Free Web NovelChapter 320: 320 KonoSuba 45
After the cleanup was mostly finished, we returned to the village. There I saw two people—a man and a woman—walking around the village on their hands. Looking closer, it was Butsukorori, the son of the shoe shop owner, and Soketto, the astrologer. They were really going around the village on their hands to keep the promise they had made.
"Those guys are actually doing it."
Not all Crimson Demons were like this, but it seemed they were a race that tried their best to keep their word whenever possible.
We went to the village square where people had gathered. The village chiefs and the residents were busy preparing for a party.
"There you are! The stars of today. It’s not ready yet, but it’ll be done soon. Just wait a little."
The village chief told us to just sit and rest, but since everyone helped out, we were able to finish preparing for the party quickly. Meanwhile, Kazuma seemed deep in thought. He quietly changed his clothes, burned his hard-gay-looking outfit, and then silently used his blacksmith skill to repair Darkness’s armor.
Since Kazuma was acting like that, everyone just helped with the party preparations while occasionally glancing his way instead of trying to talk to him. They seemed to sense that something was wrong with him.
Once the party preparations were complete, we ate and drank happily, relieving our accumulated fatigue. The villagers had also built up a lot of exhaustion from the battle with the Demon King’s army, so everyone cheerfully raised their glasses and enjoyed themselves.
Ironically, because the villagers bought all the alcohol and snacks from Nerimaki’s shop for the village party, Nerimaki’s family also made some money. It probably wasn’t enough to pay off all their debts, but I thought their situation must have improved somewhat. I figured we probably wouldn’t be able to recruit Nerimaki as a party member, but since I’d at least seen her face, I decided it didn’t really matter anymore.
We drank and chatted, and then decided to split up between Yunyun’s house and Megumin’s house to sleep. But since so many people were dead drunk, we all ended up spending the night at Yunyun’s place.
The next day, all the villagers came out to say goodbye to us.
"Stay healthy, Yunyun, Megumin."
"Silver Flash, thank you!" frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
"Kyaa! I love you, Silver Flash!"
As we were getting ready to leave the village, I saw Nerimaki coming toward us with a huge load of luggage.
"Wait! I’m coming with you. Hah, hah..."
"Nerimaki, you’re coming with us?"
"Yes. Our shop’s situation improved a little, and my parents gave me permission."
"That’s a relief. I look forward to working with you."
"I look forward to working with you too!"
Yunyun then grabbed Nerimaki’s hand with a very bright expression and said,
"Let’s do our best together, Nerimaki!"
"Thank you, Yunyun. And you too, Cecily."
"Well, I think it’s good if cute little girls— I mean, young ladies increase."
Nerimaki tilted her head for a moment, wondering if she’d misheard Cecily’s nonsense, then let it slide. She seemed to have decided she must have misheard. How long that would last, I didn’t know. Anyway, I was glad we’d managed to recruit Nerimaki as planned.
We returned to Axel using teleport magic and first reported to the guild. There was a guild in the Crimson Demon village too, but from what I’d heard, the Crimson Demons hardly ever ran the guild there. That made sense, since the Crimson Demon village itself was close to the Demon King’s castle, and they fought the Demon King’s army whenever they got bored, so there wasn’t much point. So I had no choice but to report in Axel that we had captured a Demon King army executive.
"What!? You captured another Demon King army executive?"
Luna looked surprised when she heard what I said.
"Yeah. It just ended up that way."
"Ha... I don’t know whether to be happy about this or not... Anyway, since I’ve confirmed it, if you come back tomorrow, you’ll be able to receive the reward."
"Okay. Thanks."
Maybe because the Axel guild also had a hard time paying out large sums of money easily, Luna said she’d give us the reward tomorrow. I told Kazuma and the others about that, and we all returned home and decided on a room for Nerimaki. We gave Nerimaki the room next to Yunyun and Megumin’s. Cecily was extremely happy about that — probably because it was close to her own room.
After Nerimaki unpacked and came out to the living room, I gave her her equipment. In Nerimaki’s case, since she had learned advanced magic and then immediately started helping out at the bar, she didn’t have any equipment of her own, so I had to provide it for her.
"This is a staff made of high-purity manatite, and this is a bracelet that can store mana. Your level is still low, so I thought these would be useful."
