The atmosphere at the city gate froze in an instant.
Aqua pulled out her light, fluttering feather mantle from who-knew-where and stood proudly at the edge of the carriage. The evening breeze swept through her long blue hair, and in that moment, her entire body radiated a holy, untouchable glow.
"O lost lambs! Raise your heads and behold! I am the one true Goddess worshipped by the Axis Cult, the Goddess of Water, Aqua!" Aqua's voice was clear and beautiful, carrying a majesty that made people want to kneel before her. "Now that this Goddess has personally descended, why have you not hurried to offer me your finest hot springs and tribute?!"
The Axis Cult followers, who had been frantically pushing their sales pitches moments earlier, froze.
They rubbed their eyes and stared at the girl before them, whose delicate features were flawless and whose hair and eyes were the color of pure lake water. Whispers began spreading through the crowd.
"Hey... did you see that? That feather mantle, and that presence... She looks exactly like the statue at headquarters."
"Could it be that the Goddess-sama really descended because of our tireless daily harassment... no, our tireless daily prayers?"
"Oooh! What a beautiful form! What a sacred aura! Is this our Aqua-sama?!"
Several fanatical followers had already dropped their flyers. Their knees went weak, and they were about to kneel. Some had even started pulling out the membership applications they carried around with them, ready to have the Goddess sign them as holy relics.
Inside the carriage, Kōichi watched Aqua's face swell more and more from all the praise, her grin almost curling straight up into the sky, and his eyelid twitched wildly.
(Damn it. If these lunatics really decide she's a Goddess, this City of Water won't get a moment's peace tonight. By tomorrow morning, the city walls might be covered in wanted posters of me, with the charge being kidnapping a Goddess and forcing her to serve as a carriage driver...)
At that thought, Kōichi let out a cold laugh and, with practiced ease, pulled the unopened bottle of top-grade sparkling wine from his bag. The bottle gave off the unmistakable aura of something expensive. He deliberately shook it in the air, making the liquid inside clink crisply.
"Hey! Aqua! Are you drinking this top-grade sparkling wine worth 100,000 Eris or not? If you're not, I'm giving it to this missionary uncle right here as a conversion gift!"
The Goddess, who just a second ago had looked so holy and picturesque that she seemed ready to ascend to heaven at any moment, twitched like she had been struck by lightning the instant she heard the key words "wine" and "100,000 Eris."
"!!!"
Aqua's dignity collapsed in an instant. Her art-like, beautiful face twisted into an unbelievably greedy grimace in less than a tenth of a second.
"Give it to me! Hurry up and give it to me! That's mine! That's this Goddess's lifeline, aaaaaah!!"
In full view of everyone, Aqua let out a scream that completely threw her image aside and dove straight down from the edge of the carriage.
She did not use any flashy magic, nor did she land gracefully. Instead, she flailed all four limbs in midair like a wild dog that had not eaten for three days and nights, lunging toward the bottle in Kōichi's hand with an extremely ugly dog-paddling motion.
With a thud, Aqua slammed headfirst into Kōichi's leg. She clutched the bottle tightly with both hands, rubbed her face against it, and let out a creepy "hehehe" laugh.
"Hehe... wine... my precious wine... Kōichi, you're the best, hehehe..."
The surrounding air fell into a deathly silence.
The middle-aged follower who had been staring at her in worship moments ago was now frozen in a kneeling posture. He watched the blue-haired madwoman rolling around on the ground with the bottle in her arms, her skirt flying everywhere as she even tried to bite the cap open with her teeth, and the corners of his mouth twitched violently.
"...Tch, what the hell? So she's just some drunken crazy woman who looks like the Goddess?"
"She got me excited for nothing. With movements like a dog paddling through water, there's no way she could be the holy Aqua-sama."
"Exactly. Our Goddess-sama may not be very bright, by her own admission, but she would never act so... so much like a useless bum."
"Move along, move along. Even if a woman like that joined the cult, she'd only lower our average intelligence. Let's go look at that blonde lady over there. She looks like she has real baptism potential."
The followers all looked at Aqua with disgust, stepping around her like they were avoiding trash as she hugged the bottle and giggled stupidly.
Kōichi had thought that watching Aqua's persona collapse would be enough to make these fanatical followers scatter, but he had clearly underestimated the weed-like vitality and zombie-like persistence of the Axis Cult.
"No problem! Even if she isn't the Goddess-sama, anyone who passes through this gate is already a prospective believer of the Axis Cult!"
"Hey, handsome black-haired guy, the way you lured her with wine just now was so smooth. You must be rich, right? Come on, sign this hot spring tax reduction application, which is actually a membership application, and tonight's scrubbing service is twenty percent off!"
"Little girl, that staff of yours is really cool. Want me to carve Aqua-sama's holy crest on it? Just sign here, and not only will you get stronger, you'll also receive a blessing for future bust development!"
The followers surged toward them like a tide. Some flung long scrolls out from their sleeves, some stuck application forms under bread and shoved them forward as a forced sales pitch, and some even tried to crawl under the carriage to carry out a carpet-bombing style of missionary work.
Even Kōichi, who had seen plenty of chaos, felt his scalp prickle at this all-pervasive assault.
Just as the carriage was surrounded so tightly that not even water could pass through, and even the horses were starting to question their lives as horses, Darkness, who had been riding a high of delusional excitement the entire time, suddenly lit up as if she had found the ultimate form of release.
"...Enough! You rude people! Stop pestering my companions!"
Darkness shouted with righteous conviction, though to Kōichi, her voice was full of excited tremors. She leapt onto the carriage roof and landed directly between Kazuma and Dust, startling the two stone statues so badly they nearly achieved physical liftoff.
Under the glow of the setting sun, Darkness thrust out her chest, pulled a badge radiating holy silver light from her bosom, and held it high above her head. It was proof that she was a believer of the Order of Eris, the sworn enemy of the Axis Cult, and the Goddess who presided over luck and breasts.
"Look closely! I am a devout follower of the Order of Eris! I will never bow to a cult like yours, reeking of alcohol and soap! If you have any complaints, then direct them all at me! Whether you curse me, humiliate me, or lock me in an ice-water-filled dungeon for a heretic trial, I will absolutely... absolutely not furrow my brow! Come on!!"
The air went completely still.
The Axis Cult followers, who had been shoving forward like zombies, stopped in perfect unison the instant they saw that silver badge.
Their expressions rapidly shifted from fanaticism to a mix of disgust, contempt, and the icy hatred of someone who had spotted their father's murderer.
"...An Eris believer?" The middle-aged man's voice was as cold as ice. "A heretic who worships that Padded-Bra Goddess has appeared in this sacred land of Aqua-sama?"
"Pah! What bad luck! I take back what I said earlier. Everyone in this carriage must have been infected with misfortune by that thief goddess Eris!"
"Hey! Bring salt! Hurry, bring salt! We have to scatter away all the bad luck these heretics brought with them!"
With a loud rustle, the surrounding followers pulled out handfuls of coarse salt from who-knew-where and began throwing it wildly as if it cost nothing. Salt rained down on the carriage, on Darkness, and even on Megumin's head as she hid under her cloak.
"Get out, heretics!"
"Lackeys of the Padded-Bra Goddess aren't allowed in the city!"
"Go take a bath! Wash off that shabby Eris stink!"
"Uwooooh!! This is the feeling!! Being despised by an entire city, being treated like garbage and pelted with salt!! Arcanletia... Arcanletia really is Heaven!!"
Darkness stood in the rain of salt, her face flushed bright red, her body trembling violently as she let out a series of spine-chilling breathy moans.
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