My Favorite Isekai Adventure (Konosuba)

"Alright, that's the last one!"

Early the next morning, Aqua finished exorcising all the evil spirits and let out a long, satisfied sigh of relief.

"There really were a lot of them. In the blink of an eye, it's already dawn," Darkness said, looking at the sky outside.

Even so, Aqua was, as expected, an expert at dealing with undead monsters. She had managed to purify such a large mansion in a single night.

Satou Kazuma rubbed his swollen temples and looked at the doll still floating beside him. "Hey, Aqua, aren't you going to purify her too?"

"Why would you have such a terrifying thought? She's just a harmless little girl."

"You...!"

This is the same woman who howls and pounces like a hound when she sees a lich or an evil spirit, and now she's saying a ghost is a harmless little girl? Are you kidding me?

This is when you're supposed to do your goddess job and give her a blessing so she can be reincarnated!

"Alright, alright, don't say that," Kobayashi said, patting his shoulder. "Anna means no harm. She just likes listening to adventure stories. And I've already negotiated with her; she won't possess dolls to scare people anymore."

As if responding to his words, the doll in mid-air suddenly lost its gravity and fell onto his shoulder.

"Is that really the problem here..."

Kazuma was speechless.

He discovered that Kobayashi had taken the "out of sight, out of mind" principle to its absolute limit.

But, thinking about it carefully.

Anna was essentially a resident spirit (jibakurei). Having learned from Kobayashi how pitiful her life had been, Kazuma's own sympathy made him soften a little.

—As long as she didn't scare him in the middle of the night and make him wet his pants, it was fine.

"By the way, let's go report this to the Guild," Kazuma suddenly suggested.

Kobayashi raised an eyebrow. "In principle, that's the right thing to do. But why?"

"Because we can get the bounty!"

When they learned from Luna that the mansion was for sale, it had been clearly written that there was a reward for completing the quest. Even if it was just "meat on a toothpick" compared to the party's savings, nobody disliked money.

...Except maybe Daddy Ma.

"We can get the reward, and we might be able to find out the reason for the evil spirit infestation in Axel."

"You're right. Let's go check it out."

His words received the unanimous agreement of the party.

Kobayashi's strange gaze once again fell on Aqua. The idiot goddess, whose intuition was sharp, trembled slightly. She had a very bad feeling.

And this premonition was confirmed at the Guild.

"Regarding this case, the guild has already found out the reason for the sudden increase in evil spirits. There's a public cemetery in town, isn't there? I don't know if it was a prank or what, but someone set up a giant holy-attribute barrier around that cemetery. So the spirits that appeared there had nowhere to go and could only come into town and inhabit the empty houses."

As she continued to explain, Aqua began to "leak juice" (sweat). Her knees subconsciously buckled, and she tried to sneak away.

Kobayashi slammed a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't even think about running away."

"I-I'm sorry..." the idiot goddess apologized in a low voice.

Kazuma was stunned for a moment, then clearly thought of something.

He leaned in close and questioned her in a low voice, "Hey, you idiot Aqua. You know something, don't you? Spit it out."

"...Yes, yes." Aqua gave up trying to defend herself and confessed obediently, "Before, when Kobayashi wasn't here, didn't Wiz ask me to periodically go to the cemetery to guide the lost souls to heaven..."

"And you thought it was too troublesome, so you set up a holy barrier."

"Because, if there's no place for the spirits to stay in the cemetery, won't they just naturally dissipate into the air?!"

The idiot goddess said this with complete self-righteousness.

But Kobayashi and Kazuma couldn't understand her amazing brain circuit at all.

"We can't accept the reward for this quest, then. Is that okay?"

"...Fine."

Aqua nodded, her face full of apology.

"And..."

Kazuma then looked at Kobayashi, who had turned his head and was whistling.

"Kobayashi-senpai."

"Wh-what?"

"You actually knew from the beginning that Aqua was the one who did this, which is why you were looking at her like that."

"It was just a guess. Anything related to evil spirits is usually related to Aqua."

The explanation was extremely far-fetched.

Even Darkness and Megumin wouldn't have believed that sentence, let alone Kazuma, whose intelligence was far superior to both of theirs.

"Wait, then if that's the case..."

Kazuma seemed to have discovered something. He said, "You knew it was Aqua's fault, yet you kept pushing down the price of that house, bought it for the lowest possible price, and then had the culprit, Aqua, who is already an expert at exorcisms, solve the problem. No matter how you look at it, isn't that just fra...?"

"Oh my! I can't let you say what comes next."

Kobayashi quickly covered his mouth, simultaneously using a louder voice to drown him out. After all, if he continued, he would be teaching the children bad habits.

"Kazuma-kun, this isn't some despicable method. In the adult world, which you don't know about, this kind of thing is very common."

"..."

"You see, it's just like when an adventurer 'teaches you the Steal skill while stealing your coin pouch, and then says, how about we play a game to see if you can steal this valuable dagger or this useless pebble from me.' The agent and I were just playing a common game of merchants. Of course, the end result was that I won."

Kazuma, who had been finding it hard to accept, was immediately able to accept it after Kobayashi reframed it.

"So in other words, you made a huge profit, senpai?"

"No, a small profit at best. Don't be fooled by how intensely we argued, or the defeated look on the agent's face at the end. In reality, he didn't lose much. Plus the added value of restoring his reputation, he was the one who actually made the big profit."

"How could that be..."

Kazuma remembered the agent's look, like that of a defeated rooster. Was that all an act?

"That's why I said, you still have a lot to learn."

Kobayashi patted his shoulder.

Even if he was a born merchant, just like a talented child who hasn't started learning, Kazuma, who hadn't absorbed the relevant knowledge, didn't yet understand all the ins and outs.

Of course, Kobayashi would also do his best not to let him learn. If he really learned all of it, he would definitely become an even bigger scumbag than he already was.

After that, they moved all their things into the mansion and officially moved in.

It took the party an entire day.

In the evening.

Kobayashi was pulling weeds in a corner of the courtyard when someone called him from behind.

"Good evening, Kobayashi. Are you sweeping a grave?"

"Ah, it's Wiz."

The Lich maiden had arrived here at some point.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, I just came to see."

Wiz looked at the neat and clean tombstone he had tidied up, a smile on her face. "This way, she definitely won't be lonely."

"Yeah. I did promise her, after all."

He returned her smile.

After that, the two of them happily pulled weeds together, watering and cleaning the tombstone.

And on the tombstone, faint letters were carved, spelling out—Anna.

(End of Chapter)