Konosuba Epilogue (Part 1)

13 seconds later and infinite miles away...

“So, is it really him?”

“That it is. Now, what are we going to do with him?”

There were currently two Goddesses standing by a single armchair.

“Just send me back to Hell…” weeped the boy. Not even able to lift his head from his arms. “Please.”

Palutena sighed, not expecting this person at all to be up here. She glanced over the paperwork on her clipboard, really having to analyse the figures before speaking, “So this is the demon version of Kazuma that our Kazuma just fought?”

“Somewhat,” explained the purple skinned lightning Goddess, “Our best guess is that–in Hell–the demon ‘Alderp’ that had fused with his soul was split off. Meaning we got the good parts of his soul here.”

“I’m not good. I’m not a good person…”

Palutena frowned, “Technically all actions done under mind control or demonic possession don’t count as points against you. It isn’t that easy to just declare you unworthy and banish you, even after all the horrible things you’ve done. We could keep you... Pit has become rather fond of 'going on adventures' with his new red headed friend...”

This Kazuma still hadn’t raised his head, refusing to listen but speak softly into his crossed arms, “Please, just send me to Hell. I deserve to go there.”

“It sounds to me like you’re going through your own personal Hell already. To think you’d be returned to human form after your ****, yet still remember everything you did. That guilt must be immeasurable.”

The ex-demonic Kazuma still didn’t move a muscle. If he wasn’t already dead his heart would be trying to end itself from such intense feelings.

Goddess looked at Goddess, both not knowing what to do. “Despite everything, seeing Kazuma like this is making me feel… sad.” the lightning girl admitted, knowing her superior would never say it but felt the same way. “I refuse to forgive him, but I can’t seem to hate him either.”

The green haired woman didn’t nod, but just stared at the depressed human intensely. Searching her wisdom for an answer.

“There are many souls out there, yet so much change has sprouted from you Satou Kazuma. Your soul is strong, and not one I’d like to see fall back in the clutches of evil,” her voice was calm, but disappointed, “We shall seek repentance for your crimes. Knowing what I know about you as a person, I can think of but one suitable enough punishment that doesn’t revolve around sending you back to hell.”

“Anything. Pl-”

I awoke in my room, laptop clattering onto the floor and into yesterday’s pizza box.

Huh, what a weird dream. It felt really long… like something I didn’t want to leave but also wanted to stop many times.

Maybe I have a fever. Or shouldn’t have eaten that triple cheese pizza before bed.

The dream… there was a blonde or something, right? A blue haired girl maybe? Explosions?

It’s all fading pretty quickly. Doesn’t really matter anyway, looking too far into dreams is for losers. Reality is where I am, kind of. The figure I bought today still needs setting up, and that new gacha game came out so I really need to be doing my dailies soon.

I stretch and get up for the lonely day. Maybe I’ll jack it before breakfast. Though, for some reason, I’m not really feeling that horny…

I should probably get a job.

12 minutes later...

It didn’t take long for the clean up to begin once the castle had stopped walking. The King’s army almost immediately began wiping out the last of the Demon King’s forces.

Losing his powers and being banished to Hell meant that the control he had over Divane vanished as soon as Kazuma was defeated. With her mask removed, all the Goddess’ blessings ceased on the monsters surrounding the castle, letting the strong army tear through them easily. It only took an hour to chase down those that ran off. Xara led the charge to destroy the fake monsters down to nothing.

Now all that remained was an empty demonic castle looming silently over the city limits. It looked ready to topple over any moment, shaking with every breeze that dared to brush its loose bricks.

During that hour, me and my compatriots were welcomed warmly by those on the battlefield. Our harem seemed so relieved, rushing to hug and congratulate us on our victory. A succubus hugged Aqua from behind, Jeronim shook my hand, Megumin’s dad picked up his little girl proudly, and Sylvia was first to give Kazuma a victory kiss.

