Free Web NovelChapter 333: 333 KonoSuba 58
We continued further inside. Perhaps because we had spammed Explosion magic so much, even this deep inside, the ceiling had collapsed in places, revealing the sky.
As we moved forward while staying alert, we saw a massive door ahead. It was clearly a lavishly decorated door fit for a final boss.
"This looks like the place."
"It seems so."
"Then here’s the plan."
When I explained the plan, everyone looked at me with dumbfounded expressions.
"Huh? Is that allowed?"
Megumin asked me, looking incredulous.
"Why not? It’s not like there’s a referee here. Do we need to fight fair?"
"I suppose not... but... haah... fine."
We prepared to open the door, and Megumin chanted her Explosion spell.
"Now!!!"
At my signal, Darkness threw the door wide open.
"You’ve finally come, he— Huh!?"
"EXPLOSION!!!"
"Close it!!"
BAM!
The moment the door opened, Megumin fired Explosion inside. Darkness, myself, and the priests immediately layered protective magic on the door and held on with all our might.
KABOOOM!!!
A tremendous explosion echoed from inside.
Rumble...
As the explosion subsided, Megumin felt a twinge of conscience.
"Ugh... I don’t know if this was okay. I feel kind of guilty..."
"Easy victory is good. Anyway, it’s quiet now, so let’s open it."
I said that and cracked the door open.
"You sons of bitches!!! @&^#@*!!!"
The inside was completely devastated, barely recognizable. The ceiling had been blown away entirely, leaving the sky clearly visible. In the center of the ruins stood an elderly man in a pitiful state.
He was using one arm to stop the bleeding from his other arm, which had been torn off, and was covered in burns, glaring at us while hurling insults. Honestly, if I were in his position, I’d be cursing too. But what can you do? Tossing a grenade into a bunker is just basic tactics.
"Wow! Amazing, to survive an explosion like that..."
"Are you even heroes!! You have no conscience!!"
At that, Megumin, Darkness, and even Aqua suddenly bowed their heads to the Demon King and apologized.
"I’m sorry... our leader made us..."
"Sorry."
"My bad."
"Why are you guys apologizing?"
"Well... it just felt like we should..."
"Honestly..."
Anyway, I drew my sword and prepared to fight.
"So you’re Silver Flash. Completely different from the rumors. You stop at nothing to win..."
"I’d prefer you call it tactics. Honor is a luxury in war."
"Hoo... young people have no romance anymore. Fine. I can’t just take this lying down."
The Demon King cast heal on his arm, and it recovered remarkably quickly — just like Cecily or Aqua casting heal. I quickly closed in and swung my sword, not wanting to give him time to recover. But the Demon King sidestepped it easily. I had thought my sword speed would be too fast for his eyes to follow, but his evasion suggested the monk skill ’Auto Dodge.’
"Auto Dodge, huh..."
"That’s not all. Fireball!"
WHOOSH!
The Demon King suddenly cast Fireball at me. Being so close, instead of dodging, I wrapped my sword in mana and deflected it.
"Magic too... From the power, you’re clearly not an adventurer... Is there a separate Demon King class?"
"I have nothing to teach someone without a shred of romance!"
The Demon King seemed completely enraged by the initial Explosion. His wounds already seemed healed, and even his severed arm had regenerated. The first Explosion had drained his mana, but in the end, it only fueled his anger.
"I’ll join the fight too, Taejin!"
Just then, Darkness ran up and swung her sword at the Demon King. But again, the Demon King easily evaded and cast magic at her.
"Lightning!"
"Guuh! Not yet!"
Darkness, her face flushed from taking the lightning spell, continued to press the Demon King.
"A knight with strong defense! Lightning Strike! Cursed Lightning!"
"Hah! Hngh! Still, still going."
"What the..."
Each time she took the Demon King’s attacks, Darkness endured them with her body and advanced. The problem was that her face grew redder and she became more excited. The Demon King was extremely flustered.
"Bottomless Swamp!"
The Demon King, perhaps deciding this was bad, stepped back and turned the ground under Darkness into a swamp. Darkness could no longer approach the Demon King and began sinking into the swamp.
"Guuh! Demon King, are you running away!! Hit me with stronger attacks!! Now!!"
As Darkness sank into the swamp and taunted him with strange words, the Demon King sighed and said,
"Fighting a pervert like you will just drain my mental energy. Go play with this."
