PinkSnake - Konosuba Comedy - 307/308

Chapter 307: This Is the Fate of a Top-Tier Knight

Aqua froze for a moment, blinking her blue eyes several times. At that instant, the drawbacks of her low intelligence were put on full display.

She completely missed the jab in Kōichi’s words about her nonexistent intellect. Instead, they somehow struck her vanity, and her ego swelled at once.

“Hmph! Have you finally realized how great this Goddess is? That’s right! When it comes to purity, no one in this world can compare to me, the Goddess of Water!”

Aqua planted her hands on her hips and puffed out her not particularly impressive chest, looking every bit like an untouchable divine being.

“Kōichi, you’ve finally said something sensible! Since you’re begging me so earnestly, I’ll graciously allow you to witness the majesty of a Goddess! Watch closely and see how those lowly Slime monsters tremble beneath my sacred radiance!”

“Hey, Kōichi, you really are a complete sadist.”

Kazuma Satou leaned close to Kōichi’s ear and looked at him with equal parts admiration and contempt.

“Pure intellect? You’re basically praising her for having a single-digit IQ, aren’t you? And she actually took it as a compliment. Doesn’t the Axis Order have some kind of anti-scam guide in its teachings?”

“Tactical necessity, Kazuma.”

Kōichi’s gaze remained cold.

“Besides, if there really is a trap, Aqua’s absurdly high physical defense and divine constitution make her the perfect test subject. Rather than letting trouble come after us, it’s better to let trouble deal with Aqua.”

While everyone was still commenting on the situation, Aqua had already stepped gracefully into the thick fog.

A faint blue glow surrounded her, and she even began humming some grandiose-sounding background music that was, in reality, completely useless.

“Oh, lost little creatures, bask in the mercy of the Goddess! I am Aqua, your... Aaaaaah! Let go of me! You rude little monsters, where do you think you’re touching?!”

Her sacred proclamation instantly turned into a shrill scream.

Countless pink, semi-transparent, tentacle-like appendages suddenly shot out of the mist. Far from being frightened away by Aqua’s divine radiance, they swarmed toward her like feral cats that had just caught the scent of premium catnip.

“Guh! It’s wet! It’s sticky! Help me! Kōichi! Kazuma! These Slimes are eating my clothes! They’re licking my sacred feather mantle! Aaaaaah!”

Aqua thrashed violently inside the fog as the pink Slimes quickly piled over her entire body.

Because Aqua’s constitution automatically purified any liquid she touched, the Slimes were being turned into clear water one after another. Yet their instinctive hunger only drove them to split even faster and throw themselves at her with greater frenzy.

“See? I knew this would happen.”

Megumin stared expressionlessly at the writhing pink mass ahead, while the red glow at the tip of her staff grew brighter and brighter.

“Kōichi, can I use Explosion Magic now? Turning Aqua and all those Slimes into dust should count as a form of pure purification too, right?”

“W-Wait! Don’t cast anything yet!”

Darkness, her face already completely flushed, rushed forward. She tossed her greatsword aside and plunged into the pile of Slimes with the fervor of a martyr.

“Aqua-sama! I’m coming to save you! Please, let these wicked, slime-covered monsters come after me instead! Yes, exactly like that! Start with the gaps in my armor... Ahh, this suffocating sensation... It’s wonderful!”

Kōichi stared at the chaotic scene before him, which looked like something that ought to be censored, and let out a deep sigh.

He turned toward Dust.

“Dust, while they’re acting as bait, where is that treasure you mentioned? If we don’t find it soon, I really will let Megumin flatten this entire place.”

Even Dust seemed overwhelmed by what he was seeing. He shrank back and pointed toward a faint golden glimmer deep inside the pink fog.

“Over there! Look! Right under that giant pink Slime’s butt... No, wait, under the throne!”

The ground shook violently.

The previously flat layer of pink slime began swelling upward like an inflating balloon.

With a series of wet, squelching noises that made everyone’s teeth ache, a gigantic pink Slime more than ten meters across slowly rose from underground like a mountain of flesh.

The worst part was the huge, fleshy face that gradually emerged at the top of the monster.

The drooping eyes, the pouty mouth that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment, it was practically identical to Aqua, who was currently being smothered by Slimes. Even the translucent, droplet-shaped hair ornament on its head had been copied perfectly.

“You’ve got to be kidding me... No matter how I look at it, this thing has to be related to Aqua, right?”

Kazuma Satou stared with his mouth hanging open, nearly dropping his short sword. He pointed at the enormous ridiculous face, then turned toward Kōichi.

“Hey, Kōichi! When you called her pure earlier, did you somehow know it would summon a monster with intelligence this movingly pathetic? This thing is basically Aqua’s resentment given physical form!”

“What kind of rude thing is that to say?! How could a disgusting, slimy monster that looks like an oversized pudding possibly have anything to do with a beautiful and noble Goddess like me?!”

Still tangled up in a swarm of smaller Slimes, Aqua roared furiously. She stretched her neck as far as she could to look at the giant monster, then suddenly went rigid.