We weren’t the only ones to exit the building. Demon Kazuma’s brigade of maids weren’t too far behind us, confused and bewildered like they’d all awoken from a strange dream in a world far different than their own. Kazuma recognised all of them, telling me about where they came from. I hadn’t the wherewithal to send them all home, and he seemed so happy to ‘have a chance to do it with Lara freaking Croft’ that I just let them exist. I’m sure I’ll remember to send them home at some point. Probably.

After we’d briefly explained what had happened to the King, and the minor celebration had occurred, we all regrouped atop the castle walls. Chatting about the day’s events while looking down at the war torn battlefield, the shadows growing ever longer with the setting sun.

Chris was the one leading the question charge, “Okay, I think I’m getting my head around all of this. So it was a demonic version of… you, Kazuma? How is that even possible?”

“Vanir apparently fucked with the timeline after I got the same ultimate power earrings Darkness ‘doesn’t have’,” said Kazuma, throwing up sarcastic air quotes when talking about my Ns. “He could say things were ‘normal’ and then reality became that way.”

“Yeah, I remember those things being beastly in terms of power. Good thing Darkness is so trustworthy with them, but how the heck did you defeat him?” asked Chris.

“I needed a lot of help,” he admitted, “But ultimately, using all the magic items you collected I was able to come up with a plan to trick him. I say me, it was mostly Aqua’s plan.”

“Huh? Aqua’s?”

“You relied on… Aqua’s plan?”

“Well, yeah,” Kazuma shrugged, letting Aqua beam her pride out before adding, “My doppelganger is as analytical as me. He would have countered anything I thought of, so I did the one thing I knew I’d never do: Ask Aqua what to do.”

“Yeah! So I said, ‘What if he said ‘I win’ but it was opposite day!’”

“Mhmm, and after some wishing I had a different plan, I decided to just roll with it. I kept Aqua hidden with a pen and the calendar, waiting with the phrase ‘Opposite Da”, listening for when I either won or challenged him to a rock, paper, scissors fight to finish the ‘day’ part. I knew I couldn’t resist cheating, I’m just lucky Aqua didn’t get distracted.”

“Hey! I saved the day, Kazuma! Everyone should worship me for generations after a victory like that!”

Yunyun had been listening in while treating a wound Yuffie had, “So where are the artefacts now?”

“All destroyed in the fight…” He trailed off before looking directly at me. I shuffled around nervously, still wearing my earrings even if they felt very emotionally heavy right now. “Yup, all gone.”

“All that’s left is that big-ass castle over there,” said Aerith. All eyes turned to the looming monolith, barely holding itself together without any magic to do so anymore. The dark towers were already crumbling errantly, causing most to give the stone a wide berth lest they require another Aqua revive spell.

“Dibs!” Megumin yelled, waving her hands about.

“I hear the King will probably destroy it,” said Sena.

“Then dibs destroying it!” Megumin once more yelled.

Kazuma scratched his head, “Shouldn’t Musume get, I don’t know, the deed to that place?”

A melancholic Tifa clenched her arm lightly, “Did you see Musume? She went in, retrieved her father’s corpse, then left without a word. The King just let her go. Said that she’d fought hard enough to bury her dead.”

“She wasn’t the only one,” said Vanir, who was lounging about after a battle he didn’t truly fight in. “Moi was the one that trapped the evil version of that lad in that castle, yes, but Moi couldn’t have done it without the Demon King agreeing to sacrifice himself. Had he not fought bravely, then none of us would be here.”

It was Megumin’s turn to frown, “It’s really weird to think that we have to thank the Demon King after all he’s done… but then so many strange things have happened recently, I guess I don’t mind it.”

“Yeah, we already sleep in the same house as his daughter,” agreed Kazuma.

“No one else is inside there right now, right? Not even…” I asked, trailing off when my eyes began looking over at our three time clones who were walking up the stairs to join us.

The real elephant in the room.

The three versions of me, Aqua, and Megumin that had been trapped in that castle with Demon Kazuma.

