Kōichi rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. On that forbidden hillside, the place that should have been steeped in grim, murderous tension and sealed away the ultimate weapon, there was a huge astronomical-grade telescope set up. It was exquisitely made and even had a label on it that said "Do Not Touch."
"Hey, Yunyun…" Kōichi pointed at the telescope, his voice trembling a little. "You said this was a forbidden area, right? A solemn place where the world-destroying Magic Killer is sealed away, right? Then what's with that thing that looks like equipment made for a peeping tom?"
Yunyun's face instantly went bright red. She fidgeted with her fingers, her eyes darting everywhere.
"T-that's… that's for monitoring the Demon King's Army's movements! Yes, exactly! It's a long-range reconnaissance terminal set up specifically so we can constantly track any invasions by the forces of evil!"
Just then, an elderly Crimson Demon Clan man in a loose sleeping robe wandered past with a jug of wine in his hand.
When he heard Yunyun, he couldn't help chiming in. "Oh, isn't that Yunyun? Bringing friends to see our village's famous Demon King's Castle Premium Seats again? The weather's nice today, and visibility is excellent. You should be able to see things very clearly."
"O-Old Man! Please don't say random things! We're discussing the serious matter of the seal!"
Yunyun looked so flustered she was about to cry.
Kōichi and Kazuma Satou exchanged glances, both struck by an extremely bad feeling.
"Demon King's Castle Premium Seats?" Kazuma raised an eyebrow, his voice brimming with gossip-hunting instinct.
The old man chuckled and proudly pointed at the telescope.
"This is the pride of our Crimson Demon Clan! With this specially made magical telescope, you can see straight across half the continent and get a clear look inside the Demon King's Castle. The most popular channel lately is the Demon King's Daughter's Afternoon Tea. If you're lucky, you can even catch the Demon King's daughter changing clothes in her room or practicing evil dance moves! It's the only entertainment the men in our village have."
Silence.
Dead silence.
Kōichi felt his worldview shatter into dust, as if it had been blasted by Explosion magic.
"…So the reason the Demon King's Army is so desperate to attack Crimson Demon Village, aside from the Magic Killer, might partly be because you bastards keep spying on their daughter every single day?!" Kōichi finally couldn't hold back and roared. "This isn't a battle between justice and evil at all! This is just the victims crusading against a village of perverted voyeurs!"
"What?! The Demon King's daughter's room?!"
While Kōichi was still grieving over the state of the world, Kazuma Satou suddenly let out a growl like a wild beast beside him.
A fire of desire bright enough to light up the night instantly blazed in his dead-fish eyes, and he charged toward the telescope at a speed beyond human limits.
"Move! Let me handle this! As a righteous Adventurer, I have a duty to confirm whether the Demon King's Army is performing any evil rituals! Leave this difficult reconnaissance mission to me, the man with EX-level luck!"
As Kazuma shouted his noble-sounding excuse, he had already pressed his eye hard against the eyepiece. He was putting so much force into it that the muscles in his face were twisting.
"Hey! Kazuma! You hopeless, trashy pervert!" Aqua stomped her feet in fury. "You didn't even let this Goddess purify something this good… I mean, this evil artifact first! Move aside! Let this Goddess see if the Demon King's Castle is hiding any high-class wine!"
"Ooohhh! I see it! I really see it!" Kazuma let out a perverted shriek. "It's a little blurry, but that pink curtain… that girl rolling around while hugging a stuffed toy… could that be the Demon King's daughter?! She's so cute! How is that the embodiment of evil? She's clearly an angel! Kōichi! Come look!"
"Get lost! Who wants to see that?!"
That was what Kōichi said, but as he looked at Kazuma's entranced face, Aqua itching to take a turn, and Yunyun's mortified expression, a thought suddenly occurred to him. Maybe the village seal loosening wasn't a crisis at all. Maybe these Crimson Demon Clan people had just gotten bored of the Demon King's Daughter channel and wanted an excuse to spice things up.
