Love, Witches, & Other Delusions

by Natsume Akatsuki

  I was handling the second condition of our living here: tending to the small grave in the corner of the garden.

  So I’d thought I would get right to it.

  For some reason, Wiz seemed happy to see me weeding away.

  I asked if she wanted to come inside, but she said she had to get back to her shop and left with a friendly nod.

  I wondered what she came by for. Maybe she was worried about us?

  I poured water over the little gravestone and washed it clean. I realized I could make out faded letters carved into it. Must be the name of whoever was buried here.

  Parts of the inscription were worn and hard to read, but I could make out the name Anna.

  Anna… Anna…?

  Who was she? Hadn’t I heard that name recently…?

  As I crouched by the gravestone mulling it over, a voice came from the house.

  “Kazuma! Lunch is ready—come inside! I worked hard on this, so don’t let it get cold!”

  I looked up and saw Aqua waving at me from a window.

  “All right, hang on, I’ll be right there!” I shouted back. Then I took a cloth and wiped the headstone dry.

  It bore the name Anna Filante Estroid.

  I was sure I’d heard that name just the other day…

  “Kazuma! Megumin says for every minute you’re late, we’re taking one of your chicken nuggets! Actually, you know what? Take your time—I can always use more!”

  “Hey, hold it! You think I’m gonna put up with this kind of extortion?!”

  I finished tidying the grave and set off for the house at a run.

  Chapter 4

  God’s Blessing on This Wonderful Shop!

  1

  And so we got a house.

  Our biggest problem—how to survive the winter—was solved.

  The four of us promptly moved into the new place, and although I had doubts about their personalities, in my heart of hearts I was excited to be sharing a house with three women.

  “Hey, you—move it. I’m trying to work, here. If you’re cold, go curl up in your bed or something.”

  Day one of our new lives, and already we were having trouble.

  In winter the only monsters around were big, strong ones, so there was nothing to do but hole up in town.

  I, however, wanted to hurry and repay the debt that was hanging over our heads, so I got some work from the Guild that I could do at home. But it was hard to make any progress with my hands going numb from the cold.

  So I’d gone to set up in front of the fireplace in the mansion’s first-floor living area, but Aqua, who had apparently decided this was her personal turf, was presently clinging to the sofa and putting up a fierce fight.

  “No way, my bed gets cold again as soon as I step out of it! If you want me to sleep in my bed again, you’d better heat my blankets on the stove or something!”

  “Moron, you know we don’t have a stove here! Stop thinking about yourself and get out of here! Just whose debt do you think I’m trying to pay off with this work? I’ve got a few ideas about what I’ll do to you if you make this any more difficult!”

  “Oh, you want to start something? My stats are way better than yours! You think you can take me mano a mano? The hearth is my sanctuary! Heaven’s wrath will punish those who trespass on iiiiiit!”

  I gave her a little taste of heaven’s wrath, all right, in the form of a Freeze spell right on the nape of her neck. She cried out and tumbled off the couch she had been plastered to.

  I sat on the now-vacant couch and laid out on the table the materials I’d been carrying.

  “Hmph. Thanks for making room for me. If you’re not going to help with the work, go play with Darkness and Megumin.”

  I made a shooing motion at Aqua, who was holding her neck and squirming on the rug.

  In the middle of the room, Darkness and Megumin were playing a board game—this world’s equivalent of chess or shogi.

  “Hee-hee! Behold the power of my army. I teleport an orc soldier to this space.”

  “Megumin, the way you used your Wizard was indecent… I move my Crusader here, and—checkmate!”

  “Teleport!”

  In a world with magic, the rules of chess were a bit different. I’d tried the game with Megumin once, but about the time her king teleported off the board, I resolved never to play again.

  Aqua stopped holding her neck and shaking, and she jumped up as if she’d suddenly thought of something. She pulled her Adventurer’s Card out of her bag and thrust it at me.

  “Have a look at this, Kazuma! Look at the Level space! I have the highest level in this party right now. I’m pretty much a veteran! How dare a cub like you, not even Level 20, push me around! You understand? Now, cede that couch to your better like a good boy!”

  I looked at the card she’d shoved in my face. Her level really had jumped. The field read 21.

  I reflected: She had defeated the Demon King’s general, Beldia, and she had wiped out bunches of undead in the dungeon the other day, to say nothing of the Lich she had exorcized at the end of that adventure.

  I was happy to see Aqua growing but also kind of disappointed that she’d passed my level…

  …Huh?

  “Hey, Aqua. Your level’s gone up, but your stats haven’t increased at all.”

  “Silly Kazuma. Who do you think I am? My stats are naturally at the highest possible value already. They’re maxed! I also started with enough skill points to learn all the party tricks and all the Arch-priest magic, too! Don’t mistake me for some run-of-the-mill adventurer!”

  Aqua’s card fell from my hand and I rocked back.

  Aqua gave me a triumphant smile. She clearly had no idea what was going through my head.

  That means no matter how high her level gets, her Intelligence will never go up!