Had it been a week? A month? Longer? These three had been **** to live in a nightmare for so long. And now that they were out, they weren’t even able to truly pick up their lives. A timeline long dead, with us as their temporal replacements. They looked tired, confused, and angry. Battle scars and malnourishment stained their bodies and faces

Everyone was looking at them, even those that weren’t really looking had full focus on those three. The tension was palpable as no one really knew what to say.

Well, apart from one person.

“I’M SORRY!”

Kazuma was on his head, before anyone could blink. Sliding across the dirt to grovel immediately.

“I know it wasn’t really me, but I can’t help feeling really fucking terrible for what the other me did to you!” he lifted his head slightly only to slam his fist onto the stone he knelt on, “I’m not… to think that asshole did all those horrible things… that I would be capable of such awfulness… like, fuck. I’m really, genuinely, sorry.”

“I’m afraid we can’t forgive you.”

The other Darkness had bluntly declared it, scowling down at my Kazuma with utter contempt.

“You wear the face of a man that has done some truly heinous things to us. You killed, tortured, ruined our lives… this is not something that can ever be undone with words.”

Kazuma looked like he knew that was coming, “Fair enough…”

“We will be leaving this place, forever. There are some scars that can’t be so easily-”

As she was pontificating their pain, Darkness stopped when she noticed the other Aqua had begun walking slowly past her and towards the kneeling Kazuma,

“...Aqua?”

We all feared more godly retribution. Perhaps a divine punch straight off the balcony. Our Aqua preemptively going in standby to revive Kazuma mode. He looked ready to take it at least, bracing for the punishment he would be standing in for.

Which is why almost everyone was surprised when she fell in front of his crumpled form and hugged him.

“What took you so long, dummy?”

Tears were pouring down her face, squeezing Kazuma as close to her body as he quickly joined her in crying on the floor. His hands placing themselves slowly on her back.

“AQUA?!” The other Darkness repeated in shock. “This isn’t what we discussed!”

“I know,” She sniffled, “And I know I should feel more anger towards him but…” She briefly left the hug to get a good look at the adventurer, “...but I dreamed every day that this Kazuma would return to us and save us from that horrible demon fake! Then he did! He fought really hard to save me, save us. I just wanna go home.”

Darkness was grinding her teeth in a quiet rage, not helped when her other companion left her side as well.

“I… I don’t really remember much…” the other Megumin admitted, looking rather shaky on her legs still, “I was at home… then there’s this gap of endless explosions before I woke up looking at myself…” her eyes glanced over at her duplicate for a moment before falling into Kazuma’s lap next to Aqua. Looking up at his teary eyes while barely holding on herself. “...you better carry me back properly this time.”

Kazuma really had to gulp back feelings, several times just to get words out. “I will!” He draped his arms over both of them to bring them into a hug, “I’ll always carry you home. P-promise.”

There was a beat. An expectancy as all eyes fell back to my clone. To most she seemed clearly and justifiably angry, betrayed, hurt. She was well within her right to storm off, and she did. Saying nothing to her hugging companions, instead choosing to march right past everyone further down the castle wall.

“That’s fair,” said Megumin, glancing over at me with a raised eyebrow, “Can’t expect everyone to forgive immediately after what they went through.”

I nodded, but also knew better.

“I’ll go talk to her,” I said.

My double stood alone. Facing the last breaths of the setting sun, like the solar crusader of yore. It was one of the few non-horny stories I’d read more than once, a fictional warrior of light that was powered by the sun. In the brightest days he could singlehandedly defeat a dragon, and even at night he remained a beacon of hope. Whenever I stare at the sun I think of him, and not just because of the burning sensation it can give my eyeballs.

I stood next to her, enjoying the sun’s rays that she clearly hadn’t felt for a while. I did not speak, even as her gaze briefly washed over me, just letting her go in her own time.

“I’m not forgiving him.”

“I’m not going to ask you to.”

I could sense her lowered eyebrow, “Why are you here then?”

“Because I’m you,” I replied simply, “And I know when we’re really hurting.”

She clicked her tongue at me, “I’m fine.”

