The Merchant's party slowly trudged closer to Axel proper, all of them slightly worse for wear. Aqua was helping Kazuma, whose legs were still shaky from just how badly the whole cannon incident had shook him. Which left Yunyun and Megumin to carry a half-naked Darkness behind them, each one of them holding a leg.

Once they're within sight of the wall, a group of adventurers came rushing out, clearly concerned. One of them looked like the young Spearman that Feldart had been training before the whole strike thing. "Oh thank the Goddess, you're alright. There was a gigantic explosion and Luna said you must be in trouble, so she sent us out." The archer of the group had already taken off their cloak, covering up Darkness to preserve some of her decency. "Um, any reason they're dragging Darkness like that?"

Yunyun responded, a smile on her face, "She requested it!"

Shaking his head, the Spearman ignored that, motioning for them to follow. "Alright, lets get you back to the guild so you can explain what the hell happened out there.

As the five friends were lead to the guild hall, the city was in a borderline panic. The beam from Kazuma's cannon had effectively blinded half the city, from what they could tell. The fact that several noticed the missing section of the mountain had only made things worse, many thinking that the Demon King had launched an attack, or something similar.

Once the hall is withing vision, a clearly panicked Luna burst out the front doors. "Oh thank Eris you're alright. What happened?"

Aqua spoke up, the others not in a great position. "We found the Tyrant Lizard and well… It tried to attack us and Kazuma tried out a new skill of his. It destroyed most of the monster and knocked Darkness out. He's kind of just been out of it since then."

Luna's face goes through a rapid transition of emotions before settling on confusion. "Then where did all the funds you withdraw from the guild go?"

Kazuma's body goes from slumped to rigid, his half-absent mind registering the question and rapidly putting two and two together. "Fuck," was the nearly inaudible response he gave, knowing he was completely screwed.

"Kazuma. What happened, to the funds" Luna asked, more forceful this time.

After a brief pause, he hung his head again. "I fired it."

"How the hell would you set Eris on fire?" Luna asked, confused.

"No, I fired it. I accidentally turned it into ammunition for my cannon when the Tyrant charged us. That must be why the blast was so big!" he shouted back, some of his usual vigor returning.

"You, used, our guild funds, to attack a monster?! A monster that your party should have been able to take on?!" Luna asked, getting truly angry for the first time they can remember.

"I panicked! It was so large and the roar hit me in such a weird way and I just wanted it gone!" Kazuma tried to explain, knowing logically that Darkness likely could have tanked it and they'd have been fine.

"Well, that explains it. You lot got hit with its fear," came an unfamiliar voice, Feldart joining them.

Luna didn't seem to care, planting her hands on her hips. "Fear strong enough for him to spend over ten million Eris in a heartbeat?"

Felrdart flinched at that figure, his brain hurting at even trying to imagine that much money. "Yikes. How the hell did you do that?" he asked, turning towards Kazuma.

Kazuma let out a groan, begrudgingly pulling out his cannon. "This thing lets me directly deposit money into it. I panicked and tried to put everything I had in it. It must have included the guild's funds?" he half asked, unfortunately sure that he was right.

Luna took a deep breath, trying to keep her cool and failing miserably. "Alright, based on your previous contributions to the guild, I'm inclined to believe you. That doesn't exactly answer a major problem we have now. How exactly are we meant to pay off ten million Eris, when you can't even take missions to earn it now?"

Almost as if the question was a cosmic cue, the town sirens started blaring, causing Feldart to scowl. "Oh, now the alarms go off. Heaven forbid they go off when the giant fucking lazer beam scorched the sky!"

The tinny sound of the alarm blares, announcing to all who can hear. "The Destroyer is on its way to Axel. Its current path has it arriving in less than an hour. I repeat, the Destroyer has turned straight towards Axel and will be here within an hour."

"Oh, come the fuck on!" Kazuma shouted, glaring at the speakers as if it was their fault that the Destroyer was doing this.

-Ko-No-Su-Ba!-

With the guards and guild already mobilized from the cannon fire, it only took scant minutes before most were gathered near the gates. Luna was the center of attention, shouting out orders. "Our goal is not to win, our purpose it to buy time for the civilians to flee. The Destroyer has taken out multiple cities and we know that taking it down is not feasible for any adventurers we have. Its barrier is nearly indestructible." Here, Kazuma's ears perked up, remembering that Aqua could destroy basically any barrier. "Even if we could get past that, experts believe that the metals it is made of are some of the strongest that we've ever seen."

Kazuma made a click with his tongue, thinking to himself, 'Megumin's explosion could probably still take it out.' A proverbial lightbulb went off over his head, the Merchant quickly walking up to Luna. "Hey, uh, you know Aqua can probably take out that barrier, right? And we have Megumin, Yunyun, and Wiz around so we might be able to damage the body."

