to wonder.
Anyway, in the afternoons I sat in on some of the classes the village school had. Not for long though, apparently my poses and proclamations of doom were more than acceptable once I started channeling my chuuni past at full strength, but I just didn't have the magic horsepower to use the spells they were throwing around. By far the most fun I've had in school though, I might've stayed in and graduated if I'd gotten to invoke the protection of my inner demons before gym class.
Instead, I got some tutoring with Rain, mostly on things that would be common sense to anyone born here, with some magic theory and basic skill mechanics thrown in. On the one hand, private time with a cute, older librarian type. On the other…
"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" I asked the, I thought, refreshingly sane archwizard.
"I…suppose. My family is nothing noteworthy, a minor border barony near old Elroad. We grew herring and trout for the market mostly, but father wanted to…"
"Right, that. Right there. You said 'grow' fish. Like you had a big pond or water tank or something they swam around in?"
She tilted her head curiously, short blonde hair swaying. "No, of course not. Our climate was all wrong for garlic. We grew them both in fields by rotation as most do in our region. We…well we're not a wealthy house so I did my share of time sowing eggs during planting as a little girl before I went off to the Academy."
I closed my eyes and tried not to weep. Fish, actual scaly with gills and all fish, grown in a field of dirt. This on top of my first encounter with the local vegetables the other day, the baked potato wasn't bad but the fresh squash nearly took a finger. Who designed this place? And how do I find them so I can slap them?
"Whatever, nevermind," I sighed. "So…"
"We've drifted a bit off topic," Rain interjected firmly. "And we've become somewhat behind schedule as well. Consider the following scenario, you are invited to an informal dinner with a host of count rank…"
And that was the rest of my day, before blessed freedom came along.
Dinner that night was Horned Rabbit haunches fried in butter with spicy herbs of some sort. It turned out that spices were even more valuable and hard to acquire here than the same time period at home, given that 'set your hair on fire' wasn't just describing their flavor for some of those hell plants.
Yunyun and Benny were having dinner with their son that night, so it was just Iris, Rain, and I since Komekko said something about meeting her new staff. I didn't think she was rich enough to have actual servants at her age, but then again you wouldn't peg Iris as a queen by looking at her the last few days either given she'd been rocking the rugged adventurer look instead.
"It says much about my life that this has been the best holiday I've had in years," Iris chuckled, carving into her portion. "I must say I'm tempted to make it a yearly event."
"Claire would never stand for it," Rain admonished her liege. "Nor would I if you attempted to have me take over the government for so long each year."
"You'd mentioned her before, what's she like?" I asked, only to receive a glare from Rain. Right, dinner practice. I cleared my throat and rephrased to match the high flown style I was supposed to be learning.
"She was and remains one of my closest retainers," Iris answered. "She entered my service when I was but a girl, and has acted faithfully and prudently since. I treasure her as one of my confidantes, thus you shall also be spending much time in her company."
"She is somewhat strict in her conduct, not only of herself but others as well," Rain added. "Though she measures herself by a harsher standard than she would ever impose upon another. If you meet your mark she will ever be a valuable ally, but she is utterly without mercy for those that do not."
Right, basically my natural enemy. Got it.
I was contemplating going out for a drink later that night when a light knock sounded on the door of my guest room.
"Kazuma, are you available?" my party leader asked through the door.
"Sure, come on in!" I've never been in the habit of refusing any woman that wants to visit my bedroom after all.
Iris entered, looking grave.
"So…what's on your mind, Your majesty," I asked, already beginning to worry.
"I suppose I should be asking that of you," she returned. "I need to talk about the last few days"
OH. My heart sank, nothing good ever came of a woman needing to talk.
Seeing my understanding, she continued "I won't waste time then if you already understand. We are expending a significant amount of resources to make you combat ready as soon as possible. Yet if anything your own efforts have steadily waned ever since our first hunt together. Why?"
