At three in the morning outside Axel's city gate, the moonlight stretched every shadow long across the ground.
Kōichi and Satou Kazuma did not, by any reasonable standard, look like proper adventurers.
Kōichi's usually tidy wizard robe was smeared with green pond slime, and the dark circles under his eyes were so heavy he looked like a zombie that had just crawled out of a grave.
Kazuma looked even worse. His sleeves were worn through from pulling rope, and his whole body gave off a mixed smell of dead fish and sweat.
And between them, they were dragging Aqua, tightly bound in thick rope, soaked from head to toe, vacant-eyed, and constantly giving off a holy white glow.
Just as the two of them were about to lower their heads and slip back into the city, a dazzling flash of sword light suddenly cut off their path.
"Stop! You two villains reeking of evil!"
A man in gorgeous full armor, handsome in a way that made people want to punch him, stood squarely in the middle of the road.
In his hand was a holy sword radiating powerful magical energy, and he was glaring at them with a look overflowing with justice, yet somehow also with a profound lack of brains.
"Is that... Aqua-sama?!"
The moment Kyouya Mitsurugi got a clear look at Aqua trussed up like a rice dumpling, he froze as if struck by lightning. Even his holy sword trembled.
"You actually... actually tied up that noble, pure Goddess who bestowed this holy sword upon me in such a shameful pose, and you're dragging her through the wilderness in the middle of the night... You two remnants of the Demon King's Army! What kind of deranged torture have you subjected her to?!"
Kōichi and Kazuma exchanged a glance. Their brains, which had already been exhausted to the limit, started turning again at the exact same moment.
"Hey, Kōichi, who's this guy? That smug 'I'm the protagonist' face of his makes me want to spit on him."
Kazuma kept his voice low, his tone thick with class resentment.
Kōichi wiped the muddy water off his face and let out a cold laugh. "Probably some poor reincarnator Aqua conned into coming here. Judging by that sword, it's probably worth a lot."
The magic sword Gram in Kyouya Mitsurugi's hand shone with an even brighter golden light, bright enough that it looked like it might purify the dark circles under Kōichi and Kazuma's eyes.
With righteous fury written all over his face, he strode forward and pointed the tip of his sword right at their noses, his booming voice loud enough to wake the entire city at three in the morning.
"You shameless cowards! Don't try to fool me with those pathetic lies! Just look at Aqua-sama! She is a noble Goddess, yet you've been dragging her through muddy water like a mop! Not only have you desecrated the divine, you've trampled on the dignity of adventurers themselves! I, Kyouya Mitsurugi, will never allow such brutality to happen in Axel!"
Kōichi and Kazuma's ears went numb from the sheer force of his justice-soaked shouting.
Kazuma rolled his eyes and was just about to use Steal to teach this arrogant pretty boy a lesson when he suddenly realized that Aqua, who had been doing nothing but muffled "mmph mmph" noises the whole time, wasn't glaring at Kōichi and Kazuma at all.
She was glaring at Kyouya Mitsurugi.
"Mmph! Mmmph mmmph!"
Aqua thrashed desperately, even slamming her tightly bound legs against the ground.
Kōichi reacted at once and yanked the rag out of her mouth.
He had assumed she would immediately cry out to Mitsurugi for help, but instead Aqua sucked in a deep breath and the very first thing she screamed was:
"You useless idiot, get out of the way! Stop blocking my path back to the Guild to collect my reward money!"
Kyouya Mitsurugi froze on the spot, and his righteous-hero expression instantly shattered.
"Eh? A... Aqua-sama? What are you saying? I'm trying to save you! Look at you, you're tied up like this..."
"So what if I'm tied up like this?! This is called a professional water purification posture! Do you even understand that?!"
Even though Aqua was still lying on the ground, she had all the presence of a landlady collecting overdue rent.
"Kōichi and Kazuma may be a little sadistic, but these past few days they've bought me top-grade red wine and taken me out for marbled red crab! As long as I finish purifying the ponds in the south of town, I'll have saved enough to buy that holy water basin covered in rubies! And now you jump out calling them Demon King's Army goons. If they get arrested, who's going to pay the remaining 150,000 Eris I'm owed?! You?! You creepy stalker waving that glowing toy around?!"
Kōichi and Kazuma stared at her in stunned silence.
Then both of them broke into relieved, deeply punchable grins at the exact same time.
Kōichi brushed the muddy water off himself and shot Mitsurugi a sidelong look. "Hear that, Hero? This is called an employment relationship. Aqua-sama is the core water purification consultant of our party. We feed her and pay her a generous bonus too. A guy like you, barging in without knowing the full story and trying to ruin other people's livelihood, is the real villain here, isn't he?"
Kazuma followed up with a truly lethal jab. "My, my, Kōichi, just look at him. Dressed all fancy, and he can't even understand a labor contract. Mitsurugi-san, if you really care so much about Aqua-sama, then how about paying off that 150,000 Eris for her yourself? Or... why not pawn that sword of yours that looks so expensive to us?"