Just as Kazuma Satou clung to the telescope like a shut-in who hadn't seen a girl in eight lifetimes, Megumin suddenly stepped forward with a serious expression. The eye hidden beneath her eye patch seemed to glitter with something known as fashion obsession.
"Enough! You people wallowing in such lowbrow tastes! Since we have come to Crimson Demon Village, how could we not pay homage to the soul attire of our Crimson Demon Clan? My cloak got dusty in the previous battle, so I happen to need to visit the shop and choose a new one. Kōichi, Kazuma, as my familiars, you must provide your most sincere aesthetic advice!"
Kōichi really wanted to retort with "Who are you calling your familiar?" but after seeing Kazuma's face, which looked ready to suffer a brain hemorrhage from overexcitement, he decided that dragging him away from the crime scene was indeed a good idea.
And so, amid a round of shoving and Kazuma Satou's pig-like wails, Megumin led the group to the clothing store in the center of the village.
The moment they pushed open the door, Kōichi and Kazuma Satou's expressions froze.
Every rack in the shop was neatly packed with black cloaks.
The row on the left was black with red trim. The row on the right was black with dark gold trim. The row in the middle was pure black.
Other than that, the cut, length, and collar design were all exactly the same.
"What do you think? These are the painstaking masterpieces of Crimson Demon Village's finest designer!" Megumin spread her arms wide, intoxicated by the pitch-black sea around her. "This one is filled with the breath of chaos, while that one contains the rhythm of destruction… Ah, choosing is truly impossible!"
Kazuma's mouth twitched as he casually picked up two cloaks and compared them.
"Hey, Kōichi, are my eyes playing tricks on me? Aside from the different dust patterns, what exactly is the difference between these two? Do the tailors in this village only know how to copy and paste?!"
Kōichi sighed. He was just about to tell Kazuma to get used to it when his eyes drifted toward the back of the shop.
There, the shopkeeper was busy hanging several freshly washed cloaks on a clothesline rod stretched across the ceiling.
The rod was completely black, giving off a cold metallic sheen. There was a strange round opening at the front, a perfectly shaped shoulder stock at the back, and even an extremely delicate trigger guard in the middle.
Kōichi's pupils shrank, and he nearly jumped.
"H-hey, hey, hey! Kazuma! Look at that clothesline rod!" Kōichi pointed upward with a trembling finger. "Unless I'm seeing things, doesn't that thing look a little too hardcore?!"
Kazuma followed his finger. His face, which had been full of disgust a second ago, instantly turned deathly pale, then shifted into wild joy.
"Holy shit?! That's a rifle, right?! That's definitely a rifle! And that size… Isn't it anti-materiel rifle class?! Why is a massive killing machine like that being used as a clothesline rod in a clothing store?!"
The shopkeeper noticed their stares and casually patted the clothesline rod, making it ring with a crisp metallic clang.
"Oh, you mean this? It's an antique passed down from my granddad's generation. It looks a bit strange, but it's long and sturdy. Even dozens of soaked cloaks won't bend it. What, do you boys want a clothesline rod like this too? It's not for sale, you know."
"Who wants a clothesline rod?! That's an ultimate weapon that could blow me to pieces with one shot!" Kazuma stamped his feet in frustration, then shouted at Megumin. "Megumin! Hurry up and tell me! Is this thing also one of your village's ultimate weapons?!"
Megumin glanced sideways at the rifle covered in underwear and cloaks, then snorted disdainfully.
"What nonsense are you talking about, Kazuma? That is merely an iron rod that doesn't glow. In Crimson Demon Village, any tool that cannot release flashy magic is trash. Only talentless ordinary people would treasure a boring thing that can only shoot chunks of iron."
Kōichi looked at the modern weapon being used as a piece of junk, then at the room full of chuunibyou Crimson Demon Clan members, and only one thought remained in his mind.
The people in this village really were racing faster than anyone down the path of squandering priceless treasures.