Ah! How terrible it was! Darkness had escaped her family, intending to return here to this tavern so that she could reunite at last with her beloved party! She had expected to find them sitting here, lamenting her absence, Aqua doing something useless, Kazuma bullying her, Megumin inventing cute nicknames for things... Then they would turn, see her and rush at her with tearful eyes!
Instead they had kicked her to the curb and got some new party member! She could almost see them now, walking off and having adventures with a shadowy unknown figure. Some unknown adventurer that Darkness could easily see diving in front of Kazuma to take the hit.
<i>"Newbie-chan!"</i> Kazuma would yell, his voice filled with a sound that Darkness had rarely heard before: Genuine concern! <i>"I should have taken that hit!"</i>
"Bu-but I wanted Kazuma to be worried about my wellbeing!" Darkness protested.
<i>"Kukuku... Something like this?"</i> the new party member said, obviously bleeding from the mouth. <I>"It's nothing, I can take something like this."
"Ahhhh!"</i> Megumin would sigh. <i>"Hey, hey! You're really cool Newbie-chan! Much cooler than our old party member! Can I call you big sis?"</i>
"Ehhh? But - but I wanted someone as cute as Megumin to look up to me and call me big sis!" Darkness yelled.
<i>"I'll heal your wounds up right away!"</i> Aqua beamed. <i>"Ah... But since I wasted a lot of MP on water tricks, this is probably going to hurt a little."</i>
"Noooo! I want it to hurt a little!" Darkness cried, clutching at her sides, trapped in an endless pit of despair at how they were treating their new party member. It wasn't fair! It wasn't reasonable! It was... Really working for her, oooh her engine was fired up like never before!
"Um... Miss? You're trembling and making a funny face out in public," said the very real woman standing directly in front of Darkness. Intercutting into her delusion like a hot knife through butter.
"Ah, sorry! How embarrassing!" Darkness said. Then squirmed. Oooh, the humiliation of acting like this in public. That was a nice cherry on top of the cake. The mystery woman in front of her drew her glasses down to the edge of her pretty little nose and quirked an eyebrow.
At this time Darkness regarded the woman in front of her a bit more seriously. She knew that she had quite the body, but this woman put even her to shame. She was wearing a business suit that it looked like she was poured into. Nothing too revealing - the skirt went well below the knees and there wasn't even a hint of neckline. But still! Something about the body underneath screamed 'obscene'.
"I should introduce myself," the woman said. "I'm a businesswoman looking to set up a new store in town. You know the sort, a few magical trinkets here and there? Accessories for women adventurers. Allowing you to look stylish while giving you stat boosts for low, low prices."
<hr>
Although Darkness did not realise it, the woman she was speaking to was in fact the head succubus of the secret shop that catered to low level adventuring men. Out on a rare walk in public, knowing for a fact that a certain troublesome Goddess was not around to spot her for what she truly was. Then, encountering a member of the party that was causing her such concern of late.
"Let me guess, you're the sort to have trouble finding a party aren't you?" the succubus said. Darkness, of course, vehemently refused this possibility before meekly answering honestly.
"I- I suppose I may have some difficulty in that area..." she said.
The Boss grinned and reached into her pocket, physically charming into existence a third corrupting item. A little sleight of hand combined with genuine magic, making something actually supernatural seem totally normal. A reverse magic trick if you will. In this case she pulled out a bracelet and offered it to Darkness.
"Here, this is a freebie," Boss said. "This bracelet automatically grants you the 'scan attack' ability. At a glance, you'll be able to spot the attack power of anyone you look at. A warrior like you with a skill like this is bound to make you more useful to a party, right? You'll be able to prioritise who to attack first right away!"
"Ahhhhh!" Darkness squealed. "I- I can use it to find the biggest, baddest hitter around? I can - I can use it to ensure that each and every attack that hits me does the ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-maximum amount of damage?!"
