Chapter 15: A Bone For This Virgin NEET!
Kazuma woke up with his arms wrapped around something soft and warm. He wasn't sure what it was and he was still too tired to open his eyes to check. It felt nice, though, so he pulled it in tighter. As his senses slowly came to him, his nose was filled with a familiar scent, like a pleasant ocean breeze, and smiled. Then the thing in his arms shifted and Kazuma was suddenly jolted awake by a kick to the shin. His eyes flickered open to see a wild frenzy of blue hair in front of his face.
Oh, it was just Aqua, then. They must have rolled over closer to each other than normal in their sleep. It wouldn't have been the first time that had happened. He just needed to pull his arm out from under her, a difficult task with the lack of circulation making its way to that arm meaning that it felt more like a mass of static than a limb, and scooch over on the hay pile. Just a routine morning when they had to share a dirty old stable stall to live in.
Wait, they didn't live in the old barn anymore. Kazuma sat up and took in his surroundings. They were in the mansion. Not his room, though. It must have been Aqua's. Why had he spent the night in Aqua's room? Why had he spent the night in Aqua's bed? He glanced down at the goddess in question.
…Why was she naked?
…Why was he naked?
Crap! Kazuma scanned the room in more detail, looking for his clothes. He had to get out of there before she woke up, or it was all over for him.
"Hmm, morning, Kazuma." Aqua rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes as she sat up next to him, then let out a loud yawn. It was too late. "Wait, Kazuma?"
It took a moment for the weary goddess to process everything that Kazuma had already had a chance to take in. Once she did, though, her face managed to turn redder than a Crimson Demon's eyes and she pulled the blanket over her bare breasts, which Kazuma hadn't even had a chance to realize had been exposed.
"K-K-Kazuma?" Aqua stammered out. "What's going on? Why am I in your bed? Why are we naked? D-don't tell me you… How could you, Scumzutrash? To take advantage of a maiden in her moment of vulnerability? I thought even you were better than that!"
"That's not what happened!" Kazuma snapped back. "We just… Look, we were both pretty drunk last night. We probably just forgot that we have our own rooms now and got into bed together like we were still living in the old stable. I'm sure that nothing else happened!"
The crusty coating he could feel around 'Lil' K' told a different story, though, and he was sure that she was probably feeling something similar. There was a voice in the back of his brain telling him to celebrate the fact that he was no longer just a virgin NEET, even if he couldn't remember the deed itself. This was something that he could brag about to all of his loser friends who hadn't managed to make that leap yet, and he was pretty sure that he'd just won a bet with Dust. The other, more rational part of his brain was asking the important question of WHY AQUA? She was like a bratty sister to him, right? Even drunk Kazuma should have known better than to stick it in that.
"Look, look, it's fine." Kazuma felt like he was trying to reassure himself just as much as Aqua. "Nothing happened last night. I mean, this is us we're talking about. We wouldn't have… Anyway, I'll just grab my stuff and use Lurk to sneak off to my room so that no one has to suspect a thing."
"Wait, I thought this was your room." Aqua tilted her head, a confused expression on her face. At least she wasn't panicking anymore.
Wait…
"No~o? This is your room, right?'"
Aqua shook her head slowly and Kazuma could feel a pit digging its way into his stomach, even deeper than before. They both jumped as they heard a set of loud footsteps from the hallway outside.
"Okay, okay, don't panic," Kazuma whisper-shouted. "They're going to walk by and then we can figure out a plan."
The footsteps stopped just outside the door because of course they did. Kazuma held his breath as the doorknob slowly turned, all other thoughts but fear vanishing from his mind. The door opened, and Darkness walked in humming a tune as she closed the door behind her and shook her boots off.
"Boy, what a night. I can't believe I managed to pass out on the couch. Hopefully, I can get a quick, proper rest in before…"
The blonde crusader finally looked up and spotted the two unexpected guests in her bed, standing there like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Kazuma could swear that he saw the gears grinding in her mind as she processed the scene in front of her.
"Aqua? Kazuma?" This was the worst-case scenario. If it had been anyone else, they could have played this off. Maybe it would have damaged his reputation a bit but it wouldn't have been anything that he couldn't recover from. But this pervert of a knight was sure to get… ideas… "W-why are you in my bed? Were you… Don't tell me that you were… waiting for me?"
