Chapter 21: A Battle Over This Young Maiden's Heart!

Despite the sun shining down from a cloudless sky, there was a brisk chill in the air as Yunyun hiked up the mountain trail with her friends and fiancé. It wasn't quite winter anymore but spring hadn't settled in yet, either, which meant that they were still stuck in that awkward middle space.

"It's so nice of you all to tag along for my daily Explosion!" Megumin said smugly from the front of the group. "I'm glad that you've finally decided to see the light and glory of the mightiest of magics!"

Yunyun had accompanied her best friend on these daily excursions countless times since Megumin had learned her favorite and, until recently, only spell. Komekko also used to tag along before they'd left the village, Megumin was always trying to drag Keima along and Elsie would sometimes come when she didn't have plans with Aqua or Darkness. This was certainly the first time that all five of them had gone up as a group, though. But that wasn't nearly as surprising as Keima being the one to suggest they go up to Demon's Hill for this. In fact, Keima knowing about Demon's Hill at all was surprising in its own right, as it was where new couples would traditionally go to confess their love for each other. According to tradition, any couple that did so would be plagued by a great and terrible curse that would bind their fates together that they may never be free from the other for as long as they lived. Translated from Crimson Demon speak, those couples would be blessed to always stay together. It was quite the romantic idea and Yunyun's father had often told her the story of when he took her mother up there to propose. Arue had also apparently heard that story and wrote an entire novella based on it, though her telling was much more lurid and made Yunyun so uncomfortable that she hadn't been able to finish reading the first draft. No child ever needed to read about their parents in such compromising positions. She could only imagine how embarrassing it was going to be when 'The Demon Chief's Passion' hit store shelves in a few months. It was already bad enough seeing an advanced copy sitting on her dad's desk with several bookmarks sticking out of the pages.

"I don't care about your stupid explosion magic!" Keima yelled at Megumin, an almost daily occurrence. "I only asked Yunyun to come up here with me, the rest of you just followed us!"

Huh? Oh, that was right. He had only asked her, hadn't he?

…

Wait…

…

HAD KEIMA JUST ASKED HER OUT ON A DATE TO DEMON'S HILL?!

What… what were his intentions? Was he… was he going to… could he really be…

Sure, it was tradition for the couple to come up here alone but it wasn't that strange to have witnesses. More than once, Bukkororii had dragged Megumin and her up here when he tried to confess his feelings for Soketto only for him to either chicken out and run away, or run away because Soketto mistakenly thought that Bukkororii was trying to pick a fight with her since Demon's Hill was also the tradition spot for magic duels since it was far enough away from the village that Crimson Demons could go all out without disturbing the rest of the clan. Not that that seemed relevant to Yunyun at the moment. Keima was definitely going to confess his feelings for her and ask to marry her so that they could be together forever, right? Wait, did Keima even have to ask to marry her? They were already engaged, after all. But then again, that was just set up by her dad. Keima would still have to make his own proposal, right? Then again, it was already a rather unusual engagement, wasn't it? Her dad hadn't even challenged Keima to the traditional duel that all Crimson Demon men had to fight to win their love's hand in marriage. Not that that seemed relevant to Yunyun at the moment. Keima wasn't a Crimson Demon, after all.

"Oh, wait, was this supposed to be a date?" Elsie suddenly gasped, before grabbing Megumin and Komekko by the shoulders and trying to drag them away. "Oh, I'm so sorry, we shouldn't have come with you. You two have fun out there!"

A-a date! This was a date, wasn't it?! She was going on a date with her boyfriend!

"No, this isn't a date," Keima said, crushing Yunyun's fragile heart into a million tiny pieces that themselves each broke into a million even smaller pieces. She just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. "We're supposed to meet Chief Hiropon here for something. Look, you can see him over there."

Huh? What? Her father? What was her father doing here? Why did her father want to meet her fiancé and her at the top of Demon's Hill? What was going on?!

"Hey! Yunyun! Keima!" her father called out to them as they approached, waving his arm wildly overhead to draw their attention. "What took you so long? You're almost late!"

Keima let out a groan before standing tall and forcing a smile. He looked like he was struggling to remember something before replying. "An Arch Wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to. But it took us longer to get up here since we had some hangers-on who insisted on coming."