As she spoke, she'd crossed the room from the door to the couch I'd been lying on reading to look down on me. She was in what passed for casual wear with her, hair down loose around her shoulders from her usual working braid, and a ruffle hemmed, ankle length blue silk nightgown that probably cost more than the average warhorse swishing just above her bare feet.
"I…" I hesitated in the face of her intent stare. Not disgusted, like I'd half expected. Or even angry. I was used to those from prior experience, like it or not. But like she was watching every move I made like a cat tracking a bird, planning when to pounce.
"Go on. I'm not needed anywhere tonight and neither are you," she reminded me levelly. No chance of stalling then. I looked away, noting that she painted her toenails to match the purple grape hair clasp she sometimes wore. Unexpectedly girly of her.
She cleared her throat impatiently. "I'm…I keep thinking about the Moguunin," I finally said in a rush. She stayed quiet, but I couldn't meet her eyes to see her face. "It's like…I've never been in a fight in my life unless you count throwing sand at each other in the playground as kids. And that? According to Benny, that's going to be my life from now on!" I exclaimed. "Yeah, I signed on to fight a Demon King, and I know you don't do that by playing rock, paper, scissors. I…just now finally understood what I got into."
"And how much work you're going to have to put into achieving it," she added. I flinched, but grudgingly nodded. Having her call me out cut deeper than it would from anyone else, but what could I say?
"I, well I carry some blame for that. Yunyun, Bennet, and Rain came as close to calling me an absolute idiot as loyal vassals can without slipping into Lèse-majesté. Even my first hunt at 13 wasn't that exciting, nor my first battle a year later. And I was far better prepared for both."
She slid onto the couch next to me, tucking her gown in around her as she did. "Belzerg is not a kind place, for all that I love this land and its people. Nor is it anything like your home, though I hope you'll come to regard it as such in time. No combat is ever truly safe, but your first few battles should have been much more controlled affairs at least. For what it may be worth, I and the others agree you did as well as anyone could have. Komekko tells me it was your idea to channel the lightning into the exposed wires in Moguunin's leg rather than use Light of Saber and risk shooting past me or take time moving to a better position. She may have gotten the XP for the kill, but you do share some of the credit."
"But that is going to be what it's like, once the training wheels come off and we go out for real," I persisted.
Iris nodded. "You will be much better prepared, but the Generals will be much more dangerous in turn. I won't promise it will be easy. But, I can promise one thing." She lay a hand on my knee, leaning in close as my heart started not so much skipping beats as jackhammering them out.
"I promise you can do this. I told you, the memories of Princess Iris I received are the entire reason I brought you here. And make no mistake, he had far less support than you've received and was younger as well. If he could beat the odds and bring us victory, you can as well."
She leaned back out again, though her hand stayed in place. "I told you of my family's tradition, yes? Princess Iris gave up her chance to wed her beloved hero but I intend to do no such thing. Though while the Princess loved her Kazuma with all her heart, I refuse to chase down a man who doesn't show he's worth my time."
She rose from her seat, smoothing her gown before tucking a loose bit of hair back behind an ear. "But for one who does? I'd walk up to even an Axis altar if he was waiting for me beside it." With that, she leaned down and before I could even think pressed her lips briefly but firmly to mine.
My whole everything stopped. It's should be no surprise to anybody by now that that was my first kiss that wasn't a playground dare. Before I could even think about anything besides sheer shock, she broke it off and leaned upright again.
"Think it over. For now, goodnight," she said again, slightly flushed as she fixed her hair again, then stepped quickly for the door. As it closed behind her, I slumped back and held my head in despair.
Did I want that? Desperation, danger, probably bodily harm? At that moment I'd have sneered, and said bring it on.
Could I do it? Be the kind of hero that could win the war, and prove to someone who's the complete package like her that I was more than just Trashzuma the WonderNEET?
Gods only knew.
AN:
Bennet is from Genshin Impact if anyone's curious. The unluckiest man in the game, but a good lad despite that.