Free Web NovelChapter 326: 326 KonoSuba 51
Everyone went home like that, and I continued to watch the mansion. I needed to see if those two would actually spend their wedding night together.
’If they actually do it, I’ll acknowledge it.’
I waited, observing the inside with my [Eyes] and [Clairvoyance] from around the mansion. Then the two of them actually started.
’Wow... Serena... so she really is a woman who will do anything to survive.’
I couldn’t help but be impressed. I thought she might try something, but she didn’t do anything at all. At this rate, I thought I might have to acknowledge her.
After their wedding night ended and they fell asleep, I left them alone and returned home to rest as well.
The next day, Kazuma and Serena came back to the house.
"We’re back!"
Kazuma had an extremely good expression, but Serena looked somewhat complicated.
"I’ve decided not to watch you anymore. Live happily."
"That’s a relief."
"More importantly, I don’t know which god you serve, but why don’t you work hard with Kazuma to build a temple and increase your followers? Kazuma is quite skilled at business. If he sets his mind to it, it’s possible to build a splendid temple."
"I... see..."
I gave Serena that heartfelt advice because I felt sorry for her going this far.
"We’ve decided to go to the Elroad Kingdom for our honeymoon. We’re leaving today."
The Elroad Kingdom Kazuma mentioned was a commercial nation famous for its casinos. It was a kingdom that provided financial support to the Belzerg Kingdom, which fought the Demon King’s army, instead of having its own strong knights. It was a kingdom that would later get caught up in a Demon King army conspiracy, but that wouldn’t happen. I’d take care of the Demon King before then.
"Really? Have fun."
Kazuma and Serena packed their things and left for their honeymoon. They said they would hire workers to clean up their mansion.
We rested for a day and then started taking requests again. Since Kazuma was gone, I also took Darkness and Aqua to the royal capital to do requests. Aqua didn’t want to go at first, but the women persuaded her that she needed to move to lose weight, so she ended up coming along.
"UWAAAH!!! Taejin, do something!!!"
This request was for a village where undead were appearing, and as expected, the undead swarmed toward Aqua.
"This way, Aqua!"
Aqua came out to the wide open field as I had planned.
"Now, Megumin, Yunyun, Nerimaki!"
"Explosion!"
"Explosion!"
"Explosion!"
KABOOOM!!!
"Phew~ another request successfully completed today."
When we wiped out the undead horde in one go, Aqua came to me with an angry expression and protested.
"Y-you! You did that on purpose, didn’t you!?"
"Running helps you lose weight, so it’s good for you. Plus, it made gathering the undead easier."
"Still, using me as bait!!"
"To be honest, if we had just gone in normally, the undead would have swarmed because of you and it would have turned into a chaotic battle. If that had happened, we would have struggled terribly, or someone would have been seriously injured. I’m more surprised that you still can’t control your divine power."
It was true. Aqua still couldn’t control her divine power, so the undead swarmed her. Even after what happened in Arcanletia, she still hadn’t improved. She probably hadn’t practiced at all since then.
"Aqua, I’ll be honest. This is the royal capital, and there are many high-difficulty requests, so very dangerous situations can occur. As the leader, I need to reduce risk factors for my party members and plan as safely as possible. That’s why I had to plan it that way. If something happened, I could rescue you, so there was no safety issue."
When I explained step by step, Aqua couldn’t say much.
"But I can’t keep doing this. Until you can control your divine power, I think it’s best if you take a break from requests."
Honestly, I could still take Aqua along on requests, but I didn’t see why I should. If Aqua came to her senses and worked hard to control her power, that would be fine, but the Arcanletia incident was a long time ago, and she still couldn’t control her power — that was a big problem. I could handle everything with my abilities, but I wanted to help people who were willing to help themselves.
"Fine..."
The other members, feeling guilty that they had persuaded Aqua to come, apologized to her.
From the next day, we started doing requests without Aqua. Aqua stayed home, spending her time petting her egg. She didn’t seem to have any intention of practicing control. Still, since I was managing her diet a bit, her weight stayed at a slightly chubby level and didn’t increase further.
After a long while like that, suddenly a chick’s chirping started coming from the living room.
"Huh? Why do I hear a chick?"
I went to the living room to find the source of the sound, and Aqua was squatting there, sweating cold and hurriedly hiding something.
"I’m not going to steal it from you. Don’t worry."
At first, I thought Aqua had bought more food and was hiding it to eat secretly. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Peep! Peep!
"Huh? Did it hatch?"
"Uh, yeah..."
"From the sound, it’s a chick."
