In the dark, damp dungeon, the only sound was the drip of water seeping through cracks in the walls.
Kōichi and Kazuma sat back-to-back on a pile of moldy hay, their eyes so full of resentment it looked as if they could condense a curse into physical form.
"Kōichi, I've made up my mind." Kazuma lowered his head, the shadow covering the upper half of his face, his voice low and hoarse. "Once I get out, I'm replacing all of Aqua's red wine with dish soap, then using her Holy Water to water the weeds on the roadside. As for Megumin, I'm sewing her eyepatch shut so she can spend the rest of her life seeing nothing but pitch-black art! And Darkness... I'll lock her in a room stuffed full of green onions and refuse to give her even one bite of meat!"
"You're thinking too small, Kazuma." Kōichi sneered, fiddling with a piece of straw as a wise, sadistic gleam flashed in his eyes. "We'll make Aqua work at the guild to pay off her debts, and she'll only be allowed to drink plain water every day. We'll tie Megumin up and stop her from casting Explosion Magic for an entire week. As for Darkness... we'll praise Darkness right in front of her every day, saying what a gentle and reliable Knight Darkness is, while completely ignoring every single request she makes. That would be the greatest torture for her."
Just as the two avengers were sinking into their beautiful fantasies, heavy footsteps and the sound of chains dragging across the floor came from the end of the corridor.
"Behave! Get in there! Absolutely shameless!"
The guard's disgusted scolding rang out.
The iron door creaked open, and a familiar blond figure was shoved roughly inside. He staggered and fell straight onto the haystack in front of them.
"Yo! If it isn't Kōichi and Kazuma. What a coincidence. You two here to beat the summer heat too?"
Dust patted the dust from his clothes, stood up as if nothing had happened, and even gave the two of them a bright smile like they were kindred spirits.
Kōichi and Kazuma exchanged looks, then asked in unison, "Dust? How did you get in here? Did you commit subversion of the state too?"
"Tsk, tsk. I can't afford to play that kind of high-end subversion game." Dust plopped down beside them and sighed with a cursed look on his face. "Don't even get me started! Remember when I said I'd treat everyone at the Adventurers Guild that day? Those bastard adventurers usually hesitate over a mug of cheap ale, but the second they heard I was paying, every one of them ordered the most expensive dark beer and Frost Spirit Roast! Someone even ordered a whole baby fire-breathing dragon! The three hundred thousand Eris I made from scavenging scrap didn't even last half an hour!"
"So you got arrested for debt?"
Kazuma raised an eyebrow, a hint of sympathy in his voice.
"As if! I'm an adventurer with dignity. How could I let the guards arrest me over debt?" Dust lowered his voice and leaned in mysteriously. "The uncle from the guild who collects debts pulled out a butcher knife, and there were more than ten debt-collecting thugs behind him. I saw things were going bad, and just then, Prosecutor Sena happened to be patrolling the street with her people. So I steeled myself, walked right up, slapped her on the butt, and shouted, 'Nice feel!' Hehe, and here I am. Public indecency, sentenced to fifteen days. Food, lodging, and safety included. Now those debt collectors can only glare at me from outside the prison door!"
The air fell into dead silence.
Kōichi and Kazuma stared at Dust with the eyes of people looking at either a god or a pure pervert.
"You... you actually touched that ice-faced Sena's butt?" Kazuma's voice trembled, whether from fear or admiration was hard to say. "Brother, I respect you as a real man. When she interrogated us earlier, her eyes looked like she wanted to castrate us, and you actually dared to..."
"Well, special circumstances call for special measures." Dust leaned casually against the wall. "What about you two? I heard you blew the lord's manor flat. The lord's looking for you everywhere. Apparently tomorrow's trial is going to bring out the Bell of Truth from the Royal Capital. If you lie, the bell rings, and then your sentence gets heavier. Straight to the gallows."
"The Bell of Truth?!"
Kōichi and Kazuma cried out at the same time.
This was bad.
That bell was a magic item specifically made to detect lies.
