The Protagonist System

103 Squaring Things Up

Both Darkness and Megumin enjoyed their enforced 6 hour naps and looked extremely happy after bathing and meeting me back in the Tower's lobby. I had repaired the armor and bodysuit that Darkness wore and it gleamed with a few extra enchantments and was almost as bright as her beaming smile.

“Thank you for holding the main horde back long enough for Megumin to cast her spell.” I said to her.

Darkness paused for a moment, shivered at remembering being crushed under the mass of cabbages, and her smile grew. “It was glorious!”

“That's exactly what Megumin said after she cast her spell.” I told her.

Megumin nodded several times and her hat flopped around and remained on her head. “I've never felt so much power before. It blew up everything and then our combined magic froze it all. It really was glorious!”

I nodded and waved at the front door. “Now that you've recovered, we can get our cards updated and claim the payout for the main mass of cabbages.”

“I don't want the money.” Both Megumin and Darkness said at the same time, looked at each other, and then laughed. Megumin with a giggle and Darkness with a husky bark.

“Adventuring is all I want to do and I'm rich already.” Darkness said and then blushed. “Um... never mind. I didn't say that.”

I reached out and put a hand on her arm to give it a squeeze. “It's all right. Like I told you before, what happens in the Tower stays here.” I said and smiled. “Plus, I'm rich, too. I'm just adventuring to gain as many levels and skills as possible before heading to the Demon King to defeat him.”

Darkness smiled and nodded. “Then I'll follow your example and spread my money around.”

I looked at Megumin and she blushed.

“You already promised to feed me as much as I want, gave me a place to live for as long as I want it, and let me use my explosion as much as possible to make it stronger. I don't need anything else.” Megumin reminded me.

I thought about that. “Why don't we set your share aside? That way if we find anything to upgrade your staff, any special foods you want to try, or things you want for your room to make it yours, you will always have a huge pile of money to play with.”

Megumin smiled and nodded. “That sounds fair. We can do that.”

I led them out of the Tower and we walked over to the Adventurer's Guild. The delicious smell of frog meat and cabbage salad filled the air. The peasants and townsfolk were drooling from the smell, so I gave Megumin and Darkness a pointed look. Both of them gave me huge smiles in return. They knew what they were going to do with a good portion of their money now. Buying food for the locals.

So, that's what we did for the afternoon. I set up several buffet tables in front of the guild hall and Megumin and Darkness walked around and whispered to the people they passed about coming to the guild hall for a free meal. I hired two barmaids for the afternoon and the two women worked their asses off delivering hundreds of meals for the people.

I made sure that everyone that passed by got one and only one, and there were no repeats. No one that showed up would be left out because someone else took their food. Not surprisingly, most of them took it and left instead of eating it there. Half an hour before suppertime when the barmaids had to return to work inside the hall, I ended the event and packed up, then gave the last of the meals to the family that showed up.

With our good deed done for the day and hundreds of happy faces smiling at us, Megumin, Darkness and I entered the guild hall to finally register our party and have our registration cards updated. I knew that both Darkness and Megumin were going to be shocked when they saw their own, because I had already made them party members after we met, so the things I did since then would be applied to their cards as well, like defeating Chris and the cabbages.

I didn't want to go first, because I knew Luna would freak out when she saw that I defeated a Demon General and the embodiment of a goddess. I also didn't tell Darkness about that, since that was Chris' secret and I wasn't going to ruin that relationship without giving Chris a chance to explain it to her. Then again, who wouldn't want to have a goddess as a best friend?

“You're up, Megumin. You were the first one I accepted into my party, so you can go first.” I said and she blushed. “Our party is called 'The Heroes of Axel'.”

Luna looked surprised by that and made note of it.

Megumin handed over her card and tried to not fidget as Luna updated it. Luna caught her breath when she saw what it showed and her eyes went to mine. I smiled and motioned to the card to remind her to hurry up. She sighed and finished accepting the experience and converting it to gained levels and skill points.

“There you go. Congratulations.” Luna said and handed the card to Megumin.

Megumin accepted it and looked at her updated information, made a squeak sound, and fainted. I caught her and cast a quick revive spell on her, so she was only out for a second. Her breathing started to get heavy and she stared at her card with wide eyes, like it was going to bite her if she looked away.

“Go ahead, Darkness. You're next.” I said and held Megumin as she worked through her shock at gaining so many levels and experience points.