"Yeah. I believed it was a dragon, but... when I catch that swindler, I’ll..."
Aqua, realizing I had noticed, reluctantly showed me the newly hatched chick. After insisting it was a dragon, it turned out to be a chick after all. Even Aqua, seeing the hatched chick, had to admit she had been fooled, and she seemed embarrassed about it, busily trying to hide the chick.
But thanks to Aqua sharing her mana and raising it with care, it had hatched into a somewhat special and cute chick with a sky-blue color matching her hair. Checking with my [Eyes], it had considerable mana for a young chick — if raised well, it might one day grow into a divine beast.
"It’s cute. Well, this is fate too. Raise it well."
"Hoo... yeah, I suppose I have no choice. Zelking, I won’t ask for much, just grow up healthy. But... what do chicks eat?"
"Give it water, finely crushed corn, or hard-boiled egg yolk. And since young chicks have trouble regulating their body temperature, it’s best to make it a warm nest."
"I see. Now that it’s come to this, I’ll raise it with all my heart."
Aqua said that while petting Zelking. I made a cute little house for Zelking next to the fireplace, even putting up a sign that said "Zelking." Aqua was overjoyed.
But the next day, Aqua was crying, and Megumin was apologizing to her.
"Waaah~! Zelking! And I even bought so much feed!"
"I’m sorry, Aqua. I should have kept Chumsuke under better control..."
I checked to see what had happened, but Zelking was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, Chumsuke had eaten Zelking. Unbelievably, Zelking’s end came as just a single meal for Chumsuke. Thinking about it, the reason Zelking never appeared in the original story was probably because it ended like this. That might be why it was never mentioned.
"It’s unfortunate, but it can’t be helped. Let’s make a grave for Zelking in the yard."
We carefully cleaned up Zelking’s house, buried it under a tree in the mansion’s yard, and even set up a small headstone to make a grave. You might say, "Why not just bring it back with resurrection magic?" but in the Konosuba world, something that has been digested is considered part of nature, and even resurrection magic can’t save it.
After that incident, Aqua was depressed for a while, but she soon became cheerful again as if nothing had happened. Aqua was good in that regard. Even when something bad happened, she quickly forgot and got better. The problem was that she was lively while lazing around the house.
I was getting a bit worried because quite some time had passed since Kazuma left for his honeymoon and he hadn’t shown any sign of returning. I wondered if Serena had changed her mind and kidnapped Kazuma, taking him to the Demon King’s castle.
"Why aren’t these guys coming back?"
When I said that, Luna said to me,
"Shall I check through the guild? Then we’ll know right away what they’re up to."
"That’s a good idea. But Luna, you’re pregnant and it’s hard for you to move around, so just write a letter. I’ll deliver it to the guild."
"Okay."
I took Luna’s letter and handed it to the guild receptionist, making my request. Feeling bad for just asking, I added a small fee. A few days later, the receptionist contacted me with news that Kazuma and Serena were winning enormous amounts of money at the casino.
The amount was so large that the casino was in danger of going bankrupt, so they had temporarily closed down. He also reported that Kazuma and Serena were now staying at a luxury resort, spending money freely and living very happily.
"I’m relieved nothing bad happened."
"Yeah..."
It seemed Kazuma had used his high Luck stat to earn a huge amount of money. Serena was probably also enjoying herself, amazed at Kazuma’s ability.
Several days after that, a very large sum of money and a letter were delivered to our mansion, addressed to Megumin. The amount delivered was a staggering 500 million eris. When such a large sum was delivered to Megumin, everyone in the house was curious about the letter’s contents.
"I don’t know anyone who would send me this much money..."
Megumin said with a puzzled expression, then read the letter. Everyone focused their attention on Megumin.
"Ha..."
After finishing the letter, she sighed deeply, crumpled it, and threw it into the fireplace.
"Eh!!!??? What did it say? Megumin!"
People asked in surprise, and Megumin answered.
"It’s from Kazuma. He wrote a lot of pathetic things, but the summary is that he’s giving me this as an apology. He also said he’ll be living with Serena in Elroad Kingdom, so he won’t be back for a while, and not to worry."
"That Trash-zuma! How awful."
"I know, right. Does he think money solves everything?"
"Megumin, don’t waste your thoughts on someone like him."
The women, angered by this, started criticizing Kazuma.
"I’m planning to send this money back to Kazuma."
Aqua, surprised, tried to stop Megumin.
"Don’t do that. Just use it yourself. It’d be a waste. Think of it as alimony and use it — it’ll be easier on your heart. Otherwise, it’s too much of a loss."