Luna stopped mid explanation, staring blankly into the distance as she processed that information. "Really?" Kazuma nodded, motioning for Aqua to come up and having her show Luna her abilities, namely Sacred Break. After another moment of dumbfounded silence, Luna's face gained hope. "Change of plans! Aqua is going to try and destroy the barrier and we're going to blast that damned monstrosity to kingdom come! If you know advanced magic or Explosion, follow Kazuma's party." A roar of approval came from the assembled adventurers. Then the realization that Wiz, Yunyun, and Megumin were the only casters that actually could do any of that magic. Unimpressed wasn't quite strong enough to describe the disappointment between Luna and Kazuma. "Alright, there rest of you are delay duty. Keep it from getting too close to the city!" A roar of excitement passed through the adventurers, glad to have some hope to take out the Destroyer.

Kazuma was silent, looking out over the dispersing adventurers. "We really need to raise the standard of adventurers more, don't we?" Feldart nodded off to the side, still not all that happy with how useless a lot of them were.

"Now, now you two, it is still a beginner city, be nice" Luna insisted, gently slapping both Feldart and Kazuma's shoulders before pushing them on. "Alright, Feldart, get to coordinating the rabble and Kazuma get the girls moving."

The three separated, Kazuma running straight to his party and grabbing Aqua's hand as he started running out of the town. "Alright, Aqua, time to put your powers to the test. You're going to break that barrier and then Megumin? Explosion."

Megumin practically squealed in excitement, not having had an opportunity to use a proper explosion spell in quite a while. The fact that it would be used on the Destroyer? All the better.

"Yunyun, I need you go find Wiz and bring her here. I think she knows explosion too and we're going to make sure it sticks" Kazuma finished, trying to find the group of them a vantage point they could use. Cresting a small hillock, they stood there, waiting for the Destroyer to come into view. "So, how long do you think we'll be able to see it?"

Almost in response to his questions, a cloud of birds burst from distant trees, accompanied by lasers shooting from behind a mountain. The monstrosity that was the Destroyer started crawling over the landscape, rapidly moving towards them all. Based on the scale alone, it had to be going upwards of sixty miles an hour.

Nervous didn't do the emotions running through each of them even remotely enough justice. This was the Destroyer and they were going to try and take it on with just a half dozen of themselves.

Kazuma broke their silence, bumping Aqua's shoulder to get her attention before leaning in to give her a kiss. The first kiss he'd properly initiated. "For luck," he said by way of explanation before turning back to the oncoming disaster. "Alright, break that barrier as soon as it's in range, and drop Explosions on it as soon as the barrier drops! If Aqua can't break it, teleport us the fuck out of here!"

Aqua, brimming with joy, reached deep inside, pulling on her divine might with a massive smile on her face. A glowing, golden sigil appeared in the air before them, rapidly lighting up as she poured energy into it as she shouted, "Sacred, Break!"

A barrage of holy energy erupted from her, focusing on a single point on the Destroyer's shield, bombarding it until it cracked and then shattered, the barrier visibly collapsing.

"Darkest of darkness and blackest of nights, may our spirits' might rain destruction, EXPLOSION!" Came the dual shouts of Megumin and Yunyun, the two clearly having planned duo spells at some point when Kazuma wasn't looking. The fact that Megumin had even gotten Yunyun to join her in learning Explosion was less of a surprise than he'd like to admit.

They hadn't even waited for Wiz, he only realized as the mechanical monstrosity started to tilt and crash onto its side, still miles away from Axel, and it seemed that was perfectly fine. The combined explosions were large enough it might have been able to collapse the city's main walls, but it only barely scuffed the metal that the Destroyer was made of. It seemed most of the damage had been done to internal systems and joints, if he had to guess. The part that did matter, was that it was no longer moving.

"Fuck yeah, that's how you do it!" Kazuma started shouting, wrapping Aqua up in a hug, spinning her around in excitement, the others letting out whoops of joy. Though, Darkness's joy seemed slightly forced, having wanted to get into the thick of it slightly.

That all came crashing down as, in perfect Japanese, the destroyer let out a warning beep before saying. "Critical damage suffered. Beginning self-destruct sequence. Obliteration of everything in a ten kilometer radius will commence in five minutes."

"Oh come on!" Kazuma and Aqua shouted as one, wanting nothing more than to be allowed to just go home and celebrate.

"What? What did it say?" Megumin asked, shaking Kazuma's arm in worry, judging from their reactions it wasn't good.

