Free Web NovelChapter 330: 330 KonoSuba 55
CLANG! CLING! CLANG!
The battle with the Demon King’s daughter, Reika, grew increasingly fierce. But she kept glancing elsewhere. She was clearly thinking of running away. The same woman who had been composed when facing Kyouya became flustered and impatient when facing me, who was far stronger than Kyouya. Moreover, with Megumin joining forces with Yunyun and using Explosion magic, the Demon King’s army was being pushed back rapidly. That also seemed to be distracting her.
Shwoosh—!
"Where are you looking? You’ll die."
"Ugh..."
Eventually, she left an opening, and a shallow wound appeared on Reika’s side.
It was hard to pin down Reika’s specific class. She mostly focused on close combat, but she also buffed herself and occasionally used offensive magic. She also seemed to use debuffs, but when they didn’t work on me, she looked troubled. The Demon King was probably similar.
’Is she just an adventurer like me? Or is there a separate Demon King class?’
Since there was no clear class system like that, I was curious, but I figured I’d find out once I caught her. The original story didn’t go into detail about this, so I didn’t know.
CLANG! CLANG! SLICE—!
"Guh! Dammit!"
Reika continued to accumulate small and large wounds. Although I was going easy on her, the gap was clearly widening as the wounds added up. Kyouya’s party, perhaps seeing no opening to intervene since I started fighting, just watched.
"No way... he’s incredibly strong. To dominate the Demon King’s daughter like this, who gave us such a hard time... So his claim of assaulting the Demon King’s castle wasn’t an empty boast!"
"You’re right, Kyouya. Silver Flash must have an incredibly high level."
Regardless of what they said, I kept pushing Reika. Then, finding an opening, I landed a powerful kick.
THUD!!!
"GUH!!!"
CRASH!!!
Reika took the hit, slammed into a large rock behind her with a loud noise, and collapsed to the ground. Her limp, motionless body suggested she had lost consciousness from that attack. I didn’t stop there; I immediately fired a barrage of Gale Slashes to finish her off.
But just then, the Demon King’s soldiers, one after another, threw themselves in front of Reika to protect her.
SWISH SWISH SWOOSH—!!!
"Princess!!! GAAAH!!!"
These soldiers, seeing that Reika was about to die, didn’t hesitate to let their own bodies be cut to shreds, urgently blocking my attacks with their bodies.
"Guuh... quickly, withdraw the princess to the Demon King’s castle..."
One of the severely wounded soldiers said that, and the surrounding soldiers picked up the unconscious Reika and began retreating urgently.
"Where do you think you’re going!!!"
I immediately launched myself and swung another Gale Slash. But again, the Demon King’s soldiers blocked my attack with their bodies, not sparing themselves.
SWISH SWISH SWOOSH—!!!
"GRAAAHHH!!!"
"Princess, please be safe..."
Seeing this, I thought that whether it was because of the Demon King or not, Reika was quite beloved by her subordinates.
"Damn... they got away."
Truth be told, I could have chased after them and finished her off with my abilities, but seeing the soldiers sacrifice themselves like that softened my heart, so I let them go. The soldiers who had been blocking the way, watching me, then began to retreat.
"Aren’t you going to chase them?"
When Kyouya asked, I answered,
"If I go further, I might get surrounded and put in danger, and I’m also worried about our party fighting on the front lines."
"I see. Then let’s head back to the main camp."
With the battle against the executives concluded, we moved back to the main camp.
The main camp battle was also almost over. The Demon King’s army, perhaps having heard that their executives had fallen, was retreating in haste.
Wow wow~!!!
"We did it!!"
"We won!!"
"Lady Regina, thank you!!"
The mercenaries cheered and celebrated their victory over the Demon King’s army, while the Regina Church followers knelt and prayed to the goddess Regina in thanks. Aqua and Cecily frowned at the sight but didn’t say anything.
We had no severely injured members requiring treatment, but Aqua and Cecily moved around healing the wounded. Then Kazuma came to our party’s resting tent.
"Thanks for your help. I wasn’t sure how much reward to give you, so I made sure to give you more than the other mercenaries."
Kazuma brought a fairly heavy bag — roughly estimated, it looked like about 300 million eris. That was quite a generous amount. Moreover, since we had dealt with Wolbach, a Demon King executive, we could also receive a bounty from the kingdom, so this request would bring in considerable income.
"Don’t mention it. We accepted a request and did the job."
"Still, grateful is grateful. Things were really bad, and I was in a tough spot. I thought the order we’d worked so hard to build was going to end."
Kazuma genuinely thanked us.
"I hope we can maintain a good relationship going forward."
"There won’t be any reason for that. Since our business here is done, let’s leave."
Megumin coldly rebuffed Kazuma’s words. For a moment, the air seemed to freeze, and Kazuma couldn’t continue.