The Demon King summoned a massive stone golem. The golem thundered toward Darkness and swung its giant arm down.
"Cursed Crystal Prison!"
Just then, Yunyun quickly froze the entire swamp created by the Demon King, preventing Darkness from sinking further.
The swamp instantly froze solid, allowing Darkness to stably block the golem’s attack with her sword.
"Thanks, Yunyun!"
BAM!
CRACK!
"Oh~! Heavy!! This is what I’ve been waiting for!! Everyone, leave this golem to me! No, please leave it to me!"
Darkness, excited again, engaged the golem in fierce combat. The golem could probably be left to her for a while. The other members, seeing Darkness excitedly fighting the golem, just stood back.
I engaged the Demon King again.
SWISH! BOOM!! BAM!!
As I chased after the Demon King and swung my sword, he dodged, created distance, and fired magic to counter.
"I’ll support you! Paralyze!"
Nerimaki cast a paralysis spell on the Demon King, but he immediately used a priest-type spell to remove it.
"No way... how many skills does the Demon King have?"
As Nerimaki panicked, Yunyun said,
"It’s better to support with offensive magic."
"Got it."
From then on, Yunyun and Nerimaki used offensive magic to support me whenever the Demon King and I created distance.
"Lightning Strike!"
"Light of Saber!"
CRACKLE!!!
As Yunyun and Nerimaki activated powerful lightning magic, the Demon King quickly dodged, but due to the nature of lightning magic, residual currents remained, damaging his body and hindering his movement.
"Guuh! As expected of mages capable of reaching this far — you have good instincts."
The Demon King, finding the mages troublesome, summoned several skeleton knights to attack them.
"Ninins, block them! Aqua, Cecily!"
"I know!"
As the Moguninins blocked the skeleton knights, Aqua and Cecily immediately used their skills.
"Sacred Turn Undead!"
"Sacred Turn Undead!"
The Demon King was truly strong. He possessed not only standard skills but also skills typical of liches, demons, and monsters. Kazuma, who managed to defeat such a Demon King (even if by self-destruction), was truly impressive. Though he probably had protagonist protection.
"Try dodging this too!"
I jumped into the air and rained down Gale Slashes on the Demon King.
SWISH SWOOSH—!!!
This time, the Demon King seemed unable to dodge easily and took multiple slashes across his body.
"Guuh! Dammit!"
Not stopping there, upon landing, I quickly closed in on the Demon King and used the ultimate secret sword technique of the kingdom’s samurai.
"Secret technique: Flash Barrage!!!"
SWISH SWISH SWISH SWOOSH—!!!
As I struck consecutively at tremendous speed, the Demon King tried to dodge with his wounded body, but my attacks were far faster than his agility, and he began getting cut in multiple places.
"GAAH!"
But the Demon King narrowly avoided fatal blows, saving his life, and immediately tried to heal himself with magic. However, this battle seemed likely to drag on, so I canceled his heal with a thief skill.
"Skill Bind!"
"Ugh... so you’re an adventurer too."
The Demon King said that.
"No way... you were also an adventurer?"
"Oh, I was trying to keep it a secret..."
"Then your ability to enhance skills so much must come from divine authority."
The Demon King, apparently no longer able to hide it, told the truth.
"Sharp as ever. It’s a power passed down through generations of Demon Kings."
"I thought there was a separate Demon King class."
"How could there be? The gods would never create a class that poses a danger to themselves."
"The gods created the classes?"
"Yes. To help humans who were vulnerable to monsters and demons, the gods created various systems — one of which is classes."
The Demon King shared information that couldn’t be known in the original.
"I see."
"That aside, don’t you want to know the truth of this other world? Why the Demon King’s army..."
"No thanks. I’m not interested. It’s probably something trivial."
The Demon King tried to drop some lore on me, just like in the original, but I decided not to listen. Because knowing wouldn’t help me at all. I just wanted to defeat the Demon King and receive my wish. Whether the gods made some mistake causing a crisis, or the Demon King turned out to be a good person — all of it was useless noise to me.
"So you’re an egoist. Someone only interested in the gods’ sugarcoated words."
"I disagree with being called an egoist, but I do have something I absolutely must achieve."
"Is that so? Then anything I say would be useless."
"You understand well."
As the conversation ended, the Demon King began gathering mana in his hand. This was a skill I’d never seen before. I tried to cancel it immediately, but the skill didn’t work. Whether the Demon King was blocking the cancel, or the skill was too powerful, I couldn’t tell.
