"Great! Dust! My brother!!"
Before Aqua could even finish speaking, Kōichi and Kazuma practically teleported in front of Dust. Each grabbed one of his hands tightly, their faces glowing with the wild joy of men finally sending a plague god away.
"Dust, from today on, she's yours!" Kōichi was so moved his eyes had practically gone misty, and he even thoughtfully shoved Aqua a little closer toward Dust. "We absolutely won't stand in the way of your road to riches! We wish you both the best of luck flooding the Demon King's Castle!"
Kazuma gave him a big thumbs-up. "Exactly! And to celebrate Aqua's transfer, I'm sure Brother Dust will also take on the remaining eight million in debt, right? After all, this is the transfer fee for a strategic-class natural disaster!"
The feverish grin on Dust's face froze instantly.
"Huh? Ei... eight million? Debt?" Dust slowly turned his head like a rusty gear and looked at Luna, who was standing off to the side with no expression at all.
Luna adjusted her glasses and added in an extremely professional tone, "Yes, Dust-san. Aqua-san is the direct party responsible for the guild collapse incident. According to the Axel Adventurer Code, if she transfers under your name, then your party will assume full joint liability for the remaining eight million in compensation. Shall I process the transfer for you right now?"
A gust of cold wind swept through the guild ruins, carrying a lone leaf with it.
Dust looked at Aqua's eager face, then at the bottomless mud pit, and finally at the long bill in Luna's hand.
"Ah... well... I just remembered something..." Dust yanked both hands back as if he'd been electrocuted. His face, flushed red from excitement just a moment ago, turned deathly pale on the spot. Whistling badly off-key, he started moonwalking backward in the weirdest way possible. "I have a follow-up appointment at the Ruby Salon today for my Orc foot-washing therapy... right, I'm actually an M, I can't live without Slime! Anyway, what nice weather we're having. I'll be going now! Farewell!!"
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, Dust had already turned into a blur and fled the scene at twice the speed he'd used to chase Aqua the night before, leaving behind nothing but splashing mud.
"Hey! Why are you running?! Weren't you the one who said you'd help me make thirty million?! Get back here! You lowlife thug with no eye for value!!" Aqua jumped up and down behind him, cursing furiously.
A deeply bizarre chase broke out on Axel's morning streets.
"Dust! Get back here! Where did all that power of faith go just now? What happened to your sense of gratitude toward your savior?!" Kazuma shouted as he ran, firing off soul-searching questions. At that moment, his speed actually broke past human limits, and he managed to grab onto the corner of Dust's cloak.
With a sliding tackle, Kōichi cut off Dust's path. Panting hard, he grabbed Dust by the shoulders, wearing the kind of fanatical smile only an insurance salesman would have. "Brother Dust, don't run! What you saw just now was only the tip of the iceberg! Sure, Aqua comes with eight million in debt, but you saw it too. That's strategic-class firepower capable of flattening the guild in an instant!"
Dust had still been struggling, but the moment he heard the words strategic-class firepower, his body very clearly stiffened.
He turned his head and looked at Kōichi and Kazuma suspiciously. "Really?"
"Of course! It's only a measly eight million in debt!" Kazuma hurriedly pressed the advantage, leaning up close to Dust's ear and whispering like a devil. "And to show our sincerity, we're willing to throw in the other two gods of our party as a bonus! One is a Crusader with the best defense in the kingdom, the kind who can tank even an attack from a Demon King's Army General. The other is a genius Wizard of the Crimson Demon Clan who commands the highest-tier offensive magic humanity possesses. Explosion Magic!"
Dust's breathing started to grow heavy.
As a veteran adventurer who had spent years knocking around in Axel, of course he knew what that class lineup meant.
A healer who could flood the place in an instant, an unkillable tank, plus a nuke-level mage who could end things with one shot... with a setup like that, forget eight million. Even taking on a Demon King's Army General would be guaranteed profit! By the time I casually pick up a few drops, won't I become the richest man in Axel?!
"You... you're serious?" Dust swallowed hard, his eyes flashing with a mixture of greed and fear. "You'd really hand over teammates of that level to me?"
Kōichi thumped his chest, looking fired up and righteous. "Brother, what are you saying? This is for Axel's future! As long as you're willing to take them off our hands, that eight million in debt... ahem, that eight million transfer fee, is basically free money!"
"Deal!!" Dust smacked his thigh and let out a roar that shook the sky. "With a dream lineup like that, a mere eight million? I, Dust, can pay it off in a month! Aqua-sama! Please allow me to follow you once more!!"
Just as Dust came scampering back to Aqua's side to fawn over her again, Kazuma quietly sidled up to Kōichi and looked at Dust's back with profound pity.