That was too many 'ma's! All in a row! What was with this woman! Why did such a thing make her drool, and why - oooh, she felt heady all of a sudden. That was funny, this never normally happened unless she drank from a woman's lustful aura. Which she was very careful not to do. Unless this Darkness woman was giving off such a perverse intention that merely standing in her presence forced her to absorb it by sheer difusion!
"I... suppose you could use it that way," she admitted. Well, in truth the item did a touch more than that. Using it long term would introduce a voyeuristic streak within the girl. Aha! Like this she had managed to place corrupting items on all three of the Goddess's party members! In time each of them would surrender to their lusts without even knowing what had happened in the first place!
Well, that's a nice plan... But would things really turn out that way? Only time would tell.
<hr>
It was almost depressing how easily he recognised the symptoms of PGFSD (post giant frog stress disorder), but Kazuma could see it plain as day on the trembling, twitching and wide eyed face of his newest party member. Now he well and truly could welcome her to the team.
"We should keep going in case something else shows up," Kazuma said. He moved to the front of the party. Normally she would be the stealthiest, but right now it was up to him to lead the way.
"There there," Aqua said, patiently and soothingly rubbing the thief on her back while helping her along. "It's okay. The mean frog is dead."
"We understand your pain all too well," Megumin added, standing to the thief's other side and mimicking Aqua's motion. The only difference here was that she was gradually regaining even more mana from being in direct contact with another woman. In fact, with Aqua on the other side the mana increase shot up even more. With which Megumin felt something akin to the feeling you get on drinking a hot coffee on a cold winter's night. She unconsciously stepped closer while saying "there there!" in a reassuring tone of voice.
Overall Kazuma would have found this scene to be quite touching. If not for the fact it was helping her recover from being almost eaten alive by a giant frog.
Anyway! The best thing for them to do right now was to keep quiet and try to avoid monsters until their party was ready to tackle another lot. To that end Kazuma crept ahead and peeked around a corner. Right! There were some monsters over there, and they were coming this way. He held out his arm, silently signalling to his party to stop. They'd have to go back, there had been a little alcove in the wall over there they could hide in until the monsters passed by. They couldn't risk fighting at least until their thief had -
"Oooh shiny!"
- Recovered.
Kazuma slowly turned around. He didn’t want to turn around, perhaps if he didn’t see it it wouldn’t happen. Alas, such a convenient wish will never be granted, so he turned around. The sight before his eyes was a certain sneaky thief crawling out through a window towards a shiny object
"Solona, wait!" Kazuma hissed. If anything this seemed to hurry her on. He looked around at the other two - somehow Aqua had tripped and landed on top of Megumin. Useless Goddess as ever! "Solona! No!"
"Solona yes!" was her answer. She grabbed hold of the shiny thing. On closer inspection it was... some kind of golden staff with a busty naked woman sitting on top of it. A staff that was being held by... A tiny little monster in a pinstripe suit.
"Da hell you punks doing with my bling?!"
A tiny monster with a disproportionately large head, smoking a pipe and with a chain wrapped around its neck. It had a device that looked like a machine gun strapped to its waist, but... it couldn't be a machine gun. It was not a machine gun.
"Hey, hey Kazuma!" Aqua yelled. (Yes, yes, I am Kazuma!) "What do you think you're doing, getting the attention of that ugly little monster!"
"Ugly li'l monstah!" the ugly little monster yelled. Solona finally managed to wrest the staff from his hand and then proceeded to... lick it sensuously. "Hey, don't you go gettin' yo drool all over ma bling!"
It was a bad sign that this was in the bottom ten of a list of the most absurd things to happen to him since coming here. Right? That was a bad sign wasn't it?
"I'ma lick you, see you how youz like it!" the monster yelled, leaping up to face level and extending a tongue that was bigger than its entire body, and then licking Solona alllll over her face. It was quite the sight. In one moment her face was showing joy at having found something shiny. In the next, her face was obscured by monster tongue. And then she was showing quite a different expression of total disgust.