"Ooh, nice line," Yunyun's father whistled. "Mind if I borrow it?"

"Sure, go ahead," Keima shrugged. "Not mine, anyway. It's from an author named Tolkien… I think. I never actually read the books."

"Anyway, are you ready for this?"

"Ready as I'm going to be," Keima muttered before straightening his posture and raising his voice. "Do gods of death love apples?"

Everyone stared at him questioningly, including Yunyun.

"That's a yes," Keima sighed before walking off into the distance and planting his feet firmly on the ground.

"Right, then, everyone else should probably move back," her dad stretched and cracked his knuckles before pointing an accusatory finger at Keima and shouting angrily. "So, you dare to believe that you could possibly be worthy of my daughter?"

Yunyun saw Keima pull something out of his pocket which she realized was a note of some kind that he proceeded to read from.

"Of course," he said dryly. "I have journeyed the world, fought my way through hell and back, and faced horrors that man was not meant to know. Yet the only enemy I could not conquer was my love for you daughter, insert-name-here. I have been bested and the only way to avenge my defeat is to claim her as my own, to take her hand in my hand, her heart in my heart, and… Who wrote this crap?!"

Huh, that sounded a lot like the traditional speech given before an engagement duel.

Wait…

…

…Oh, this was a duel. Of course it was a duel. Why would it have been anything other than a duel?

Well, at least this meant that Keima was serious about marrying her, she supposed. In fact, he wouldn't be doing this at all if he didn't love her, would he? Especially since he seemed to hate this kind of thing so much.

…

DID THIS MEAN THAT HE LOVED HER?!

She wasn't sure if her heart could take this. Though she mostly just hoped that her dad would go easy on him. The Chief of the Crimson Demon Clan didn't just inherit their position through bloodline alone. Hiropon was the indisputable strongest Arch Wizard in the entire clan, possibly all of Belzerg. Well, actually that position was heavily disputed but that was mostly because every Crimson Demon claimed to be the strongest. But Yunyun was 97% sure her dad was the actual strongest… Maybe 94%. Regardless, taking on her father in a duel would be a challenge that she could only hope that Keima would be up to.

True love had to win out in the end, right?

Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!

Why was he doing this again? To protect Yunyun from people who might try to take advantage of her? He could do that as just her friend and coworker. To shield himself from unwanted advances? He'd probably be better off just running off to join a monastery or something. But then again, with his luck that would probably just end with him getting chased by a bunch of very thirsty nuns.

Was it because a powerful, intimidating wizard had pressured him into this? Yep, that was probably it. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know what Chief Hiropon would have done if he'd turned down the betrothal offer. But then again, he was already having to fight him, so what was the worst that could happen by just backing out now? Yeah, that's right. He'll just say that he got cold feet and wants to back out, and…

Wait, why were they both bowing? Oh, no. The duel was already starting. It was probably too late to cancel, wasn't it? Well, this certainly sucked.

"Lightning Strike!" Hiropon made the first move, firing a bolt of lightning arcing from the top of his finger like a child pretending to fire a gun.

"Cursed Lightning!"

If Keima's reflexes had been even a fraction of a second slower, he wouldn't have had time to pull out his wand in time to counter the spell. As it happened, he was just fast enough for a bolt of strange purple electricity to fire from the ruby set into the golden tip of his white, wooden wand and collide with the more conventional yellow blast. Wait, but wasn't lightning normally white? Regardless, the bolts clashed just in front of him and it took all of his strength to push back Hiropon's attack until the collision point finally exploded halfway between the two Arch Wizards. Keima could have tried staying on the defensive and continued trying to repel Hiropon's attacks but he knew that wouldn't get him anymore. As such, he was the next to launch an attack.

"Crystal Prison!" Keima yelled and a cage of ice formed around his opponent.

"Ah, I see you've trained with the Ice Witch," Hiropon tapped the frozen wall in front of him with a smile on his face. Keima wasn't sure how he could hear the older man when he was completely encased by the frozen ice but the answer was probably magic.

"You mean Wiz? We went on a dungeon crawl with her a while back and I saw her use it against the boss monster," Keima felt compelled to explain. "Apparently, that was enough for me to learn the spell once I unlocked Advanced Magic."

