A Sense of Wonder
Kazuma's eyes fluttered open with a hiss of sudden pain. His right hand lashed out without thinking and caught the bare foot about to strike him.
Half-asleep, he peeked out from his covers and looked at Aqua.
She was already dressed in - for the most part - her normal clothes, or maybe she'd slept in them. Kazuma didn't know, as he went to sleep at exactly twenty o'clock, managing to do so within the demanding bounds of Slumber's Affliction only because it was the first thing Aqua worked on.
He glanced at and disinterestedly noted the blue nail polish on her toes, then looked up at the goddess in question. "What are you doing?"
"I've been trying to wake you up for half an hour!" she complained. He felt a throb of storming anger rise within him, but listened her out. "Some mail came for you, from a 'Wiz.'"
His self-probing sense informed him that he was still a good thirty minutes away from completing his dues to the Affliction for today.
The curse was merciful enough already; going to sleep at eight o'clock in the evening, and waking at ten o'clock in the morning, then repeating that? It wasn't the most prudent lifestyle, but it was actually manageable.
"I don't know any Wiz." Kazuma decided not to give Aqua's foot a threatening squeeze, and let it go freely instead. Despite his own grievances with the goddess, he didn't want her to feel unnecessary pain. At least for now. "Don't wake me up unless our lives are literally in danger. Do you know what literally means?"
"Um." The clueless girl tapped her chin. "Yeah... it means when you... uh..."
Kazuma sighed impatiently and decided to rephrase that into terms as simple as could be. "Aqua. Unless someone or something is nearby, and that someone or something wants to kill us or harm us, don't wake me up until it's ten in the morning."
He inclined his head seriously, starting to feel the digging eddies of a headache accumulating in his cranium. Kazuma rubbed his eyes and continued at a half-moan, half-tired proclamation, "I mean that. Seriously. Okay?"
"F-fine." She looked to the side, clearly embarrassed she couldn't explain what the word meant. "Can I go take a look at the quests while you finish sleeping?"
Kazuma blanked at that for a moment. Expedience? From the goddess?
The boy tossed himself to the side, pulling up the covers and waving her off. "Sure. Whatever. Just let me sleep." This would end badly, he knew. With an incompetent like this and a helping of pure, bottled Misfortune, it could only end that way.
He also didn't care.
Aqua put on her stockings and boots, then left with a chipper joy. Kazuma, meanwhile, fixed his position and placed one hand closer to the space in front of his face. He started to focus back on the task of going back to his dream of being a popular superhero and defeating the evil Doctor Apocalypse.
Then, Kazuma felt an odd aroma. His face scrunched up in quiet confusion, and then scrunched up more. Kazuma's eyes opened in suspicion as he smelled his own hand.
Aqua already left, so he didn't have anyone ask except himself, "Did she step in toothpaste and not notice, or something? Damn it, I'll have to wash this."
Tiredly, like a zombie, he got out of the bed, stepped on a patch of flooring where the carpet had been cut out at some point, and then slipped on the marble-smooth surface underneath. Kazuma slid forward half a meter, stumbled, managed to retake control just as he was in the bathroom's doorway, and then slipped on the same toothpaste clump that Aqua stepped into, causing him to fly comically and land in the bathtub that was still draining from the goddess' earlier gussying. The sudden, wet, iciness woke him up like a shot of obsidian caffeine on a clear morning, completely nullifying any intention of going back to sleep.
"I should have asked her to mitigate it directly," he mused calmly, adamant not to let this bother him.
The shampoo bottle, upset by the vibrations, fell over. Its cap flew off, the bottleneck coming to a stop just on the very ledge of the shelf above Kazuma's head. An entire half-liter of costly shampoo that he paid for by the milliliter poured down on top of his head and wet clothes.
Kazuma's fists clenched.
No.
With inflexible resolve, burning like a ruby-phoenix ascending, he refused to let this bother him.
After getting out of the bathtub and washing his hands, he utilized a liberal application of Tinder in order to dry himself and his clothes, then Wind Breath as an impromptu hairdryer. It mostly worked and he was fine in moments.
He also smelled like a half-liter of luxuriant shampoo that contained powdered holy quartz in it.
Kazuma wondered briefly, if he'd be able to return to sleep and continue battling Apocalypse, or if he should do the smart thing and surrender that half-hour. Surely, the curse wouldn't be that heartless if it was just a piddly thirty minutes?
No, wait. That's the kind of spineless thinking that led me to becoming a herbivore!