Darkness handed over her card with confidence and was fully prepared to accept the experience for surviving the cabbage horde. Luna worked on it and she caught her breath and gave me another look. I smirked at her and she sighed and went back to work.

“There you go. Congratulations.” Luna repeated as she handed the card to Darkness.

“Thank y...” Darkness stopped talking when she saw her current level and the skill points she had gained. She gasped and her eyes darted to mine, only to see the smirk that was still on my face. “How? How did this happen?”

“You'll see.” I said and had to let Megumin go to get my card, so I handed her to Darkness. I took out my Adventurer Registration Card and handed it to Luna. “You might want to sit down for this.”

Luna didn't doubt me and pulled over the chair she usually sat on between customers at the teller booth. She sat down and took several deep breaths before she started working on my card. Her hands trembled as she read over who and what I had handled since the first time I had the card updated after killing hundreds of frogs at Level 1.

Both Darkness and Megumin looked almost scared as sweat rolled down Luna's forehead. Her fingers worked and her breathing was laboured as she finally finished sorting my experience points and assigning levels and skill points. Surprisingly, she also assigned bonuses and a few things I hadn't expected... like the bounty for killing one of the Demon King's generals.

The guild workers behind her in the teller booths brought over bags and bags of Eris. Lots of bags. The smallest of which contained their few coins of mithril, each worth a million Eris each. All total, the bounty for just the general was 300 million Eris. The 10,000 undead army also added another 50 million Eris, which worked out to be 5,000 Eris each or the same as the giant frogs.

I barely held in my laugh at that. The 2,430 heads of cabbage were worth twice that and earned myself and my party another 24.3 million, which we would split three ways to get 8.1 million each. I took out a trunk and quickly put all the money inside and stored it.

“C-c-congratulations, Satou Kazuma, for defeating the undead scourge of the Demon King's Army, General Beldia.” Luna said as her shaky hand passed over my card.

The guild workers applauded and I nodded. Luna didn't mention me defeating Goddess Eris in a personal challenge, probably because she was nervous about me having the Divine skill and Blessing of the Dead. I had also gained another 32 levels, putting me at Level 220. It was one of the highest she's ever seen and I was still 'only' the basic Adventurer class.

Needless to say, everyone in the guild hall cheered and congratulated me. Darkness and Megumin were swept up in the celebration and food and ale were liberally shared. I picked up the tab, of course. Both girls stayed by my side, even when someone started playing music on a lute and people started dancing. I gave them each a dance as well, since I wasn't a jerk.

We went back to the Tower a few hours later and went our separate ways. Darkness told me to keep her share of the money with Megumin's and left to return to her family's mansion. Megumin gave me a weirdly longing look, so I took out the trunk and handed her a bag of 100,000 Eris. She made an odd sound, hugged it with tears in her eyes, and ran up the stairs.

Three of the younger succubi appeared and nodded to me before following her, so I knew they would look after her. I stored the trunk again as The Head Succubi faded into view. She gave me a brief kiss as she hugged me and didn't say a word as we walked up the stairs to my room at the top. We went to bed, even though it was still early, and cuddled for the rest of the evening until we fell asleep.

The next morning, both Megumin and Darkness seemed filled with confidence when I saw them at breakfast. I hadn't asked them what their levels were, mostly because I knew it didn't really matter. With my level so much higher than theirs, anything I managed to defeat and gain levels myself, would power-level them up much faster than they could ever do it on their own.

With that in mind, we went back to the Adventurer's Guild and right over to the job board. There were a lot of difficult postings. By difficult, I meant that there were small red skull marks on them for the amount of times other adventurers attempted them and failed, hopefully without dying. Then again, each mark could represent an adventurer group or for each adventurer that died attempting it.

Darkness let out a soft moan and her hand reached out and touched one that had a pile of red skulls on it. Her fingertip caressed the 15 skulls and then tapped on the subject of the notice.

I couldn't resist reading about whatever had gained her interest like that and stepped close to look. “A manticore and a griffon are fighting over territory in the region and disturbing the peace. If you kill them, you will receive 500,000 Eris.”

Darkness let out another soft moan.

“Do you think you can take hits from a giant spiked tail and claws from a giant monster lion with a man's face?” I gave her a sideways look. “Or is it the giant half-eagle half-lion that's got you all excited?”