"Oh~ I see. But are you sure you can give me things like this...?"
"Don’t worry about it. I got them while doing requests anyway. If a comrade who can make better use of them than me uses them to complete requests more effectively, that’s a good thing."
To be honest, the staff was something I had made a long time ago, and the bracelet was just a copy of Yunyun’s using my [Material Copy] ability. So it didn’t cost me a single coin to fully equip Nerimaki.
"Is that so? Anyway, thank you. I’ll work hard from now on."
"It’s good to work hard, but don’t overdo it. You probably haven’t adjusted yet, so it could be dangerous. So starting tomorrow, let’s take requests slowly, starting with low-difficulty ones."
"Okay."
From that day on, we gradually increased the difficulty of requests to help Nerimaki adjust, step by step. Because of that, we didn’t run into any major problems.
But the problem came from somewhere else.
"KYAA—!!!"
"Oh no... here we go again..."
"Yeah, really."
Kazuma screamed again because someone was standing behind him. It seemed Kazuma had properly developed PTSD. Because of that, Kazuma’s party had barely been able to take any requests lately. Not that it mattered, since he’d earned plenty of money.
"Haaah... haaah... I told you not to stand behind me!!"
"Ah, sorry..."
This was how it kept going.
But that wasn’t the only problem. Darkness, Luna, and I had been taking turns using the bedroom on a rotating schedule. That night was Darkness’s turn, so we were spending a nice time together, and just as we were about to fall asleep, Darkness suddenly asked me,
"Hey, Taejin..."
"Yeah?"
"Sorry for asking something like this. But... for a man, if something goes wrong mentally, can that area... not get hard?"
"I’ve heard that can happen. I don’t really know the details, but I’ve heard that if you’re too nervous or have some kind of psychological issue, it sometimes doesn’t work. But they say that’s only at first, and as you gradually gain experience, that sort of thing goes away."
"I see..."
"But why are you asking that?"
"Well... this is a secret from the others, but... Kazuma isn’t doing very well. He’s still in that state because of what happened in the Crimson Demon village, and Megumin tried everything she could, but apparently he just wouldn’t respond."
"Ah..."
This seemed more serious than I thought. His condition was worse than in the original. If I’d known this would happen, I regretted not saving him. Since Sylvia had taken a liking to Kazuma, I’d assumed he wouldn’t lose his life, so I just didn’t rescue him. Looking back, I kind of regret that.
"Hmm... Let’s watch him for a while, and if it seems like he’s absolutely not going to get better, I’ll look for a solution."
"Okay."
Several days passed like that, but Kazuma’s condition showed no sign of improving. Then one day, after finishing a request at the guild, we ended up having a drink together, and Kazuma spoke to us like a man who had been through everything life had to offer.
"There was a time when I thought spring had come to this world."
"Huh?"
"I almost had a good relationship with Yunyun, and I even got excited thinking, ’Is this my prime now?’ when I got into bed alone with Megumin here... but in the end, this is how I turned out. All I got was PTSD from being assaulted by a chimera..."
Kazuma chugged his shuwashuwa and then lowered his head in despair as he spoke.
"Ha... it was an illusion...!"
Then Aqua hugged Kazuma, patted him, and comforted him.
"You’re tired. To someone like you, the teachings of the Axis Church, you—"
"QUACKERY!!! And look where that got me!!! I’m not walking the same path again!"
Kazuma said that, then suddenly stood up from his seat and shouted as if he was about to go somewhere. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
"From now on, I’m changing jobs from adventurer to monk, so don’t get in my way!"
Shouting that, Kazuma headed to the guild reception desk. Aqua and Megumin, looking worried, followed him, and Darkness fidgeted restlessly as she asked me,
"What do we do, Taejin? If Kazuma actually goes to the temple like this, then our party..."
I sighed helplessly, took one particular potion out of my bag, and handed it to Darkness.
"This is a very powerful aphrodisiac. I hope this can get him back to his old self, but it’s best to use this only when there’s really no other choice. There are no special side effects, but the very strength of it could be a side effect, so you need to use it carefully."
That potion came from the Leisure Life gacha. I’d never had a use for it until now, so I figured it was fine to use it for this, and handed it to Darkness. The effect should be reliable.