Nononononononononono! WHYYYYYYYYYYY did it have to be Darkness?
"I see!" Darkness blushed as hard as Aqua and began to squirm around in a show of uncomfortableness, though she couldn't quite hide the lewd smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "All of your constant arguing and bickering has been a front to hide that you've been secret lovers this entire time! But now, you've decided that your games aren't enough anymore, so you've been planning to assault me in my sleep and rob me of my maidenhood, to use and abuse my body as your plaything!"
WHY! DID! IT! HAVE! TO! BE! DARKNESS?
"What, no, that's not what happened at all! Why would you even think that?" Aqua tried to explain, but it was too late.
"And as the leaders of this party, I have no choice but to submit to your vile and immodest whims, lest you kick me out and besmirch my good name!" Darkness was far, far too enthusiastic as she somehow managed to throw off her clothes in a single, fluid motion and before Kazuma even had a chance to react, she had lept on top of them, pinning both himself and Aqua to the bed. For someone who seemed convinced that she was being victimized, Darkness was quite… aggressive… as she groped and kissed the two helpless 'abusers'. Fortunately, they were able to push her away before things could escalate even further.
"Look! That's not what's happening!" Kazuma shouted. "We were all just drunk last night and the two of us both happened to stumble into the wrong room by mistake! Nothing else happened, and nothing else will happen! You got that?"
"Oh, um, right…" Darkness blushed even harder as she pulled away from them, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. "Sorry, I, umm… I think I'm still a bit tipsy from yesterday's celebrations and I guess I got a little ahead of myself. I hope you can both please forgive my indecency and forceful actions just now."
"Of course, all is forgiven," Aqua replied with a nod. "All love is good in the eyes of the Axis Sect, even hidden romances and threesomes… Just make sure that that's ACTUALLY WHAT'S HAPPENING before jumping to conclusions or trying to force yourself on people! I'm supposed to be a virgin goddess, after all, and I definitely wouldn't be doing anything with Kazutrash of all people!"
"Hey!" Kazuma pouted. "...fair. Besides, it's not like I'd want my first time to be with you, either. Your personality is just the worst! You know, I tried to get it off to you back when we were together in the old stable, but I couldn't. It's just impossible."
"You what?"
"Right, sorry." Darkness hung her head in shame. "It won't happen again… unless you want me to."
"No! No, we will not want you to," Kazuma insisted, then sighed. "Look, let's just all forget about this morning. We're all drunk, we're all making mistakes, and if we can just slip back to our actual rooms then we can just act like nothing happened. Now, as long as no one else randomly barges in on us-"
"Guys, what the fuck!" A certain silver-haired thief suddenly kicked down the door and stormed into the room.
"Chris!" Darkness looked down and realized that she was naked, then pulled the blanket up to cover herself, which left Aqua exposed so the goddess had to pull up a sheet instead. "Why are you in my room?"
The sudden intruder took in the scene, and her eyes narrowed as she locked into Kazuma.
"What did you do?" she practically hissed.
"What are you talking about, I didn't do anything! This isn't what it looks like!" Kazuma blurted out. "What are you even doing here? This is private property!"
Chris ignored him, instead walking over to Aqua and pulling the blue-haired woman's hand into her own.
"It's alright, we'll find a way through this," she whispered reassuringly. "I know he hurt you but I know that we can find a way to fix things."
"What are you talking about?" Aqua pulled her hand away, to Chris' apparent surprise. "Kazuma didn't hurt me? And fix what?"
Chris sighed and went to close the door, whispering something as she did so. Then she turned back to the trio.
"Look, you two… you know…" Chris blushed as she made a ring with the fingers on one hand while sliding the index finger of her other hand through it. "...last night."
"We did not!" Kazuma snapped, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. "Besides, even if we did, how would you even know that?"
"Yeah!" Aqua nodded in agreement. "Have you been spying on us?"
"This is quite the unfortunate turn of events," Darkness added. "Look, Chris, I know we've been friends for a long time but peeping in on my party members while they're making love in my bed is a step too far, even if it was probably quite exciting. Why, when I imagine what they must have been up to last night, I find myself-"
"NOPE! Nope! Nopenopenope!" Chris began waving her arms frantically and shook her head as if trying to wipe the thought from her brain. "I do not need that mental image burnt into my brain any more than it already is."
