The next day…
I woke up feeling nice and refreshed. The dream last night was… felt very, very real. It was extinguishable from reality safe for the fact that Megumin isn't powered by an 'Inf*nity St*ne' and that the log cabin in Keele dungeon doesn't have a bed.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself wrapped up inside my blanket. I turned to the right and saw Megumin sleeping peacefully beside me. I couldn't help but blush a little since I technically just did her in my dreams.
The little girl slowly opened her eyes. When our eyes met, her cheeks reddens a little and she quickly averted her gaze. "Good… good morning, Kazuma kun…" she muttered.
Holy hell, is she always this cute?
"Good morning Megumin chan," I gently caressed her head. "Did you sleep well last night?"
"I did…" she said.
"You're awfully quiet this morning, is something wrong?"
Megumin quickly shook her heads. "N-nothing, it's nothing really…" she sat up on the bed and looked around. "What time is it?"
"Seven? I think?" then I realized that Megumin might be feeling unease about us having to sleep with a succubus. "Do you, have a problem with Chary visiting us last night?"
"No, no problem at all, I don't mind doing it ev- You're doing it every night," her face is beet red and I'm starting to get suspicious. "Oh and Chary told me to tell you that you may now learn the skill with your adventurer card. Seriously,"
I raised an eyebrow and grabbed my adventurer card from a drawer beside my bed. True to her words, Dream Suggestion is part of the skill I can learn. I have plenty to spare so I quickly learn the skill.
"Chary said she's going to teach you how to use it tonight. It's going to take a lot of practice since dream manipulation is extremely complicated."
We both walked out of our room and started our morning routine. That is, walking around in the mansion looking for the bathroom. Waiting for Aqua to finish whatever she's doing in the bathroom. Before finally entering the bathroom.
Megumin and I entered the mansion's bathroom. We made an unspoken agreement that yes, as a couple, we should totally bathe together. So we entered the bathroom and entered the gigantic bathtub that felt more like an onsen than a bathtub.
"Ahh… This is bliss…" I leaned back to the wall, feeling the warm sensation spread across my body. Right in front of me is Megumin leaning her back on to the edge, showing her back to me. "Oi, Megumin, I thought we're in a 'No Teasing Pact',"
"It's your fault for being perverted enough to think of this as teasing," Megumin replied without turning around. Her legs floats lazily on the water and her breathing gets slower. "Besides, I'm not wearing anything, isn't it worse if I turn around and face you right now?"
Again, I can't argue with that logic. However, she didn't consider the fact that her most appealing assets isn't her chest but rather her shapely bottom. Heck, in one of the scene during my succubus dream, she was still wearing her adventuring outfit.
Though, saying that to her face might pissed her enough to drown me in the tub. So I decided to just sit back and enjoy the view.
"Ne, Kazuma… It's okay if we don't…"
"If we don't what?"
"If we don't defeat the demon king," the girl submerged her body from neck down and turned towards me shyly. "I'd rather it be like this, you know? Living in Axel, with you, Aqua, Darkness…" she bit her lip. "Sorry, it was just my selfish thought…"
I understand what she meant. Now that I've destroyed my quality of life curse, there's no reason for me to kill the demon king. I could spend the rest of my days in peace here in Axel City.
However, if I don't kill the demon king. There will be hell to pay. Literally.
"Megumin, you know I can't do that."
The little girl sighed for a bit before looking at me sternly. "I don't care what length you'll reach to be the big bad hero… but I want you to promise me one thing."
"What is it?"
"You will not take what's precious to me. I'm a selfish Crimson Demon, those that are precious to me are worth more than your silly quest."
I smiled warmly at that. "You don't have to worry about that Megumin. I'm not going to force you to do anything you wouldn't want," that's right, I wouldn't make her forsake explosion for the sake of defeating the demon king.
The Crimson Demon gazed at me deep in the eyes. "You promise?"
"I promise."
"Swear it, make the greatest oath you can think of."
"I swear it on the goddess who send me to this world, Lady Paradox, the goddess of Luck, Eris, and the goddess of water Aqua, that I will not make you sacrifice or take anything precious from you in my quest to defeat the demon king."
Megumin nodded in satisfaction. "Very well,"
There was a splash and I felt her body pressing against mine. I opened my mouth to say something, only to have her pulling me into deep kiss.
After a moment, she let go with very red face but still stoic and composed expression. "I just want to remind you that you are up there with Explosion on my 'precious things' list," she said flatly.
Did she just outsmarted me?
"Wh-what are you talking about Megumin?"
"You are precious to me, if I lost you… again… that would mean you broke your oath. So think twice before you do something stupid, got it?"
"You know I…" I was about to retort when I realized the implication of my oath. Breaking an oath I make in Lady Paradox's name is probably a one way ticket to hell. "Fine…"
"I'm glad you understand, Kazuma."
I was about to make a cheeky remark about this situation when alarm blared from outside.
"Destroyer alert! Destroyer alert! The mobile fortress Destroyer is approaching this town! All adventurers please prepare for combat and report to the adventurer's guild! The citizens in town, please evacuate immediately–!"
[[[KONOSUBA]]]
When we made it to the living room, we saw Aqua running around in panic. "We need to run! As far away as possible!" The panicking Aqua said as she ran in circles, knocking over a lot of things.
I turned towards Darkness and saw her staring at the window with a melancholic look on her face. "It was great while it lasted…" she whispered.
Then I turned to Megumin who's cursing every single deity she know of.