With fear, Kazuma observed the room to ensure the Affliction didn't have any more space to injure him or his ego.
Once he was confident nothing would interfere, he leaped and gently landed in the bed.
The legs of which snapped under the minuscule force of his drop a second later.
With an inner cringe, Kazuma muttered, "I guess I'll add the ten thousand Eris for bed repair to my debt list." Then he went back to sleep.
Once Kazuma was done with his share of slumber - it had been offset only a ten minutes due to Aqua's puerile whinging and the subsequent bathroom surprise - he stood up and clad himself in the adornments of his daily adventurer's outfit. He looked at the letter on the drawer, and decided to read it before he'd gone out.
The letter was addressed to him, and came from a person who called themselves Wiz. Suddenly, a flood of memories came to Kazuma.
The woman at the counter looked at Kazuma with a half-sneer for a moment, before smiling with politeness. "Hello! Welcome to Wiz's Magic Shop! What can I help you with, sir?" On pure, reflexive male instinct he glanced at her chest and noted with feeble approval that its contents were more than a little enticing.
Kazuma looked around blankly. "Um. Well, I'm just looking around."
It was like some universal force was screaming at him to get out and not buy anything or else he would die in a fire, some two weeks down the line. That screaming was surprisingly insistent and, to his displeasure, surprisingly explicit in its threat: his brain kept playing that hypothetical scenario on repeat.
Him, under a pile of logs, screaming and burning in agony.
"Would you like some tea, so you can think about what you'd like to buy?" the busty lady offered.
"No," he answered, choosing to heed Fortune's wisdom. Kazuma stepped back out, in the direction of the exit. "Send me a letter and I'll come later. I'm busy right now."
"Sir, please-! Y-You can have this for free! And this! Just come and buy something once in a while!"
Right. He recalled taking a handful of items, at her own insistence, and then running away.
Burning under a pile of logs - what a terrible scenario. It sounded like a complete pain, so Kazuma started to consider avenues for preemptively not putting up with it. He looked up at the ceiling and made humming noises to himself as he considered and plotted.
Could he burn the letter and pretend it never came? No. It came from a magic shop. That woman's probably a Wizard, or worse, an Arch Wizard. If the letter was compromised she'd know.
Could he pretend it never reached? No. She'd probably send more, requesting frequent updates. It sounded like something the Affliction might lead to, or, worse perhaps, like something the average shopkeeper in these parts might do. She looked truly desperate for a buyer, which suggested her business wasn't doing too well.
Kazuma picked up the letter and sighed. The headache from earlier had fallen away for the most part when he slept through the remaining length of the curse, but now it was like it came back in force and crystallized.
I guess I'm drinking tea with a strange lady whose products don't sell. We'll see how this goes...
Kazuma folded the letter neatly and then put it into his pocket. As he vacated the room and locked it behind himself, Kazuma looked down and made a note of the fact the stairs that led down to the reception were perilously wooden.
Wood.
A material that is known for rotting, and becoming weaker over time. Unlike metal, which retained the same rough flexibility and strength over the years, wood could be goaded into a state of higher destructibility as time went on.
"I should apply serious caution when using the stairs," he said, and then internalized that knowledge as best as he could. It would be absolutely critical as the victim of the Affliction of Misfortune. There was a twofold path to combating the Affliction as a curse: having more luck than the amount of misery it could apply, or...
Kazuma gently leaped over the stairs, pockets anchored to his lower body producing enough force to transition a relatively peak-human jump into a smooth, superhuman glide. It cost him less than one-tenth of his mana pool to do that for a second.
He briefly self-queried for how long they'd be staying at this hotel specifically. If it was any longer than a week, he might need to offer the hotel manager to fix the stairs and make them sturdier. He wasn't sure if he could do that, but surely he'd be able to afford a renovation once he performed some actual work.
Kazuma sighed, then walked out onto the streets of Axel.
Above, the sun shone down like a golden disk, scattering its radiance throughout the skies. Despite that, the air was cool, brisk, and almost palpably sweet to breathe, like there was some regulative force interfering with any possibility of the weather bothering the citizens even in the slightest.
He supposed that such a possibility shouldn't be discounted, as Advanced Magic allegedly included some forms of weather control. A magus who focused on those vistas sufficiently might be able to reliably perform the spell on a city-wide scale in order to create an idyllic atmosphere, encouraging healthy growth and hard work. It was doubly perfect for a location of import such as Axel.
