What's happening to Yunyun, anyway?

Earlier that day...

"Today's the day, Megumin!" Yunyun declared, pointing dramatically at the Arch Wizard across from her, a fellow Crimson Demon. "I challenge you, my f-fated rival! This time, we'll settle things once and for all! A-and you'll be paying me back that money you owe me, too!"

Yunyun had delivered that line with as much conviction as she could muster to the other woman... a reflection of herself in the mirror of her room. A sad young woman in a racy outfit that didn't suit her, a black low-cut blouse split by a think pink tie, paired with a super short pink skirt and tall stockings. Despite the confidence that outfit paired with her dynamite body ought to project, she wasn't fooling anyone, not even herself, about having any confidence. "Hmm... Would a proper Crimson Demon do it like that? No, it's no good... The thing about money! I definitely shouldn't mention the money during my opening line. That makes it sound like this is a debt shakedown instead of a fated duel..."

The brown-haired mage had put in the work to make this "fated duel" happen. Ignoring all the legitimate training and education she'd had in the past as a wizard and the relationship she'd built with Megumin, spanning all the way back to their childhood, she'd put in more legwork this morning to make sure it'd be possible. She got to the Adventurer's Guild early and noted the scant number of quests available that might distract Megumin... There'd been a few for giant frogs, so she'd gone ahead and taken them herself, working to easily and efficiently wipe a bunch of them on the outskirts of town, to the delight of the terrorized townfolk. It'd been for the sake of her challenge, but she had to admit, it felt nice to see their grateful smiles, as well. She bet everyone in Axel would be similarly thankful of what she'd done, if they only knew! Still, while frogs were no big deal for a capable adventurer, a mage needed mana. She'd have to wait a little while to challenge Megumin... She was so excited she was hopping from foot-to-foot.

She'd been so excited, in fact, that she couldn't wait any longer. Practicing her speech in her head, she'd gone straight to the marketplace to buy mana-restoring potions. She needed to catch Megumin before she wandered out of town to blow something up. She was in such a rush that she didn't pay attention to where she was going. Before she knew it, she'd crashed into a larger man in the marketplace, who must also have been distracted. The man had much more body mass, so he didn't go down. Yunyun, on the other hand, toppled back onto her butt with a loud cry, looking nothing like the powerful Arch Wizard she was. She realized she was an unseemly sight and was grateful the man wasn't taking the chance to look at the displacement in her typically breezy skirt. Instead, he had his eyes on the scroll he'd been carrying.

Without a second thought, Yunyun grabbed it from the cobblestones of the marketplace, before she even rose to her feet. Carefully, she rose to her feet, bowing in apology as if she'd been the only one at fault. "I'm so so sorry, sir! I made you drop your reading material."

The man wasted no time snatching it back from her, looking more breathless from her holding it than from their collision. Once he inspected it, he let out a breath. When his eyes turned back to her, he seemed to have found eyes for the Arch Wizard's cleavage window and absolute territory, after all. "It's no problem, young lady. No, uh, I'm new around here and haven't quite got my bearings. Your name, again? What did you say your name was?" As if realizing he'd made a mistake, he tried to smooth it over. "I mean, uh-"

"Yunyun!" the Arch Wizard gladly offered, missing the stranger's wandering gaze and strange slip-up entirely. "My name's Yunyun. W-w-welcome to Axel! Ah, I'm sorry bumping into me is the first thing to happen to you. I should just go now-"

"No, not at all! It's my pleasure to meet you, uh... I'm sorry, I forgot how you spelled your name." The man clicked his teeth again, clearly sweating. "Shit, I didn't ask her how she spelled her name, dammit-"

"Y-U-N-Y-U-N," the experienced Arch Wizard with an incredibly high intelligence stat helped him out. "You... You want to talk to me? Wow! I'm honored. I wonder what a traveling stranger wants to talk to me about? Are you a merchant, perhaps?"

