Crimson Magic Clan, Let’s & Go!!

by Natsume Akatsuki

  I gleefully showed her my Adventurer’s Card. “Have a look at this! I just jumped three levels! That oughta do me some good when we reach Megumin’s village.”

  The trio froze. Followed immediately by…

  “Waa—waaaaaaaaaaahhhh! Kazuma, you monster! You morally bankrupt demon! Now I see why Vanir likes you so much! You’re worse than he is!”

  “No… No… No, oh no… This is all my fault… If I hadn’t bragged so much about all those levels I gained… If I hadn’t teased Kazuma about it… Maybe that…poor thing…would still be alive! O damnable pride…!”

  I was trying to get Aqua and Megumin to stop wailing long enough for me to explain when I registered Darkness standing stonily to one side. I gave her a quizzical look.

  “It must have been painful,” she said. “But you did your duty as an adventurer. Forgive us for making you bear this burden alone…”

  Her expression was pained, and she was completely serious.

  It took me a full hour to explain.

  Chapter 2

  May I Make a Harem of These Lustful Beast-Eared Girls!

  1

  As the curtain of night descended, we found a place by the side of the road. We cleared away the biggest rocks so it would be easy to sleep and laid out our sheet. It was about the size of a picnic blanket—and that was pretty much how we were using it.

  We couldn’t have the powerful monsters around here noticing a campfire, so instead we agreed to sleep huddled up in the dark. After I opened the undead repellent we’d bought from Vanir, we put everyone’s provisions in the middle of the blanket, resting our backs against the pile.

  We couldn’t see the light of the stars, maybe because of the cloudy weather. But thanks to my Second Sight and Sense Foe skills, I could tell if a monster was coming even in the dark. That meant guard duty fell to me. And because I might have trouble dealing with the threat by myself, the others stood guard with me in turns. Megumin drew the first shift.

  “…Kazuma, can you really stay up all night?” Darkness said from the gloom. “Granted, with your skill set, we appreciate your standing guard, but…”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve always been good at all-nighters. Where I come from, we pull them all the time.”

  “Now that you mention it, Kazuma, where do you come from?” Megumin asked. “You and Aqua both. I’d love to hear about your home country. Based on your inventions, it’s clearly a place with many useful magical items. I keep wondering what kind of life you lived there. What kind of life—what kind of sacrifices—awarded you such a talent for staying up all night…?”

  I could feel Darkness looking at me, too, Megumin’s words having piqued her interest.

  What kind of life I lived, huh…?

  I thought back on my peaceful life in Japan. Sitting and talking at night like this reminded me of school trips. The nostalgia was almost too much to bear. I slowly began to speak.

  “Let’s see… Well, I really owned in that world.”

  ““‘Owned’? Owned what?”” Megumin and Darkness said together.

  I see they don’t have that word in this world.

  “I guess it means, you know, someone at the top of the pile. My friends had a bunch of nicknames for me. ‘Kazuma, the guy with all the luck.’ ‘Kazuma, the guy who’s always there if you overdo it.’ That sort of thing… They really depended on me. My buddies and I would assault fortresses and take down huge bosses. Man, it was a good time… All-nighters? All the time. Didn’t eat well, slept two hours a day, then it was off on another monster hunt.”

  Darkness sucked in an admiring breath next to me. “Th-that’s amazing… Fortresses and bosses…! No wonder you always come up with good ideas, with all that experience. That’s really something!” She sounded excited, full of genuine respect.

  Even Megumin got in on it. “I would not normally believe such talk from you, Kazuma, but somehow… Somehow it just feels like you’re telling the truth. I really do sense confidence and fondness for such memories from you…”

  Then, from directly behind me, Aqua spoke up.

  “…Hey, Kazuma. When do I get to tell them that you’re talking about some online game?”

  “Never. Please?”

  2

  Darkness told me that if anything happened, I should wake her up—I could be a little rough if I wanted to, she said—and I agreed I would find an awful way of alerting her if she was needed. Then Megumin and I went on guard duty.

  “…You know, I have to wonder just what this awful way of waking someone up is. You know, there is a certain line you should not cross with your party members. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Let me tell you something about men, Megumin. When you say there’s a line we can’t cross or a wall we can’t climb, that makes us want to cross it or climb it more than ever… The bigger the obstacles in our lives, the higher the mountains we have to climb, the more we want to face them down! It’s like that.”

  “No, it isn’t! Please don’t act like we are talking about something optimistic and motivational here! I’m not sure I feel safe being on guard duty with you…”

  Megumin’s agitated outburst provoked some groggy sleep-talk from Aqua.

  ““……””

  The two of us went quiet, not wanting to wake her. I let out a small sigh of relief when I heard her breathing calmly and evenly again.

  “By the way,” Megumin started in a soft voice. “Going back to what we were talking about before bed…” She went on hesitantly. “You come from another country, don’t you? …Do you never go back home?”

  “Truth is, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. And if I did go back, I’d probably end up being a lazy bum again. Just recently, I’ve started to think maybe this life isn’t so bad. When we come back from Crimson Magic Village, I’ll get the three hundred million eris from Vanir and be a rich man. Then we can all be lazy bums, just enjoying ourselves.”