I let the words settle, knowing their falsehood before asking the real question.

“You blame yourself, don’t you?”

I could hear her breathing become a little more hitched, “I… I…”

“For Megumin and Aqua,” I continued, “You think you should have protected them from him.”

“...I am the Crusader…”

“I know,” I nodded, solemnly remembering in the heaviness of that vow, “And I know it’s going to be difficult to do, but I really need you to listen to me right now.”

My body faced her own, grabbing the arms of myself to stare her directly in the face.

“You have to forgive yourself.”

She seemed conflicted, “F-forgive…?”

“That was a completely unwinnable situation. An evil man with reality changing powers had complete control. Nothing you could have said or done could have stopped him.”

“Of course there was.” She rebuked, “If I’d realised sooner… maybe it would just have been me in there.”

“Then it would have just been us in there. And… we don’t deserve that.”

Her jaw fell, looking at me like I’d said something forbidden.

“You were probably excited at first,” I started, unable to stop a smirk, “It’s us, of course you were.”

A smile cracked through her sad face just briefly, fighting valiantly against the tears.

“Our crush was acting in a way that got us excited. I can imagine him playing with you in such a way that you enjoyed it?”

“His spanks were so viscous…” She admitted quietly, quickly shaking her head, “Which is why I should have stopped him sooner! It’s my fault Aqua and Megumin were trapped too!”

“I know they got hurt, real bad. But they don’t blame you. That Kazuma had control over everything.”

She was fighting it, throwing my hands from her sides, “Stop it! You know I’m right! I failed all of them because I couldn’t-! Couldn’t…”

“Our sexual urges aren’t an evil curse. If anything, us being the way we were, was the only thing able to stop evil,” I led her confused eyes to my earlobes where they grew in shock, “It’s been… a strange few weeks.”

“Y-you? Us? W-what?”

“Vanir gave them to me instead of Kazuma,” I explained, “I’m not going to say I was totally moral, but I have tried my best to please everyone I can. And without the actions I took, we’d never have had the strength to face your Kazuma.”

She looked conflicted, “Kazuma used them to cause such pain…”

“I was lucky to not be possessed by anyone other than my own desires. So maybe Eris made us this horny for a reason. Please, take solace that you might have technically failed in the timeline where we were trapped by an all-powerful madman, but in the world where we had control, Lalatina was the hero.”

Her hand was covering her face, I could see the tears pouring through her fingers, desperately trying to hold them back. But with all my speaking, I felt so happy when she choked out two words, “...we were?”

“Yes.” I confirmed, my body instinctively wrapping her up in my arms even while my own vision became blurry from tears. “Yes, yes we were the hero!” I sobbed, letting her hide her crying face in my shoulder. “It’s all going to be alright now. You’re safe.”

“It hurt!” She burst out, “It hurt so much! N-no matter how much I begged, he wouldn’t stop! He wouldn’t stop hurting them!”

“It’s okay.” I repeated. “You’re safe. You kept them alive, it isn’t your fault and he can’t hurt you anymore.”

She devolved into wails at that point. Only increasing in volume when both Megumins and Aquas ran over to accompany the hug. A six man pile of three women all crying and holding each other.

After we were done, Darkness wiped her tears and smiled at me. “Thank you. I… I still don’t know what I am feeling.”

My Aqua was beaming at her, “That’s okay, take all the time you need back home.”

“I would like that… yes.”

Kazuma had taken a more casual stroll over to us. I stayed behind as the Aquas and Megumins all guided the other Darkness to meet everyone in my Harem. With Kazuma stepping past them on his way towards me. He scratched the back of his head as he locked eyes with the other.

“I… uh…” he stammered, not knowing what else to say.

“I am willing to talk.”

“Oh! Uh, me too! See you… around?”

She bowed, giving him respect enough to at least acknowledge him, though I heard her mumble something just under her breath, “Yes, I’ll be seeing you soon… Demon King. Nn~”

I am hopeless, aren’t I?