The man had wasted no time raising the scroll and writing in time with her spelling, as if afraid he'd forget it. He must be very clumsy, after all... As soon as he'd finished paying a huge amount of attention to that, however, he'd quickly stopped paying attention to her at all, much more interested in his reading material. "Incredible... it's all there..." The man glanced back up at Yunyun. At her breasts, specifically. He seemed to be breathing heavily. "F-forget it, nevermind. I'll see you around, Yunyun. Yeah, I'll see you soon... Sooner than you think, hehehe," he cackled menacingly. His eyes traveled back to her face. "Oh shit, why'd I say it like that?! Now she's definitely... depressed?" he tapered off, puzzled by the reaction.

"Who, um, me? D-depressed?" Yunyun apologized, glancing away with a heavy shadow over her. "No, there's no need to worry about me getting depressed... j-just because it seems like nobody wants anything to do with me, and even strangers quickly get bored of me and go do something else... I, uh, actually have a pretty full day planned with all kinds of excitement and challenges, so it's no big deal, really!"

"Yeah, I read about that..."

"Huh?"

The man paused, wincing. "......... Huh?" he parroted back at her after a long pause, as if he was confused. "What'd you say?"

"O-Oh nothing!" Yunyun replied. "I thought you said something?"

"Nope."

"Oh. Um... Okay."

The profusely sweating older man dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. "Well, about those challenges, I have a feeling you'll rise to all of them, young Yunyun! You just need a change in perspective, and I have a feeling that's what you'll be getting... And now I'm gonna go before I put my foot in my mouth, again." The particularly strange stranger trundled off for his cart, clearly intending to leave town.

Yunyun watched him leave with improbable appreciation. "Hah... After all the trouble I caused him, what a nice man! He clearly believes in me. I should believe in myself more. Maybe all I need is to change my perspective... Maybe I should mention the money after all? Maybe I should lead with that and make Megumin finally take responsibility! If I have a tangible, monetary motive, maybe it'll get us both fired up for some real competition! Yeah, the best idea would be for me to hop on one leg to prove this thing really works!"

The Arch Wizard carried out that idea, which sounded perfectly reasonable in her head. Still wearing a vacant smile from her earlier feel-good moment, the busty mage began jumping up and down with one leg tucked up. That wasn't a normal exercise for a mage, and was an especially dangerous one for a woman dressed like she was. Her pink skirt fluttered with every jump. It didn't take her long to realize that, and she did her best to not prevent it at all. No, this was a part of her perspective shift, wasn't it? It probably didn't matter if anyone saw the cheetah-print panties she'd dressed into in a spur-of-the-moment decision that morning. In fact, it was probably a good thing! Having people stare at this was a great way to improve her confidence, especially if she faced the man's cart while she did it.

Why was that...? "Oh, right!" Yunyun rationalized for herself, although she was starting to get a growing feeling of wrongness. "If I can confidently show off my skanky underwear like a dirty girl to this stranger I just met, I'll definitely be ready for my sweaty jumprope competition with Megumin later today!" Yunyun nodded, thinking that made perfect sense. After all, wasn't today the day she was going to prove she was the most powerf- sexiest jumper among all of the Arch Wizards? She'd only been thinking about it since she woke up this morning. She even decided to tell anyone listening if Megumin was a stacked hottie like her. Yunyun shook her head vehemently, giving her an insane look when put together with her continual, defenseless hopping. "Megumin isn't stacked at all! I m-mean, uh... She's cute? B-but her body isn't anything like mine..."

Why was she suddenly thinking about Megumin's body? It was a bit embarassing... Actually, wasn't everything she was doing right now embarrassing? Wasn't it... actually really embarassing?! People were taking their pick between looking at her well-developed breasts bouncing with every hop or her unusually adventurous selection of underwear. Even she wasn't naive enough to think that choice of panties implied anything but a woman looking for... sexual relations...