"Then what are you even doing here?" Kazuma asked in exasperation. "The sooner you leave, the sooner we can all go back to pretending that none of this ever happened."
"You can't just pretend that this didn't-" Chris looked just about ready to tear her own eyes out in frustration. "Look, Aqua is supposed to be the maiden goddess of water. As a goddess, she's not allowed to… have relations… with mortals. By doing you-know-what, you've…"
Aqua suddenly gasped, her eyes growing wide as she suddenly realized what Chris was getting at.
"What, no, that can't be right! I'm still a goddess!" Aqua insisted. She didn't even seem to care that she'd dropped the sheet she had been using to cover herself, and Kazuma ended up getting a good look at everything. She certainly had the figure of a goddess, and- No, this was not the time for thinking like a pervert. Besides, this was Aqua. He didn't like her like that… Did he? "Look, I'll prove it. Nature's Beauty!"
A pair of folding fans appeared in her hands while a small potted plant appeared on her head, all spouting gentle streams of water that misted in the air.
"There, see? I still have my powers." Aqua said, though Kazuma could see that she was starting to cry, her eyes producing even more water than the party trick.
"That skill has nothing to do with your goddess abilities and you know it." Chris sighed and walked over to the crumpled heap of Aqua's clothing in the corner of the room, procuring a slip of paper from it which she then handed to Aqua. "Look, check your Adventurer Card."
"What, no! This can't be right!" Aqua sobbed as Kazuma caught a look at the card from over her shoulder. Most of her skills were grayed out apart from a handful of party tricks, and her class was displayed as Adventurer. "The card must be broken. Heal!"
Aqua tapped her hand against a bruise on Kazuma's arm that he hadn't even noticed he'd gotten when Darkness had manhandled him earlier. Nothing happened, other than that he flinched at the touch.
"Heal!" She tried it again, sobbing even harder as reality seemed to sink in. "Heal!"
"It's no use." Chris sighed. "The higher-ups took your powers away for breaking the rules. You're mortal now."
"That can't be true, since we didn't do anything!" Kazuma snapped again as he started to realize the gravity of the situation. "Obviously, there was just some glitch or something that reverted her class, so she can't use her Priest abilities right now. Just change it back and she'll be fine."
"Yeah, that must be it." Aqua nodded and began fiddling with her adventure card.
"Priests and Arch Priests get their powers from their connection to their god." Chris pointed out. "And in Aqua's case, that meant herself. Every member of the Axis Order has lost the powers that you granted them, thanks to Kazuma."
"This is crazy!" Kazuma wrapped his arm around Aqua's shoulder and leaned forward. "We didn't do anything, we couldn't have! This is all just some big misunderstanding that we can get sorted out. I've met Eris before and she's a friend of Aqua's, so I'm sure she'll probably know what we can do."
Chris sputtered out some random gibberish before slapping her forehead, confusing everyone else present. "Really, you didn't… I thought you were just humoring me, I didn't think that you actually hadn't realized… ugh!"
There was a flash of blindingly bright light that flooded the room, blinding Kazuma. As his vision gradually returned, he saw that Chris had spontaneously changed her outfit. Gone were her normal scanty thief clothes, replaced with a familiar feathered mantle that he recognized as the clothes that the goddess Eris wore whenever he died and met her in that weird checkerboard place. In fact, it was pretty good cosplay. He'd never noticed just how much the thief looked like the goddess. Just take away the thin scar across her face and up the boobage a bit and… Wait, Aqua was always going on about how Eris pads her chest, and a scar wouldn't be that hard to add or remove with makeup or, presumably, magic…
"My goddess!" Darkness gasped and bowed deeply.
"Eris, what are you doing here?" Aqua asked. "And where did Chris go? Oh, never mind, we have bigger problems right now!"
"I know." Chris, or, Eris shook her head. "I'm the one who told you."
"No, Chris is the one who told… us…" Aqua gasped as her only two brain cells finally rubbed together. "Are you saying that you've been Chris this whole time?"
"You really never made that connection?" the goddess of fortune asked. "I was barely even hiding it."
Aqua looked down in embarrassment and Kazuma squeezed her a bit tighter. He wasn't sure why but that felt like the right thing to do.
"So, Eris, how are we supposed to get Aqua her powers back?" Kazuma asked. "Since it looks like maybe, possibly, something might have happened after all. We can fix this, right? Because as annoying as Aqua can be sometimes I'd never want to take her, um, goddessness away from her."
