I sat beside Megumin on the dining table. Right in front of us is an array of delicious crabs I bought as promised for Aqua. However, not a single one of them has been touched, not until I get to have a chat from good old Lalatina here.
"For the first time, the one who messed up here is Darkness," I glared at the blonde.
Problem with being mad at a masochist, is that it will only make them even more exited. Eris, what did I do to deserve this?
"Kazuma, I saved you from the…"
"No, you dug our own grave," I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Darkness, no, Lalatina, do you understand what has happened to you? Since you joined our party?"
Darkness blinked owlishly for a moment before gasped in shock. "Oh no…" she covered her face with her hands. "Ahh… What should I do?"
"What is it Kazuma?" Aqua asked. "And can we eat the crab already? We should celebrate! We've won the case!"
"Don't touch the crab, leave the crab alone, we're not done yet," I turned back to Darkness. "Well, Darkness, what are the chances of anyone finding out that your first time is with a Tentacle Plant Monster?"
Darkness bit her lip and looked down. "Once they discovered I'm not a virgin anymore, they can cast a spell to see who's my first time was," she muttered.
"How likely is that to be traced back to us?"
This time, Darkness blushes a little. "Well, since you kept using me to refill the seeds with the plants you grow with your own magic… More than likely," she said.
It's just one problem after another huh?
"Okay, think," I turned towards Aqua. "Oi, goddess, return her virginity,"
Aqua shook her head. "That's impossible Kazuma, a girl's purity is tied to…"
"Just restore her hymen, she's already a lost cause, everyone knows that."
The goddess rolled her eyes and stood up from her position. "There's no helping it huh?" she put a hand over Darkness's back. "Sacred Full Heal!!!"
A bright beacon of light enveloped Darkness's body. When it dies down, Darkness doesn't look all that different, but if you squint a little you can see that her skin is much smoother and her body looks much cleaner.
"There, I've restored her cherry," Aqua said. "But a magic item can still detect her virginity."
"Don't worry, we have one less thing to take care of," I told her before looking back at Darkness. "Well, Darkness, after this you're going to meet that Alderp guy right? Although I know how much you want to be violated by him, I need you to make sure that he doesn't discover that you're not a virgin, do you understand?"
Darkness bit her lip and nodded a little. "I understand."
I took out a piece of paper from my pocket. "This is a Hira*shin Seal, I mean, a teleportation scroll I bought at Wiz's. Use this if Alderp's about to make a move on you. It'll teleport you to the entrance of our mansion and I will switch with your location. From there, I will knock him out and give him a hyper realistic succubus dream."
I gave myself, oh, Megumin, thank you!
Megumin gave me a pat in that back and thumb up for that impromptu genius plan.
"Right, thank you Kazuma," Darkness said.
"Good, now we can eat the crabs,"
With that, we have ourselves an extremely fancy dinner before sending Darkness on her way to Alderp's place.
I am honestly more worried of myself than her for sending her out like that, I treat her worse than Alderp could ever hope to do. That will get me in trouble.
---
There's a large room in our mansion that's been renovated with a bunch of soundproof enchantment and has a bunch of odd equipment inside it. It is Aqua's training room, where she will train herself with the skills of a bard and sing to her hearts content.
This is the first time I'm here when she's training and to be honest, this girl got potential.
"Listen here Kazuma! I made up this song!"
In this wonderful world!
With you, the bell of beginning resounds!
We are Fantastic Dreamers!
She did a little play with her guitar before grinning at me. "How was it?"
I gave her a thumb and proud grin. "It was amazing Aqua! I knew that twenty million Eris was worth it," yeah, that's the amount of money I spend to make this room. From the custom made musical instruments that was practically unheard of, the soundproof enchantment on the walls, and the freaking sound system.
What? Saving up to pay my debt with Alderp? Fuck that guy.
Aqua grinned and strummed her guitar. She hummed some more tune and muttered some lyrics underneath her breath.
For someone so stupid, this girl has a godlike talent when it comes to art. From things like painting, sculpturing, singing, public performance, and everything similar. She can make a masterpiece from the left over dust on a table, she can make a freaking five feet tall gu*dam out of carton box, she can perform magic without magic, and she can master guitar in just two days.
She's a freaking savant, that's what she is.
Soon enough, it's already late morning. I stood up from the director's seat in the room and prepared to walk outside. "I'm gonna grab some brunch, want me to bring something Aqua?"
"Imported Cowdeer Beef!"
I stared at her flatly and she sighed a little.
"Fine, fish sticks,"
With that, I left Aqua's training room and head straight to the living room.
There, I saw Megumin sitting in front of a black ball of fur rolling around in the carpet. "Morning Megumin," I took a closer look at the ball of fur. "You brought something?"
Megumin picked up the cat and hold it out towards me. "Can I keep her? She's a good child, I promise she'll behave," the girl said.
Unknown to her, that cat just increased her moe/cuteness rating by a whopping 80%. Between saying no to this and saying yes to an arrest, I'll take the latter any day. "Of course," I held out my hand for the cat to sniff it.