Other than using up the hour of bottled luck, Kazuma spent the yesterday on some important tasks. One of them was, obviously, the arduous curse-mitigation session after he'd revealed his nature as a Cursebearer to Aqua. The other, more problematic was his search for reliable information on the Demon King.
There was, in fact, a priest willing to explain the broad strokes to him at the Church of Eris down in the temple district of Axel, completely free. The explanation was problematic because it seemed like each historical Demon King possessed a gift not dissimilar to the nature of a Progression-type Cursebearer, if on a smaller level.
A deadly example of this effect was that, while there was a reigning Demon King, monstrous creatures would keep randomly popping up worldwide, and they would only become stronger, larger, and more deadly over time. Already, some of the adventurers near the capital, Warthford, were being overwhelmed with what official and reliable reports claimed to be, 'entire flocks of drakes,' and an entire sept of dragons roosting in the areas near the heartlands. The Demon King himself also only became more powerful over time, therefore reducing the likelihood of him being killed as the weeks stretched on.
It made sense that he was fighting the war through defense and subversion. The Demon King's castle boasted the most powerful shielding spell known to the world. Everything had been desperately tried in order to breach it: artillery magic, dragon-slaying blades, aerial bombardments, and even spatial warping.
Nothing worked. There wasn't an effect in existence that could get through without the Demon King's permission. The shield was maintained by his Generals, and most of those stayed in the castle, aside from the ones who'd been deployed to Belzerg and the other countries to act as subversive elements and saboteurs.
One such Demon General was Beldia, known as the Dullahan. He was a high-ranking undead leader in the Demon Army, and the military reported that some of his forces had been observed making movements near Axel as recently as three days ago.
If he was meant to slay the Dullahan first, then meaning needed to go and fuck off. Kazuma didn't feel ready to go hunting someone with a reported kill-count of thousands.
Kazuma started to wander down the street with no particular direction in mind. Partly, he wanted to reach the Adventurer's Guild and see which impossible, life-threatening, and ethically dubious quest that idiot of a goddess picked. He didn't really have the money to go, have tea, and buy weird items from a busty shopkeeper.
But as Kazuma wandered, a fellow Japanese boy approached him. The other boy wore a tracksuit in black and white colors.
"Hey, I'm Natsuki Subaru and I can r-" Suddenly, he seized as if experiencing a mini-heart attack. It was over in less than a full second, faster than Kazuma's wide eyes could blink. "Worth a try. I'm Natsuki Subaru and I'm also Japanese. I'd like to join your party. I have available, a Unique Class known as Time Traveler, which I am not currently using, but which I think you might want to know. I also know Yin Magic, which no one else does. It's highly useful for creating distactions or limiting an opponent's senses."
"Wow. Okay." Kazuma's emotions changed several times throughout that protracted explanation. At first, he was disturbed, then attentive, and then fascinated, only to become surprised and, finally, pleased. "You realize approaching a guy whose name you don't even know in the middle of the street to do something like this is suspicious?"
"I know your name. You're Satou Kazuma, the new Arch Wizard," the other Japanese boy argued confidently, and for some reason, Kazuma felt as if this Subaru guy was following a strict, predetermined scenario; a script. "Everyone was pretty loud about it yesterday."
"Okay." Kazuma chose to accept that, albeit with some suspicion. It made sense that odd, powerful types would desire to clump together in order to derive maximized profits from their complete ability sets, but this level of eagerness, so fast... This guy was either extremely desperate, or extremely shrewd. "So... Yin Magic? What's your Class?"
"Cardinal," Subaru answered. There was a sudden cut-off on his voice, brief and imperceptible. It was like the word 'Cardinal' was toned to have something after it.
"Cardinal?" Kazuma blinked. "Cardinal of what?"
Subaru looked to the side, as if dissatisfied. "Cardinal of Sin."
Kazuma blinked again.
Well. That was suspicious as heck.
He was actually tempted to let him come along. Aqua attested that if Kazuma got into too much danger, she'd be able to resurrect him so long as she found his body. Furthermore, even if that failed, Kazuma had that time loop remaining, even if it felt kind of like a waste. Still, it wasn't his choice to make.
"Well, I've actually got a teammate-"
"I already asked Aqua-san about it this morning," Subaru interrupted. He smoothly withdrew a leather coinpurse and pushed it into Kazuma's right hand. "She agreed. Here's the 50,000 Eris entry fee you're about to ask."
Wow. Kazuma was actually going to do that. "Why didn't you pick Time Traveler?" Kazuma finally asked. "If you have a power that lets you go back in time, wouldn't it be best to work on that?"