"Well, at least you're taking some responsibility for your actions, Kazutrash." Eris sighed. "But this isn't exactly my area of expertise. I was just a Junior Goddess until I suddenly found myself promoted out of the blue this morning."
"Wait, you got promoted to Senior Goddess?" Aqua looked up. "Congratulations!"
"Don't congratulate me! I only got promoted because you lost your job!" Eris snapped at her. "I didn't even want to be a Senior Goddess."
"Okay, I think we're getting a bit off track, here," Kazuma said, trying to get back to the important topic. "We've got to get Aqua her powers back, right? I mean, that's basically all she's good for."
"Hey!" Aqua slapped him over the head at that. "I'm good for other things."
"Yeah," Darkness agreed. "Aqua's a talented and beautiful young woman."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Kazuma shook his head. "Anyway, back to making her a goddess again. Is there any way to do that?"
"I don't know!" Eris repeated. "I know it's possible for mortals to achieve apotheosis and reach godhood, that's how I became a goddess, but I don't know if that would even work on a fallen goddess."
"Well, it's worth a try!" Kazuma insisted. "So, what do we do?"
"The only way for a mortal to ascend is through the power of other's belief in them," Aqua explained. "Basically, you have to have a lot of devoted followers to fully believe in you like a god. But I've already got that! I am a goddess with my own church and everything!"
"Okay, this should be an easy fix, then. All we gotta do is show your followers that you're still here and reignite their faith or something." Kazuma turned to Eris. "How did you do it?"
"I led a slave uprising, defeated a Devil King in single combat in front of thousands of witnesses and ascended while getting burned at the stake on trumped-up charges of witchcraft and, for some reason, crossdressing," she explained. "I don't think any of that is going to be relevant."
"Yeah, no, probably not," Kazuma agreed.
"I don't want to get burned alive!" Aqua cried before grabbing Kazuma and shaking him wildly. "Kazuma! Kazuma! Kazuma! You've gotta tell them I'm not a witch!"
"No one's accusing you of being one!" Kazuma tried to push her off him. "Unless they're spelling it with a capital B!"
"Oh, yeah." Aqua relaxed and sat down, right onto Kazuma's lap. Then her eyes widened and she jolted back up. "Ew! Gross! What was that?"
Kazuma coughed uncomfortably before backing up against the headrest of Darkness' bed and covering himself up with a pillow. "What? It's involuntary!"
Eris groaned loudly, completely fed up with her friends' behavior. This was supposed to be a PG-13 adventure, not a raunchy X-rated comedy. Darkness, meanwhile, was busy eating both flavors of eye candy before finally snapping back to attention and pulling her party members into a tight hug.
"Whatever happens, I want you both to know that I'll be right there beside you if you ever need anything," she told the struggling not-lovers as they tried to pull themselves out of her grasp. "But for now, it sounds like we should probably head to Arcanletia."
"Oh, right!" Aqua stopped pushing away. "My cathedral's there, along with the bulk of my followers. I'm sure that if I ask everyone there, they can pray in my name and get this all sorted out! Come on, what are we waiting for?"
"Well, for one thing, we still need to get dressed," Kazuma pointed out, causing both of the naked women he was pressed up against to blush.
"If we're going on a trip, then I'll let the others know to get ready," Darkness said as she reluctantly let go of the others.
"No!' Aqua suddenly gasped. "I'd, um, rather keep this between us for now. At least until after we get this whole thing sorted out."
"Fine, but let's just get this over with as quickly as possible." Eris shifted back into her Chris disguise in another flash of light.
"We should probably stop by my church here in Axel first, though," Aqua added as she, Kazuma and Darkness all started to get dressed.
Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!
Cecily sat up in bed with a groan, rubbing the weariness from her eyes. Something felt off but she dismissed it. Sparing a glance down at the cute redheaded mage she'd managed to pick up during the previous night's festivities who was still snoring softly, she stretched and climbed out of bed.
Her first order of business after freshening up and getting dressed in her usual Axis robes was to get to work watering all of the many plants in the church. It was an important part of her daily responsibilities as the building's primary caretaker but fortunately also a simple task. After all, all she had to do was point her finger and…
"Create Water!"
