chapter 6

Epilogue 1: ––For the sake of this person––

I messed up.

I parted in such a way with the person I had been looking for all my life, and in an emotional moment, I did something I shouldn’t have done.

How should I face him starting tomorrow?

He said that he loves me as well, so does that make us lovers?

Should I change the way in which I treat him?

“*Fuhaah~~*– Good morning!”

The culprit of my troubles appeared with a yawn. With a sleepy expression, he lazily walked to where we were.

Kazuma, who had begun packing his luggage before fixing his bedhead, said:

“Yunyun, let’s go back with ‘Teleport’.”

…Going to back to Axel from the fortress would have only taken a fleeting moment, but since we had come all the way here during our journey, we decided to go to a hot spring on our way back to relax.

“I don’t really mind doing that, but why did you suddenly bring that up?”

When Yunyun asked, he showed some suspicious behavior.

“T-There’s nothing really, I just really miss Axel you know~~”

Immediately after Kazuma, who said such insincere things–

“Yeah, I want to hurry up and get back to Axel for my heartfelt reunion with Emperor Zell! Let’s go home quickly and have a celebration party! We beat that evil-god after all!”

Aqua announced her plans without a hint of any ulterior motive. All she wanted to do was to celebrate with everyone.

“You’re right, we should be proud of our efforts this time. Until now, we fought against the demon king army generals because we were forced to, but this time around we had fought them on our own accord, and managed to defeat them as well.”

Said Darkness, as she stuck out her chest in a prideful fashion.

But–

“To be honest though, you didn’t really do anything.”

“Eh?”

Darkness – who had her moment of pride stolen by Kazuma – became a bit teary eyed.

“Hey, Yunyun, do you want to stay with us? There’s no need to force yourself to stay with us…”

“Eh!? Ah, y-, you mean me? Uhm, erm… if you would let me join you, I would happily…!”

Just as everyone seemed to have agreed to celebrate tonight, and were happily discussing their plans, Kazuma said:

“Ah, by the way, I’m not coming back tonight.”

It’s not like he was Aqua, so why did he say such ignorant things?

“You’re not coming back? Then where are you planning to go!? I mean, when you go out with your friends, what exactly are you guys doing?”

“Hm!? T-T-T-T-That’s is well, shouldn’t you understand? It’s just things that friends do together, you know…”

The sharp intuition of the Crimson Magic clan is telling he was going out on some funny business.

“So you’re just doing things with friends? Then tell them to come celebrate with us. It’s a rare occasion for us to gather, so the more the merrier right?”

“Eh-!?”

Kazuma’s expression looked as if he was witnessing the end of the world. Once again, I reaffirmed the greatness of my intuition.

Even though I didn’t know what he planned to do, he obviously wasn’t up to anything good.

I walked up next to Kazuma, whose shoulders were drooped, and patted him on the back.

“Well well, why don’t we have a drink with Kazuma tonight to celebrate his achievements?”

“Hey you, do you even know why I’m staying out tonight?”

Said Kazuma begrudgingly. Even so, I didn’t know what he meant.

“How would I know? By the way, where are you going?”

“The café, you know, that ‘café’? The one that operates 24/7?”

A café that operates 24/7?

There was only one café in the town of Axel that matched that description.

“…You, after what happened last night, you decided to do this kind of dirty business?”

“Hmm? What wrong Megumin? Your eyes are really red… What are you so excited about? Was it something that happened last night?”

This guy–!

…No, calm down for a bit, even though we said that we love each other, we never said that we were a couple.

Which means I had no reason to be angry.

“…That store has a lot of sexily dressed onee-sans. Hmm? Are they Kazuma’s type?”

“Huh, so you know about that store? And the type I like huh… I wonder what it is…?”

His reply was full of indecision.

“…While we’re talking about this, could I ask what type of girl Kazuma likes?”

“My type? Hm, I haven’t really considered that before… If I really have to say it though, it would be a ‘long haired, big boob’ed girl that would dote on me a lot’?”

Hearing him reply with such ease, I felt the need to reconsider my love for this man.

After what happened yesterday, shouldn’t his preference be a lot closer to me?

“Hey, what is it? I heard that if you sigh so much your luck stat would decrease you know?”

He wasn’t popular because he was always like this. Oh well—

It would be fine if I was the only person to love this strange person.

“Everyone, the preparations for ‘Teleport’ are done.”

Everyone gathered their belongings together—

“Alright, I’ll use the bounty reward to live outside for a week! Though I don’t really know how large the reward is.”

I had no idea why he wanted to stay outside for a week, but as usual, he was probably up to no good.

As I pondered about this—

“‘Teleport’–!”

–I decided that I would grow my hair longer.