I snapped my fingers and everyone stopped whatever they were doing. "Alright everyone, listen, it's the fucking destroyer. It might seem impossible, but I just bought this mansion, I'm not letting some mindless fortress of destruction take it away from me."
Aqua looked at me like I'm crazy. "But it's the destroyer! You can't possibly win against the destroyer!"
I smirked a little. "Of course I can't. But I have Darkness, an immovable object. Megumin, an unstoppable force. And you, literally a goddess," I folded my arms in front of my chest. "We'll take a shot at stopping that pile of scrap, if we can't, then we'll take our assets and move to the capital, how about it?"
Just like that, the morale returned. Aqua took a deep breath and nodded with determination. Megumin grabbed her staff and put on her cape. Darkness started putting on her armor and shouldered her blade.
"Alright everyone, take my hand," everyone grabbed my hand and I concentrated on the guild's entrance.
In a flash of white, we found ourselves standing in front of the guild. The streets are practically deserted, save for a few adventurers running around. It was quite a strange and unsettling sight for this nice and beautiful city of Axel.
"Okay, like a fucking dream," I said before pushing the guild door open.
The guild was crowded and lots of people are arguing among themselves. However, the moment we stepped into the guild, everything went silent. They all just stared at us mutely as we walked towards Luna and everyone else standing in front of the bulletin board.
"Luna, it's been a while since we got ourselves a big game bounty," I smirked at her and she gasped as a hopeful look spread across her face. "We'd like to try our hand on the Mobile Fortress Destroyer, can you give us a brief explanation about it?"
"Y-yes!" Luna said with a tearful smile followed by a silent cheer of excitement and relief from the rest of the adventurer.
"It's the Fantastic Dreamers!"
"Oh Eris, we're saved!"
"Please let them win, please let them win,"
And many more prayers were thrown at us.
"The Mobile Fortress Destroyer is a gigantic golem, built by the magically advanced nation Norse, to fight against the Demon King's army. Using their national budget and depleting their vaults, they constructed a colossal spider-shaped golem the size of a small castle. Because it utilizes large quantities of magic metals, it's far lighter than it looks, and can move faster than a horse."
Okay, it's light, so yeeting it away might be an option.
"Worth mentioning is its enormous body and attack speed. Even a large-sized monster would be turned into mush if it got stepped on by its eight agile legs. The torso uses the fruit of Norse's accumulated technology to project a large magic barrier over it at all times. That means magic attacks are pointless."
There goes explosion barrage plan. But no melee attack can possibly take down something like that.
"Spells are ineffective, so we can only attack physically… We'll be squashed if we get near, so, we can only use ranged attacks like arrows and catapults… But the golem is crafted from magic metals, arrows would just bounce off. As for siege catapults, it would be hard to use them with the speed of the mobile fortress. To guard against aerial attacks from monsters, mid-sized golems are situated on the body of the Destroyer. Those use small ballistae to shoot down objects flying towards the mobile fortress. In addition, combat golems are also garrisoned on top of the torso."
Holy fucking shit, this is much harder than I expected!
"The reason the Mobile Fortress Destroyer went out of control was because the director in charge of developing it occupied the mobile fortress. That researcher is still issuing orders from the heart of the golem till this very day… With its incredible speed and all terrain capability, there are no places on this continent which hasn't been rampaged by it. As it does not discriminate between men or monsters, the rampaging mobile fortress is known as the Destroyer. Whenever the Destroyer draws near, the official procedure of the guild is to abandon the town, wait for the Destroyer to pass through, and rebuild the town. It's being treated as a natural catastrophe."
"Right now, the Destroyer is towards the northwest of this town, heading straight for us… All right everyone, please give your suggestions!"
Naturally, everyone looked at me.
"What about the Norse? Can't we ask for their assistance?"
"It perished. When the Destroyer went berserk, it was the first country to fall."
"Fuck," I cursed in front of everyone, but I don't give a damn. "Give me a moment to think about this, okay I got it," I turned to the resident goddess. "Aqua, can you destroy the magic barrier protecting the Destroyer?"
Aqua blinked a little and gave me an uncertain look. "Maybe?"
"A maybe is all I need," then I turned to the resident explosion loli. "Megumin, I trust you can blow up its leg and cripple the damn thing?"
"Uhh, maybe?"
"Maybe is all need," finally, I turned to the toughest thing in this town. "Darkness, I trust you can lead the charge into the Destroyer's core?"
"Maybe," Darkness replied.
Finally I turned to the rest of the adventurers. "And the rest of you! You think you have what it takes to be in the front line and protect this city from this damn robot!?"
"MAYBE!!!" they all yelled at once.
"And that's all I need!"
Just then, someone opened the door.
"Sorry I'm late…! I'm the owner of the magic item shop, Wiz. Technically, I'm an adventurer, please let me help too…"
The one barging into the guild was Wiz who was wearing an apron on top of her black robes, seemingly in the middle of work. From her attire, she looked like a girl that came to help in the distribution of emergency food rations.
When the adventurers saw Wiz…
"It's the shop owner!"
"The impoverished owner is here!"
"Shop owner, thank you for taking care of me in my dreams!"
"The shop owner is here! We'll win! We'll definitely win!"
The cheering started instantly.
I remember that Wiz is one of the high ranking mage in this city before her death. Now that she's a Lich, her magic power rivals even Megumin. "Okay Wiz, glad to have you here," then I smirked at her. "You think you can help Megumin here with her explosion?"
"M-maybe…?"
All adventurers cheered at her uncertain proclamation. The woman looked terribly nervous at the sight of them but I simply pat her shoulder. "Glad to have you here sensei, now let's destroy the Destroyer!!!"