…Nothing happened. Cecily tried again but still didn't manage to do anything. Her other hand yielded similar results. She tried waving her hands around, looking down the barrel of her finger gun and anything else she could think but nothing seemed to work.
That was disconcerting, to say the least. With a bit more experimentation, she quickly discovered that none of her magic seemed to be working. But why? Cecily hurried back to her room, where her current bed warmer was just waking up.
"Huh, what's wrong?" the redhead asked.
"Nothing," Cecily lied, opening the drawer of her nightstand and pulling out her Adventurer Card. "Just need to check something- What in Aqua's name?"
Cecily couldn't believe what she was seeing. Why had she been reverted to an Adventurer? Something like that didn't just happen and she had never heard of someone losing their class out of the blue like that. She started to panic but managed to calm herself down quickly.
"I, um, have to go." Cecily hurried out of the room. "Argent Axis business."
Any faithful believer of any Order knew that the first thing you should do when you had questions or a trial was placed before you was to pray to your goddess. But Cecily figured that since said goddess happened to live just on the other side of town, she might as well try a more direct method of communication. She'd been meaning to pay her patron deity and her party members a visit, anyway, to make sure that Aqua's current living arrangements were up to what the goddess deserved. Plus, there was the fact that said party had a reputation for being made up mainly of cute girls. It had been too long since she'd had a chance to hang out with that delightful little Crimson Demon loli.
As Cecily walked out of her quarters into the church's main chapel, however, she found that she didn't need to make her way to the mansion. Aqua had just walked in through the front door, alongside her boyfriend, that Crusader chick and the Eris hellspawn. She felt that her goddess really needed better friends. Though she supposed that Kazuma wasn't half bad and Darkness could probably be converted to the Axis Order if the rumors about her were true.
"My lady!" Cecily bowed before the goddess. "What can I do for you this fine day?"
"Cecily! Cecily! Cecily!" Aqua ran over and nearly knocked Cecily over. "I need your help!"
"Anything, Lady Aqua!" The priestess rose to her feet, holding the crying goddess in her arms. "What's wrong?"
"We kinda… did something we shouldn't have last night," Kazuma said as he stepped closer.
Cecily looked at him, then back at Aqua, then winked and stuck her thumb up. "Nice."
"No, not nice!" Aqua looked up from where she'd been sobbing into Cecily's ample bosom. "It means… it means… it means I lost my pow~wers!"
Cecily blinked a few times, stunned by the unexpected revelation. That would explain her own sudden, inexplicable fall from the priesthood. "I don't understand, I thought all love was good in your eyes. Why would porking your boyfriend cause you to lose your powers?"
"He's not my boyfriend!" "She's not my girlfriend!"
Cecily didn't believe either of those statements.
"It's a divine mandate," Chris explained. "Gods and goddesses aren't allowed to take mortal lovers."
"It's a stupid rule!" Aqua whined.
"I thought you said you voted for it," Kazuma snapped at her.
"Yeah, but I didn't think it was going to affect me! I've never been interested in that kind of stuff!"
Cecily glanced back and forth between everyone. "Okay, but how can I help?"
"We were hoping that by communing with Aqua's followers, we might be able to reinstate Aqua's divinity through, um, what did you call it?"
"Apotheosis," Chris said. "The process of a mortal ascending to godhood. It's how I, er, how Eris was said to have become a goddess."
"Ah." Cecily nodded, barely following along. "Then you'll probably want to head to Arcanletia, then."
"That's the plan." Kazuma nodded.
"Hey, Nella!" Cecily shouted, turning around.
"Yeah, what is it?" The adorable shortstack of a Wizard walked out into the chapel, in a loose-fitting tunic and a deliciously short skirt.
"You've got a teleport point set for Arcanletia, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think you can take us there, sweetie?" Cecily gave her latest girlfriend her biggest puppy-dog eyes.
"Dammit, I can't say no to you," Nella shook her head. "Yeah, sure."
"You shouldn't swear in a church," Chris spoke up.
The Wizard spat to the side. "And who asked you, Eris bitch?"
The cockroach groaned and shook her head, while Darkness seemed to perk up.
"I am also a member of the Eris Order!" The Crusader straightened up excitedly, prompting Nella to spit again. Truly a shining example of the Axis Order, though they had bigger fish to fry.