"It's going to self-destruct! Get us in it as fast as you can so we can try and stop it!" Kazume shouted, panicking.

Naturally, Megumin's first reaction was to argue with Kazuma, "What do you mean? It's already been destroyed! Didn't you see the glorious might of our Explosion?"

Yunyun, being the more reasonable of the two, listened to Kazuma, trusting his judgement.

Darkness dropped in first, followed by Kazuma, Aqua, then Megumin, falling ontop of eachother in that order with Yunyun showing up last, standing off to the side. "Um, sorry, I might have rushed it slightly.

Kazuma quickly pushed Megumin and Aqua off of himself, taking to his feet awkwardly on the slightly slanted floor. "No time for that, we need to find the control room for this thing" he shouted, tearing towards the first thing that looked like a door and trying to pry it open. "Darkness!"

"On it!" The Crusader responded, hefting her sword up and throwing her (considerable) weight behind the blow. While she wasn't exactly an offensive powerhouse by any means still, she'd at least put enough points into attack skills she could actually hit a door with her strength. The 'door' doesn't quite break, but does bed enough that she can shove her gauntleted hands between it and the wall, pulling it off the rest of the way with a grunt of effort.

Kazuma rushed past her, slapping her on the shoulder as he went "Good job Darkness!" Before the rest started following in behind him.

Rushing through the halls, there were thankfully enough directions on the walls for them to find the control room in short order, finding the skeletal remains of the creator of the Destroyer. They split up, each looking for some idea of how to stop the self-destruct.

Aqua wiped the dust off of a console, curious that some of the writing she was seeing looked like Japanese. It took her a minute, but she realized that this must have been the handiwork of a person she'd brought to Belzerg. Racking her brain, she vaguely remembered one older guy, maybe in his mid twenties, she'd brought over that had wanted the power of creation. Realizing that this could all be considered her fault, she innocently whistled, walking away having found 'nothing.'

"Hey, I found a book! It's in some weird language I've never seen though" Megumin shouted, gathering the attention of the others.

Kazuma leaned over Megumin's shoulder, looking at the characters. "Huh, that's Japanese. The person who created this monstrosity must have been from Japan too" Kazuma observed, taking the book from Megumin's hands and starting to read.

Aqua started sweating, knowing she was going to get punished for her 'mistake' from what must have been a millenia ago. She had just been doing her job, it wasn't her fault the guy had used his power in such a reckless way!

Kazuma did spare her a light glare as he read, having realized the 'Cute Blue Haired Goddess' that had given his fellow countryman his power must have been his current girlfriend. As he read it though, he became more curious than anything else, tilting his head at some of the references the guy made. "Aqua, what the hell is the difference in the speed of time between my world and here?"

The other three were confused at the phrase 'my world' but didn't get a chance to answer as Aqua put a finger to her chin, looking up as she tried to do some math. "I'm not one hundred percent sure. Space-time mathematics and conversions were never my strong suit. I think it varies between a one day Earth per century in Belzerg and a one to one ratio."

"That big of a variance?!" Kazuma asked, his eyes bugging slightly.

"Mhm! It's highly dependent on their proximity in the multiverse and a bunch of other things a higher level deity would understand better" she explained, nodding her head sagely.

Megumin, Yunyun, and Darkness were all gobsmacked and confused as Kazuma went back to reading the ancient journal. "Wait, you're actually the goddess Aqua? I thought that was just your delusions of grandeur!" Megumin shouted, panicking at having the 'deranged goddess' with them this whole time.

"Oh, that's REAL rich coming from you, you Explosion obsessed brat!" Aqua shouted back, the two of them butting heads at the insult as Kazuma ignored them, Darkness and Yunyun trying to referee.

Kazuma hummed to himself, doing some thinking. The core was destabilizing, if what he was reading was right, and he couldn't realistically stop it. He wasn't too panicked now though, having the back up plan of Yunyun just taking them all away once he gave her a piece of manatite. The fact she'd gotten them all here at all was a testament to her own endurance and growth, after having cast Explosion. Pulling up his sheet, he started thumbing through his abilities, purchased and available, trying to think if anything he had might help them.

It was moments like this that he really wished he had re-specced as a mage type or something.

Hitting one of his earlier abilities, he pauses, thinking. It couldn't be that simple, could it? While the girls continued looking for answers, he approached the skeleton. His face scrunched up, he carefully removed it from the seat, dusting it off slightly before taking the seat. "This is mine now" He confidently stated, half trying to convince himself.

"What are you talking about Kazuma?" Darkness asked, having been the least invested in the different instruments around the room.

"The Destroyer. I'm claiming it as mine" he clarified, nodding safely.