After Kazuma hesitated for a moment and left, we silently packed our things. Aqua and Cecily returned just then.
"Ugh... why the mood? Did something happen?"
"Kazuma came by."
"Ah..."
At my words, Aqua and Cecily also understood the situation and quietly packed. Before leaving, I met with Kyouya’s party and handed them 100 million eris.
"We don’t know when we’ll meet again, so I’ll give you your share of the Demon King executive bounty from the kingdom in advance."
"I don’t know if I should accept this — I feel like I didn’t do much..."
"No, thanks to you, we were able to capture them easily without any casualties. This is your rightful share, so don’t worry about it."
"I see. Alright, I’ll gratefully accept."
I exchanged farewells with Kyouya’s party and returned to Axel village with my members, reporting to the guild that we had captured a Demon King executive. Then we all gathered in the guild’s dining hall for a drink and divided the remaining 200 million eris. Aqua was overjoyed.
"Wow~ we made a lot. And the bounty for the Demon King executive hasn’t come out yet, right?"
"Right. What I’m giving out now is the reward from Kazuma. Originally it was 300 million eris, but since I didn’t know when I’d see Kyouya’s party again, I gave them 100 million eris as their share of the Demon King executive bounty, and we’re splitting the remaining 200 million eris. When we get the bounty, I’ll divide that too."
"Yay~! We won’t have to worry about money for a while."
This girl had been doing requests with us, so she must have earned quite a lot — I had no idea where she was wasting all that money.
"By the way, what levels are Darkness and Nerimaki at now?"
When I asked, Nerimaki said excitedly,
"I’m 55. It went up a lot during the battle with the Demon King’s army."
"Oh~ that’s good."
But Darkness looked a bit sorry.
"I’m still 47. Sorry."
"Crusaders have a hard time earning experience, but you’ve worked hard. So for a while, let’s focus experience on Darkness."
Everyone agreed. Darkness seemed touched by that.
"Thank you, everyone!"
We rested for a few days and then started taking requests again. Since all the experience was funneled to Darkness, she seemed likely to break past level 50 soon. And the kingdom processed Wolbach’s bounty quickly, so I could promptly distribute it to the party members.
While we were living like that, another strange rumor reached us: the Regina Church was half-destroyed, and the vice head had taken full responsibility and been kicked out. I was somewhat curious about what had happened, but I didn’t look into it.
Then one day, someone came to the mansion — it was Kazuma, looking like a beggar.
"Taejin, it’s been a while..."
"Y-yeah. It’s been a while... I heard the rumors vaguely, but what exactly happened?"
Grumble~
Just then, Kazuma’s stomach growled. He must have walked all the way here without eating.
"Haha, hey... sorry, but could I have something to eat first?"
"Yeah..."
I led Kazuma to the living room. The party members in the living room saw Kazuma and caused an uproar.
"Taejin, why is this guy here!?"
"Get out! Out!"
"Everyone, calm down."
"Calm down? That guy abandoned us!"
I calmed them down first.
"Let him eat first, then hear what happened."
I said that and prepared a simple meal. Kazuma sat in a corner and ate, while the other members glared at him with terrifying eyes. I thought eating in this atmosphere might give him indigestion, but Kazuma, apparently very hungry, ate extremely well.
"Ha... that really hit the spot. As expected, Taejin’s cooking is the best."
"Glad to hear it. Now talk — what happened?"
"Okay."
Kazuma sat in the living room and told us what had happened.
The Regina Church, after the sudden attack from the Demon King’s army, realized they needed their own military force to defend themselves. However, since they had taken in poor people as followers, they judged it would take considerable time to develop their own military strength. So they came up with several measures. One of them was to use Regina’s divine power to brainwash Moguninin, a powerful demon near the Crimson Demon village, and make him their guard.
But as in the original story, Moguninin was too powerful and couldn’t be properly brainwashed. That would have been fine, but Moguninin chased Kazuma all the way back and rampaged through the Regina Church, dealing severe damage to the already struggling church — which had been hit hard by the Demon King’s army — and then disappeared somewhere.
Because of this, Kazuma — who had proposed and ambitiously executed the plan — was held responsible, had all his assets seized, and was exiled. Serena tried to do something, but there was no way to calm the followers’ anger. So Kazuma, having become a penniless beggar overnight with nowhere to go, had barely walked all the way here.
"So here’s the thing... sorry, but could I stay here for a while?"
"I don’t mind, but..."
I said that and looked around at the members. They frowned and shook their heads vigorously in opposition.
"Then, I suppose it can’t be helped. I’ll give you back the mansion you lent us before. You can live there."
"Okay. Thanks."
Kazuma, perceptive enough, didn’t ask further. He went into his old room, gathered some of his old equipment and belongings, and was about to leave for the mansion. I gave him some money.
