It's been two days after the dream revelation. I managed to compile twenty five pages of plan containing one main plan, four back up plan, and one worse case scenario plan. All of that in just one day and one night.
"Oi, Kazuma, how long are you going to stay in there?"
Megumin stood beside me, staring between the warm kotatsu and the cup of coffee in my hand.
"I didn't sleep last night, at least let me rest,"
Megumin's stern gaze faltered and she sat down right across me. "Well, I get what you mean," she yawned a little after spreading her legs under the kotatsu. "But the snow's already melting and…" she dropped her head on to the table.
"So sleepy…"
I smirked a little. Even the great crimson demon race is no match for the power of kotatsu. "Vanir and I made a deal to mass produce stuff from japan," I told her. "We're aiming for a fifty fifty profit, what do you think?"
"Does that mean you and Vanir are competing against Lady Paradox?" Megumin asked without raising her head.
"Not really, Paradox said that she's aiming to make franchise instead of intellectual property," I sipped on the coffee a little. "She said we're welcome to introduce modernism into this world, as long as we keep using magic in most of our technology."
"So, what else did you make?"
I took out a steel rectangular thing out of my pocket. "I made a lighter," I told her while turning it on by pressing a button. "It sells faster than we can make them, once we can mass produce this bad boy, it's only a matter of time before we can start importing goods."
"You're really turning into a billionaire huh?"
I turned towards Darkness who's playing chess with Yunyun. "Oi, Darkness, how much do we have?"
"We have somewhere around one point three billion Eris," Darkness replied. "I put the one billion Eris in my home for safe keeping. So we have three hundred million Eris for whatever we need," she looked back at the board and clicked her tongue.
Yunyun smiled proudly and gestured at the board. "I told you, none can defeat the Crimson Demon in a battle of intelligence!"
I turned back to Megumin and gave her a smug grin. "I'm actually, already a billionaire," I told her. "You should be happy for having such a wealthy boyfriend after living in poverty for so long,"
My girlfriend smacked me in the head with her staff. "Don't insult my family,"
"Sorry, sorry… At least you didn't struggle to tell your family about our relationship right? I mean, you don't really have to sugarcoat it too much."
Megumin looked away from me. "Funny you should say that because…" she blushed a little. "I… I haven't told my family about our relationship yet."
Well, at least she told this now instead of in front of the doorstep. "So you're planning on revealing it face to face?"
"Something like that, yes… Letters can make some misunderstanding you know?"
Ahh, I see… As expected of my girlfriend, she can foresee the trouble before it happens.
Still it's truly is a beautiful day, maybe we should have a nice picnic while doing extermination mission? Though, it's going to be hard to get Aqua out of the sofa at this point.
A knocking sound came from the door, disturbing the comfortable silence.
"Megumin, get the door," I said
"Aqua, get the door,"
"Darkness, get the door,"
"Yunyun, get the door, I'll clean up the board,"
"And the victory goes to Yunyun!"
Yunyun stood and made a victory pose, before walking towards the door. She's much more confident and assertive since she joins the party. Now she doesn't really all that ashamed of showing around her chuunibyou personality like the poses and exaggerated speech.
The Crimson Demon opened the door, revealing Sena standing behind the door. Already, she's being polite and not being a complete bitch. Well, the death threat certainly helps, but that's another matter entirely.
"Good morning. Yunyun, was it?" Sena asked/greeted.
Yunyun nodded a little. "That's right, I'm Yunyun, is there anything we can help?" she then turned towards us. Her eyes lingered between Megumin and I under the shackles of Kotatsu, Aqua becoming one with the sofa, and Darkness who… looks ready for activities actually.
"Y-yes…" Sena took a double take on the state of Fantastic Dreamer. "Is this how you spend your day off?" she shook her head a little. "Anyway, there's an urgent mission I'm hoping you would help us with."
"What is it?" Yunyun asked, speaking in my behalf like a good party member she is.
"It's the Lizard Runner, today is their mating season and they are heading to the city," Sena explained. "The guild already requested an extermination mission to kill the queen runner but…" she averted her gaze. "Everyone refused to do it, opting instead to kill other lizard runner."
Ahh… I see… Exp farming huh?
"So, what do you want us to do?" Yunyun asked.
"I was hoping you could convince the adventurers to clear the mission instead of 'grinding' as they like to put it,"
I can imagine a bunch of archers and crusaders working together to kill the lizards without killing the queen.
And I can see why Sena would come to me. Simply showing up and telling them to stop play around will definitely stop them from grinding.
I raised my hand and Sena turned towards me. "What are you worried about Sena? The Lizard Runners will get wiped out in the end, right?"
Sena nodded a little. "That's right, but the risk of them rampaging in the nearby merchant's road is really high. If anything, I hope you would join in this 'grinding' and wipe them out faster."
Hmm… Getting the whole Fantastic Dreamer is beyond overkill at this point. Aqua will definitely refuse to go. Megumin might go if I ask real nicely, but she's already level forty four after the fight against Vanir. Darkness… Yeah, let's bring Darkness along. Yunyun… Sure, why not?
Wait… There's something I wanted to try out.
I gave Sena a thumb up and a nod of confirmation.
---
"Ah! Welcome, Thou who art looking for a musical instrument to test out a certain archpriest new skills," Vanir welcomed us the moment we stepped into the shop.
"Yeah, anything you recommend?" I asked him, no longer bothered by his mind reading. Beside me, Aqua is looking around the shop in slight curiosity. There are many copies of modern world items scattered around the shop, all of them selling faster than we can make them.
