Kazuma writes in Aqua's name, but...

When it came to the most annoying member of his party, there really was no contest. Aqua, the so-called Goddess of Water, had been a thorn in his side ever since his **** in the world he was born in. Her skills were consistently useless, but she was the neediest and had the biggest ego. She ruined every quest they went on. She was whiny. She was rude. She was greedy. She was weaselly. She was as dumb as a brick. As far as Kazuma was concerned, her nice body... No, screw that! From the end of the very first day, he'd realized that her outer beauty was so thoroughly eclipsed by her inner twistedness, it was totally negated. Aqua's good looks were like a drop of pure water in a spit bucket. The only thing making him hesitate in his choice was that he had perverted stuff on his mind, and he knew that if he picked Aqua, he'd practically need to rebuild her from the ground up in order to squeeze out a single drop of sexual satisfaction.

Still, the chance to see her humiliated and brought down a peg was irresistible. The difficult task of getting off to her in any situation was a problem, but he wouldn't have to solve that right away: he had every intention of keeping this script thing covert and letting it play out as long as he wanted. Maybe he'd start by turning Aqua into an entirely different person, someone who could actually help the party and not be a burden on this world. Or, maybe he'd spend every day heaping new humiliations on her, only to turn her back to normal with all of her memories but without a clue for a new round the next morning. "The possibilities are only limited by my imagination," he muttered to himself with a smug smirk.

The young man took one glance over his shoulder. Good. Aqua was performing party tricks, none the wiser to the fact that her name had just been scrawled onto the cover of Kazuma's tool of **** in big, vengeful letters. Nobody was paying attention to him... Now was the perfect time...

But not the perfect place. After all, he'd just announced that he had a magic script that could make changes to reality. He wasn't dumb enough to just start using it in front of everyone... Then again, he also wasn't patient enough to wait and use it tomorrow, after everyone had forgotten it as a funny joke they'd heard while drunk. Seeing as he was mostly being ignored, he had a chance to sneak away. And seeing as he didn't have any food to abandon... "Sayonara, empty table."

The sneaky script-holder made his exit. By now, the sun had set, and the outside of the building was dark... All the better for his unscrupulous activities.

"Except, wait. This dark, unscrupulous corner is too dark. How am I gonna see what I'm writing?" As soon as Kazuma had that thought, he looked down at his script. Well, that was new... There was a strange, bright light coming from the pages. "Well, well! I did hear earlier that this thing had chosen me. I guess it even has some convenience features for its chosen champion. How handy!" Wearing a big, pleased smile, the "chosen champion" opened the bound script to its middle pages.

"Aqua performed Nature's Blessing for the tenth time to an audience which had seen it a thousand times, yet never tired of it. With an adoring crowd, a full belly, and an irresponsible fourth mug of bubbly, the Goddess was having a grand night. It didn't bug her one bit that Kazuma had mysteriously disappeared; she had a show to put on, and was none the wiser."

What Kazuma was reading sounded perfect for his stealth operation, but it was also getting on his nerves, being reminded of what a great night Aqua was having on account of her unusually productive day. There was something else bothering him, too... The light he'd expected would be making this reading simple was only lighting up the last words on the page, for some reason. All the light was packed into the back half of the book. Something about it felt off...

Kazuma supposed he'd better hurry. He looked onto the page, ignoring the words on the page about Aqua peeking towards the guild hall's window, seeing something, and excusing herself. Who cared what she was up to? All he wanted to do was write in the words. He'd write an entirely separate sentence.

Aqua chose to slap h e

For some reason, as soon as Kazuma had passed the word "chose," the words from the page had started to glow. The lights around him on the street had all come on. The light from the guild hall had joined him outside, too. The light of every lantern in town; The light conjured by every mage in this magical world; The light of the sun in the day; It felt like every light in the world had suddenly come together...

Straight into his eyes!

Kazuma no longer had any sense of the world around him. Touch, taste, smell, and sound had all vanished, and only eye-piercing light filled his brain. Just brilliant white light that didn't fade, no matter if he closed what felt like his eyelids, covered what felt like his eyes with what felt like ought to be his hands, buried what felt like his face into what he assumed was the dirt. It was like a flashbang from hell. It was like turning on light mode! It was like-

"The power of a Goddess." A cheeky, grating voice finally provided some sound to accompany the white that currently made up his world.

"A-A-Aqua! Oh my God, Aqua, help!! The Demon King... or something...! Anyway, heeelp!!!"

"Shouldn't that be 'Oh my Goddess, Aqua, please help?' If you want my help, you can try praying."

Kazuma fell to what felt like his knees, bowed what ought to be his head, and prayed. "Lady Aqua, oh, Lady Aqua! Pleeeease, save me!"

"Hmm... As a Goddess, I am forgiving. But I don't know if I'm so forgiving that I can forgive a trashy shut-in who'd try to control the very Goddess he ought to worship with some shady book. Let's see here... 'Aqua chose to slap her...' Slap her what, Kazuma? Go on. I'm handing you the script and the pen. Finish the sentence."

Still suffering, Kazuma felt around in the light. He managed to lay his hands on the items she was offering. He was still suffering, but... It was actually getting better? Like how a human's eyes adjusted to darkness, maybe they could also adjust to blinding light? He wasn't seeing any better, but it was far less painful. That said... something told him it could be useful to keep up an act, if for no other reason than to get the idiot Goddess he'd just prayed to off her guard. "L-L-Lady Aqua, oh great and beautiful Goddess I have always respected, oh Great Lady... How did you know I actually had a magic script? Nobody else believed me."

"Oh, that? Didn't I tell you I know you better than anyone? I know when you're just making shit up and when you're telling the truth. I was just waiting to watch your dumb plan backfire!"

"Oh, I see!" Kazuma declared, not seeing anything at all through the white curtain. "How wise, Great Lady Aqua, how wise! Now, oh noble and great Goddess... Aren't you supposed to be drunk as a skunk right now? Why do you sound sober?"

"Hmhm. An excellent question! Didn't you know that I can purify my bloodstream at any time? Perfect for when I want to be clear-headed to savor your downfall!"

"And yet you never sober up when it'd actually be useful...! Ahem, pray forgive my crude remark, oh great Goddess. I have but one final question. Pray, answer this foolish mortal. What the hell is this damn light? Does it ever turn off?!"

"Hehehe... Allow me to shed a little light on that one! That's my Divine Protection! Did you really think you could control me, a perfect, divine Goddess? My Divine Protection prevents anyone from controlling my mind or seeing my future, and it doesn't go off until I turn it off! Anyway, now that you've fallen for my clever trap, maybe I'll go inside and tell the whole guild hall what you were doing out here. Or, maybe you'll promise to pray to me properly from now on, treat me with the respect I deserve, shower me with gifts and praise, pay off all my debts, apologize for how you've treated me, and work properly to defeat the Demon King so I can finally go home?"

"Uhuh. Yes, oh Great Aqua, that's definitely going to happen."

This mistake was on him. Sometimes, Kazuma really did forget Aqua was actually a Goddess, that she had impressive, divine powers and didn't just make water for party tricks and slap band-aids on cuts and bruises. However, the blinded adventurer was far from remorseful, and there was no way in hell he was going to let Aqua have her cake and eat it, too. He wasn't going to let her further tank his rep, and he definitely wasn't going to bow and promise to let her freeload off him even harder. Kazuma had another idea...