What she really needed to do right away was apologize to everyone for this shameful display! No, before that, she really needed to get somewhere private and figure out what was going on. She STOPPED WORRYING. There was nothing to worry about! Nobody looked upset about what she was doing. Golly, most of them even seemed to be enjoying it. She HELD STILL. While remaining still, she DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Instead, she NO NOTHING I'M TRYING TO FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT BOOK THE QUIL THINGY JAMED

Yunyun was now as still as a statue in the middle of the square. Her expression and gesture didn't convey any kind of meaning at all, as though she really was a mannequin. She was really doing her best to be doing the best approximation of absolutely nothing at all, as still as possible. The rise and fall of her impressive chest was the only clear sign she was alive, and that was only happening by virtue of the fact that holding her breath would be more "doing something" than breathing normally.

By this point, people were growing less entertained and more concerned. They began slowly approaching her. The Arch Wizard had a somewhat confused reputation as a stoic loner among the City's residents, but she was, after all, known and appreciated. So, some particularly daring residents moved forward to try and speak to her or wave their hand in front of her face, seeing if it was a trance they could break her out of.

"It's a magic trick!" Yunyun shouted it suddenly, scaring a man who'd gotten particularly close in his examination.

The man on the ground rubbed his sore back, but gave her a relieved smile. "O-oh! Weird, uh, magic trick."

"Ah, no, I don't do magic tricks. That's the Entertainer class!" Yunyun corrected him helpfully. "I'm the Arch Sexy Jumproper class and I do actual sexy tricks with a jumprope." The young woman had stopped worrying before, but now it was starting to come back to her. Why was she saying she was a sexy jumproper and not a sexy jumproper... "Th-that doesn't make any sense! I s-said I'm not a s-s-sexy jumproper, I'm an Arch Sexy Jumproper! I don't do magic, I do sexy tricks with a jumprope!" Yunyun was a sexy jumproper outside the quots she wasnt just saying it

The man on the ground got up and dusted himself off. "Right... Okay, sure, whatever. You're doing this cause you're an Arch Sexy Jumproper, whatever that is. I don't get it, but sure. But are you sure you're okay?"

Yunyun wasn't sure she was okay at all. Everything she was doing felt like the opposite of okay. She tried to think hard. It felt like if she accepted that she was a sexy jumproper, she'd be losing something very important to her. Something she'd worked hard for... Why had she been so determined not to admit she was the class everyone seemed to acknowledge her as? Was it stress? Was she losing her mind? Or... was it the effect of some kind of spell? Yunyun tried to think if there was evidence of anything that was out of place about her current situation... Something that didn't add up.

"Oh shiiit! Jammed again!" came a surprisingly loud yell from the nearby cart Yunyun was still facing. "C'mon c'mon c'mon..."

The thing that was the strangest to Yunyun was that while she knew Megumin was her destined rival, Megumin was an Arch Wizard who'd known her from an academy back in their village. Why had she been attending that academy if she wasn't even a magic user? "Well, that's simple enough," Yunyun reasoned. "I wanted to become a wizard, but then I realized I was much more qualified to be a sexy jumproper, on account of... m-my body, mostly," she admitted to herself, bashfully. She'd always lacked the confidence to say the silly lines or make the outlandish poses Crimson Demons were known for, but one thing she had always been able to do was entertain people with her impressive assets. Plus, that was the reason she carried a jumprope instead of a wand, wasn't it? It'd be really strange for a mage to be walking around with a long performance jumprope bound on her belt.

So the only strange thing was her clothes, and anything unusual that had happened today. If she considered what she was wearing, it might give a hint to her actual profession... And, if it did turn out she was a class capable of some powerful offensive magic, and it did turn out that man she met was somehow behind this, she'd be in perfect position to apprehend him with one well-placed spell. She'd just have to be careful not to accidentally hurt him with it... She'd be as careful as possible.

A shriek came from the cart. "Oh shit oh please oh shit oh please-"

The outfit Yunyun was wearing... it was the outfit of 5EXIUMPR0PR!!!