"Interesting," Hiropon nodded in satisfaction. "Unfortunately for you, the Ice Witch visits our village frequently and I've had the opportunity to spar with her a few times. She may be one of the few casters out there who can truly take me on in a fight but she hasn't been able to get me with this trick since our first battle. Do you know why?"

"From the one time I saw her use it, I would say it's because she kept accidentally trapping herself instead of you," Keima replied. "But you're probably going to say that you figured out a counter to it."

"Bingo." Hiropon gave him a thumbs up, then stomped his foot hard into the ground. "Earthshaker!"

Keima was nearly knocked off his feet as a localized earthquake rocked the hill they were on, the hardened ice prison around Hiropon beginning to crack before shattering completely, shards of ice flying off in every direction. He barely had time to react before the sharpened, frozen shrapnel hurtled his way.

"Inferno!"

A wall of flames erupted in front of Keima, sublimating the ice shards before they could reach him. He didn't hear a spell cast over the roar of the fire but he could see a dark shape quickly moving towards him and reacted on instinct, rolling to the side. To his surprise, the thing charging him wasn't a spell at all but Hiropon himself dashing through the fire and punching the air where his head had just been. It seemed more than magic could be used in this fight and with that knowledge, Keima swept his leg out, tripping the chief and causing him to fall flat onto his face.

"Hmphmlh shmph!"

Keima couldn't make out Hiropon's muffled spell but it didn't take long to figure out what it had been as his legs suddenly started sinking into the soft mire that suddenly formed under his feet where grassy, compact dirt had just been. Bottomless Swamp, like he'd used against that pack of orcs that he really didn't want to remember.

"Freeze Bind!" Keima hastily cast the spell on himself, encasing his legs and the surrounding swamp in ice before he could sink past his knees. It was a risky move, anchoring himself to the spot so that he wouldn't be able to dodge any further attacks but it was the best he could think of.

"Clever," Hiropon said after pushing himself up out of the dirt and turning to Keima. "But not clever enough. "Energy Ignition!"

"Light of Saber!"

A ball of white and blue flames was launched from Hiropon's outstretched hand, which would have engulfed Keima fully in magic fire if it weren't for the vaguely sword-shaped beam of solid light that shot out from the side and slashed the fireball in two before it could hit it's target.

"Stop it!" Yunyun yelled, rushing between them and holding her arm out in front of Keima defensively as she faced down her father. "Don't hurt him!"

Hiropon stared down at his daughter with a mix of emotions that Keima would guess included surprise, annoyance and pride, before lowering his hand and smiling.

"Well, it seems that I lose this one," Hiropon laughed heartily, to Keima's confusion. "I was wondering how long you were going to let that go on."

"Wait, what?" Keima looked back and forth between the two of them. "But you were just seconds from beating me? How did I win?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Hiropon said, shaking his head apologetically. "Engagement duels end when the one who's being fought over steps in to protect one of the combatants, and whoever she defends is the winner. Why did you think I wanted you to bring Yunyun for this?"

Keima just glared at them, not even paying attention to the fact that the swamp he'd been stuck in had dissipated a while ago.

"That would have been nice to know," he grumbled before trying to walk off, only to realize that he was still frozen to the spot. "Wait, wouldn't that encourage people to try and throw the match?"

"Why would it?" Hiropon asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Never mind," Keima shook his head, deciding not to try and understand the intricacies of Crimson Demon logic. "Tinder."

"That was so cool!"

Keima suddenly found himself tackled from behind as he tried to melt himself free, his sister nearly knocking him over in a hug. "You've gotten so good at the whole magic thing. But I guess that's just to be expected from my big bro, the God of Conquest!"

"Eh, it would have been better if he'd just used Explosion," Megumin muttered as she walked up to them as well. "Not bad, though, for a rookie novice."

"You should have summoned a demon to drag him off to hell!"

Everyone turned to stare at Komekko, who looked back up at them innocently.

"Hey! Most of us don't do that!" Elsie pointed out defensively. "...Very often."

"Tinder." Keima decided to just tune everyone else out and resume unfreezing his legs, which had already gone numb from the cold.

Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!

Apparently, the chief's daughter, herself the future chieftess, getting officially engaged was something of a big deal in the Crimson Demon Clan. As such, a huge party was thrown that night to celebrate the occasion with much food eaten, more drink drunk and even more revelry reveled. By Elsie's estimate, at least three blocks had been destroyed by the drunken Wizards casting spells all willy-nilly.