"Got it. Thanks, Taejin."
Darkness took the potion and went over to Kazuma. But Cecily, who had been watching from the side, asked me,
"Taejin, do you happen to have any more of that potion? If you’d sell some to me..."
"No, not you. I don’t know what you might do."
"I wouldn’t do something like that."
Despite her words, Cecily was grinning lewdly and drooling. She was probably imagining how she would use the aphrodisiac.
"You absolutely must not give that kind of medicine to Cecily!"
"That’s right! Last time she asked me to bathe with her, and when I got in, she wouldn’t let go of me! I had such a hard time peeling her off!"
Yunyun and Nerimaki showed extreme resistance. It seemed Nerimaki had now realized Cecily’s true nature too.
"That’s so mean. I was just trying to get closer to my fellow party members..."
"Those lies won’t work anymore!"
Yunyun and Nerimaki, venting their accumulated grievances, ganged up on Cecily. Cecily got a bit flustered but then fought back with illogical arguments, which only made Yunyun and Nerimaki even more confused.
We finished our meal and drinks and returned home, but then Kazuma suddenly started packing his luggage.
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"Yeah. I won’t be back for a while. Like I said earlier, I’m going to enter a temple."
"I thought you were joking, but you were serious."
"That’s right. I have no intention of coming back until I cure my PTSD."
Kazuma seemed firmly resolved.
"Couldn’t you cure that here too?"
"No. I’ve tried all sorts of things. There’s no way."
"Well, nothing we can do then."
In the original, Kazuma went to a temple, went through various events, overcame his PTSD, and came back, so I figured the same might happen here, and I just let him pack his things. Besides, I’d even given him an aphrodisiac just in case, so I thought he’d get better in the end.
We watched Kazuma leave, but we didn’t particularly wave goodbye. That was because we thought he’d be back soon. And just like in the original, Megumin, Aqua, and Darkness followed after him.
The ones who had left came back three days later. But unlike the original, Kazuma’s face was all swollen up as if he’d been beaten somewhere, Megumin was crying, and Darkness and Aqua arrived home looking at Kazuma like he was trash.
"Huh? What happened?"
Something was different from the original and seemed serious, so I asked Kazuma and the others, but no one said anything; they just went inside and unpacked.
That day passed like that, and the next day I was able to hear from Darkness what had happened.
"That day, we couldn’t stop Kazuma from going to the temple no matter what, so we eventually agreed to use the aphrodisiac. Kazuma said he was thirsty, so we mixed the aphrodisiac in his drink and gave it to him. Then Kazuma... near the temple, he did terrible things to an injured girl who was hurt..."
"Huh? What do you mean? So Kazuma committed a crime?"
"That’s not it. Fortunately, that girl was a monster, so if we really want to argue the point, it’s not a crime... but what Kazuma did was..."
The monster Darkness mentioned was a Raksasha. Kazuma, in heat, had mounted her. The problem was that the Raksasha didn’t have any organs capable of sexual intercourse. Because she was a plant-type monster, that was the case. But from what Darkness said, Kazuma had enthusiastically performed the act on the Raksasha’s mouth, releasing his desires that way.
Megumin was shocked by the sight, and Aqua and Darkness beat Kazuma while trying to stop him. But Kazuma’s eyes were already rolled back and he had lost all reason, so in the end they tried to finish it by exterminating the Raksasha. But even after the monster died, apparently Kazuma didn’t stop his actions for quite a while.
"Th... that happened..."
"What kind of aphrodisiac turns a person into such a beast? Shouting ’You make your own holes!’ and being so absorbed in it... it was unbearable to watch."
"Th-that is... I got it from a dungeon. It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac so strong it can even make dead bodies rise... that’s why I said to use it carefully."
I made up an excuse as best I could on the spot.
"I see... we didn’t know that..."
Since he had done that in front of the other female party members, this would probably go down as one of Kazuma’s worst black histories. I figured I should be a bit more careful when using the Leisure Life aphrodisiac myself.
Then suddenly, Darkness blushed and said something insane.
"Taejin, if you have any of that aphrodisiac left... could you take it and play with me? Heheh, I can take anything. Slurp!"