  I picked up the card and gave it back to Aqua, along with the couch.

  “What’s this? How unusually meek… Hey, why are you crying? Are you that shocked my level is higher than yours? …Hey, now you’re patting my shoulders? Why are you being so nice to me? What’s with the pitying look?”

  I left Aqua sitting on the couch. I’d lost all desire to work for today. I decided to go into town instead.

  2

  The town was blanketed in snow, and the cold seemed to have kept most people indoors.

  As far as I could tell, to batten down for winter was the conventional wisdom here.

  Pretty much the only ones who had it in them to armor up and take on the terrible monsters active in winter were the cheaters from Japan.

  And maybe the only ones who had the time to wander around town in the cold were layabouts like me…

  Well, me and the familiar, suspicious-looking figures up ahead.

  They scurried along the road, checking out a shop that sat back from the street a ways. I called out to my two acquaintances.

  “Keith! Dust! What are you doing out here?”

  “Wha—?!”

  They both jumped, startled at my voice coming from behind.

  They were dressed in casual clothes that seemed kind of un-adventurer-ish.

  “G-geez, Kazuma, don’t scare us like that,” Keith said, relieved to see it was me. “Sheesh, this is what you get when a guy learns Ambush…”

  Of course, I hadn’t been using Ambush.

  “’Sup? Not with your friends?” Dust looked around as if a little worried.

  Well, he had suffered considerably at their hands. I didn’t blame him for being cautious.

  “No, it’s just me today. Calm down. Are you that scared of them? I got sick of being at home, so I came out for a walk. What are you doing here?”

  Dust let out a small sigh, relieved by my words.

  “Oh, we… Nah, we just, y’know? Well, I guess if your lady friends aren’t here…that is, if you don’t have any women with you, there’s no problem.”

  …?

  What were they up to? How would women spoil it?

  Readi
ng the look on my face, Keith smirked and explained:

  “It won’t matter to you, Mr. I’m-surrounded-by-beautiful-women-every-day. But Dust and I are lonely—”

  “—Hey, hold on.” Dust interrupted whatever Keith had been about to say. Then he gave me a sympathetic look. “Keith…it’s not like that,” he said earnestly. “I know he looks like he’s got a harem, but he doesn’t. He’s one of us. He’s got it tough.”

  Of course… Dust had learned the hard way what I was going through.

  I decided. Debtor though I might be, today I was gonna treat Dust to a meal or something.

  3

  One of my fonder memories was from when I was a kid and I tried a sip of the beer my father had been drinking so happily. I spit it out immediately.

  In my young heart, I swore I would never drink alcohol, but now here I was, in a fantasy world, drinking before noon.

  It felt wrong, but then, both the laws and the customs were different here.

  There was no law against underage drinking, but if you caused any trouble, you had to take complete personal responsibility.

  I didn’t particularly like alcohol, but I made myself drink it, and gradually I got a fuzzy, floaty feeling.

  It was nice. Was this why people drank?

  As the three of us made merry at the Guild bar in the middle of the day, Keith grumbled, “Aww, man. There’s nothing to do in winter; it drives me nuts! Whoop, Kazuma, you can really put it away. Have s’more!”

  He poured me another generous glass of wine, laughing boisterously.

  Keith, apparently, was a happy drunk.

  “Sigh… Winter means you don’t get to see any skin. I know how rough things are for you, Kazuma, but still…right about now, I can’t help but be a little envious,” Dust said with a deep sigh.

  We weren’t the only ones at the tavern that morning, not by a long shot—maybe winter boredom drove everyone here.

  There were plenty of adventurers who made a hikikomori like me look downright functional.

  As that thought crossed my mind, I asked Keith and Dust about something that had been bugging me.

  “Hey, what were you two doing out there, anyway?”

  I was sure they’d been trying to decide whether or not to go into that one shop. I was sort of curious what it was.

  The two of them looked at each other and nodded…

  Keith set down his mug with a serious look.

  “Kazuma. I think we can trust you. What I’m about to tell you is a shared secret among all the male adventurers in town. You must never let it out. Do you promise not to tell your lady friends?”

  I nodded, the sudden gravity intimidating me a bit.

  Keith gave a short nod back.

  In a very quiet voice, so as not to be overheard amid the furor of the room, Dust began, “Kazuma. Did you know that in this town, some succubi run a quiet little shop where you can dream sweet dreams?”

  I answered immediately with, “Tell me more.”

  Dust, just a bit flushed, set down his mug and explained:

  “There are succubi living in this town. They’re demons who feed on horniness—basically, men’s vitality. So naturally, they need human men.”

  Nod, nod.

  I leaned in to hear Dust’s impassioned exposition.

  “So, yeah, they drain vitality, but the men and the succubi in this town have developed a sort of symbiotic relationship. Look, most of us sleep in stables, right? And we’ve all got certain, y’know…urges…but there’re people sleeping right nearby. Doesn’t matter how much you want it; you just can’t do it.”

  “Y-yeah, sure.” I nodded.

  I felt a bead of sweat on my forehead, even though I was certainly not feeling guilty.