“W-Wait... Why did it even copy that bit of sparkling wine foam at the corner of my mouth that I haven’t wiped off yet?! Why do I suddenly feel like the entire world is making fun of me?! Waaaaah! Kōichi! Hurry up and kill it! The fact that something like that exists is an insult to my divinity!”

Kōichi watched the giant monster chuckle creepily at Aqua, his thoughts racing.

He noticed that once the Slime King appeared, the smaller Slimes around them became even more aggressive. Yet their attention was indeed completely locked on Aqua.

“No, Aqua. This is exactly what makes you so charming as a pure Goddess.”

Rather than comforting her, Kōichi gave her an unreadable smile.

“Look. It’s completely captivated by your flawless soul. By which I mean your intellect. Since it looks exactly like you, that makes you the perfect bait! Kazuma, Dust, now! The moment that monster appeared, the throne beneath it was exposed! That glittering pile is right under its butt... Ahem, right beneath its core!”

“Ooooh! I see it! That’s the shine of ancient gold coins!”

Dust let out a strange yell and shot forward like an arrow, completely forgetting that he was still missing one boot.

“Hey! Wait for me! This kind of sneaky, underhanded work is exactly the sort of thing only a scumbag would... I mean, how could I possibly miss out on an important tactical support mission like this?!”

Kazuma Satou abandoned all further commentary and vanished into the pink fog in a flash.

However, the Slime King seemed to realize what they were trying to do.

Its enormous Aqua-like face suddenly twisted into a vicious expression. Its mouth opened wide, and a mass of thick pink slime so concentrated it had turned purple began gathering inside.

“Oh no! It’s about to self-destruct! If that much of it explodes, the entire forest will turn into pink syrup!”

Megumin shouted a warning and raised her staff high. The red glow in her eyes had already intensified into something resembling actual flames.

“Kōichi! We can’t wait any longer! Move! I’m going to erase that ridiculous face from the map before it spits out that slime!”

“Wait, Megumin! Darkness is still right under it!” Kōichi shouted.

“It’s fine! Please... make sure... to blow me away too...”

Darkness’s broken, blissful moans drifted over from the distance. She seemed to be trying to crawl inside the Slime King’s body.

“Being ravaged by both Explosion Magic and the Slime King at the same time... Ahh... This is truly the fate of a top-tier Knight...”

Kōichi pressed a hand to his forehead.

As expected, this party was beyond saving.

...

Chapter 308: Time to Divide the Spoils

“In that case.”

Kōichi’s gaze sharpened as an icy blue glow instantly gathered in his hand.

“Aqua, this is your last chance. Use your Holy Water to draw its attention! Freeze!”

Rather than attacking the Slime King directly, Kōichi fired the ice spell at the ground beneath its feet.

His goal was to create a sudden patch of unstable footing and throw the enormous creature off balance, buying Kazuma a few precious seconds to grab the treasure.

The air was thick with concentrated sacred energy, along with the unmistakable scent of Aqua’s cheap perfume. Aqua’s blue eyes, usually brimming with tears, now blazed with unprecedented fury.

She simply could not tolerate the existence of a creature even more idiotic than herself that also happened to look exactly like her. It was not only an insult to her beauty, but a direct affront to what little dignity she had left as a Goddess.

“You lowly, wretched slime monster that looks like expired pudding! How dare you desecrate this Goddess’s divinity with that fleshy, ridiculous face of yours!”

Aqua let out a roar that shook the entire area. Blinding blue light erupted from her body, and even the surrounding pink mist was forcibly purified by the sheer intensity of her divine power, turning into clear water vapor.

“Take this! My ultimate attack, filled with the power of the stars, the vast seas, and the wrath of a Goddess! I’ll turn you into a genuine puddle of foot-washing water beneath my sacred radiance! God Blow!!”

Aqua shot forward like a blue meteor, carrying enough force to punch through a city wall, and slammed her fist straight into the Slime King’s huge, ridiculous face as it grinned creepily at her.

BOOM—!!

A heavy impact echoed throughout the entire Forbidden Zone.

However, the expected sight of the Slime King being instantly purified never came.

Because the Slime King was essentially made of extremely dense liquid, Aqua’s full-powered punch had the same effect as striking an enormous, fully inflated trampoline with all her strength.

The creature’s giant fleshy face caved inward.

Then, less than a tenth of a second later, it snapped back with horrifying elasticity that seemed to defy every known law of physics.

“Huh?”

That was all Aqua managed to say before she was launched backward even faster than she had charged in, flying through the air in a perfectly straight line like a baseball sent soaring by a home run.

“Save meeeee! Kōichi! Save meeeee!”

The blue figure traced a miserable arc through the air before landing squarely against a towering mutated tree that was oozing pink slime.

The impact was so strong that the sticky substance sealed her firmly against the trunk, leaving her hanging there like an elaborate human-shaped ornament.

