The Arch-Wizard’s Little Sister

by Natsume Akatsuki

  “Ohhh, I’m so sorry, honored Kazuma! I’ll make you a new cup immediately. Just you relax!”

  After my rebuke, Aqua rushed off to make more tea for me. Her tone was. . .weird. I wasn’t sure how she was able to act so deferential without sounding the least bit resentful about it; maybe she thought of it as some new game.

  “I am very glad everything ended up so neatly,” Megumin said from beside me. “Personally, I am at my most comfortable when we are all relaxing together in the living room like this.” She took a pleasant sip of the tea Aqua had made for her. I guess Aqua was perfectly capable of making tea for everyone else: I was the only one who kept getting cups of hot, purified water. It was almost like she was doing it on purpose—almost like she wanted me to yell at her.

  Darkness, looking the slightest bit jealous of Aqua, said, “In any case, you’re back safely, and I’m willing to call that a happy ending. . . Please don’t get the police involved next time. . .” She looked pleadingly at me.

  Hey, if they didn’t want the cops called on them, they should stop committing crimes, like stealing a guy’s house out from under him.

  “Tea’s ready!”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Aqua appeared with a new cup, sooner than I’d expected. I put it to my lips and. . .!

  “This is hot water again! Don’t you ever learn?!”

  “Ahhh! I’m sorry, honored Kazuma! I promise I’ll make a new cup right away. . .!”

  She took back my cup perfectly happily, but Darkness said, “Aqua, if you’re having that much trouble, why not let me make the tea? Then you won’t have to take Kazuma’s abuse. Only one of us has to endure it.”

  She started to get up, but—

  “Stop it, Darkness. I finally get to pretend to be a maid for the Dustiness family; you can’t stop me now,” Aqua objected.

  “?!” Darkness was shocked.

  “Now, wait a damn minute. Have you been deliberately sticking your finger into my tea and changing it to hot water just because you wanted to pretend to be one of Darkness’s pervy maids?!”

  “I haven’t been sticking my finger in anything—I’ve been bringing you hot water all along.”

  “Hold on, you two. The maids in my household aren’t that incompetent!”

  Ignoring Darkness’s objection, Aqua came over to me with an ink-laden brush. “Honored Kazuma, by way of punishment for this poor, incapable maid of the Dustiness household, please graffiti me with this!”

  “My pleasure. . .”

  “I’m telling you, none of our maids wants to be graffitied!”

  Still ignoring Darkness, I took the brush from Aqua and started painting on her face—even though I knew what would happen. The moment the ink touched her skin, it all turned to water. Megumin watched us with a smile of genuine amusement. I tried to turn to smile back at her. . .

  “Eeeyow-ow-ow-ow. . .” I put a hand to my ribs, which still ached where Aqua had pinned me down the other night.

  Aqua let out a little gasp and said, “That’s from yesterday, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, honored Kazuma; I’ll fix you right up. Just for you, I’ll use my most powerful healing magic. Sacred High Heal!”

  And she cast her healing magic on me, no muss, no fuss.

  Yes, her healing magic. . .

  “. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Huh?”

  “What is it?” Aqua asked. The sound had come out of my mouth before I knew what was happening. “What’s wrong, honored Kazuma? I used my very strongest spell; was it still not enough?”

  “Er? Uh-uh,” I said. “No, not at all. Thanks, Aqua, I feel better. And hey, look, we’re all friends, right? Why don’t you stop with the ‘honored Kazuma’ business? Just call me Kazuma like you always have. You sound so distant otherwise.” I was trying my best not to arouse suspicion.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Darkness asked. “Not that I don’t admire your display of good-heartedness. But you were the one who said, ‘Since you doubted me for a week, for the whole next week you have to call me ‘honored Kazuma.’ You’re right, though—we’re all friends and we should act like it.” Her lips tugged up into a smile. Megumin started to smile, too.

  “. . . . . . . . .” Aqua was the only one not smiling; she was looking me right in the face from very close up.

  “. . .Wh-what?”