The cat sniffed a little before playing around with my fingers. Its claws are retracted and it felt really soft and nice to touch. It even licked my hand a little before Megumin lowered the cat back on to the carpet.
"Yeah, she's a good girl, what's her name?"
"Chomsuke,"
Judging from her tone, there's really no room for argument. "Alright, Chomsuke it is then."
I walked towards the dining table and grabbed a large bowl full of fish sticks and a small cup of crab gravy. "You've had your fill right Megumin?" I asked the loli.
"I did, I also grabbed some left over fish from the fridge for Chomsuke. You don't mind right?"
"Yeah, I don't mind," I said before delivering the fish sticks to Aqua's practicing room. I can hear the faint sound of her practicing and I wait it out until she finished.
When the noise paused, I opened the door and stepped inside. "Aqua, I brought fish sticks," in there, I found her writing something on a piece of paper, probably lyrics. She looked up from her writing and quickly rushed towards me with an excited grin.
"Is this the crab shell juice you made the other day?" she asked while dipping a fish sticks into the crab gravy.
"It's gravy, I just don't want a whole three hundred thousand Eris to go to waste like that," I explained. "How's it?"
Judging by the look of bliss on her face, I'd say it was a success. "What is this, so tasty!" she grinned and double dipped her fish sticks. "Sweet, crabby, how can something made from leftovers tastes so good!?"
I decided that the fish sticks is enough to appease the goddess, so I bid her a silent farewell and returned to the living room.
Inside the living room, I saw Megumin lazing on the sofa with Chomsuke sitting on her lap. I sat down next to her and pet the cat on her lap. It's a nice little thing that's, for all intents and purposes, just a normal little cat.
Except that it's not. "So this is the evil god huh? How did it get here?" I asked her.
"Walk? I don't know, she just show up in our doorstep, so I'm guessing she hitches a ride with someone," she said calmly.
So, this little cat here is actually one half of an evil god called Wolbach. It was once a very large and terrifying beast that was defeated by the other half of Wolbach using Explosion. It became tame since then, treating Megumin as her owner.
Or perhaps it was simply because it doesn't want to get eaten…
"Well, I always wanted a pet," I pet the cat some more and it purred gently on my hand. "I heard they're really good for your mental health,"
"Yes, Chomsuke is good for your health,"
After lazing on the sofa for a few more minutes, Aqua arrived on the living room, humming to herself. "So, Kazuma, when are we going to start my debut?" she asked.
That's a good question. "Hard to say, but I think shortly after we sort out Darkness's mess," I told her. "We need Darkness to complete a band. Even then, it's kinda pushing it. So I'm hoping we'll get a new girl in my har, I mean, party."
Megumin made Chomsuke cat-slap me on the head. "You didn't even try to hide it you perv," she muttered before lowering down the evil god. "Do you have someone on your mind?"
"I dunno, how about that pretty Crimson Demon who claimed to be your rival?"
"Are you going to take advantage of her social anxiety you scum from earth?" Megumin asked flatly.
"No… I just think since we get to see her today, I could invite her?"
Megumin looked at me in slight confusion. "How do you know?"
"I think it's suspicious that Chomsuke just show up in our doorstep. My theory is that Yunyun wanted to visit you with the excuse of returning Chomsuke, but then she bailed out at the last moment once she learned that you don't live alone. She left Chomsuke for you to find and now she's waiting for the perfect opportunity to make an entrance."
Megumin blinked owlishly at my explanation before staring at the cat in her lap. "I can see why you were so mad when Darkness hid her identity from you…" she muttered. "You must be frustrated because, right now, you can think of a hundred ways to figure out her problem huh?"
"Yeah," I sighed in frustration. "Seriously, it's just so easy if Darkness had told me this much earlier."
"If you were smarter, you would know that Darkness is someone of high status," Megumin teased with a sly grin.
"Whose fault is it that it went completely past my radar…" I retorted.
"Technically, it's Chary's fault."
"No, it's your fault for agreeing to her offer, you perpetually horny loli."
"You started it first, you lolicon shut in neet."
We were about to cause some collateral damage from our couple squabble when the door to the mansion suddenly slammed open.
"Satou Kazuma! Is Satou Kazuma here!?" Sena yelled, demanding my presence once again.
We all looked at Sena and I let go of Megumin's hand. "Yes, I'm Kazuma, how can I help miss prosecutor who is totally not being mind controlled?"
Sena's face turned red after hearing that. "We do not talk about that," she said in embarrassment. "This matter doesn't have anything to do with any of that. It's about the frogs!"
I blinked a little in confusion. "You're hungry?"
"No! The Frogs that are supposed to be hibernating are roaming the land! It must be your fault!" she accused like a freaking five years old.
"Okay, let me think for a moment," I turned towards Megumin and Aqua. They both averted their gaze so I can say that Sena isn't totally in the wrong. "Fine, fine, we'll take care of them, come on Aqua, Megumin, let's hunt them frogs!"