Not that Elsie could blame them. She'd already downed two bottles of 'bubbly', as Aqua called it, with a third half-empty bottle carried loosely in one hand as she stumbled into the outskirts of the city to get away from the noise. What she was too drunk to realize was that the noise she was trying to get away from was caused by the blade of the scythe in her other hand being dragged along the ground behind her.

Eventually, she managed to stumble into someone's garden and fell headfirst into a patch of werewolfsbane, the carnivorous flowers biting at her hair with poisoned fangs as she pulled herself back out.

"Bad puppies," she grumbled as she got to her feet and lazily turned around on her heels. "Huh, wazzat?"

She could see a dark shape skulking down the street that would have seemed like an amorphous black mass except for Elsie's natural Dark Vision skill allowing her to clearly make out the very, very tall woman slouched over and tiptoeing in an overly exaggerated pose that distinctly reminded Elsie of that one American children's book character. She was even dressed all in red, though sadly lacked the green fur and Santa hat.

"You're a mean one, Missus Grinch~!" Elsie sang as she popped up behind the mysterious stranger, causing the giant woman to straighten up and jump nearly a full meter into the air. "Are you here to steal Christmas, because I can't let you do that."

"Where the hell did you come from?" the woman demanded as she whipped around to face Elsie, who nearly got smacked across the face by those massive bedonkers that instead harmlessly passed over her head.

"Yes." Elsie nodded, then leaned forward and started sniffing the air. "Oh, hey, are you a lamia? I haven't seen one of you in ages. Wait, no… I smell minotaur? And goblin? Wow, you're like a whole menagerie. Wait, are you Legion? I always thought you'd look more like a giant ball of naked corpses or something. Like in that one game."

The unknown giantess just stared down at Elsie incredulously. "...No, I'm Sylvia the growth chimera, former general of the Devil King's army."

"Ooh!" Elsie leaned back and finally looked the woman in her shining, catlike eyes instead of staring at the overgrown watermelons that had been blocking her view. "Hey, wait, if you work for the Devil King, that makes me your boss, right?"

"What?" The woman who looked nothing like a snake-tailed lion with a goat head sticking out of her back took a cautious step away from the clearly sloshed young demoness. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, you see, I'm going to be the next Devil Queen!" Elsie declared happily. "I went to the fortune teller and we had a vision of the future, and they say she's never wrong, which means that it must be true. Now, bow before your queen!"

Sylvia recoiled in apparent disgust. "What gives you the right to order me around? You're no Devil King! You're not even a…"

She suddenly trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she took a closer look at Elsie, who spread her arms out wide with a sloppy grin on her face to give the supposed chimera a good view.

"...Wait a minute, you are a demon…" Sylvia's eyes widened and she suddenly grabbed Elsie by the cheeks, examining her closely. "And not just any demon, you're a… Oh, hell."

"Home, sweet home," Elsie said sarcastically as Sylvia let her go. "Don't really miss that place much, though. Japan was much nicer and so is Belzerg. I'm Elsie, by the way. But you can call me Queen Elucia Katsuragi. Or just 'Your Highness', if you prefer."

At that, Sylvia closed her eyes and began massaging her temple, looking like she was suffering from a headache about as bad as the one that Elsie would no doubt be sporting in the morning.

"Hey, you never told me what you're doing here, anyway," Elsie pointed out. "You didn't come all the way here just to find me, did you?"

"What, no, of course not. I didn't even know you existed until just now. …And now I wish I still didn't." Sylvia had muttered that last part so that Elsie couldn't hear her before she stopped and looked like she was debating something with herself. Eventually, she sighed and opened her mouth again. "I was looking for someone. A human boy by the name of Kazuma Sato."

"Oh, Kazuma?" Elsie perked up. "What did he do? Did he steal your panties? He does that a lot. Aqua says to just not wear panties around him, which is what she does all the time, anyway. I tried that for a bit but it wasn't comfortable so now I just wear two pairs of panties instead, so that I've still got one if he steals the other. He's never actually tried stealing mine before, now that I think about it. Am I not good enough for him or something?"

The demon girl barely noticed how taken aback Sylvia was by her drunken ramblings.