  “. . . . . . . . . . . .Nothin’. I told you I wasn’t going to be suspicious of you anymore, Kazuma.” Even so, Aqua gave no sign of getting any farther away from me.

  It must have been thanks to Aqua’s healing magic. Every one of the memories erased by that potion had come flooding back to me, and now I couldn’t look her in the eye.

  What should I do?

  It bothered me a little that after gloating about my innocence, it turned out that I actually had sort of, kind of, maybe been a bit of a piece of human garbage. I couldn’t really blame people for calling me things like Cad-zuma and Kaz-scum-a.

  Aqua kept looking at me, apparently picking up something weird from the way I was sweating and looking away from her. Trying to distract her, I brought out the letters. “Aqua, remember these? I know you read these letters a week ago, but with my memories erased and all, I feel like I just saw them. Come on—remember how they made you feel?! Remember the real reason you came back here?!” I gave her the letters, but she didn’t even glance at them.

  Hardly able to stand it anymore, I jumped up off the sofa.

  “All right, you guys, let’s hit the Adventurers Guild! Let’s get us a nice hunting quest. To protect Axel and the world!”

  “. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

  Aqua was still staring intensely at my profile, just centimeters from my face.

  I didn’t last long. About five minutes later, I was prostrating myself on the ground, apologizing to everyone and begging for forgiveness.

  Chapter 3

  A Goddess’s Mercy for This Pious Believer!

  1

  It was earlier than what you would call afternoon but too late for what you would call morning. I guess what I’m saying is, it was around lunchtime. I fought back a yawn, my hair still scruffy from bed, as I headed down to the living room, where everyone was setting out lunch.

  “Morning, guys. What’s for breakfast today? I had all kinds of weird stuff at the castle. I’d like to avoid miso soup for a while.”

  Darkness responded to my demand for food with a suspicious look. “You got your memory back, right? Then you should remember those letters from the children that we read at the castle. So what are you doing up so late? You’ve missed breakfast; it’s time for lunch, and lucky you: It’s lobster today. I happened to like the ‘mini lobster’ dish from the Crimson Magic Clan that Megumin made when we went to Elroad. I got the ingredients and begged her to make it.”

  Darkness sounded downright delighted, but when I glanced over at Megumin, she immediately looked away. I guess she never imagined a pampered daughter of the nobility would fall in love with crawfish. She was so embarrassed, she couldn’t even look at me. You just knew that someday Darkness was going to be at a party full of nobles and would start talking about how delicious this dish of tiny lobsters was.

  I thought the polite thing to do might have been to get out ahead of that mistake, but when I saw Darkness happily carving up the fried crawfish, I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  “W-well, hey, she’s not wrong. It was tasty. But tell me, what are you going to do today? I mean. . . Are you really going to the Guild?”

  Getting my memories back meant that, unfortunately, I also remembered things with Iris in the castle after Darkness and the others had left. Yes, I remembered Iris saying how much she loved her big brother. If it hadn’t been for that, I would probably still have been all fired up about the letters from those kids. . .

  “Can’t say I really care,” Aqua added. “I feel like I sort of. . .calmed down without you here. But I guess
if you’re that eager to go on a quest, I could be convinced to go with you.”

  “Hey, I don’t really care, either. But if you’re eager to go on a quest, I could be convinced to go with you,” I said.

  Aqua was probably feeling the same way I was, her passion cooled from waiting too long. Darkness watched us trying to foist responsibility on each other, her cheek twitching. Finally, she slammed her fork down on the table. “Didn’t you guys feel anything reading those letters?! Kazuma, you’re these kids’ idol! Don’t you want to set a good example for them?”

  “I’m not saying I don’t understand why someone would idolize me. It’s just that since coming home, I’ve had a lot of time to think. And a cooler head tells me I don’t have to go putting myself in the path of dangerous monsters to get experience. I only need to eat some nice, expensive food to raise my level. No need to risk my life. . .”