“So forgiving yourself, huh? That’s a nice speech, Lalatina.” said Kazuma, approaching me as I turned back to the waning sunset.

“Thank you, it’s easy when it comes from experience.”

“Sure,” he nodded, letting my words hang there for a few extra moments before asking, “are you going to take your own advice?”

I smiled, “You know me so well. No, I’m not forgiving myself, Kazuma.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. But tell me why anyway.”

“After seeing everything that the earrings did to you, did to them, I can’t help but reflect on my own actions. All the lives I’ve changed, even a single reality… I’m the villain of this story, we both know it.”

He clicked his tongue, “Oi, don’t go taking the villain role from me! I was literally the final boss!”

“Kazuma…” I said, feeling guilt as I caressed my ears, “I have to tell you about these earrings…”

“You’re not a good liar, Darkness. I know those earrings give you power over reality or whatever.”

My eyes bulged. He… he was telling the truth wasn’t he? All the weeks of secrets… “W-why didn’t you ever say anything?”

He shrugged, looking unsure himself, “I dunno. I say I knew, but it still feels too far-fetched a concept. I mean, I’m the guy! Hentai stories always give the guy the ultimate mind control device, not the girl!” I gave him an eyebrow and he knew his excuse was weak, “But, yeah, it was given to you. And you always used it to make my life better, by a lot. So keeping quiet seemed wise. Anything goes wrong? I could blame it on you.”

My head shook solemnly, “I did try to make your life better, yes. In my own perverted way, I tried to ‘improve’ everything. And look at all I’ve done.”

“Yeah! Look at all you’ve done!” he said, taking my arm and shaking it lightly, “Let’s be real, were we ever going to beat the Demon King without some bullshit like this? We’re heroes! Not even just on the battlefield, remember that Sena said the world’s human population was beginning to dwindle, and we’ve totally fixed that with the harem! We saved the day, fixed the world, and only a little bit of selfish fuckery along the way. I’d say we earned it.”

It was a nice thought, but not one my heart was agreeing with, “That little bit of selfish fuckery is all it takes to be the villain though…”

“Darkness, honey, I hate to say it but your earrings aren’t even really that powerful if I was able to figure it out.” he huffed, and I once more gave him a lowered eyebrow. “Fine, they’re strong. But… okay, hypothetical. We both read a lot of porn, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“So we’ve both probably encountered a story where the hero is defeated through sexy means. Either a female hero falls to the villain’s cock, or vice versa, whatever.”

This time I lowered both my eyelids. He remembered who he was talking to, didn’t he? “Kazuma. Come on.”

“What I’m saying is, there are those stories that go into the AFTER of those falls. Now, the hero is under the thumb of the villain and uses their powers to attack innocents. Who is at fault? The villain, or the hero?”

I chewed on the question briefly, “Both kind of, but… the villain ultimately.”

“Exactly!” he exclaimed with a snap of his fingers, “So, by that logic, you aren’t the villain, I am. You didn’t tell me you had earring powers, and I didn’t tell you my magic dick has powers over you too. I seduced you, you did everything for my benefit, ipso facto, I’m the villain.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Yes, it is. We both heard it. I own a ‘Hentai Protagonist Penis’. A penis that makes sexy stuff more likely and can always be the perfect size for girls. That means as soon as you saw my dick, you were under MY sway.”

I hate how much smarter than me he is sometimes, he’s really trying to win this fight, “Wha-? N-no, I used the earrings to make-”

“All the power you had was my responsibility. I knew my schlong had powers, I figured it out by myself AGES ago.”

“R-really?”

“Well, come on. My dick was always the perfect size for all women. Even when they’re as big as Xara or as small as Megumin. That doesn’t make any sense.” he pointed out. Thinking about it, the KazumaDildos were probably the same kind of magic… and we mass produced those… “So stop beating yourself up. I’m the villain, done.”

“Kazuma…” I repeated, reaching down and taking his hand, “It’s really sweet that you’re trying to make me feel better, but this guilty conscience isn’t something I can just ignore. I have to make things right.”