"No. For reasons I cannot disclose, that would be impractical," Subaru explained. He looked down the street, nervously. "Furthermore, I suggest we move for the Adventurer's Guild. We have only sixteen minutes."
"Until what?" Kazuma started walking, kind of worried.
He was self-aware enough to be able to assemble a basic perspective for what it'd be like if he were Subaru. It was clear the boy accompanied them in some kind of alternate future timeline, enjoying a power similar to Kazuma's own Remittance-granted time leap, although he appeared to be unable to talk about it directly. It was only through inference from the Time Traveler Class that Kazuma was able to realize that fact, as well as the true nature of the boy's power.
Subaru looked down, then sighed. "Aqua is going to make some mistakes."
Kazuma felt his teeth grinding on each other. "Of course she is."
---
Elsewhere, the Goddess of Water, worshipped across the world by her reverent Axis Cult, Aqua was tapping her chin with one finger and looking at the corkboard that displayed a number of requests and delivery contracts available to adventurers.
After Kazuma met her at the fountain, he took the remaining four thousand Eris from her, and then handed back a thousand so she could register at the Adventurer's Guild.
She picked her job as Archpriest, of course, and enjoyed much appreciation for it, with people cheering and clapping even from a good distance away. Even down here, she was recognized for her awesomeness!
She wanted to be helpful, however, so she needed to select a good quest so Kazuma wouldn't complain.
An older adventurer approached her side. Aqua looked at him. "Do you need help choosing, young lady?"
He was at least in his fifties, with graying hair and a short mustache. His striking eyes were the color of midnight, like deeply charbroiled coals, and his skin tone suggested that he was Japanese. Aqua briefly pondered how long people were being reincarnated into this world - if he was a reincarnated person, rather than one of their descendants, he would've been sent prior to her administration as Japan's exclusive psychopomp for people who died young.
"Um. Yeah. I need something easy to do for me and a-" she considered the use of the word 'friend' and found it inappropriate, instead selecting, "-a, um, um..." Confusion. The dumb goddess selected confusion as her answer.
The old man laughed jovially. "I understand. You've started a party, and now you're wandering around, unsure what to do? We get a lot of people like that."
Aqua blinked. What an absurdly rude man. He was comparing her to the masses? Super-rude, but it would be rude-er to argue with him over it.
She didn't like arguing. When Aqua tried to argue with someone, it ended up with them calling her a bitch, and then she always cried, and she hated crying. Instead, she remained stonefaced on the precipice of this rude man's verbal onslaught.
"If you'd like some good starting work, that can also serve as decent exercise, I suggest the Construction Guild! They often lease starting adventurers to do work near the walls. Expansions, given the war and such," the man explained at a calm pace, eyes widening slowly as if he were introducing her to his religion. "It pays rather well, and you get to work your body into shape. It's useful for a rookie like you!"
"I'll take that under consideration," Aqua said icily. "And I'll inform my partner of it, as well."
Clearly detecting the aura of malice, the man stepped away then excused himself.
Good. She had nearly half a mind to batter some politeness into him! Comparing her to peasantry? How outrageous. Although she had to confess that wall-building job sounded interesting, she was always good at architecture and- and- and she liked crafts!
Aqua blushed to herself, hand raising to cover her cheeks. It was so embarrassing for a goddess to actually enjoy any sort of non-cerebral work rather than handing it off to angelic servants.
She removed the - non-literal - water from her head with a resolute shake, then focused back on the quests on offer.
Oh, there was a good one! Aqua reached for the corkboard but found her wrist being stopped by a vicelike grip. Kazuma, who wasn't there a half-second ago, looked at the quest announcement with a frown, then said, "No, Aqua."
"Why not?" She tilted her head to the side. "It looks pretty good. It pays like, five-hundred thousand!"
"It also involves giving the Guild permission to literally penalize us with twice that amount if we accept and then turn in the quest unfinished," Kazuma refuted sternly, looking at her with an iron glare. "And we're rookies, Aqua. I do not think fighting something called a 'rookie killer,' is the smartest idea for us."
Aqua frowned, then looked back. "Oi, Subaru! You're the one who dragged him in here, aren't you!?"
"Leave Subaru out of this," Kazuma said. He snapped her wrist towards himself, forcing her to step forward to balance herself. This brought their faces dangerously close. Aqua found her eyes wandering into his own, and finding nothing but twin verdant orbs of promised violence in there. She wilted internally. "Never accept a quest without our permission, do you understand? Especially if it has stipulations like those."