"It’s not much, but it should last you for a while."
"Ugh... thanks. I’ll use it well." frёeωebɳovel.com
His eyes teary, he thanked me. Receiving money from me, the reality of having become a beggar seemed to finally sink in.
From the next day, our party again took requests in the royal capital, focusing on funneling experience to Darkness.
"I’m 49 now! Almost there!"
When Darkness shouted that, everyone cheered for her level-up.
"Wow~ congrats! You’re almost there!"
"The faster Darkness levels up, the closer the Demon King’s days are numbered — it’s kind of funny."
"Yeah. The sooner Darkness reaches 50, the closer the Demon King subjugation gets."
From their talk, they seemed to have steeled themselves to some extent.
While the members rested at home, I was in the basement making other preparations. A few days earlier, I had used [Jack Sparrow’s Compass] to capture Moguninin. She was extremely fast and moved stealthily, making her a very difficult opponent for ordinary people, but if I got serious, she wasn’t impossible to catch. Besides, my [Hacking] ability was also EX rank, so I didn’t even need to fight.
If left alone, this creature might not have caused problems, but in the original story, Serena tried to brainwash her for the Demon King’s army, it went wrong, and she went berserk. I expected the same problem would occur here, so I quickly subdued her before she could cause other issues. And if I hacked her well and made her follow only my commands, I could gain a powerful ally — a very useful card. And not just a single unit, but an army created with [Material Copy]. So I needed to properly repair the original Moguninin.
’What a taste...’
After capturing Moguninin and removing her ninja outfit, I found that Moguninin had a female body and was a black-haired beauty. This was a humanoid clearly built with the creator’s preferences in mind. That said, she wasn’t built to be capable of sexual acts — she was a robot specialized for combat, so her chest was exposed, but she had no genitals. That area was just smooth.
I first analyzed Moguninin’s structure. Her power source was, of course, mana, and due to age, her parts were quite degraded. Yet she still showed such performance — I had no idea how much faster she would be once repaired. So I first used [Restore] to make her perfect, then hacked her to change the command authority to myself.
"Master, give me orders!"
"Stand by."
"Understood, Master."
I dressed Moguninin in a stylish, slightly revealing black ninja outfit and began replicating her continuously with [Material Copy].
For several days, I spent my time that way after finishing requests. Then news of Kazuma reached the village. Kazuma had been taking solo requests to hunt Giant Toads. He hadn’t formed a new party.
"Excuse me, but could I take some time to operate separately for a while?"
Suddenly, Megumin came and asked me.
"Huh? What for?"
"Well... there’s something I need to do..."
"Alright, go ahead."
When I agreed, Megumin’s face lit up and she thanked me.
"Thank you. If you need me, just call anytime."
After Megumin left, the other members were very curious.
"What’s going on with Megumin?"
"I know, why does she want to operate separately?"
"Oh, could it be a boyfriend??"
"Come on, no way..."
Then Aqua, eating snacks on the sofa, said,
"If you’re that curious, just follow her secretly."
"Oh~ that sounds fun?"
I was honestly curious about what Megumin was up to, so I didn’t object. We took a day off from requests and began secretly following Megumin as a group.
Megumin didn’t go far — she headed to the Adventurer’s Guild in Axel. But we couldn’t go inside. With our large numbers and our fame, the moment we entered, all attention would be on us.
So we waited outside, eating snacks until Megumin came out. Finally, Megumin emerged from the guild.
"Look, everyone, Megumin is coming out."
"Yeah. But she’s not alone..."
Megumin came out of the guild with Kazuma. The members were shocked at the sight. What was even more shocking was their conversation.
"Let’s do our best."
"Sigh... even if I try to do my best, all I do is gather monsters for you to use Explosion on."
"It’s not as easy as it sounds. You have to gather the monsters in one spot, and the timing has to be right."
"Yeah, yeah."
Aqua, watching this, made an angry face and tried to go confront them, but I grabbed her shoulder and stopped her.
"Why are you stopping me! Do you think this is okay!?"
"Look at Megumin’s face. She’s having fun. There’s no point in us interfering."
It was true. Megumin was smiling brighter than ever as she left to do requests with Kazuma. Aqua, seeing that expression, looked dumbfounded for a moment, then sighed deeply and gave up on saying anything.
"Sigh... let’s just go eat something. I’m tired from all that waiting."
"Yeah, let’s."
We went to a nice restaurant Aqua recommended and bought food. The taste was pretty good, but it was a bit expensive. So this was where she wasted her money.
Then Cecily said during the meal,
"Seeing something so unexpected happen, love really is unpredictable."
Yunyun and Nerimaki agreed.
"I know... she acted like she could never forgive him, so I never even imagined this."
"Right. I’m shocked. Love is really scary..."
Then I said,
"Someone once said, love is always a hurricane."