“Well, what do you wanna do then?” he asked, looking rather more unhappy than I’d like, “You going to turn back the clock? Reset the world? Is that what you really want?!”

“No,” I admitted, hanging my head in shame, “But… it is for the best.”

I could tell he was holding back yelling at me, like he didn’t want our final moments together to be full of anger. “You idiot. A lot of things will change back, you know. No more harem, no more beaten Demon King, no more… us.”

“I know. And I really, really don’t want to do this…” I repeated, holding back my tears for all we would lose, “Maybe Musume will still find a way to make peace between humans and monsters. Maybe Sylvia and Xara will still get a chance to forgive each other. Maybe someone in Heaven will stand up to Divane. And maybe… maybe we’ll find each other again on a second go around.”

He was fighting back the tears that I had already lost to, “I can’t really stop you here, can I?”

Our lips touched gently, feeling like the world had completely stopped in place. I took one last look at him to say, “I love you, Kazuma… It’s normal that I never got these earrings…”

I looked around. Expecting my life to return exactly to Wiz’s shop, with Vanir handing those earrings over to someone else. A fitting end to my horrible time as protagonist.

Well, Vanir was here.

The world hadn’t returned, instead it had frozen. All except Vanir who was walking towards me with stopwatch in hand.

“No.”

I blinked, “What?”

“Denied.” he said, putting his arms into an X, “Moi won’t let you do that. No time reset.”

“Wh-what?! I was just making the ultimate sacrifice here!”

Vanir shrugged at my protests, “Moi doesn’t care. This ending is perfectly satisfactory, so you aren’t allowed to reset the timeline.”

“B-but… you did it already!”

“So? Time is not one of your backalley whores. It is a delicate flowing river, a single motion to disway its path could lead to catastrophe.” He explained eloquently before beginning to yell in anger, “Do you know how many time holes Moi had to fill last time?! Moi isn’t made of demonic filament! No. No more time travel. Deal with your changes.”

I felt like I was talking to a brick wall, “But-But-But! You’ve stopped time RIGHT NOW!”

“Details. Besides, Moi likes it in this reality! Plenty of money to be made from the boy’s phallus, no more moronic fighting between races, and Moi is free of his cursed allergy to loneliness! Yep, a wonderful day indeed!”

I lunged at him, “Normally, I’ll kill you!”

“That may be, but Moi will just come back as Vanir the 4th!” he laughed, dodging my blows with fancy footwork.

“RAGHHH!”

“So what if your morality is grey?” he continued, easily waltzing through my blitz of sword swings, “You wrecked the life of an evil Goddess and saved the good life of the Demon King’s daughter. All beings are not all good nor all bad. Just live with your choices, if you really care that much then accept your faults and use those stupid earrings to help make a better tomorrow.”

“I…” my voice was panting, but his words were getting through to me, “If there’s truly no going back, then you’re right. This power I wield comes with a responsibility, I’ll do everything I can to make right what I made wrong.”

“Moi doesn’t care,” said Vanir, walking away again and crushing the stopwatch in his hand.

As the dust of the stopwatch picked up on a restarting wind, I found myself staring at a blinking Kazuma. It really looked like I was about to change everything… well, if Vanir really has vetoed it, may as well make it official.

“It’s normal that my earrings can’t change the past,” I said, making his eyes go wide in shock. With a tiny shrug I admitted, “I guess I get to be selfish one more time.”

“Atta girl,” he smiled, “I knew my penis had you under its sway.”

“It really does,” I giggled, tears suddenly and powerfully streaming down my face. He quickly embraced me, and I hugged him tightly back, “S-sorry, I’m j-just really happy I don’t ha-have to reset the w-world!”

After a good long few minutes of weeping, I finally had enough in me to resume talking. “I’m going to need your brain more than anything, Kazuma. I need to make things right for everyone.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Lalatina,” he smiled, “I love you.”

“I love you so much too.”

We stayed there for a little while before finally going back to the others.

“You know, it’s just now hitting me that we’re going to be living with ourselves.”