Aqua nodded demurely. Kazuma let go of her wrist, then looked at Subaru. "Thanks for the save. Are you good on equipment?"
Subaru, despite being clad in nothing but a tracksuit and having no weapon, nodded with a level of confidence and outright excitement that Kazuma found profoundly terrifying, especially given the descriptions of some of the monsters in the area. "Yeah. I'm rather good, actually."
"Alright," Kazuma said. He turned around to face the Guild's noticeboard. There were at least six dozen quests that he could quantify with a bare glance, but more than a half of those were untenable to a party of their level, class, and expertise. Even as a Cursebearer with some potent toys at his disposal, Kazuma wasn't confident that he could take down, a 'One-Hit Bear.' The description and drawing on the request stated it was the size of a house and chopped down errant trees with a mere swipe of its almighty paw.
The fauna in this world definitely wasn't growing on him. Especially since, according to the cabbage merchant, all vegetables in this world lived as if they were animals. Upon their gestation being finished, they'd unburrow from the ground and seek to spread themselves across the world. This was both helpful and detrimental, for various reasons.
Seriously, they call this a jovial adventure? A dalliance of a season? An innocent dive into the life of magic and exploration?
The more Kazuma kept hearing about this place, the more it became hard to think of it as anything less than an S-Class Death World he'd been consigned to.
With a shuddering breath, he reached for one of the easier quests:
---
What is the quest that Kazuma selected? Pick one that looks promising! All of these quests are expected to take an entire day to complete, and Kazuma has picked them out to match your party size (minimal or recommended party size of "at least 3," etc.)
[ ] Exterminate 5 Giant Toads
Giant Toads have started their mating season. Get rid of them. The Guild handles the corpse transportation, the materials will be sold and a fee will be distributed.
*Type: Extermination
*Time Limit: 3 days
*Reward: 50,000 Eris + 10,000 Eris bonus for each toad slain
*Risk: >0.5% risk of death or significant injury, 99% chance of humiliation
[ ] Slay the Killer Rabbit
A horse-sized rabbit with a giant carrot as a weapon has been going around threatening merchants. Go kill it.
*Type: Direct Evil Confrontation
*Time Limit: 2 days (urgent)
*Reward: 200,000 Eris
*Risk: 8-11% risk of death or significant injury
[ ] Gourmet Food Tasting
A newly-graduated alchemist wants volunteers to test new food recipes that utilize alchemical compounds to enhance the flavor. He'll want opinions.
*Type: Community Outreach
*Time Limit: 2 days
*Reward: 50,000 Eris
*Risk: 0% risk of death, 1-2% of food poisoning, 80% chance of humiliation
[ ] Patrol the Countryside
Rumors of movements from the Demon King Army are spreading. We'd like to verify their accuracy. Patrol the countrside to the west of Axel and submit a full report.
*Type: Patrol
*Time Limit: 1 day
*Reward: 90,000 Eris
*Risk: >0.5% risk of death or significant injury
[ ] Protect the Succubus Business
The local business that provides pleasant dreams to its clients is expecting a break-in from a gentleman thief soon enough. Set up some security measures and protect it.
*Type: Protection Order
*Time Limit: 1 day
*Reward: 215,000 Eris
*Risk: >0.5% risk of death or significant injury
[ ] Collect the Tranquility Fruit
A local alchemist needs a Tranquility Fruit in order to complete his collection of exotic foods.
*Type: Bounty Hunt
*Time Limit: 5 days
*Reward: 650,000 Eris
*Risk: <25% risk of death or significant injury; a Tranquility Fruit can only be gathered from a Tranquility Girl, and those are known to be very dangerous monsters. Their powers can, however, be circumvented through the Circlet of Insight which Kazuma obtained, and through his own mental resistance as a Cursebearer.
[ ] Investigate the Broken Cabbage Stand
The city watch does not have the resources to spare for this investigation. A cabbage merchant's stand was vandalized in the night and he wants to know who did it.
*Type: Investigation
*Time Limit: 5 days
*Reward: 50,000 Eris
*Risk: >0.5% risk of death or significant injury
[ ] Explore the Dragon's Sulfur Mountain Dungeon
A new dungeon appeared recently after some earthquakes. Investigate and map it out for future adventurers.
*Type: Dungeon Exploration
*Time Limit: 10 days
*Reward: 1,500,000 Eris
*Risk: Unknown
In addition, select your approach to dealing with Wiz.
[ ] Screw Her (Not Literally) - Nah, son.
[ ] I Like What She's Got - Go over for tea and buy some trinkets.