Finally, the Arch Sexy Jumproper could breathe a sigh of relief, considering she was indeed dressed in a way that matched her stated profession, or at least what her profession would be spelled like if it was written by someone who, already possessed of poor penmanship, was presently shaking and pissing himself in fear while writing underneath a dark cover because he didn't even know how to use a mechanical quill. When she looked down, she could see the tight white tee shirt stretched over her bodacious breasts, across which were stretched an embarrassing version of her name, "BOINBOIN," suitable for an erotic entertainer. She could feel the pinch of the eye-catching red bloomers on her butt. Her hairstyle... well, it was two front pigtails like it had always been, a style that appealed to deviants who liked this sort of entertainment from an eighteen-year-old woman. Matching that were the tall white stockings that showed off her legs and the colorful sneakers protecting her feet which were also embarassing. They had a bright, flashy design with a cartoon depiction of her rival, Megumin, on them, flashing a victory sign. It was a small detail only known to Yunyun herself, but she found wearing a little personal token of humiliation helped her do her job better. The only thing she was missing was her undersized school backpack, but of course she wasn't wearing that! That would be inconvenient to simply wear out into the marketplace. It did mean she was left carrying her jumprope in her hands, though, except she tied herself up with it. In a way, that was more convenient! Well, it didn't free up her hands, exactly, seeing as they'd become bound and indented in her own plump thighs, but at least it meant she had one consistent trick she could carry out and didn't have to wear herself out thinking up new tricks (because, funnily, even as an Arch Sexy Jumproper, she found she didn't know any yet sheesh why are you busting my balls

Overall, it was the perfect look and outfit for a class of adventurer whose main skill was entertaining perverts with her sexy body and wacky jumprope tricks. It was so perfect, Yunyun couldn't help but smile and hop to show off her tits. It was embarrassing to do in such a public place, but, well, what kind of Arch Sexy Jumproper would she be if she couldn't draw a crowd by letting her barely restrained boobs flop wildly, constantly threatening to spill out of the joke of a shirt she'd dressed herself in? Of course, there was a lot more that a professional like Yunyun did when she was on the clock, but for a practice performance, this was enough except she also talks about her tits all the time with made up goofy made-up alliterative phrases. That was a very strange, niche interest among her clientele, the kind of thing that would be somewhat embarrassing to write in a book and surprising to see spelled correctly, but nonetheless, it was true, and it was Yunyun's specialty.

"Gee, there sure is a huge crowd here looking at my Puffy Plaparoos!" Yunyun mused. She was intending to speak to herself, but saying this was part of the performance, after all. "But now that I'm here and in it, I've got no idea what I was so worried about! After all, this is what I trained for. There's no way Megumin can stand a chance against my Gropey-Grabbies, my Bap-Happy Bazooka Blasters... my H-Honkable Haw_ooo_gas!" No matter how much she practiced, bouncing alone or in front of crowds and shouting the most hilarious and vulgar names she could think of, it never really stopped being embarrassing... Especially since some details of her outfit, like the shoes, seemed particularly chosen to humiliate herself. Still, the red-faced, red-pantsed Crimson Demon jumproper knew that it would all be worth it when she made her way to the outskirts of town to meet a man with a script that shed forever obey and call master. After her competition with Megumin, of course. Or before. Before was fine! Her final showdown with Megumin had waited a long time, but her Master might not wait forever. What if she missed it, and none of this ended up worth anything?! It was a scary enough thought to shake her smile for a moment, although she knew she was always supposed to keep it on as a performer. She did her best to keep a cheery smile on as she began to try to propel her hopping show forward. One hop at a time... She hoped the mystery man with a script that would become her Master was close.

As her bloomer-clad butt bounced on past the familiar city folk, she glanced one last time to see them all watching her with concern before they all ignored her until she was out of sight. Everyone who'd heard her talk about her boobs treated her that way

"Eh...?! You're all ignoring me after all?! Wh-what about my Massive Mommy Milkies?!" she wailed as she began to disappear around the corner.

"How do you like that?" the pervert, who'd traveled from cart to woods to bush just to be caught and relay this story, spoke. "If you get it, you understand the awesome power I now command, right?"