  Being a NEET here wasn’t so different from being a NEET in Japan. It seemed like it was mostly a question of whether you were a burden on your parents. Japan had video games, and computers, too, but it didn’t have succubus services. Those seemed like the major differences.

  Defeating the Demon King and going back to Japan?

  It had started to seem like a pretty impossible idea. And anyway, sure, I wanted to see my parents again, but I was good and dead in Japan…

  If I brought down the Demon King, I could wish for anything I wanted. Maybe I could get something better.

  Megumin gave a small sigh of relief at my words.

  “I see… I like this life, too. Exactly as it is. The way we all get in trouble but then somehow find a way out—it’s a fun way to live, and it’s enough for me.”

  I was about to ask how getting in trouble all the time counted as “fun” when she said:

  She let out a small breath as she slid closer to me. She squeezed my hand in the darkness. Her own hand felt cold.

  Why am I so nervous?

  Wait, what the hell? This is some bittersweetness right here!

  What was with this girl? Why had Megumin suddenly taken my hand without any context? First Yunyun wanted to have a baby with me, and now this? Maybe I really was finally getting popular with the ladies.

  Memories of my romantic life flashed before my eyes. The first girl I had ever loved. How, in grade school, we had promised to get married when we grew up. How, in the summer of our third year of middle school, I saw her riding with a ne’er-do-well upperclassman on his motorbike. How, full of feelings I couldn’t explain, I stopped going to school so much and lost myself in online games instead. How I didn’t even want to sleep after that—just kill monsters until the sun came up. How eventually I had reached such heights that more people had heard of me than not…

  I had spent the best years of my life training in online games. I had wasted the days when I was supposed to be enjoying the blossoming of romance at school. And now here I was, with a beautiful girl p
ractically pressed up against me, my hand in hers.

  Yikes. What was a guy supposed to do in this situation? Was she telling me to make a move on her? Should I say something suave? I had never thought much about Megumin in that way, and I didn’t have any romantic feelings for her now, either—I mean, she was still too young. But didn’t she realize that a virgin with zero experience with women wouldn’t be able to just shake it off when a girl did something like that?!

  I collected myself and got ready to offer some smooth line…

  And then I noticed it.

  “…zzzzz…”

  While I’d been sitting there, anxious and confused, Megumin had slipped into the even breathing of sleep.

  ……Stupid, stupid kid!

  3

  “…Geez, with you and Megumin making all that noise last night, I couldn’t sleep a wink!”

  “Look, I apologize for the noise, but I only did it because jailbait here fell asleep in the middle of her watch. And anyway, what are you talking about? When I tried to wake you up for your shift, you didn’t even budge! Darkness ended up taking your watch instead.”

  “I just heard that you’d done something really awful to Megumin when she fell asleep on her shift, so I thought maybe if I fell asleep—but then I was so excited about what you might do to me that I couldn’t sleep…”

  “Errgh… I—I can’t believe what you did to me…”

  True, there had been more than a little commotion the night before, but at least we’d made it safely till morning. We had a light breakfast and then walked along, arguing, with no suspicions that anything would go less than according to plan.

  “Aww, crap…”

  But now I stood smack in the middle of the road, staring dumbly at the huge field that spread out in front of us. There wasn’t a single obstacle, meaning my Ambush skill was useless. We’d been relying on Megumin, but if we used magic in such an open space, the sound could easily attract more monsters. And the only way to Crimson Magic Village was through this field…

  Even with Sense Foe active, we would be so exposed that any monsters would probably be on us before my skill could be of any use. No choice, then. This was the time to use Second Sight. I wouldn’t try to use Sense Foe at all and instead just spot the monsters before they spotted me.

  “Okay, I’m going in alone. You guys stay wherever you can make a quick getaway. Aqua, give me a speed boost so I can escape if I need to.”

  Even if a monster did get to me, Aqua’s speed buff plus the Flee skill I’d learned the other day would allow me to draw the enemy off while the other three waited somewhere discreet. I took off my chest armor, gloves, and greaves, handing them to Aqua. I wanted to be as light as possible if the need arose. To reduce my weight even more, I gave her all my weapons, except my dagger.

  “You look like you’re set on running at the first sign of trouble,” Aqua said archly. “Brave as ever.”

  “There’s no way I could fight the monsters around here head-on,” I said. “I looked at the monster info, and they all sound like serious trouble. No guarantees they’ll come one at a time, either. So you’re right—combat is absolutely a last resort for me.”

  The monster info had referred to One-Punch Bears, along with griffins, Fire Drakes, and a rogue’s gallery of other creatures with very intimidating names.

  Well, except for one. It was highly recognizable, and in video games and manga it was always a small fry. So if I had to meet anything, I hoped it would be that.

  I got ready to set off. “All right. Follow me, but keep a good distance. Just be sure not to lose sight of me. I’ll gesture if there’s anything out there—then you guys run.”

  “Got it!” Aqua said. “You can count on me!”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that gestures mean nothing to you. Darkness, Megumin, you’re up.”