  Darkness shook her head as if to say This man is hopeless and turned to Aqua. “Come on, Aqua—you like kids, right? I see you playing with the neighborhood children all the time. And you keep claiming to be a goddess. You even said it at the castle! So isn’t it your job to deal with the Demon King?” She sounded like she was talking to a stubborn child, but Aqua went on the alert when Darkness brought up the goddess thing.

  “Yeah, I’m Aqua, the goddess of water. . .but I’ve never known you to believe me when I said it. Do you really think I’m a goddess? If you really believe me, then I, your long-term housemate, should be more important to you than Eris, right? You’ll convert to the Axis faith, right?” I guess her recent experiences with me had made her more suspicious.

  Darkness must have been expecting Aqua to simply roll over when she called her a goddess; she looked a little cowed by this unexpected pushback. “. . .W-well, my family and I have long been in the service of this nation, and our public position would never allow us to convert away from the Eris Church. . . I think. . .”

  “You liar, I knew you didn’t believe in me! Come on, Darkness—I really am the goddess of water! Don’t you ever wonder about me?! What normal person can hold their breath underwater forever or change liquids to pure water just by touching them?!”

  Aqua grabbed Darkness by the shirt; the Crusader’s eyes began to brim. “Yeah. . . That. . . I know you have to have crazy-high faith to be an Arch-priest, especially of the Axis sect, and I heard that gives you power. I thought maybe it wasn’t that surprising if a follower of the water goddess could purify liquids or breathe underwater. . .”

  “Apologize! Say you’re sorry for talking about my precious children like they’re inhuman freaks! . . .Besides, those letters you showed us only said nice things about Kazuma. I think it’s about time people started giving the Axis Church its due. Specifically, I think I deserve some fan letters by now.”

  Darkness’s eyes glittered.

  “R-right, that’s perfect! I can get some of those, too! Wait right—”

  “. . .Hey,” I said, unable to ignore what I’d just heard. “What was that?”

  Darkness slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late to take it back.

  “Did you say, ‘I can get some of those, too’? . . .I see it now, Darkness—you asked the kids to write those letters. Didn’t you?”

  Darkness smacked the table again and stood up. “So what if I did?! Yes, I paid children to write those letters! But what else was I supposed to do?! You sure weren’t going to come home on your own!”

  She wasn’t going to back down.

  I stood up, too. “What’s with the attitude? Those are the first fan letters I ever got! I’ve treasured them!”

  “G-gee, were you that happy about them? Now I feel kind of bad. . .”

  Maybe she did, too, because Darkness trailed off. I couldn’t stand the way she kept acting more and more like a noble. . .!

  “You used to be such a straight-and-narrow idiot that you wouldn’t even mention your family’s name to people—and now you’re creeping around paying kids to write letters? It’s bad enough that you started throwing your weight around, but this. . .!”

  I remembered how hard Darkness had worked to hide her family origins from us. But now that she had learned how to use her money and power, it suddenly seemed like she wasn’t embarrassed at all to do it. Did that count as personal growth?

  “J-just whose fault is that? This is all because of your bad influence! You’re the one who corrupted me!”

  Aqua and I both went on the assault against the defiant Darkness.

  “Somehow this is all my fault?!” I said. “Don’t try to pin this on me, lady—I found what was there all along!”

  “Say you’re sorry!” Aqua added. “I was so moved when I read those letters! You need to apologize, not just to Kazuma but to me!”

  “More important than any of that is that we all eat before the food gets cold. I worked very hard to make it.”

  And somewhere in the middle of our collective descent into chaos, there was a knock on the door. I rushed to answer it, tired of trying to deal with Darkness.

  “Come back here, Kazuma! We’re not done talking!”

  “Leave me alone, you twisted freak! Shut up and eat your crawfish!”

  The word crawfish confused Darkness, but it gave me time to unlock the front door.

  “H-h-hello!”

  “Is Magu—?! Er, is M-Megumin in?”

  I found, standing there, three members of the Crimson Magic Clan. Two of them were girls who looked vaguely familiar. The other, holding their hands, was Megumin’s little sister.

