Free Web NovelChapter 321: 321 KonoSuba 46
From that day on, Kazuma’s PTSD seemed to have been cured, which was a relief. Instead, he started being treated like garbage by the women. The incident hadn’t spread outside the group yet, but somehow Yunyun, Nerimaki, Cecily, and even Luna already knew about it. Honestly, I felt a bit responsible and apologetic, so I told the women to keep their mouths shut so the rumor wouldn’t get out.
Kazuma was a bit depressed, but once he realized that his important part was functioning properly again, he started to perk up. But what good was perking up when Megumin wasn’t even treating him like a human being?
"Megumin, that was because of the aphrodisiac. You heard her."
"I used to think he was a moderate pervert, but I never knew Kazuma was such an extreme pervert. Now I think I’ve got trauma!"
"What do you mean ’moderate pervert’!?"
"Like secretly looking up skirts, or sniffing the laundry women throw off, or..."
"AAAAH! Stop!"
Yeah, something like that. Still, it didn’t look too serious, so I figured this matter would resolve itself and decided not to get involved.
Several days passed like that. We received the reward for Sylvia, and Kazuma’s business with Vanir was going well, so Kazuma earned a lot of money and his expression brightened again. Then, late one night, someone came to visit.
"Excuse me. Is anyone there? Excuse me."
I opened the door immediately and saw that it was Hagan, the butler of the Dustiness family — Darkness’s house.
"It’s been a while, Hagan."
"Good evening, Taejin. It’s been a long time."
"Please, come in."
"Thank you."
I led Hagan to the living room. Our party and Kazuma’s party were lounging around, and Darkness recognized Hagan and asked,
"Hagan? What’s wrong?"
"It’s a disaster. At this rate, the family will be stripped of its noble title, and even my lady’s only advantage — her family name — will disappear..."
Darkness then said in a panic,
"Wh-what are you talking about?"
Hagan then held out a letter to Darkness.
"Isn’t this the royal family’s crest..."
Darkness took the letter and began reading it. Her face gradually turned pale, and her hands started trembling. Seeing that, Kazuma asked Darkness,
"HAAH!!"
"Hey, what’s wrong?"
"N-nothing! Th-this has nothing to do with you, Kazuma, so don’t worry about it."
Darkness was extremely flustered, so Kazuma reached out his hand and said,
"Show me."
"I refuse!! You hate getting involved in troublesome things, so—"
"Steal!"
"KYAAAAAA!! No, no!!"
Kazuma snatched the letter from Darkness and started reading it.
"’To the great adventurer Satou Kazuma-dono and his companions, who contributed to defeating a Demon King army executive. We wish to hear firsthand about your brilliant exploits, and so we invite you to a meal... First Princess Iris.’ Oh~ it’s a letter from Princess Iris! She’s inviting us to the royal castle!"
Unlike the original, Iris and Kazuma’s party had already met before, due to Darkness and my wedding.
"Kazuma, let’s refuse! If something happens, our heads will be cut off! This is different from last time. Back then, Taejin stepped forward for us, so it quietly blew over, but this time they’ve specifically invited us to a meal. You people clearly don’t know etiquette and will cause an incident. Then not only you, but even my family will... Ah! That’s right, instead, let’s just rent a nice place ourselves and..."
Then Megumin, Aqua, and Kazuma gave a thumbs up and cheered.
"Fufu, it seems our time has finally come!"
"It’s about time! Our names have been famous for a while now!"
"Princess Iris... to think I could see such an innocent beautiful girl again."
Feeling it was useless to argue with them, Darkness came to me, clinging, and said,
"Help me. You’re in the same boat as me now, Taejin!"
"I wasn’t invited, so there’s nothing I can do."
"But..."
When I said there was nothing I could do, Darkness despaired and slumped down on the spot.
"If you’re so worried about your family, why don’t you just not go? The others will do what they want, won’t they? Well, if we say that you’re part of our party until this whole thing blows over, you might be able to avoid responsibility."