When we approached, Megumin and her clone were both in the middle of an intensely focused game.

“Rock, paper, scissors, SHOOT!”

“ARGH!” exclaimed one of the Megumins, slamming her hand down on the nearby wall in frustration.

Kazuma chuckled, “Reliving my epic win, eh?”

“No, we’re competing to see who changes their name.”

“I’m going to be Nimugem!” exclaimed Nimugem (the Megumin from the Dark Kazuma world).

Kazuma frowned, “Oh, sorry you lost.”

“What? I won.”

“What should I be called?” asked the other Aqua, “Aqua 1?”

“Um, you’d be Aqua 2. Or Taqua.” said our Aqua.

“No, you should be Taqua.”

“You!”

“You!”

“Oh god, they’re in stereo...” sighed Kazuma.

Chris gave him a sympathetic shrug, “At least the Axis Cult are gonna be happy.”

“You’re right! They’ll be so happy to see me again!” said the other Aqua. She gave her best thinking pose before declaring, “I’ll become a name even greater than the lame Aqua of yesteryear, for they’ll remember the name Aqualina with pride!”

“Lame?!”

As those two fought, all eyes turned to the final member from the other timeline. My time clone, who looked rather put on the spot with the suggestion that she suddenly change her name. “I, um…”

“You can stay as Darkness,” I said, making everyone’s eyes turn towards me instead. With an accepting exhale I decided my future, “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I think I’m ready to accept that side of me again. From now on, I want to be known… as Lalatina.”

11 days later…

I’m sure you assume that I’d relent on my promise to make the world a better place using the normality earrings. Take some sexual or selfish angle that totally undoes any good I could do.

Admittedly, the first thing I did with them was arguably a selfish act: fixing our home after the Demon King’s Castle blew it up.

But after that? I was focused.

It was thankless work. No one really noticed I’d done anything after I’d made their lives normally better. “Normally your back isn’t injured”, “Normally you will find your missing child around the next corner you take”, “Normally your guilt will outweigh your desire for wealth”. This week I’d focused on making Axel as happy as I could, listening to as many problems as I could to fix anything and everything. My responsibility as a crusader was to always protect the innocent, after all.

And though the days were long, I got to come home and be a little bit selfish with my man and our wonderful harem.

Our temporal clones were settling in well to this reality. Probably too much, Vanir explained to me that they’d ‘climatise’ to the universe and my normalities the longer they stayed.

For example, both Aqua and Aqualina now agreed on their favourite liquid treat. Which was great for Kazuma, but not great for Vanir. They’d recently performed quite the heist by sneaking into the storage room where he was keeping all his Kazuma brand dildos. By the time he found them, the merchandise was dripping in splooge that both Goddesses were failing to properly lick up (not that they cared).

The countryside feared its future when Megumin taught Nimugem the loop of explosion to orgasm to explosion to orgasm. Yunyun’s status as a rival became rather tenuous as the two spent every day trying to out explode the other.

Then there was Darkness and I, Lalatina. During the day she had joined me on my normality quest, keeping me on the straight and narrow with our joint morals. And during the night… well, I’d never really made any normalities that affected myself. Which meant her decision to join me in bed with Kazuma all her own. Though she did have a habit of losing herself to the delusions and calling him ‘Demon King’ more than he’d like. Still, we are friends now. Honestly, it was like having a twin sister. My father had accepted her, and we’d accepted his new monster girl wife he’d been so happy to show off. Change was everywhere these days.

Which is why we were here in the capitol today. Surrounded by a nervous group of bystanders in front of an empty podium as we awaited the speaker to appear.

We’d heard word that Iris had received a letter from Musume. The letter only asked to gather a crowd for her return, as she had something to announce to the humans. Iris trusted her completely, but her father had brought as many knights that were left after the battle.

To be fair to Jeronim, the last time we’d seen her she was flying off into the distance, father’s corpse in hand. It wasn’t a total leap in logic that Musume really did hate humanity for killing her father, the new Demon Queen swearing ****.