"Alright, if we've got everything settled, then we should leave as soon as possible," Cecily said, looking around. "What about the rest of your party? Aren't they coming?"
"Nah, just us for now." Kazuma shook his head. "I'm sure they'll be fine. What's the worst that can happen? …Wait, no, I shouldn't have said that. I probably just jinxed it."
Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!
Back in the mansion, two Crimson Demons, one actual demon and a self-proclaimed god sat around the dining room table. When Megumin had dragged Yunyun out for her daily Explosion, the responsible one had decided to check the mail first before making the two-hour walk to the old marsh that served as Megumin's latest ground zero. That was when everything went wrong.
"B-b-by the t-time y-you read this, I will- I will already- will a-already b-be d-d-dead."
Yunyun read the letter she had just received from her father aloud, trying her hardest not to cry. Keima had placed a comforting hand on her shoulder while Elsie was starting to tear up as well. Megumin, meanwhile, had buried her face under her hat in distress, having already read the letter for herself.
'Even as I write this letter to you, my daughter and only heir, our ancestral homeland is under attack by the demonic forces of the vile, despicable army of the Devil King. Our people, the mighty Crimson Demon Clan, foremost Arch Wizards of the land, fight tooth and nail to defend our dark and misfortunate village but an ill omen shines upon us. By the end of the fortnight, I fear the lands will be stained with Crimson blood and a song blacker than the coldest winter night shall be sung of this day. And in these, my last words, I wish to let you know that you shall forever be my shining star that will guide our people through the stormiest of nights, the thorned rose in the devil's garden that shows that beauty can blossom even in the deepest of hells. Even if our village shall fall, I pray to the cursed dark gods that you will be able to forge your own triumphant destiny and avenge your fallen clan.
'Oh, and Megumin's parents wanted to say hi but couldn't afford to send their own letter.'
Yunyun set down the first page of her father's letter, now stained with her tears, before she continued on to the second page.
'But not all hope is lost for the cursed tribe of the Crimson Demons! Yeah, behold, for a fortuneteller of great and terrible renown hath spelled out this prophecy, that a mysterious shining light shall be cast out into the future! Lo, the last survivor of the fallen village, Yunyun, shall stand up and take as her star-crossed lover a true master of the arcane, whose power is said to rival that of the gods themselves! And it is through their forbidden love that an heir shall be born, a child of destiny who will stand against the tides of fate and destiny to go beyond anything the world has ever seen!'
The room was quiet, save for the soft purr of Megumin's familiar, Chomsuke, as he strolled across the table, and Yunyun's continued sobbing. Elsie wrapped her arms around the poor girl, trying to comfort her yet at a loss for words. What do you even tell a girl who just found out that her only family and friends had just been brutally massacred?
Keima backed away, shaking with grief and/or righteous fury while Megumin finally looked up, her mouth quivering as she was clearly on the verge of tears herself.
"I-I-I c-can't believe he's gone!" Yunyun's legs finally gave out and she fell to her knees, Elsie still holding on tightly. "W-what am I supposed to do now?"
"It's going to be okay," Elsie tried to reassure her. "I'm sure my big bro will be willing to help you to fulfill that prophecy and help you avenge your clan. Right, God of Conquest?"
All eyes turned to Keima, even those of the perfectly-normal-and-not-at-all-remotely-weird cat.
"Hell, no!" he shouted back, waving a fist angrily through the air. "What the hell makes you think I'm the one she's supposed to have a kid with? Besides, she's way too young to even be thinking about that! And we already defeated the Devil King, so they've already been avenged!"
"B-b-but our village's fortuneteller is never wrong." Yunyun sniffled as she looked up sorrowfully at Keima. "And you're the only Wizard that I've ever met outside the Crimson Demon clan with powers that can match ours. Y-you're the only one it could be, Keima! I have to have your baby!"
Yunyun got up and ran to him, arms outstretched. Keima responded by immediately running away and the two went several laps around the dining room before he finally hopped up on the table to get away from her. That was the point where Megumin finally lost it altogether and started banging her fists against the table hysterically.
"BwaaaaahahahahaHAHAhahaHAhohohoHOhohahahaha!" Megumin gasped for air once she finally managed to stop laughing uncontrollably. "Oh, man, that was way too good!"
"What? How can you laugh at a time like this?" Elsie asked her, looking scandalized. "You're people just got massacred!"