"Brother Kōichi, are we really okay doing this?" Kazuma lowered his voice, sounding like someone drained by the sheer relief of having barely escaped alive. "We didn't technically lie. Darkness really is the strongest defense, and Megumin really is top-tier offense, but... we didn't tell him that one of them is a masochist who can't hit anything, and the other is a one-shot lunatic who collapses after a single cast."
Kōichi looked at Dust, who was completely immersed in his fantasy of leading a dream team, then at Aqua, who had her hands on her hips and was ordering Dust to go buy her luxury fried chicken. He couldn't help curling his lips into a wicked grin.
"Kazuma, you can't be too greedy. We already helped him assemble the strongest lineup. As for how he plans to drive that war chariot that could fall apart at any second, that's something he, as the party leader, needs to worry about."
…
Inside Red Dragon's Breath, Axel's upscale open-air restaurant, soft light spilled across tables covered in spotless white cloths.
Clink.
That was the crisp sound of high-purity Eris coins striking a porcelain plate. To Kōichi and Kazuma, it was the most beautiful symphony in the world.
"Brother Kōichi, am I dreaming? Or did I get hit by some advanced illusion magic?" With trembling hands, Kazuma speared a piece of sizzling premium marbled beef, tears of emotion glistening in his eyes. "These last three days... we actually finished the Forest Wolves subjugation quest in just three hours, without triggering a single trap, without attracting any Undead, and without even getting our clothes dirty! And the reward came into our pockets in full, without any of it being used to repair walls, compensate broken dishes, or pay someone's medical bills!"
Kōichi elegantly cut off a piece of foie gras, took a sip of expensive aged red wine, and let out a contented sigh. "This is what normal life looks like, Kazuma. Without that walking monster lure, without that nuclear launcher that turns into scrap metal after firing once, and without that masochistic heavy infantry unit who only knows how to throw herself into monsters' mouths, you start to realize the world is actually full of love and peace."
For the two of them, the past three days could only be described as miraculous.
On the first day, they took a simple request to collect morning dew. Back in the old days, Aqua would definitely have purified all the dew into plain boiled water because she hated getting up early, causing the quest to fail. But now, the two of them took a leisurely stroll and even found a forgotten little treasure chest in the forest along the way, earning an easy 50,000 Eris.
On the second day, they went into the sewers to clear out Giant Rats. Without Darkness's highly seductive, in the most physical sense possible, masochistic constitution, the rats had been remarkably well-behaved, and Kōichi and Kazuma picked them off one by one with simple traps and short swords. Most importantly, there was no flood drowning the streets.
On the third day, which was today, the two had just completed a bounty subjugation quest. Without Megumin's earth-shaking Explosion going off, the surrounding monsters hadn't been alarmed at all, and the two of them even had time for a picnic in the forest after finishing the job.
"Look at our balance, Brother Kōichi." Kazuma pulled out his Adventurer Card with a sneaky grin. The number on it showed a heart-pounding 500,000 Eris. "This is pure profit! Pure profit that doesn't need to be deducted for any guild reconstruction fees! We're finally living like actual human beings!"
Just as the two were about to raise a toast to this hard-won happiness, a shrill scream came from the street-facing window of the restaurant. The voice was so familiar that both their hands shook on their glasses at the same time.
"Help!! Dust! Hurry and save me! That Giant Toad is going to swallow me! It's licking my head! It's all slimy and disgusting, aaaah!!"
"Aqua-sama! Stop screaming and heal me! This damn toad is about to crush my waist! And you, bratty mage, stop posing over there! Cast your magic already!!"
"Silence, you idiotic thug! The incantation for Explosion is sacred and inviolable! Thirty seconds more... no, one minute! Until then, buy me time with your body! That is the glory of being a leader!"
"Ahh... this feeling of being trampled by those huge feet... this humiliation of being cursed out by the leader... Dust, louder! Curse me harder! I can't take it... ngh!"
Kōichi and Kazuma silently exchanged a glance, then reached out in perfect sync and pulled shut the restaurant's heavy curtains.
"Was that the wind just now?" Kōichi asked without changing expression.
"No, I think it was probably some endangered beast wailing in its death throes." Kazuma calmly sliced his beef. "Brother Kōichi, where were we? Oh right. About renting a high-end apartment with a bathroom tomorrow, do you have any suggestions?"
Outside the window, Dust was pinned beneath a foul-smelling Giant Toad, Aqua was trying to poke the toad in the eyes with her Nature's Beauty, Megumin had her eyes closed as she immersed herself in her own chuunibyou world, and Darkness was letting out deeply suspicious gasps off to the side.
Inside the window was a peaceful moment steeped in the fragrance of Eris, a quiet little paradise that belonged to the two traitors, Kōichi and Kazuma.