We were waiting for about half an hour before we heard someone call out in the crowd. Hands and eyes pointing skyward, as a black smudge bolted down to crash land right behind the podium. The gust of wind made everyone flinch in fear, seeing the looming threat of Musume’s shadow grow around the dust she’d scattered.

Everyone held, as Kazuma would say a collective butthole clenching as we waited to see if she’d attack.

Instead she just tapped the microphone.

“My father was many things,” she began, looking more solemn than angry in her tone, “I understand a eulogy is not something humanity would appreciate for their greatest enemy’s demise, but I loved my father dearly. I buried him eleven days ago. Under different circumstances, I would perhaps be right there beside him in the ground. Or we’d be standing together in triumph against all of you.”

Nerves were already tense, but Jeronim held his hand out to make sure none of his knight attacked preemptively.

“He was the last of my family. A home that I can no longer return to. A time now passed without being able to say goodbye, I hope you can empathise with that,” Musume growled, clenching her jagged teeth before shaking away the rage. “It is not my intention to threaten. I loved my father, but I never shared his vision for total conquest or extinction. When I was younger, I bought into the demon creed that humans were just lesser beings. But when I became ostracised from that society, becoming what you’d refer to as a ‘NEET’, I read of many humans that were more than the lies they spread. I began to wish for more than just a life of war that my father wished to bequeath me. The last I ever saw of him, he started a fight about that very subject. Throwing my letters to Iris in my face before demanding I leave the castle. I hated his bigoted mind, but I now know he only did that out of love to save me from the real horror that killed him.”

“His funeral was just me. I cried, I got angry, I destroyed a mountain. And as I mourned I thought about my next step in life. Should I continue his legacy? Finish his dream of world conquest, or live the life he died trying to protect?” Again, the mood was tense, but Iris looked so proud of her friend no one said a word, “You shall know me as Demon Queen Musume. But I do not want that to be seen as a negative. Under my rule, I shall have demons and monsters integrate with society. A mutual understanding can be reached, as seen in Axel with the Dustiness-Ford Harem. Any demons that attempt to harm others will answer to me, as with any humans that attempt to bigot my subjects too.”

Musume took one last long sigh as she cast her gaze over to the looming castle that still stood weakly past the castle gates. “I know this is a lot to digest from the daughter of the Demon King. It is a lot for me, too. But I will count my blessings. I now know my father’s fate, a question that haunted me for these last few weeks. His **** has also been avenged. My lovers finished the deed, with my actions restricting his killer from hurting anyone any longer. At least I get to say goodbye to our home.”

“No, you don’t.”

Musume turned, seeing the King approach the stand with a bold stride. She looked annoyed and confused, but didn’t say anything. “Iris insists we keep your castle, and restore it to its former glory.”

“R-really?”

“Yes,” said Iris, also stepping up to the podium, “I would love for you to be close to our kingdom. The status of your castle next to ours will help relations grow, and we can work closely side-by-side on all matters. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Musume looked touched, but also very nervous. Sweating bullets in shock at their own announcement.

“Oh, uhh would you excuse me-MEGUMIN WAIT!” She screamed, loud enough for the whole kingdom to hear.

“WHAT?! WE’RE READY TO GO, HERE!” “YEAH!” The voice of Megumin and Nimugem from atop the castle wall could be faintly heard in response.

“Oh, lord.” said Kazuma, placing his hand on his face.

Darkness scratched the back of her neck, “I guess Musume hired them to blow up the castle to signal a passing of the torch?”

“NO EXPLOSIONS! THEY’RE LETTING ME KEEP THE CASTLE!”

“WE NEED TO EXPLODE SOMETHING!”

“YEAH! WE CAN’T JUST TURN IT OFF!”

“JUST AIM IT AT THE BATTLEFIELD!”

“BUT THAT’S NO FUN!”

“MEGUMIN!”

“FIIIIINNNEEEXXPLOSSSISONN!”

It was certainly one way to end a press conference.