"Oh~ there’s a way like that..."
The Kazuma party, who had been quietly listening to me, frowned and protested.
"Hey, hey, Taejin and Darkness, you’re talking about us like we’re some kind of bomb. We’re not going there to cause terrorism."
"That’s right! Our names are now known all the way to the royal capital, and we’ve captured a Demon King army executive, so they’re probably calling us to reward our achievements. I’m sure nothing will happen."
"What do you think we are!"
So I gave them a short answer.
"Yeah, bombs."
"What? I know it’s you, Taejin, but isn’t that going too far?"
"That’s right!"
"Hear, hear!"
Since they said that, I explained the reasons one by one.
"You guys don’t seem to understand the current situation. You’re going to meet the highest authority in this kingdom. But Kazuma, you came from a different country, right? In that country, even ordinary citizens can freely insult the nation’s representatives and say no when they disagree, isn’t that right?"
"That’s right."
"For example, if you had fallen into North Korea and were invited by their supreme leader, and you brought Aqua and Megumin to meet him, would you be confident you’d survive? It’s the same here. This is a monarchy. Besides, you don’t even know royal palace etiquette. One wrong gesture and you could be executed for insulting the royal family."
"Guh! When you put it that way..."
"So Darkness acting like this is only natural. Darkness doesn’t care if she dies herself, but this is a serious issue that could ruin her entire family."
When I said that, Darkness looked like she was completely relieved.
"So I’ll take Darkness into our party for now. We need to save the Dustiness family first. As for you guys, if you get invited to the kingdom and executed, I’ll collect your corpses and cast resurrection magic on you, so don’t worry."
"Why does it turn out that way!"
"You’re going to go even if I try to stop you, aren’t you?"
"Well, that’s..."
Honestly, I was doing this because I didn’t want the trouble of Kazuma and the others going to the royal capital and causing a mess that I’d have to clean up. I figured it was better for them to keep their distance from the royalty. Besides, I’d already solved Iris’s necklace problem before, so there shouldn’t be any issues with the royalty either.
"Hmm... but I still want to see the princess one more time..."
When Kazuma said that after thinking it over, I immediately said to Megumin,
"Megumin, isn’t Kazuma trying to cheat?"
"..."
When I said that, Megumin didn’t say anything, but her expression turned very bad, and she even turned her head away sharply. Kazuma, sweating cold, looked troubled.
"Haah... I guess I have no choice? Then, let’s just not go."
When Kazuma said that after much deliberation, Darkness was overjoyed.
"Really, Kazuma! Whew... I’m so glad I could protect my family. Hagan, I’ll write a letter right now, so please deliver it to the royal palace."
"Understood."
That matter ended like that, and several more days passed without incident. Nerimaki had now started performing well enough as a party member, earning a considerable amount of money and sending it to her family. Her level was also rising quickly.
While we were focusing on hunting, leveling up, and earning money, a letter arrived for me from the kingdom.
"No way! Did something go wrong because we refused the invitation!!??"
Darkness got extremely nervous seeing that, but the letter’s contents weren’t that.
"Hmm... ’With tensions rising against the Demon King’s army, we cannot spare the royal army. Please defeat the Chaos Hydra, which awakens every ten years.’ It says they’ll pay a bounty plus a bonus."
Then Aqua, smelling money, asked me,
"Hey, hey. Taejin, how much is the bounty?"
"One billion eris."
"O-O-O-ONE BILLION ERIS!!!???"
Not only Aqua, but everyone in the living room was shocked to hear the bounty was one billion eris.
The Chaos Hydra was a giant monster with eight heads. It was so powerful that they didn’t even dream of defeating it. Every time it woke up, they would send knights to fight it until it ran out of magic power, just to make it go back to sleep. When it used up all its magic power, it would sleep for ten years — and that time was exactly now.
"We’re going on this one alone. A bounty of one billion eris means it’s just that dangerous."