  2

  “Here, tea.”

  “Th-thanks.”

  “Thank you very much!”

  We sat the girls on the sofa in the living room, and Aqua brought out tea for them. Now I was sure: We’d met them back in Crimson Magic Village. I think their names were. . .

  “So, Funikura, Doronko, what brings you here so suddenly, and accompanying my little sister?”

  “You could at least remember a person’s name! I’m Funifura!”

  “And it’s Dodonko, not Doronko! Are you upset that I almost called you Magumin earlier? I swear I just bit my tongue!”

  Megumin’s comment brought it all back to me. As I recalled, these two had had something to do with Yunyun and Megumin back in the village.

  “There you have it,” Megumin said. “This is Funifura and Dodonko. Highly average, not at all distinguished members of the Crimson Magic Clan, but I suppose you could be so kind as to remember their names.”

  They weren’t pleased by Megumin’s half-baked introduction.

  “‘Highly average’? ‘Be so kind’?!”

  “I know people think we’re interchangeable or that we don’t stand out. But what about you, Megumin? You stood out for all the wrong reasons!”

  While Megumin and I entertained Funifura and Dodonko, Aqua and Darkness were busy with Komekko.

  “Here, eat up. Don’t worry—we have lots. Take your time.”

  “Komekko, I’ll give you some snacks later. So you d-don’t have to wolf it down so fast; I’m scared watching you.”

  She must have been hungry, because she had stuffed enough food in her mouth to make her cheeks bulge. They were worried she might choke.

  Funifura (the assertive-looking one with the pigtails), sounding nervous at being in an unfamiliar house, said, “So, Megumin, it’s been a while. Dodonko and I brought your kid sister here because things had gotten so bad for her.” She glanced uneasily at Komekko.

  “Yeah, things, or. . .specifically, your house,” Dodonko (the one with the ponytail) added. “We were afraid she might end up homeless. We’d heard you and Yunyun made it to Axel, so we brought her here, kind of like her bodyguards.” She looked pretty proud of herself, but I said:

  “How have things gotten bad? What happened to Megumin’s house? I think I talked to the two of you for a bit back in the village, right?”

  Both of them twitched a little; I guess they were uneasy talking to guys. “You’re Megu
min’s boyfriend, right?” Funifura ventured. “Um, so you’re living with Megumin? To be fair, it’s not just her house. The whole village is in bad shape.”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s. . . Well, it’s not easy to talk about, but. . .”

  Neither of them could quite bring themselves to explain what was happening; Megumin cast a questioning look toward Komekko.

  Noticing her sister’s attention, Komekko swallowed the food in her mouth and said:

  “Our house went poof, and now it’s gone!”

  No context, no explanation. Megumin froze. “Poof? What does it mean to go poof? I must ask you to be more descriptive.”

  Funifura and Dodonko looked at each other as if unsure who should give her the news. After a moment of hesitation, Dodonko said, “The Demon King’s daughter led an army to attack Crimson Magic Village.”

  Suddenly, Megumin was all seriousness. “The Demon King’s daughter. . . I see, so the village’s secret has finally come to light.”

  Crimson Magic Village’s. . .secret? Like, the fact that the village was actually built on the remains of a technologically advanced nation from long ago and was populated by artificially augmented people—that secret? Was that why the Demon King’s army had attacked? But the nation that had produced the Crimson Magic Clan was long gone. What good would attacking do now?

  Megumin mistook my look of concern for worry about her people. “Kazuma, you needn’t look so troubled. A great many people in the village can use Teleport; this would not be enough to destroy them. And even if the entire village was burned down, it would be simple enough to repair it with magic.”

  “True. I’m a little worried about your mom and dad. But I’m more curious what this big secret is. You guys have a habit of filching sealed gods from elsewhere to use as tourist attractions and collecting other dangerous stuff, right? You even had a weapon lying around that you thought might destroy the world. So I was just wondering what the Demon King’s daughter would be after.”