  The two of them nodded.

  4

  The road ran through a huge field. I proceeded along it by myself, lightly armored and carefully looking around for any sign of monsters. From time to time, I looked over my shoulder to make sure the girls were still following me. All good so far. I wanted to be especially careful of any fliers. The info had mentioned griffins, but I didn’t see any circling shadows.

  We had seen the shapes of several huge monsters in the distance, but we had successfully avoided them. All good. We just needed to get across the field and link back up.

  And then…

  A human shape stood smack in the middle of the field. Whoever it was didn’t seem to have noticed me yet, but I also couldn’t think of any reason for someone to be standing in the middle of this field. That meant it was probably a monster.

  I managed to pick out what it was while I was still at a distance. It was the only thing that seemed out of place in an area crawling with deadly enemies.

  An orc.

  These bipedal, pigheaded creatures were very fertile and could breed all year round. Their body type made it possible for them to breed with most other humanoids, meaning that if they captured you, life could get very unpleasant. Some people even said that if it looked like they were going to capture you, it was better to just kill yourself.

  In games and such, orcs tend to rank with kobolds and goblins at the bottom of the monster totem pole. I couldn’t imagine why they were listed in the monster info here. Compared to the massive foes we had been working so hard to avoid, it hardly seemed like there was a reason to bother going around this guy. True, I had only my dagger, but from what I could tell, the other guy didn’t have any weapon at all. Plus, I could absorb his HP with Drain Touch—and anyway, there was only one.

  I decided to get close and take him out with a single blow from my dagger. I started advancing toward the silhouette, which seemed quite a ways away. I walked boldly, making no effort to hide myself. Then again, in this huge open field, there was nowhere to hide in the first place.

  When I had gotten a good deal closer, the monster must have noticed me, because he started approaching me. I reflexively tightened my grip on my dagger. Then I heard something behind me.

  “…zu…ma…! Kazu…!!”

  I turned around to see what was going on and spotted Aqua and the others shouting something at me. I couldn’t quite tell from this distance, but Aqua and Megumin seemed to be making some kind of gesture. It took me a moment, but eventually I figured out what they were trying to say.

  Run!

  But I faced front again. It was just one orc.

  The orc was pretty close now, and staring straight at me.

  Disturbed by my companions’ actions, I muttered, “Create Earth!” in a quiet voice, hiding some dust in my left hand so I could blind the orc if need be. When I glanced back, I saw Aqua and Megumin gesturing more frantically than ever. Run! Run!

  If anything, it’s you ladies who ought to be running, I wanted to tell them. An orc was more likely to go after women than after a man like me. But then again, since I was going to drop the thing right here, I guess it didn’t really matter whether they ran or not.

  I turned back to the orc. It was close enough that we could see each other’s faces now, and it seemed more human than I’d pictured an orc looking. It had the ears and snout of a pig, but the structure of its face wasn’t so different from anyone else’s. And it had actual clothes on—probably stolen from some unfortunate traveler. The most surprising thing, though, was that it had a head of hair. Messy hair, yes, but there it was. Despite the green skin, it could easily be mistaken for a human at first glance.

  “Hello! I say, you manly man! Want to have a little fun with me?”

  Apparently, it was a female, because the words that came fluently out of its mouth were high-pitched.

  …Gosh. This really was not at all the way I imagined orcs. I didn’t even know they had females. I mean, sure, they were supposed to be super fertile, but I had heard they could breed with other races…

  I glanced at her again. The form was humanoid, but that was
definitely a monster. I felt kind of bad for her—she had gone out of her way to make me an offer—but I was not broad-minded enough to see her as a potential partner. As nonchalantly as I could, I said, “I’d rather not.”

  And there it was. The first time in my life a woman had propositioned me, and I’d turned her down.

  The orc showed no change of expression, despite my refusal. “Oh no? That’s a shame. I do so prefer when they’re willing.” Then she grinned, baring her teeth. Besides the messy hair, she had yellow teeth and was distinctly rotund. Snout or no snout, I couldn’t say I would have been interested.

  Also, what was that about being willing?

  “Listen,” I said, “it seems like you can talk, so let me make you an offer. I’d like to get through here. If you let me by, I’ll share some of my rations with you… What do you say?”

  Food could be a powerful motivator… Such was my naive hope, anyway. Come to think of it, what was that dried meat we had? It wasn’t pork, was it? I’d hate to make her commit cannibalism.

  As I stood mulling this over, the orc’s mouth began to water. Wow. I guess food was a good move.

  …So what she said next pulled that rug out from under me.

  “I don’t care about that. This area belongs to us lovely orcs. And when it comes to men in our territory, there’s no such thing as the one that got away… Aren’t you interesting? You don’t look like much at first glance, but I feel a potent survival drive from you. I have a good nose for these things. I bet you and I could have very strong children… Sure you don’t want to have a little fun?”

  …………Um.

  It finally started to sink in that she wasn’t kidding. Nearing the end of my rope, I looked back at my party again. Two of them were continuing to make the run gesture. Only Darkness, apparently oblivious to the situation, seemed to be wondering whether to join me in battle.