"Hey, hey, Taejin-sama, Taejin-sama, isn’t there anything we can do to help? You never know, heheh."
Aqua’s eyes had already rolled back at the mention of one billion.
"Didn’t you guys have enough money now?"
"Well, you see, we bought a dragon egg recently..."
"Huh? Dragon egg?" frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
When I said that, Kazuma explained what had happened.
"Some swindler came by and sold Aqua a regular egg, pretending it was a dragon egg. So now we’re broke."
"Wh-what?"
Come to think of it, Aqua had been stroking a strange egg for a while now.
Aqua then got angry and said,
"This is definitely a dragon egg! I even named him Kingsford Zeltman — ’Zelking’ for short! I’m going to raise this child into the strongest dragon!"
"Sigh... that’s just a chick!"
"It is not a chick! It’s a dragon!"
"No, no, it’s a chick."
"I would appreciate it if you called him by the wonderful name I gave him — Zelking!"
When Aqua insisted stubbornly, Kazuma finally gave in.
"Ha... fine, fine..."
Honestly, I was also curious about Zelking. The scene of that egg hatching never appears anywhere. I could check immediately with my [Eyes], but I decided to just wait and see when it hatched.
"Anyway, so here’s the thing — let us help too, and just a little bit of the bounty... heheh."
"Hmm... then how about this: we keep the one billion eris, and you guys take the bonus. I don’t mind working together, since this request came to us anyway."
"Deal! We’ll do that!"
But Kazuma disagreed.
"No thanks. If the bounty is as high as one billion eris, that monster must be strong enough to be life-threatening. And besides, the one who needs money is Aqua, who got scammed out of a fortune on that egg. Not me."
"You’re so mean! Kazuma, you tra— Ah! No, wait — if Kazuma drops out, our share increases! We don’t need you, Kazuma! Don’t come! Absolutely don’t come!!"
"I’m not coming!"
With Kazuma refusing to come, the rest of us — minus him — headed to the lake near Axel to hunt the Chaos Hydra.
"Hmm... it’s inside the lake... then the first step to defeating it is luring it out of the lake."
Aqua enthusiastically stepped forward at that.
"I’ll purify the lake. Monsters hate clean water."
"Good idea. But if you purify it, the hydra might suddenly jump out, so do the purification work near where Darkness and I are. Cecily and the mages, wait in the back. Once the hydra appears, Darkness and I will hold it off, and the mages will provide support from behind."
"Got it."
With the plan made, Aqua entered the lake and began purifying it. Darkness and I stood in front of the lake, swords in hand, waiting. Cecily, Yunyun, Megumin, and Nerimaki sat on a hill behind the lake, watching us.
"Aqua, are you asleep?"
"Taejin, it looks like she really is sleeping."
Since purification took a long time, Aqua was squatting in the shallows near us, just dozing off. Still, with Aqua in the water, the lake was purifying rapidly. Even if she was a useless, good-for-nothing goddess, at least her ability was worthy of a goddess.
After leaving Aqua soaking in the lake like a tea bag for a while, the water suddenly began to ripple, and something was detected moving from the lake bottom. I called out to Aqua urgently.
"Aqua! It’s out! How long are you going to sleep? Wake up!"
Even when I shouted, Aqua just kept squatting and dozing, so I quickly approached her, grabbed her, and threw her backward.
"Huh!? UWAAAAH!!! Why am I in the air!!!"
Thud!
"UWEEEN!!! Taejin threw me!!!"
Aqua, who had flown through the air, landed in a bush. She wasn’t hurt, but she started crying pitifully. The mages urgently shouted toward Aqua.
"Aqua, come here quickly! It’s out!"
"Aqua!! It’s dangerous!!"
"Huh? UWEEEEEEH!!!"
The Chaos Hydra slowly emerged from the lake, starting with its heads. Even roughly judging, it looked at least 300 meters long. It was a truly massive monster. Seeing the overwhelmingly huge monster, Aqua got so scared she ran like crazy toward where the mages were.