"Kazuma, you can't just claim something! That's not how property works!" Aqua shouted, annoyed that now was when he decided to act like a child.

"Why not? The original owner is dead, I have control of the little throne here, and nobody else has claimed it. Therefore, it's mine" he reiterated, a smug smile on his face.

"Fine, it's yours, now, can you come help us?" Aqua begged him,

"Oi, why does he get to own it? I am the one that brought it down!" Megumin started to complain.

Kazuma ignored that though, his smile turning nearly evil. "Perfect." He brought a hand up, snapping his fingers as he said, "Divine Sale!"

A bright flash of light surrounded them all, none of them knowing what happened save Kazuma. The addition of a falling sensation and the rapidly accelerating wind around them causing them to panic. The Destroyer was completely gone, all five of them rapidly approaching the earth without it there to hold them up.

"Kazuma! What did you do!" Megumin shouted, holding tightly to her staff, tears streaming from her eyes as Yunyun latched onto her, with both of them holding onto Aqua after a moment.

Darkness looked down, the hundred foot drop looming beneath them and her face breaking out into a smile. "Yes!"

"I sold it! One of my abilities lets me sell anything I own once a week! That's why I said I owned the Destroyer!" He shouted back, spreading his arms and legs out in a futile attempt to try and slow his fall. "Mistakes were made!"

Aqua grabbed her raiment, panicking, and holding it above her head. It quickly filled up with air, deploying like a parachute. Darkness wasn't interested in anything like a soft landing, so she'd started diving straight down. Kazuma? He was too far away. He had walked away to sit on the small throne so he was left alone, watching as their descent slowed. Looking back down, he saw the ground approaching, far too fast.

Covering his eyes, he only hoped it would kill him before he could register the pain.

-Ko-No-Su-Ba!-

"Welcome mortal. You have-… Kazuma?!" Eris shot up from her throne, confusion and panic on her face. "What happened?" She asked, hiking up her dress slightly to walk up to Kazuma so that they weren't quite so far apart.

"So, the Destroyer showed up, about to attack Axel-" he started, Eris nodding along, already aware of that with the amount of prayers being directed at her even as they spoke. "-and we actually got it to shut down. But, it looked like it was going to self-destruct."

"Oh my!" Eris gasped, covering her mouth as she kneeled down to be more even with him as he was seated. "Surely it didn't go off? I didn't notice a mass death incident."

"No, thankfully. We got onto it and started looking around for a way to turn it off before it could. Found out that it was made by somebody Aqua sent down centuries ago. With no real ideas on how else to stop it, I had the bright idea of trying to sell the stupid thing." At that, Eris lit up, recognition in her eyes. "I took the seat, claimed the destroyer as mine, and used Divine Sale on it. I didn't account for the several hundred foot drop afterwards. The worst part? If I read it right? It only gave me a single Eris for the thing!"

Eris giggled lightly at that, smiling as she covered her mouth. "No, it was worth a single Eris Eris."

"…what?" He asked, tilting his head in confusion.

"It's an Eris that I personally made!" She proudly proclaimed.

"Is that good?" He asked, still not really getting it.

"Is that good?! Is that good!? It is a literal coin made by the goddess the money is named after! That coin is worth more than the entire budget of Belzerg!" Eris explained, pouting at how he had dismissed the coin.

"So I'm rich now? Well, if I wasn't dead" he corrected himself, his shoulders slumping.

"Eh, don't worry about it. Aqua is probably getting ready to resurrect you as we speak. And sort of rich? It is one of a kind and well… mortals might not know it's worth a lot?" She meekly explained.

Kazuma let out a frustrated groan, leaning his head back. "Ugh, so it's worthless. Great."

A small window of light opened up above the two of them, Aqua's voice following it. "Kazuma? You there? Eris better not have sent you on yet!" She shouted, a mix of panic and anger in her voice.

"Nah, I'm still here. We just chatted while we waited for you" he answered, standing up and dusting off his pants. "Nice seeing you Eris."

"Nice seeing you too, Kazuma. I'll see you next week Aqua" Eris said back to Aqua, nodding her head slightly as Aqua pulled Kazuma back to his body.

Kazuma shot up, nearly slamming his head into Aqua. Before he could get his bearings, he was hugged by said goddess, his shoulder quickly getting wet from her tears. "Stupid Kazuma! No dying on me!" She bawled, tightening her grip further.

Kazuma returned the hug, rubbing her back gently. "Okay, okay, no more dying" he assured her, looking up he checked on the others to make sure they were alright. Yunyun and Megumin looked relieved, watching the touching scene while Darkness was sprawled next to him, smiling. He could tell she was still breathing, so must have been fine. "I'm not going anywhere."