Vanir grabbed a box from behind the counter. "Thou already have a good musical instrument," he took out a harmonica from the box. "I suggest a harmonica or a flute for easy carrying and access," he tossed us the harmonica.
I handed the harmonica to Aqua. "Here, try it," I told her.
The girl looked at the harmonica in slight confusion. "So, I have to blow on this?" she blow some air on the harmonica and a soft whistle came from it. She then tried pressing her lips against and a beautiful tune came out of it.
"Yep, you got this," I turned to Vanir. "How much are you selling these anyway?"
"These musical instrument counts as compact weapons and adventuring equipment for bards and the like. So please excuse moi for selling it at a modest price of twenty thousand Eris,"
Twenty thousand Eris for a harmonica… Wow…
A beautiful comedy came from the goddess standing beside me. As I thought, it didn't take more than two minutes for her to figure out the harmonica. She closed her eyes as she dragged her fingers and her lips through the harmonica, creating a beautiful melody.
The music, somehow, makes me Wanna Go Home… Probably because she adamantly refused to come with me at first. But I convinced her in the end, saying that I wanted to test out her Advanced Bard Skill.
A chilling thought suddenly came to me. If Aqua is capable of controlling mind with a harmonica, is she going to abuse the power so she could laze around all day?
The answer is no because this move is very draining, it has very limited range, and Aqua has to keep playing the music to make it work. So no, she can't abuse it. She might be able to force me back home now, but she has to keep playing to stop me from smacking her head the moment she stopped playing.
Soon enough, Aqua finished her music. She lowered her harmonica and told me with a straight face.
"I don't like it, can we get something else?"
I tilted my head a little. "You just played a masterpiece, what do you mean you don't want it?"
Aqua puffed her cheeks in annoyance. "Well, how am I supposed to sing while blowing this thing?"
And thus, I spend the rest of the journey to the plains while explaining to her why this harmonica is a very useful instrument that will help us on the long run.
---
When we made it to the plains, I saw a very, very peculiar sight.
It is a gigantic tree. A dozen or so archer and mages stood on top of it, each one of them showering the herds of Lizard Runner with arrow and spells. There's also a bunch of vanguard and thieves pulling and reeling in a thick rope to the ground.
Tied at by the foot at the end of the rope, at various points around the tree, are crusaders. Each one of them shouting out in thrill like someone who's bungee jumping. They waved their blade wildly at the herd below them before they were pulled up once again.
It seems like the tied up crusaders used decoy to lure in and make the Lizard Runner to keep circling the tree. By doing that, the archers and mages has free range to do what they want, shooting down the Lizard Runners below them.
"Well, looks like Darkness's disciples to me," I commented in slight amusement.
Aqua and I walked to the edge of the herd. We looked up and saw Taylor hanging on the tree. "Kazuma sama, good afterno…!" he exclaimed before being pulled up by a warrior I don't recognize on top of the tree. "…dea isn't it, we use bait and dec…" he was pulled up again. "…een Lizard Runners! This is the perf…"
"Yeah! I get what you mean!" I exclaimed. "Say, do you mind if we do something?"
I turned towards Aqua who took out her Harmonica. She put it on her lips, closed her eyes, and started playing.
A beautiful melody echoes through the clearing. The music pierces through the Lizard Runners and caught them in its magic. All at once, the Lizard Runner slowed down and started walking normally towards me and Aqua.
"Whoa!"
"OUCH!"
"Ah! Sorry, Taylor!"
Keith jumped off the tree, followed by a random adventurer and Lynn. Behind the tree, three other adventurer party approached us. Each and every single on of them watching a sight to behold.
It is Aqua, sitting on the grassy plains, surrounded by the Lizard Runner. The Lizard Runner were docile however, sitting down and lazing around beside Aqua. Some of them even started sleeping on the ground, ignoring the fully armed adventurer near them.
"Amazing… Aqua sama," Keith walked towards one of the Lizard Runner and slapped its head. It didn't do anything to retaliate, it just kept sleeping. He then tried nicking the Lizard's body with an arrow, but the Lizard Runner didn't wake up.
Then, Keith took a few steps back and shot Lizard Runner right in the head. The Lizard Runner went limp after its death, but it didn't trash around or anything like that.
Keith grinned a little and turned towards me. "Senpai! Can we, can we massacre them all?"
I nodded and looked at the rest of the adventurers behind us. "Go nuts,"
It's quite a bizarre sight, a goddess playing a beautiful and soothing song a midst a literal carnage. Left and right, Lizard Runner body went limp with a slash of sword. It soon become a kill streak competition, everyone just started charging madly at all the Lizards.
Soon enough, there's literally no Lizard left standing. Aqua has also finished her music and opened her eyes. "Whoa, when did this happen?" the goddess asked while stepping over a Lizard Runner's corpse to get to me.
"Just now," I gestured towards all the bloody adventurers lining up beside me. "Also, they have something to say."
"Aqua sama, thank you!"
"You're the greatest Aqua sama!"
"Your music was beautiful Aqua sama!"
"Aqua sama, when's your next performance?"
More and more praises were thrown at the goddess. To which she just smile and waved in response. Ever since Paradox chewed her out that day, she's becoming more humble and basically a much better person than before.
Really, it's amazing to see how much one can change from a self reflection…
After cleaning up the area, Taylor and his party invited me for a drink. It's been a while since I hang out with other adventuring party just for the sake it. So I decided to spend the rest of my day away from the Fantastic Dreamers.