Kyouya Mitsurugi felt as though his entire worldview had just been hit by a magnitude-eight earthquake.
He looked at Aqua, who was acting completely justified and even seemed ready to go back to being a tea bag, then looked at Kōichi and Kazuma, both of whom were grinning like villains. Even the magic sword Gram in his hand seemed to dim a little from its master's embarrassment.
"No... this isn't right... this doesn't fit the script where the Hero saves the Goddess..."
Mitsurugi muttered in a daze, his once-proud posture instantly deflating.
"Forget the script! Kōichi! Kazuma! Hurry up and pull me up!" Aqua wriggled on the ground and urged them on. "We need to hurry back and collect tonight's reward before the Guild closes! I want to drink that bottle of sparkling wine with the 'limited edition' label on it!"
The cold wind of four in the morning blew past, and the stiff, awkward atmosphere instantly turned cheerful the moment Kyouya Mitsurugi ground his teeth and shouted out that number.
"That's enough! You two money-grubbing bastards!" Kyouya Mitsurugi abruptly pulled out a thick stack of high-grade exchange vouchers from inside his clothes, the paper still carrying the faint scent of fresh ink, his hands trembling slightly. "300,000 Eris! I'll give you 300,000! Now, immediately, this instant, untie Aqua-sama! From this moment on, she is no longer your water filter. She is a free Goddess! She should not be rolling around in mud. She should be worshipped in a temple!"
The moment Kōichi and Satou Kazuma heard the words 300,000, their unfocused, sleep-deprived eyes snapped into focus in perfect sync. As if they had rehearsed it countless times, the two turned and looked at each other at the exact same moment.
In that tenth of a second of exchanged glances, an extremely complicated spiritual conversation took place.
Kōichi: "Hey, Kazuma, did he just say 300,000? We worked ourselves to death cleaning reservoirs all night and only made 85,000."
Kazuma: "I heard it too, Kōichi. And more importantly, if we dump this ticking time bomb on this pretty boy, not only do we get paid, we also get the priceless gift of sleep without idiotic screaming."
Kōichi: "Deal?"
Kazuma: "Deal."
"Oh my, Mitsurugi-sama! You should've said that sooner!" Kōichi instantly switched to a bright, spring-breeze smile, moving with the efficiency of a five-star hotel waiter as he bent down and started untying Aqua. "If we'd known you had such lofty awareness of environmental protection and the freedom of Aqua-sama, how could we possibly have troubled her by making her go into the water herself?"
Kazuma, meanwhile, snatched the voucher from Mitsurugi's hand, licked his fingertip, and began checking its authenticity on the spot, all while muttering, "Yep, yep, it's a cashier's check from Axel Bank. Mitsurugi-san, you really are a wonderful person, a pure person, a Hero above base desires! We leave Aqua-sama in your care. Please make sure to look after her properly, and whatever you do, don't let her come running back to us... ah, no, I mean, don't let her suffer any more grievances."
After Aqua was untied, she blanked for a second. Then, when she saw the 300,000 Eris, her eyes lit up with greedy green light. "Wait a second! Half of that 300,000 should be mi—Mmgh!"
Kōichi moved fast and stuffed the final salted-fish-scented rag back into her mouth. Then he and Kazuma each grabbed one side of her and shoved her straight into Kyouya Mitsurugi's glittering embrace.
"We wish you happiness! Mitsurugi-sama, Aqua-sama is very fond of top-shelf red wine. At least three bottles a day, with fresh red crab on the side. Make sure to feed her on time, or she'll use Nature's Beauty and make your armor disappear!"
Waving as he said his goodbyes, Kōichi dragged Kazuma back at top speed.
"See you later, Hero-sama! Let's hope we can still see that righteous look on your face three days from now!" Kazuma grinned like a fox that had stolen a chicken, and the two of them greased their feet and vanished into the shadows of the streets before dawn in an instant.
Kyouya Mitsurugi held Aqua, who was still desperately struggling and trying to snatch back her share of the 300,000, and smiled like a victor. "Rest assured, Aqua-sama, those two demons are gone. From now on, I will protect your dignity with my life... eh? Aqua-sama, why are you strangling me? And why are you trying to take my wallet? Is this some kind of sacred ritual?"
Meanwhile, Kōichi and Kazuma had already run two streets away and were hiding in an alley, feverishly counting their money.
"Hahahaha! Kōichi! We're rich!" Kazuma slapped the thick stack of money, laughing so hard tears were almost coming out. "300,000! With this and what we already had, not only have we paid off the debt, we've even temporarily gotten rid of Aqua, our biggest pain in the ass!"
Leaning against the wall, Kōichi let out a long breath. The dark circles under his eyes were still there, but he looked completely refreshed.
"Yeah, Kazuma. And the best part is that for at least the next three days, we won't have to hear that useless Goddess screeching at top volume because she lost a hairpin or can't get any booze. This peace and quiet... it's worth even more than 300,000 Eris."
The two shared a smile, the purest kind of understanding possible between scum and sadists.