"You won’t even let a wounded old man heal himself — I have no choice. Let’s finish this. This is a technique I created by combining divine authority and various skills. This is my final attack — receive it well. Concentration Blast!!!"
A highly compressed mass of energy fired from the Demon King’s hand, flying toward me at high speed. The problem was, if I dodged it, the resulting massive explosion would endanger the members nearby. The attack was so densely packed with energy that even the Demon King himself wouldn’t survive its destructive power. In other words, it was a suicide attack.
’This bastard — using an attack like this because he thinks he can’t win!’
Instead of dodging, I caught the Demon King’s attack with both hands. I quickly surrounded it with a magic barrier to contain the explosion and began rapidly draining its energy using the lich skill Drain Touch. The Demon King’s eyes went wide with shock.
"Th-this can’t be! You possess lich skills? Impressive. But that won’t stop the explosion."
The Demon King raised his hand and clenched his fist. Instantly, the energy mass became unstable and began to explode.
I had no choice but to drop the act and use the [Pound-Pound Fruit] ability to deflect the energy mass upward with my palm. The energy mass shot high into the sky and detonated in a tremendous explosion.
KABOOOM!!!!
The explosion was so massive that the sky momentarily turned red, and the ground shook from the enormous shockwave. It seemed several times more powerful than Megumin’s Explosion.
"Th-this can’t be... How could you deflect my ultimate magic like that?"
The Demon King, seeing this, was greatly shocked, his expression showing he couldn’t understand what had just happened.
"Phew... that attack was dangerous. Truly impressive. You made me use an ability I had resolved not to use... It’s starting to feel real."
"You bastard! You were hiding some strange power!"
"Yeah. Actually, there are quite a few, but I can’t go into detail. Now, let’s finish this."
Worried the Demon King might try something else, I watched him with my [Eyes]. But it seemed he had poured all his mana into that last attack — only a tiny amount remained inside him, and he showed no signs of doing anything more.
"Though it’s quite disappointing that my final attack was deflected by some incomprehensible power, my lifespan was nearly over anyway, and now I have no strength left to move. Do as you please."
The Demon King spoke as if he had let go of everything. Our brief exchange over, I cut his neck.
Slice! Thump!
Thud.
Ding~!
[You have stolen the abilities (SSS) Divine Authority of Enhancement, (SS) Advanced Magic (Konosuba), (S) Intermediate Magic (Konosuba), (A) Basic Magic (Konosuba), (A) Summon Undead, (A) Auto Dodge, (...), (...), (...).]
As the Demon King fell, the golem fighting Darkness crumbled, its summoning apparently canceled. Aqua and the others seemed to have finished off the powerful undead as well.
As everything ended, a brilliant light suddenly enveloped my body, attempting to transport me somewhere. After defeating the Demon King, this must be the gods calling me.
"Taejin!"
The party members, seeing this, called out to me in surprise, but I raised my hand to reassure them.
"I’ll be back soon. Wait for me, don’t worry."
Yunyun smiled brightly and said okay.
"Understood. We’ll wait here."
I let the light take me and moved to Heaven.
"No one has ever achieved — the great hero Taejin, who has defeated the Demon King. Your accomplishments shall be remembered forever, and both Heaven and the human world shall honor your name. I, Aqua, the Goddess of Water, representing Heaven, express my gratitude for your devotion and courage..."
"Change."
"Huh???"
With the Demon King dealt with, Aqua had apparently also come straight to Heaven. But Aqua — who had eagerly eaten so much because she didn’t want to waste money that she’d become a flabby, overweight pig — was trying to act like a noble goddess, speaking such grand words. It was utterly ridiculous.
"I said change! Hurry up and swap to Eris."
"Wait a minute! I fought alongside you! I helped defeat the Demon King too! The mood is good, so why are you suddenly telling me to change?? That’s weird!!!"
"Honestly, do you know how much I’ve suffered taking care of you all? Besides, you’ve gained so much weight you don’t even look like a goddess, so hurry up and change!"
Now that everything was over, I didn’t hold back what I’d been bottling up.
"Waaah! Taejin said I’ve gotten fat — that’s so mean! And if I hadn’t recruited you, you wouldn’t have gone to defeat the Demon King in the first place! I might as well have defeated him myself! Waaah!"
Hearing her say that, I wondered if she actually had a conscience after all.
