After the skirmish at the church, Kazuma and party had been half-led, half-forced to the inn where the Reformists were working from. Zesta had made it clear that, until he and the others could fully discuss what happened, they weren't prisoners. They just wouldn't be allowed to leave. The four of them had been given a room to share, the lot of them making a single cuddle pile on the only provided bed. The quiet of the room left them all to contemplate exactly what had happened.
Darkness was likely having the easiest time, having not directly hurt the Traditionalists nearly as bad as the others. To her, it was an unfortunate accident that she only wished she could have been slightly better to prevent.
Megumin was having a darker revelation she had missed in her innocence. She'd never used her magic on a person before and the amount of damage a weak explosion caused almost made her want to forget she ever knew the spell. Almost. At the end of the day, it was still her pride and passion, she was just coming to grips that she needed to think of better ways to cope with human opponents.
Kazuma was reeling from the realization that this had all started because of a plan he'd made. Up to this point, he'd been relatively impulsive in his ideas. Yes, he'd put in a lot of work to make them come to fruition, but he hadn't taken time to think out the ramifications of the plan. With the succubi, it had been, in his eyes, 'a moral good' and he couldn't see past the individuals that would be harmed. He never thought of the chaos that the country could have fallen into. With Gerald, he'd only thought of petty vengeance and his friends. What if the lack of guild leader had caused the hall to shut down? Or if they replaced him with somebody even worse? Those kinds of thoughts he should have had before he executed his plans, not months afterwards.
Aqua was, arguably, the most miserable. She was convinced she was a terrible goddess. She knew, empirically, that she wasn't the best, but he hadn't put much thought to it until she saw just what had become of some of her faithful. They'd tried to kill simply because they didn't want to change. Were it not for followers like Zasta, she would have felt the world a better place if she were to just fade from existence. Feeling Kazuma next to her reminded her that wasn't entirely true, at least one person truly missing her.
The morning started off slowly for the party, nobody willing to be the first to move and potentially awaken the others. A sort of standoff, with none of them wanting to be the one to ruin the quiet. A knock on the door thankfully ended that as a young boy's voice carried through the door. "Oldman Zasta wanted me to get you guys. Breakfast will be ready soon" followed by departing footsteps. Megumin jumped off the bed first, dashing to the bathroom while Kazuma and Aqua disentangled themselves. Darkness only sighed slightly at the loss of weight on her. She had 'accidentally' made sure to be under everyone else before they passed out.
Once downstairs, they're greeted with a large, banquet style table with Zesta at the head, the four seats to his left open for them to sit. Kazuma, the de facto leader of the party, took the seat closest followed by Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness.
Zesta smiled as they sat motioning for them to eat. "Come on, dig in. No need for young adventurers to go hungry. Especially growing young ladies" he finished with a goofy grin, motioning towards Megumin with his cup. She only responded with a look torn between disgust and outrage.
The innkeeper rewarded him with a smack across the back of the head for his comment, the lady of the house serving drinks for the house. "None of that Zesta. Behaviour like that is part of why nobody respects our goddess."
The old man grumbled, mumbling under his breath something about 'not appreciating womanly charms' before turning back towards the party. "So, I believe you said you're from Axel, correct? The guild hall has heard of our problems then?" he prodded, stirring his own bowl of oatmeal while he waited.
Kazuma nodded, sipping on a cup of coffee. "Yes, we were told it was looking like it might turn into a full civil war so we came to stop it."
Zesta let out a snort of derision at that, "Well, you did that. A few more weeks and those fools probably would have started buying mercenaries or trying to make us seem the aggressors to the Adventurers' Guild. Could have done with a bit more finesse though."
Kazuma felt both anger and shame at that comment. While, yes, he'd caused a lot of pain, he also had the decency to get off his ass and do something about it. "Well, Aqua here is an Arch Priestess of Axis church, so we kind of had to help our friend out. The tension was causing her to have some… issues, to say the least."