  Not guilty at all.

  “Heck, I dare you to try anything on one of the girls around you. You’d be a punching bag for every woman in the area in seconds. Or if the girl has a hidden dagger or something, well, you might come out missing a couple of very important things.” He turned pale and shivered slightly.

  Watching him, Keith said, “Still haven’t recovered from the trauma of that time you tried to put the moves on Rin, huh?”

  “Sh-shut up, you! Anyway, this is where the succubi come in. While we’re sleeping, they give us awesome dreams. We get a little relief; they get to survive. They don’t take so much that we get totally dried up and can’t go on adventures, either. No one has ever been so drained that they got in any trouble by going there… What do you think? Win-win, huh?”

  I nodded vigorously.

  It was perfect! Beyond perfect!

  The succubi didn’t have to attack random people, and adventurers living in stables could put their worries to rest. It probably even helped curtail sex crimes.

  You know, I’d noticed how peaceful this town seemed. I’d always pictured adventurers as noisy, drunken brawlers, but there was little violence in this town, and you didn’t hear much about crime.

  If anyone could find a moment of postcoital clarity at any time, no wonder there were no fights.

  Incredible! What a wonderful system the world had come up with.

  Keith looked at my rapturous expression and said, “Truth be told, we only just learned about this place recently ourselves. We were thinking we might make our first visit today. That’s when we ran into you.”

  Dust took a quick gulp of wine.

  “That’s the story. So…want to join us?”

  “By all means.”

  4

  We had left the Guild Hall and were now standing before the shop from earlier with a touch of trepidation.

  I would never have had it in me to go in by myself. But now I had two trusty companions. It was kind of like that weird thing where you can’t bring yourself to buy a dirty magazine by yourself, but you can manage it in a crowd.

  It was a small shop in an alleyway somewhere off the main street.

  At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a normal eatery…

  “Welcome!”

  She was gorgeous. The kind of body most men saw when they dreamed of the perfect woman.

  Looking past the stunning greeter, I could see there were indeed only male customers inside the shop.

  Similarly lovely, busty women flitted about the store. It was enough to make my chest tighten.

  This was supposed to be an eatery, but there was no sign of food or drink on any of the tables.

  Instead, everyone at every table was studiously filling out what appeared to be some sort of questionnaire.

  The beautiful woman took an armful of menus, led us to an empty table, and smiled.

  “Is this your first time at our establishment?”

  The three of us nodded.

  She gave a wry smile. “Do you know what kind of shop this is and what we are?”

  We nodded again, wordless.

  Apparently satisfied, she put the menus on the table.

  “Order whatever you like. Of course, you don’t have to order anything if you don’t want to. And fill out these questionnaires, please, and present them when paying the bill.”

  We took the questionnaires.

  Maybe they used the sheets to match you up with the succubus who best fit your type.

  I glanced at the questionnaire, but I didn’t quite grasp what I saw.

  “Um, this says to specify your preferred situation, gender, and appearance…”

  Situation made sense, but gender and appearance?

  “You may wish to be a king or a hero—that’s your situation. As for gender and appearance, perhaps you want to try being a woman. Or some of our customers, for example, wish to be a young boy being overpowered by a strong female adventurer.”

  I was a little worried about the adventurers around here.

  Still, I was impressed you could be that specific. I guess it was a dream after all.

  Keith raised his hand solicitously to ask the woman a question. “Um…how detailed can we get with the description of
our partner?”

  “As detailed as you like. Personality and character traits, appearance, whether or not he or she likes you—anything at all. You can invent a partner out of your imagination, if you wish.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  It just slipped out, but she was quick to respond.

  So it could be that famous woman, that girl next door, even your two-dimensional crush?

  “Um…do we have to worry about the rights to use that person’s likeness or anything?”

  “No, sir. It’s just a dream, after all.”

  “Right, of course.”

  Her ready reply put me at ease.

  A dream…no problem.

  Now it was Dust’s turn to raise his hand.

  “So…no restrictions on the age of our partner either, right? I mean, not that I plan on… I was just wondering…”

  “No, sir. Whatever you desire,” the succubus replied without blinking.

  “A-are you sure?” I asked before I could stop myself. “No rules or anything?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s just a dream, after all.”

  “I guess so…”

  No harm, no foul.

  It seemed like a pretty sweet setup these succubi had here.

  The three of us silently filled out our questionnaires.

  “Thank you. As you’ve chosen the three-hour course, that will be five thousand eris each.”

  What a deal!

  When I opened my wallet at the register, I was pleasantly taken aback by the prices.

  Of course, I’d never been to this kind of shop, so what did I know? But it seemed way cheaper than anything in Japan.

  Reading my expression, the woman said, “We need only enough money to get by in this town, you see. The rest of our payment comes in the form of a little bit of our customers’ vitality.”

  A smile slipped over her face.

  Who knew there was a place you could literally buy happiness?

  I was completely taken with these women’s giving and compassionate business model.

  I had to become a regular here—I had to help their cause!