Kōichi watched expressionlessly, even taking a handkerchief from his bag to wipe away a few droplets of water that had splashed onto him.

“As expected. Relying on her to finish a fight is even less realistic than expecting Darkness to actually hit something.”

He turned toward Kazuma Satou and Dust, who were struggling to drag away the treasure chest while the Slime King was still wobbling from Aqua’s impact.

“Hey! You two, did you get it?”

“We got it! But Kōichi, this thing is ridiculously heavy! And it’s wrapped in these pink chains. We can’t open it!”

Sweat poured down Dust’s face as he dragged an enormous gold-trimmed treasure chest studded with pink gemstones. An ominous pink glow surrounded the entire thing.

“Forget that! We need to get out of here first!”

Kazuma Satou screamed and pointed at the Slime King, which was slowly regaining its balance. Its Aqua-like face had now turned bright red with rage.

“It’s going to explode! It’s seriously going to explode! That expression is exactly the same as Aqua’s whenever she loses her wallet!”

The Slime King emitted a deafening series of gurgling noises as its body began swelling violently.

Purple-black arcs of lightning flickered beneath its previously pink surface.

It was the unmistakable sign of an enormous concentration of magical power about to spiral out of control.

“Megumin, are you ready yet?”

Kōichi asked calmly.

He knew Slimes were immune to physical attacks. If they did not overwhelm it with firepower now, everyone here was probably in serious trouble.

“It’s... ready.”

Megumin stood on elevated ground, the red glow surrounding her staff blazing at its absolute peak. Her cloak snapped wildly in the wind, and her eyes burned with a manic desire for destruction.

“Piercing the darkness of the abyss, devouring all, the Crimson Lotus! This is the light of the end, and the very embodiment of my romance! Explosion!!”

The deafening roar of Explosion Magic slowly faded.

Where the center of the pink slime-covered forest had once stood, there was now a charred crater dozens of meters across.

The Slime King’s mountain-sized body had been completely vaporized by the ultimate magic, transformed into translucent pink steam drifting through the sky. Even its ridiculous Aqua-like face twisted and dissolved into the air.

“Ha... haha... Did you see that...? This is... the culmination... of my romance...”

Megumin lay spread-eagle beside the crater, completely drained of strength, yet wearing an intensely satisfied smile.

“Yes, yes. Your romance nearly turned the rest of us into part of the pink scenery.”

Kōichi grabbed the back of Megumin’s collar and dragged her to safety like a cat.

At the same time, Aqua finally slid down from the tree that had been blown in half.

Her once-elegant feather mantle was now covered in sticky, charred filth, making her look like a drenched chicken that had rolled around in a mud pit.

Yet the moment she spotted the pink treasure chest, still completely intact and somehow even shinier after the explosion, she instantly unleashed strength that surpassed human limits.

“Treasure! My treasureeeee!”

Aqua launched herself onto the chest and clung to it with both arms.

“Nobody touches it! This is money I earned with the sacred dignity of a Goddess and the humiliation of being turned into a divine tree ornament! I’m going to use it to buy every bottle of sparkling wine in Axel, then hire ten muscular men to stand on the second floor of the Adventurers Guild and fan me all day!”

“Hey! What nonsense are you spouting, you idiot Goddess who did nothing but hang from a tree and cry?!”

Kazuma Satou and Dust rushed in from either side, completely ignoring their own miserable appearances, and the three immediately began wrestling around the treasure chest.

“It was my Lurk and Dust dragging the thing out that got it here! We’re dividing the spoils! It has to be split fairly!”

“Fair? There’s no such word as fair in an Adventurer’s dictionary!”

Dust tried to pry Aqua’s fingers away from the chest while shouting toward Kōichi.

“Kōichi! You’re the captain, so say something fair! Out of that five million Eris, I need at least three million to pay off my debts... I mean, to contribute to rebuilding my hometown!”

Kōichi stared coldly at the shameless trio fighting over money amid the ruins.

Then he glanced toward Darkness, who was lying at the bottom of the crater with a blissful expression, lovingly stroking the charred fragments of her armor while murmuring, “That feeling of having my armor shattered by the shockwave... Haa...”

He let out a deep sigh.

“All of you, shut up.”

Kōichi’s voice was not loud, but it carried enough authority to silence them.

He crouched beside the treasure chest, which was still giving off a faint pink glow.

“If we’re going to divide the spoils, first we need to find out what’s actually inside.”

Kōichi extended his hand. A thin thread of magical energy gathered at his fingertip and precisely severed the pink chains wrapped around the chest.

“If this turns out to contain nothing but a pile of Aqua photo books, I’m kicking all three of you into the crater to keep Darkness company.”

“Huh? Photo books of me? Wouldn’t those be even more valuable?!”

Aqua actually began considering the possibility with a completely serious expression.

With a crisp click, the treasure chest slowly opened.

But instead of the blinding golden glow everyone had expected, only two strange objects were waiting inside.

A massive pearl glowing with pink fluorescence, and a pink letter giving off a cloyingly sweet fragrance.