A familiar humiliation.

After Megumin had cut up a bunch of items requested by people, and was asked to test out the sword further by the guild, Kazuma got shanghaied into going with Megumin out of town... Though not before smacking Cremea upside the head and telling her in no uncertain terms to go find Darkness and apologize for the stunt she had pulled. "I still can't believe that you of all people were chosen by the blade..." Kazuma grumbled. "You're supposed to be an Arch Mage!"

"Yeah, but with a sword like this, I can now help the party out without being exhausted afterwards!" Megumin replied.

"You could do that if you just continued to practice Fireball instead of sticking to the bare minimum with it," Kazuma deadpanned. "It's the only spell you know besides Explosion, and I needed the Sex Note's ability to exert some control over you to get you to learn it... And every time I see you mentally struggle with it, I legitimately feel bad..." Indeed, Megumin's nose was bleeding as she considered using Fireball again... Yeah, he was seriously considering giving up that angle...

"Regardless!" Megumin stated, pointing ahead, and Kazuma looked to see more of those toads. "I shall now have some more revenge against these toads as I test my new blade! Have at thee!" she cried, rushing towards the toads.

"Hey, don't be reckless!" Kazuma shouted after her, before deciding to let it be. They were just giant toads, and Megumin had an amazing sword, against all reason. She should be able to handle this easily.

He then turned away from the expected carnage, and blinked as he saw one of the guild staff running up to him. "Kazuma-san, there you are!"

"What's up?" Kazuma asked the guild worker.

"Um... We found something else in Shack's safehouse, his notes, and discovered the sword's secret in them..."

"...secret?" Kazuma asked, not sure where this was going.

"It turns out, anyone can technically use it!" the woman explained. "It doesn't choose a master!"

"...what?" Kazuma blinked. "How the hell could that be? No one else could cut Bunbun, and yet, when Megumin had it, she cut everything that was given to her as a challenge!"

"Er, well, you see... Apparently, it uses mana to cut, and the more you have, the better it cuts... But it only cuts non living things! So everyone who tested it against the pet failed, and when Megumin cut the chain instead..."

"So it wasn't absurd skill that let Shack cut the clothes off without harming the victims?" Kazuma blinked. "Damn, not so impressive anymore... wait... So trying to use it against a monster..." Kazuma trailed off, slowly turning around... And saw Megumin's legs hanging out of one of the toad's mouth. Great... Better go save her...

...

"This is my punishment for straying from the path of the Explosion!" Megumin declared as they were back home, having just cleaned off the slime. "Never again, you hear me!? Never!"

"...fine, I'll stop asking you to use Fireball," Kazuma sighed. As important as getting Megumin to be more versatile was... It just wasn't worth making her miserable. Oh well. At least finding out why the sword had actually worked for Megumin made his world make some sense again. Some.