“Both!” Darkness exclaimed and bit her lip as she blushed. “I've never faced either of those disgustingly powerful flying monsters before and I wonder if I can survive their vicious attacks!”

Megumin softly chuckled. “You have to hold one of them long enough for me to blast them.”

“Ohhh.” Darkness moaned and hugged herself. “Hugging those filthy creatures as they maul me! It's so shameful!”

I barely covered up my snort and laugh with a cough. “Ahem. Anything else?”

“How about a pack of void wolves?” Megumin asked and pointed at a notice with 23 red skulls on it. “The payout is a million Eris to hunt them down and kill them.”

I looked at it and rubbed my chin. “I wonder if we could get more for intact pelts and things?” I asked myself, then shrugged. “That might be covered under the bounty, so probably not.”

“Ooo, there is a One Shot Bear Kill Quest!” Darkness gasped and pointed at a notice with 18 red skulls on it. “I'm sure it could maul me a lot before it tries to finish me off. It's 16 feet tall and one swipe with its claws will kill you!”

“Not bad.” I said and looked at the location. “It's a bit out of the way, same as the void wolves.”

“Hmm. You're right. We could waste a day or two just looking for them after travelling all that way.” Megumin said. “What about the Destroyer?”

“The what?” I asked and looked at what she pointed to that had 14 red skulls on it.

“Destroyer the Mobile Fortress was sighted several territories away. Scouts are needed to locate it and to determine the route, so the towns and villages in the way can be warned and evacuated.” Megumin said.

“What is it, exactly?” I asked.

“It's a fast-moving giant fortress that walks around on huge legs crushing everything!” Megumin said and mimed a spider walking. “It's also weirdly popular with children.”

I blinked my eyes at her. “You're serious?”

“Yep! Kids love it.” Megumin said and gave me a thumbs up.

I did not clarify that I meant the giant autonomous fortress part. “There's no stated reward, so I guess it's based on how much information the scout gathers and how useful it would be.”

“More than likely.” Darkness said and then turned from the board to give me a pleading look.

I did not have to ask her what she wanted, since her hand was back on the first notice she had pointed out. “I suppose it's not that far away and I have been meaning to set out on the main road to make a few waypoints.” I said and she let out a little squeal. “Go ahead and let Luna know we're taking the manticore quest.”

“Right away!” Darkness said and pulled the notice from the board. After a moment, she gave me a very pointed look before she leaned in and kissed my cheek. She blushed and ran over towards the teller booths.

“She's going to have a lot of fun this time.” Megumin said, her voice normal.

I reached up and plucked the One Shot Bear notice from the board and handed it to her. “We can come back the long way to handle that.” I said and she looked surprised. “I want to see your one shot ruin the One Shot Bear's reputation.”

Megumin shivered at the thought of her explosion doing that and gave me a longing look. I chuckled and leaned down to let her kiss my other cheek. She blushed and ran off to the teller booths. With them distracted, I took both the void wolves and the Destroyer notices. I couldn't let anyone else try to tackle them while we were off handling the other things.

I walked over to the teller booths and both Darkness and Megumin had finished. “If either of you have anyone that needs to know you're leaving town for a while, you should probably do that before we leave.”

“You're right, Satou. I need to head home briefly to let my family know.” Darkness said. “I can meet you at the Tower in half an hour to pack some clothes to take.”

I nodded and looked at Megumin. “Can you go to the Tower and start while I grab some extra provisions from the guild? I'll be over in a few minutes.”

“Sure. I'll let them know we're heading out, too.” Megumin said.

I waited until the both of them went out the front doors before I turned to Luna. The look on her face told me that she was scared for us, considering the two quests the girls accepted. I kept my own face blank as I put the void wolf and Destroyer quest notices on the counter.

Luna caught her breath and stared at them, then at me. “You... you can't... that's too much for you to handle!”

I smiled and put a handful of silver Eris coins on the counter. “I need a week of dry provisions and three helpings of frog meat and salad, too.”

Luna waved at a worker behind her and she assigned my party to the two new quests. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.” I said as the worker put the provisions on the counter and I took out a backpack and stored them inside. I gave them a wave and went to the front doors.

“Please don't die.” Luna whispered.

I opened the door and looked back at her. I flicked my hand at the counter and a dozen roses appeared there. “Don't worry about a thing, Luna. We got this.” I said in my most reassuring voice and left.

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