Megumin wiped a tear from her eye, still struggling not to burst out into laughter again. "Ch-check the note at the bottom."
"Huh?" Yunyun pulled out the crumpled sheet of paper in her hands and finally spotted another line written in the margin. "Love Blooms In The Winter Of Tragedy, A Lurid Tale of Romance and Intrigue, Chapter 1: Legend of Crimson, by Arue."
Silence filled the room as Yunyun's cheeks slowly came to match her eyes. "OhgodsI'msuchanidiot!"
She quickly ran out of the room, crumpling the page into a ball and chucking it into the lit fireplace as hard as she could before slowly walking back in looking like she wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
"Um, I feel like we're missing something," Elsie said as her brother climbed down from the table now that his magic instructor was no longer trying to jump his bone.
"Arue was one of our classmates back home," Megumin explained. "She wants to be a writer and that was a sample from her latest excuse for a novel. It was even written in her handwriting."
"Why did she have to use my name?" Yunyun whispered to herself.
"Oh, that's a relief." Elsie sighed. "So the whole thing was just a story?"
"Oh, no, just that second page." Megumin sobered up quickly. "The first page was real but also a perfectly normal Crimson Demon letter."
"No offense but I hate your culture." Keima groaned in exasperation. "Wait, no, I do mean offense by that. Seriously, what the hell?"
"Okay, hand me the letter and I'll explain." Megumin held out her hand and Elsie pushed the paper over to her. "You see the opening line, 'By the time you read this, I will already be dead'? That's how Crimson Demons always start letters. Seriously, Yunyun, you should have caught on to that right away."
The taller girl knelt down and wrapped her arms around her knees as if trying to will herself to take up as little space as possible in the hopes of blinking out of existence entirely.
"And then he goes on to say that the village is under attack by Devil King's army, which is also pretty normal," Megumin continued. "We live right on the border of what was until yesterday the Devil King's territory and our clan produces the strongest Arch Wizards on the continent so we've always been a huge thorn in his side. We get attacked by his armies all the time but we're also pretty much the most fortified place in Belzerg except for maybe the capital just through sheer firepower. Even without the glory and power of Explosion, Crimson Demons are just that strong. And after that, it's just some sappy poetic imagery about how much he misses Yunyun… and then a backhanded jab about how broke my parents are, though knowing Chief Hiropon, he probably didn't mean it that way."
"Well, that seems kind of rude," Elsie replied.
"Nah, it's fine. My parents are losers." Megumin shrugged, then looked thoughtful. "Although, I do wonder how my little sister Komekko is doing. Hey, Yunyun, do you think that we can visit the village?"
"Oh, um, sure," Yunyun nodded from where she was now curled up in the fetal position on the floor.
"Ooh, that sounds like fun!" Elsie perked up. "Hey, Big Bro! Do you want to check out the Crimson Demon Village clan?"
Keima was currently lying beside Yunyun, also curled up into a ball. "Why are we here, but to suffer?"
"That wasn't a no." Elsie smiled. "Let's go visit your hometown… Hey, wait? Where's everyone else?"
Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!
In the next exciting chapter of God's Blessing, God Knows: The Apostasy Of This Holy City!
"Well, I need to make a proclamation that will reach as many of my followers as possible," Aqua said. "The best place for that is going to be the courtyard outside the Axis Cathedral. They've got a hu~ge statue of me there and I think If I climb up on statue me's shoulder, I should draw enough of a crowd."
"Welcome, my children." Zesta waved to them as he approached, his eyes devouring the incredibly buxom blonde knight and the silver-haired tomboy. The brown-haired boy didn't interest him and they were all huddled over the fourth member of their group so that he couldn't get a good look at her yet. "What can I do for… you…"
"Yeah," Aqua muttered as she stared down at her tea. She quietly watched the ripples along its surface as she tried to figure out what it was that she wanted to ask. "...What's love?"
Author's Notes: I believe that I've mentioned before that this fic is a combination of two different story ideas that I had decided to mix together. The Konosuba/God Only Knows crossover was one of those ideas. The opening of this chapter, with Kazuma and Aqua waking up in Darkness' bed after a drunken one-night stand, was the other. Although I have significantly reworked and developed where this accident is going to lead compared to when the idea first popped into my head. And oh, boy is this chapter going to have major repercussions throughout the rest of this story.