Kazuma was looking at him with an unreadable fallen face, a mixture of many emotions. Disgust, frustration, and bafflement all fought for the right to be called his expression. "What..."

"Seems like you don't. Okay. 'Yunyun decided to hit the man threatening her Master with a powerful magic spell.' Starting to get it now, creep?"

Kazuma made a show of cleaning his ear, unbothered. "Uh... Yes. Okay. I've been waiting through your story patiently. A few comments."

"Go ahead. Gimme your last words."

The adventurer looked at what he'd just gotten out of his ear with a pinky with apparent interest. "Do you want the comments on your plan, or your taste, or your interpretation?"

The bald man didn't speak. Instead, he clenched his empty hand, his face falling quickly.

"Okay, all of the above! Here we go. Not holding back. For constructive criticism, of course." Kazuma turned to him, wearing an expression that had been turned on him, himself, among some of his most disappointing and trashy exploits. "You led Yunyun to you, when if you continued controlling her remotely you could probably get away with it forever. Your taste in what to have her do is so disgusting, even your book started narrating it as disgusting. You didn't stop me from Stealing your book. I can see the book has future details about what happens to the person but you didn't look ahead to realize her script just cuts off before she reaches you... probably because I take the script from you, so the flow of events changes. Your handwriting sucks. The pen looks like a high-tech doodad for this world and doesn't have a problem, you're just bearing down too hard with it. You said 'the man with the script' will be her Master, so when she reaches you, but you don't have the script, you aren't that man. You walked way way farther than you needed to out into the woods, making it take even longer for her to follow you. You wiped your face with your jerk rag a sec ago. You're bald, you're fat, you smell like jizz. But worst of all... "

Kazuma clutched the script tightly, leaning in to shout. "What the hell is this sorry archtype?! Huh?! Are you like some half-assed comedy attempt at the ugly bastard from a hentai?! You say all of your plans and evil schemes like it's a stupid bit, and now I know everything about your scummy script! Get the hell out of here, don't even step a foot back in Axel, don't even go back to your cart, you're hoofing it, baldy fatso! You called me a creep? Me?! There's scummy otaku and then there's actual bonafide criminals! I'm glad I never learned your name or any other defining features so you can never reappear as a recurring cast member, idiot! Dumbaaass ero comedy caricature!!"

By now, Kazuma was shouting at the back of the fleeing, sweaty man's head. He'd finally done something smart: he'd realized that if Kazuma had a lurk skill and a steal skill, he might be an assassin, and that meant he could kill an unarmed merchant any time he wanted. With the sheer vitriol of Kazuma's delivered burns, that probably felt like a real possibility.

The young adventurer, who was constantly facing these kinds of insults himself, found it very cathartic to be able to deliver them on a target he knew deserved them and who didn't know his full reputation to turn them back on him.

But hey, as of today, that reputation was behind him! He was a hero. He'd literally saved a fair maiden from the jaws of a perverted monster! All that was left was to collect his reward. He was imagining a flushed Yunyun recognizing him as her hero... Maybe, the fires of a budding attraction being fanned? Maybe, his free afternoon turning to a candlelight date? Something chaste and dignified to start with, slowly giving way to-

"Jumping Jiggly-Wigglies, Master!" Yunyun shouted proudly as she suddenly bounced into Kazuma's view, completely unrestrained. As if the perverted older man had been a demon lord and the tee shirt was his dark general, the tee shirt had given up along with its master. It had ridden all the way up past Yunyun's chest and to her shoulder blades, her big handfuls and their pink peaks slapping up and down with each bounce. However, when she did finally make eye contact, her smile seemed to freeze. Despite her assumed years of practice in front of crowds as a practiced Sexy Jumproper, seeing this face finally brought that old, familiar color to her own. Her eyes began to spin. "Master?! My Master... is... K-K-Ka-K-K-K-Ka-"

"... Yes, I'm Kazuma," Kazuma agreed with her in a small voice, although his interruption didn't break her stammering or her ceaseless jumping. His eyes followed, helplessly. His mind raced.

... Right now, he needed to...