The tidbit had Zesta sitting up straighter in his chair, a glint in his eyes. "Oh? She must have an incredibly deep connection to our fair goddess if the schism caused such unrest in her. And she shares our lord's name? You must have been hand selected by her, yes?" Kazuma wasn't sure why, but the way the old man was asking those questions almost felt like he was fishing for information.
Aqua nodded her head, sipping on her orange juice, her meal hardly touched. "…How did you manage to live here with all of that hate? The minute we landed here it was almost like I was punched in the gut" she asked the priest, hoping to understand how she'd missed such a development.
Zesta reached out, gently patting the hurting goddess's hand. "By acclamation, I'd assume. When the schism first started, tempers weren't nearly as bad, but as it became obvious they would lose they became more and more aggressive. All the way in Axel, it likely hit you all at once when you got here."
Aqua thought about it before realizing he was probably right, to a degree. She was a goddess, but one hampered and trapped in a mortal form for now. If her powers were limited, odds are she was the high end of humanly possible instead of 'full god power' when it came to sensing them. "Yeah, but… it just sucks so much. Even being here is making me feel like there is a lead weight around my neck."
Zesta nodded, his eyes losing what little happiness he'd had. "Once again, it gets better. Now that the schism can't realistically escalate, things should start to get better. It will be slow, but now we can rebuild."
"Pah, a fat load of gob-shite that is. Ain't no rebuilding happening if we can't bring in tourists. You have any idea how hard it's going to be to convince people the streets are safe? Without our hot springs, that's almost half our revenue down the drain" the landlady griped, topping Kazuma's cup off as the merchant pondered her words and the rest of the table devolved into their own conversations.
Kazuma was quickly lost in thought. He had a decent amount of money saved now, even after paying off the guild. At this point, he mostly stuck around because it was easier than trying to make his own shop to keep gaining levels. This, though, offered him an opportunity. With the Reformists winning, the town would likely bounce back stronger than ever if they survived the year. He also knew that there were likely to be buildings and stores that wouldn't want to risk a bad season and would just cut their losses. His plan slowly came to mind, going over the potential backlash and weighing it against the potential gains and profits he might make from his mad idea.
Eventually, he decided it was worth the risk. "Hey, Zesta. You guys are cool with the succubi that follow Aqua in Axel, right?"
Zesta nearly spat out his own drink at the complete non-sequitur, choking on his drink. "Excuse me?!"
"Oh, I guess that didn't reach up here yet. Yeah, Aqua, the goddess, invited an entire cafe of Succubi into the Axis Order. It was a big thing in the kingdom and they were given clemency once it was shown they were truly followers of her's." The entire table had dropped to silence as he explained what they'd missed in their miniature civil war.
"Surely you jest? Aqua might have become more tolerant as of late, but willingly taking in demons?" Zesta asked, though Kazuma could see the familiar glint of lust in the man's eyes.
"Eyup. She found out about the cafe because of one of her followers and decided to pass judgement on them. They weren't hurting anybody, so she gave them the choice of joining or getting smote." The entire room was hanging on his words at this point, the Axis members confounded by what they were hearing. Aqua had caught onto what Kazuma was doing. She knew how he thought at this point and was thankful he was helping her people out. Even if it was to turn a stupidly high profit late.
"I, um… I suppose we're fine with them if that's true?" Zesta floundered, his footing gone for the first time since the meeting had started.
Kazuma smiled, standing up. "Perfect. Anybody that wants to sell their storefront or bath house to try and move, step right up. I'll buy anything and everything for the right price!" To emphasize his point, he materialized a bag of Eris larger than his head, slamming it down on the table, to the confusion of those gathered.
"Eh? Why?! We aren't even sure if we'll make it through the year and you're buying us out?" A voice came from what was likely a local business owner.
"Because I have the money and the desire. So, anyone selling, get in line!" What he didn't mention was the intent to bring a lot of the succubi to run the stores. Open Succubi cafes approved by the goddess Aqua herself in her holy capital? There was no way it wouldn't sell like mad. Especially if he made sure to ask the girls to spread the word around for him.
Time to cash in a good chunk of favor with both Aqua and Marigold.