Epilogue 2:––Dear, Onii-sama––

–About one week after we returned to Axel

I was about put the plate down to feed Chomusuke, but I was interrupted by Megumin as she entered the room.

“…Kazuma, are you feeding it a bit too much? You shouldn’t dote on it so much you know?”

“But this guy hasn’t stopped eating—Here here, eat more and grow up quickly~”

Before you become that onee-san, I hope we can get along well.

Also, please forgive Megumin for using explosion magic on you.

“…There’s a letter for Kazuma. I don’t really know what’s it about though.”

A letter for me?

“Is it that dragon egg salesman again? Ever since I bought Emperor Zell, he’s been sending these mails every day.”

The idiot who got tricked lured a lot of scammers to this house.

“If it was sent to Kazuma then it probably isn’t anything good. Let me take a look.”

“Here it is… I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen this envelope somewhere…”

Megumin passed the envelope to Darkness…

Darkness opened the envelope and peeked inside. Without a moment’s delay, she shoved it in her chest pocket.

“…Oi, what are you trying to do with a letter addressed to me?”

“…It is as Aqua said, it’s just a letter from the dragon salesman.”

“It’s just as I divined! Isn’t this great Kazuma? The mails sent to me all address me as ‘This letter is addressed to the one destined to a dragon, an adventurer of great fame and might.’”

Ignoring Aqua who was saying stupid things again, I said to Darkness, who tried to avoid my gaze:

“Oi, give me the let—.”

“I refuse.”

Darkness replied in an instant, and proceeded to roll herself into a ball, as if she was pregnant woman protecting her child.

Seeing her action, I could tell who the sender of the letter was.

Because I’ve seen Darkness do this before.

“It’s Iris right!? Iris sent me that letter right!?”

“How did you guess!? No, I mean, this is just a—!”

I mercilessly stretched my hand towards Darkness’ chest as she desperately tried to refute my claims.

“AAhhhhhhhh!?”

“Look! As I thought, this is a letter sent to me by Iris!”

Darkness put her hands by her chest and bent down.

Hmpf, don’t think that I wouldn’t lay a hand on the letter if you put it by your chest.

After all, I am no longer the wuss that I was. I have been reincarnated as a ruthless man.

As I was thoroughly experiencing the thrill of my victory, I opened the letter.

Undoing the royal seal, I unfolded the letter—

‘Dear Onii-sama,

I have heard of your great achievements at the fortress nearby. You always seem to have dive headfirst into danger, so I have been a bit worried of your wellbeing…’

Just reading the header of the letter has warmed my heart.

‘This time, I have a request for Onii-sama, who has become one of the nation’s greatest adventurers.’

Then I read the last sentence.

“Actually, I am going to meet with the prince of a neighboring country with whom I have an arranged marriage with, so I would like to hire onii-sama as my bodyguard—”

And viciously ripped the letter.

Author’s Afterword:

Megumin has been very Megumin in this volume, but I’ve decided that she should feel the stench of this love quite soon.

I didn’t really intend to do so forcefully, but there is a limit to my skills as an innocent and inexperienced writer.

I will continue to try out new writing elements, and try to improve every day. One day, I will write something that will make everyone laugh out loud.

In the volume, I have been helped by Mishima Kurone-sensei, S-san, and all the people related to the publishing process. Everyone has helped the book see a peaceful and successful release.

Finally, I would sincerely thank you for buying this book! (TL Note: Heh, you guys better go buy it!)

Artist’s Afterword:

Thank you everyone for purchasing the ninth volume! (TL Note: Heh…again)

This volume has been Megumin’s turn to shine on the grand stage…! I’m actually really jealous of Kazuma!

Thanks to everyone’s support, a second season of the anime has been green-lit, and Megumin’s Bakuen (explosion) spin-off is getting manga!

When I think that the Konosuba series will continue on like this, my heart aches a little!

–Mishima Kurone

Short story published in GAMERS

An Occasional Cliche Story

That day.

After coming to this world, I finally encountered an anime like event.

“Hyaaa!?”

Darkness’ naked body was before me.

Yes, this is the so called ‘lucky pervert incident’.

“Hey, why didn’t you lock the door. Let me be clear first, I am not in the wrong at all. After all, there is no need to knock before entering the bathroom in the day.”

After waking up early in the morning, I headed to the bathroom to wash off the sweat, and ran into Darkness who was taking her clothes off.

Well, we lived in this house for more than a year, so such things do happen.

Seeing how calm I was, Darkness was dumbfounded momentarily.

“Y-Y-You turn your head away! And don’t try to play it off so easily, I already told everyone that the lock to the bathroom is broken! And even if this is an accident, men have to apologize for seeing the skin of a maiden!”