"Really, I certainly didn't peg that boy for such a pervert," Sylvia muttered. "Perhaps I underestimated him."

"I'm not sure why you'd be looking for Kazuma here, though," Elsie continued. "He's probably back in Axel right now. You'd be better off looking there."

"Axel?" Sylvia froze, her eyes growing wide. "He's all the way in Axel? Damn it! How did I manage to let him slip out of my grasp so easily!?"

"I don't know, maybe he used Lurk?"

"Ugh, now what am I supposed to do?" The humongous woman began pacing back and forth, clawing at her eyes in frustration. "Now where am I supposed to find someone who can read…"

She stopped and narrowed her focus back on Elsie again.

"Wait, did you say you've been to Japan?" she asked with a hostile tone that went completely over the demon's head.

"Yep, lived there for a few months," she said cheerily. "Good times."

"Does that mean you can read the language of that land?"

"Which one? They've got, like, four different alphabets," Elsie replied. "Eh, it's not like that really matters, though. I was taught to read, write and speak about a hundred Earth languages back in Hell."

"Really?" Sylvia sounded intrigued by that.

"Si, signora-Aahh!"

One second, everything was normal(ish). The next, Elsie was dangling upside down in front of the chimera woman by one of the thick, fleshy tendrils that had just unexpectedly sprouted from Sylvia's back, wrapped tightly around her legs.

"Hm, it seems that you may be of use to me, after all," Sylvia purred, stroking Elsie's cheek with one of her strange tentacle things.

"Aah, this is just like one of those manga that Mom keeps hidden under her bed!" Elsie shrieked for a few seconds before quieting down again. "You know, I think I'm starting to see the appeal… Wait, what was going on? Oh, right!"

Elsie swung her scythe through the air to slice through the throbbing hunk of flesh rubbing tightly against her legs so that she could free herself. The loose bouquet of werewolfsbane in her hand merely brushed against Sylvia's thing, mostly harmless. Some of her flesh did take on a slightly purple sheen for a few seconds but quickly returned to normal as Syvlia absorbed the flowers' poison.

"Hey, where'd Runaway Reaper go?" Elsie whined. "I want my scythe!"

"There's no escape for you now, my queen," Sylvia said sarcastically. "You're coming with me so that I can finally claim my prize."

Sylvia began to walk off into the distance as her grip tightened around Elsie. As weirdly comfortable as she found that position, she desperately struggled to break free. When that proved fruitless, she had to resort to asking herself; What would Keima do?

"Are you a farmer?" she asked her captor.

"What?" Sylvia responded.

"Because you're growing some lovely melons, there."

Unfortunately, Elsie was still drunk.

Ko! * No! * Su! * Ba!

In the next exciting chapter of God's Blessing, God Knows: Departing From This Fallen City!

Kazuma slowly woke up with a groan, feeling sore in unusual ways. There was something soft and pleasantly warm pressing up against his chest. There was also a mop of long, silky hair brushing against his face and tickling his nose.

"Apparently, a few of the horses ran off when that stupid poison slime was running havoc the other day and they haven't been able to find them," he explained, a sour tone still in his voice. "That means they won't be able to bring as many wagons as they planned, which means they don't have enough seats available. Only three of us are going to be able to go. Not counting the overgrown chicken, anyway."

"Oh, by the way, we both have something for you," Kazuma suddenly perked up. "Right, Darkness?"

Author's Notes: I'm reaching the point where I kind of just want this arc to wrap up so that I can have the gang all together again but it will still be a few more chapters. In fact, by the time everyone's back together, I think these twin arcs will have taken about half the overall fic up to that point. Hopefully it hasn't been dragging out too long. I've been alternating between the two plotlines with each chapter specifically to try and make sure that the pacing flows well instead of just getting stuck on one plot and then the other. I also don't mean to say that I haven't liked these arcs, I've just been focusing on hammering out the details for the upcoming arcs and want to move on because of that.

Ah, and a heads up. I'm going to be taking a two-month hiatus from fanfic writing through November and December so that I can work on an original story and then take a break from writing altogether to hopefully avoid burnout. That means that the next chapter will be the last for this year but updates will continue in January. In the meantime, perhaps consider joining my Discord server (invite code in my bio, or DM me if that isn't working for some reason)?