Late at night, Alderp-sama's estate was eerily quiet, disturbed only by the occasional scrape of armor from the patrolling guards.
Kōichi and Kazuma crept along with their backs bent low, like two black cats prowling through the darkness. With practiced ease, they avoided the magical lights and slipped through the shadows lining the corridor.
"Hey, Kōichi, look at that vase. That craftsmanship, that glaze... It's got to be worth at least five hundred thousand Eris, right?"
Kazuma kept his voice low as he pointed toward an antique vase nearly half a person tall at the end of the corridor, his eyes gleaming green with greed.
"Tsk. Think bigger, Kazuma."
Kōichi adjusted his sunglasses with a professional air and gestured with one hand.
"That thing's too heavy. We'd get caught trying to move it. Our real targets are the solid-gold lion paperweight in the study and those oil paintings on the walls that were supposedly painted by famous artists. We pry them out of their frames, roll them up, and walk away. That's how a true professional operates."
As the two crept toward the vault, they whispered furtively about how best to redistribute Alderp-sama's wealth.
Just as they passed the corner of the second floor, near the rooms belonging to Aqua and Alderp-sama, a shrill scream filled with despair and disbelief tore through the silence of the night.
"Aaaah!!!!! My eyes! My back! Stop! Stop it right now!!!"
The voice belonged to none other than the arrogant nobleman Alderp-sama.
Kōichi and Kazuma exchanged a glance, matching smiles of satisfaction curling across their lips. They immediately replaced them with expressions of heroic concern and sprinted toward Aqua's room.
"Alderp-sama! What happened?! Has the Robin Hood-like thief appeared?!"
Kōichi shouted as he kicked Aqua's door open with a bang.
The scene inside made even these two seasoned scoundrels gasp.
Aqua stood in the middle of the enormous bed, her long blue hair whipping wildly around her under the combined effects of alcohol and divine power. In her hands was a gigantic banquet fan she had somehow acquired.
Alderp-sama, who had entered with less than honorable intentions, lay sprawled on the carpet beside the bed. Both hands covered his face, which was red and swollen like a pig's head, while his expensive silk pajamas had been torn into rags.
"Take this! God Blow!"
Aqua cried out through her drunken haze. Her folding fan whistled through the air, blazing with dazzling purification light, before slamming once more into the many folds of fat around Alderp-sama's neck.
SMACK!!!
"Aargh!!!"
Alderp-sama rolled across the floor like an enormous meatball, squealing like a pig being slaughtered.
"You evil Ghost! You wicked, fat Ghost reeking of sewage!"
Aqua staggered as she pointed at Alderp-sama, shouting through breath heavy with alcohol.
"How dare you try to defile a Goddess with that disgusting gaze while she was resting! In the name of the Axis Order, I'll purify every last ounce of fat from your body! God Blow!!!"
"W-Wait, Aqua! That's Alderp-sama, not a Ghost!"
Kazuma tried to stop her with words, but his body remained faithfully planted in the doorway. He even pulled out a sunflower seed he had stolen from somewhere and began cracking it between his teeth.
"My, Alderp-sama, what are you doing in Aqua-san's room?"
Feigning surprise, Kōichi walked over. Rather than pulling Aqua away, he accidentally stepped directly on the fingers Alderp-sama was using to push himself up.
"Did you discover that the Robin Hood-like thief had entered Aqua-san's room and rush here to protect her? How touching! Aqua, stop this at once! You mistook your savior for a Ghost and attacked him. You're a disgrace to Heaven!"
"S-Save me... Get this lunatic away from me..."
Alderp-sama begged through tears. Any lust he had felt was long gone. If he did not escape soon, he was certain the blue-haired maniac would purify him into a pile of minced meat.
Kōichi and Kazuma stood in the doorway with their arms around each other's shoulders, watching Alderp-sama roll across the floor like a gigantic punctured ball slowly losing air. Deep, villainous chuckles escaped their lips.
"Pfft, Kazuma, look. She knocked that old bastard's wig right off. So those few hairs on his head were glued on after all."
As he spoke, Kōichi casually pulled his solid-gold sunglasses from his pocket and put them back on, hiding eyes that were nearly cramping from laughter.
"Heh heh. This is what you call a sacred physical exorcism. With how hard Aqua's hitting him, Alderp-sama will probably wake up ten pounds lighter tomorrow. All of it swollen flesh."
Kazuma even began critiquing the path of Aqua's fan swings.
Just as the two were enjoying his suffering so much they were nearly ready to ascend to heaven themselves, Aqua suddenly stopped her purification.
She stood unsteadily atop Alderp-sama's belly. The foolish smile vanished from her flushed face, replaced by an unusually grave expression that was almost unsettling.
"Hey, Kōichi, Kazuma... Come here."
Aqua let out a loud drunken belch and pointed at Alderp-sama beneath her feet, whose eyes were already starting to roll back. Her voice was rough from the alcohol.
"While this Goddess was... burp... hitting him just now, I sensed something. This fat man is surrounded by an incredibly disgusting, incredibly evil power... That isn't an aura any human should possess. It's some kind of... some kind of twisted evil power so revolting that even this Goddess wants to vomit..."
The smiles on Kōichi and Kazuma's faces stiffened for a moment. Then they exchanged a glance and sighed in perfect unison.
"All right, all right, Aqua. We know you got carried away drinking tonight."
Kōichi stepped forward and patted Aqua's shoulder as though soothing a child. At the same time, he pulled her off Alderp-sama's belly before she crushed it completely.
"Evil power, huh? I see what you mean. He certainly has the whole 'ominous villain' look down. Though, to be fair, that's more of a wardrobe-and-vibes situation than actual theological evil."
"Exactly. Your tolerance is pathetic. You've only had a few bottles, and you're already hallucinating?"
Kazuma waved dismissively, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
"Get back into bed before you start claiming you found the Demon King's curse inside his socks. Our current mission is to protect him while we wait for the Robin Hood-like thief."
"It isn't a hallucination! It's real! This Goddess is Aqua, the Goddess of Water! I would never mistake something like that!"
Aqua stamped her feet in frustration. She even tried to lunge at Alderp-sama and punch him a few more times to prove her point.
"That power... It feels like some kind of contract, or some filthy thing parasitizing his soul! You have to believe me!"
"Fine, fine. We believe you."
Kōichi halfheartedly pushed Aqua toward the bed while thinking to himself:
'She's definitely using this as an excuse to get a few more bottles of wine. Evil power? Aren't Kazuma and I, who are about to rob this place, the greatest evil power in the entire estate?'
As the two forced the struggling Aqua back beneath the covers, Alderp-sama suddenly twitched on the floor.
From his eyes, swollen until only narrow slits remained, a cold and inhuman red light flashed for an instant where Kōichi could not see it.
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