It almost seemed as though the joy had been licked right off Solona's face.
"T-twice in one day!" Solona yelped. "Tongue... why tongues? First the frog and now - And now!"
"Who da hell are you guys anyhow?" the monster demanded, pointing its gaudy staff right at Kazuma, Megumin and the Goddess of Useless. "What you bitches doing in ma castle?"
"Tremble, servant of darkness!" Megumin suddenly yelled, interrupting Kazuma's thought process before he could even begin to think of a valid excuse. "You stand in the presence of those who have slain the former owner of this cursed abode! Through wit, through will, through the penultimate power of teamwork and the ultimate power of the Explosion spell we prevailed over the mighty Dullahan -"
"Who da hell is Dullahan meant ta be? Some kinda big shot?"
"... pffftt!" Aqua barely stifled a laugh. "The ugly little monster hasn't even heard of one of the -" And she was interrupted by a flying piece of wood that sent her knocked on her barely covered ass. Apparently the little guy had quite the throwing arm.
"Ahm the big bad 'round these here parts! And I reckon you guys are trespassers! Looters! Thieves!"
Kazuma sighed. He hated it when the accusations were dead on. Still, if this little guy was the 'big bad around these here parts' then they didn't have too much to worry about after all. While he ranted, while he raved, while he threatened Kazuma simply drew back his foot and punted him hard into the nearby wall.
"Now that's taken care of, let's -"
"Rebound!" the monster yelled just before hitting the wall. It started to glow in a clearly magical light, then reacted to the wall much like a tennis ball might have. If that tennis ball was able to completely ignore Newton's third law by coming back with even harder force than it struck the wall with!
"Ball destroyer!" the monster yelled, and all of a sudden Kazuma was eternally grateful that he had been granted the gift of a damage reducing item. Still, an attack such as this may not have killed him. It left him dearly wishing he was dead, but it had not killed him. It also left him wondering, if this was only half damage then what the hell would the full hit have felt like? As it was, he couldn't even whimper in pain. He could not shout. He could not move. Ah, no. That was a lie. He could move. He could sink to his knees, and his tear ducts were still working fine.
But his suffering was not yet done with.
"Bookcase slamma!"
For now he had been hit by some kind of spell that seemed to work as a direct impulse shot. It send him flying back, hitting a wall at quite literally breakneck speed. Luckily, again, only half the health points he would have normally taken were actually removed this time. It still hurt like the dickens. To the point that he actually internally used the phrase "hurt like the dickens" unironically. And then the bookcase landed on his face.
All in all, he'd gone from full HP to 1HP in a matter of seconds.
Or to put it another way: Ow!
"Kazuma, Kazuma!" Megumin yelled, clearly concerned for his well being as she rushed to his side.
"Yes, yes... I am Kazuma..." he replied. "Megumin... You must... avenge my balls!"
"Alright!" Megumin sniffed. "Aqua, Solona and I shall avenge your balls!"
"No... Don't let Aqua... avenge my balls..." Kazuma begged from underneath the bookcase. "Somehow... she will only make it worse."
Separately from Kazuma's suffering, dear reader, one must consider: That was a lot of damage, wasn't it? A most fortunate thing for him that he'd had that item granted to him by the succubus, or he'd have to be revived. Again.
Still... It did release quite a lot of lust energy into the surroundings. Which makes this quite the unusual event. Usually a nut shot like this does not raise the level of arousal in those who bear witness to it. And usually when it <i>does</i>, there's a content warning hanging around somewhere. Though - curiously enough - there is usually a tiny irate figure wearing a pinstripe suit and talking in an indistinguishable accent somewhere in the vicinity. Funny how it works out like that.
- Time for an actual boss battle?
- Darkness reaches the castle, will she find the party?
- Darkness winds up getting caught up in her own misadventures in the city.
- Meanwhile, Wiz discovers the Succubus Shop.
- Something else
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