"I-is that so?"
At Aqua’s words, Megumin hesitated, then decided to just keep it without using it. I also felt somewhat responsible for how things had turned out with Megumin, so I made her a staff using high-purity manatite and coronatite.
"This is..."
"I got this while running errands in the royal capital. The jewel at the tip is high-purity manatite, and the jewel below it is coronatite. Like the gloves I gave you before, it can store mana. If you charge it fully, you might be able to use Explosion three times in a row. But only use it twice at most, and save the third for truly desperate situations."
"Oh~ I see. I’ll use it well. But both the gloves and this staff must be incredibly expensive."
"Well, that’s true, but don’t worry about it. I gave Nerimaki and Yunyun items for free too. Just work hard in return."
"I can’t do that. I’ll give you all the money I got from Kazuma. That seems better. Not just for the items, but also for always feeding Kommeko snacks and everything. This feels right."
Even though I kept saying it was fine, Megumin forced the 500 million eris on me. Whether it was because she now had some financial leeway after joining our party, or because she just wanted to get rid of the money from Kazuma, she didn’t hesitate to hand over 500 million eris. So in the end, I accepted it.
Anyway, we continued working hard on requests. One day, we received word that Kazuma’s mansion had been fully repaired. But no one went there. Megumin was in our party, Darkness was my wife, so if anyone were to go, it would be Aqua alone. But there was no way Aqua would leave a place where delicious food was being made just to live alone in that mansion. So we decided to just hire someone to maintain Kazuma’s mansion and leave it empty.
Then Aqua suddenly started practicing control over her divine power. She practiced the way I had shown her before. I wondered what had gotten into her.
"What’s this all of a sudden?"
"W-well... money is running out. But I can’t go back to part-time jobs. Just wait, I’ll definitely learn to control it!"
Figures. This girl only moved when something was lacking. freewёbnoνel.com
Anyway, while we continued doing requests and Aqua focused on her control practice, Kazuma and Serena finally returned. But the funny thing was, the two arrived in what was clearly a luxurious carriage, dressed in flashy clothes adorned with gold and jewels. Kazuma stepped out of the carriage holding a wine glass, savoring the aroma, and Serena, smoking a long pipe, held Kazuma’s hand and stepped down with a haughty expression.
"Sebastian, wait here for a moment."
"My name is Henderson, sir... but very well."
Seeing that, everyone’s expressions were complicated.
"I heard you made a lot of money at the casino... are you not planning to be an adventurer anymore?"
When Darkness asked Kazuma that, he chuckled and said,
"Why would I? I have more money than I know what to do with. I could hire every mercenary in the world to defeat the Demon King. I’m busy thinking about my next business venture."
"Honey, commoners don’t have money, so they’re used to solving things with their bodies. We need to be understanding."
"Ah, that’s true."
Serena said that to Kazuma in a sultry voice. Honestly, I had thought Serena would either leave or try something else once the surveillance was gone, but seeing her not do that and even speak to Kazuma in such a flirtatious tone, she seemed to have been completely captivated by the money Kazuma was bringing in.
"Then what about our party...?"
"Just leave it as a good memory. Oh, and you guys deal with the mansion however you want. We bought a bigger place. That mansion was too small for business."
"Ha... so it’s come to this..."
Darkness sighed deeply at that. Aqua said to Kazuma,
"Then what about me! What happens to me!"
"Taejin’s going to defeat the Demon King anyway. Just support him well. Well, if something happens, I’ll send some capable adventurers your way, so figure it out."
Kazuma seemed to have completely lost interest in defeating the Demon King.
"Honey, you promised we’d look at temple sites today. Let’s go quickly."
"Alright, honey. It’s been fun, everyone. If you need money, just say so. I might lend you some with zero interest, since we go way back. Hahahaha!"
Kazuma and Serena left like that in their carriage, and the faces of those watching soured instantly.
Kazuma was always that kind of guy, so I could accept it, but seeing Serena talk like that, she seemed to have lost interest in the Demon King’s army as well. And apparently, Kazuma had agreed to build a temple for the goddess of brainwashing and revenge, Regina, that Serena served. This had to be called financial therapy.
’Kazuma is pretty amazing, though. To rehabilitate a Demon King army executive like that...’
I found it somewhat ridiculous, but since I didn’t need Kazuma anymore, I decided not to worry about it.
Several days passed after that. Aqua, perhaps shocked by Kazuma’s situation, trained hard and eventually gained enough control over her divine power to rejoin the party and start doing requests. As a result, everyone currently living in my house — except for Luna — had become part of the same party.