If they were asked whether they had teleported the core to the lord's manor, and they answered no, the bell would ring. Then the two of them would be completely finished.
Just as despair settled heavily over them, an extremely forced whisper, lowered like the speaker had a terrible cold, suddenly came from the narrow ventilation shaft above the dungeon leading to the surface.
"Psst! Psst!! Kōichi! Kazuma! Can you hear me? It's me, your most reliable Goddess, Aqua-sama!"
Kōichi and Kazuma looked at each other, then both climbed up from the haystack.
Behind the iron grate of the ventilation shaft, a cute face was squeezed slightly out of shape as she tried to peer inside. Her signature long aqua-blue hair looked especially... brainless under the moonlight.
"Aqua? You still haven't been arrested?" Kazuma asked irritably. "Your acting back at the mansion when you sold out your teammates was Oscar-worthy. What are you doing here now? Watching us pick up soap?"
"What are you talking about?! That was all part of my plan! My plan, got it?" Aqua stomped anxiously outside, her voice unconsciously getting louder. She quickly covered her mouth in panic and whispered again, "If I didn't clear myself first, who would come save you? Listen carefully. I've arranged everything! Megumin and Darkness are already hiding outside the city. As soon as I give the signal, Megumin will fire her biggest Explosion Magic at the city gate! Then all the guards in town will be drawn over there, and this place will be completely empty! You two can use the chaos to pick the lock and escape. I'll meet you in the alley by the back gate! Hurry, our life on the run is about to begin!"
Without giving them any chance to refuse, that blue head quickly vanished from the ventilation shaft, leaving only a faint, "Wait for my signal!"
The dungeon fell into dead silence again.
Kōichi, Kazuma, and Dust, who had been crouched nearby eavesdropping, sat in a triangle and exchanged an extremely deep look.
"Uh..." Dust was the first to break the silence. He pointed at the ceiling and asked in a subtle tone, "Did she just say she's going to have that little Crimson Demon Clan girl set off a bomb at the city gate, then have you two suspects of subversion break out of prison while the whole nation is on alert?"
"Yeah." Kazuma answered expressionlessly, the desire to live already gone from his eyes. "And she thinks it's a perfect plan."
"Kōichi." Kazuma turned to Kōichi, his tone unusually calm. "If I run out there now, there's a good chance I'll get shot into a pincushion by those elite Knights, or turned to ash by the shockwave from Megumin's Explosion Magic. But if I stay here, the worst that happens is tomorrow's trial gets a little rough, right?"
Kōichi nodded in complete agreement. "Exactly. With Aqua waiting for us outside, this dungeon is practically the safest place in the world. As long as we don't go out, those Knights have no reason to just cut us down. As for this so-called jailbreak... Heh. Only an idiot would follow that moronic Goddess's rhythm."
Dust took a deep breath of the dungeon's damp air and sighed.
"As expected of the heroes who saved the town. That courage and judgment, I'm impressed. Honestly, I now feel like slapping the prosecutor's butt was the most rational decision I've ever made in my life."
The three of them once again reached a silent understanding.
The outside world was too dangerous. Staying in prison was safer.
"Sleep." Kōichi lay straight back down on the haystack and pulled up the tattered blanket. "After Megumin blows things up, the guards outside will definitely double. Then we can say we were victims woken up by the explosion. Maybe we can even get compensation for emotional distress."
"Good night, Kōichi. Good night, Dust."
Kazuma yawned and lay down too.
"Good night. Hope tomorrow's black bread comes with some jam," Dust muttered.
And so, while Aqua happily believed she was staging a thrilling rescue drama, the three brave warriors she had placed her hopes on were curled up in their cell, snoring one after another.
Not long after, a thunderous explosion indeed came from outside the city.
"Explosion!!!"
The ground shook violently, and dust fell from the ceiling.
Dense footsteps and the clatter of armor rang through the dungeon corridor as the Knights shouted "Enemy attack!" and rushed toward the surface.
The three of them rolled over, buried their heads in the hay, and slept even more soundly.