After listening to Mrs. Shizuka's account, Shiho's expression was no longer as sharp as before.
"Auntie Shizuka, you didn't have to do this."
Mrs. Shizuka stood by the door. The moonlight didn't reach her face. Only a faint sigh came from the darkness, carrying a kind of exhaustion that comes from surviving a disaster.
"Shiho, you don't understand." Mrs. Shizuka said. "That meal was just an excuse."
"Today at the guild, did you notice the way Yu looked at me and Kazuha?" Mrs. Shizuka's voice chased after her from behind. "I've seen that kind of look countless times in the real world. That's the look he gets when he wants to kill someone."
Shiho pressed her lips together and said nothing. Until several years before she was transported, she had been under the strict surveillance of the Black Organization and knew nothing of what was happening outside.
Mrs. Shizuka's voice lowered. "Kazuha is very pitiful. She's lost all her family. I don't want her to end up like Heiji..."
Shiho couldn't help but ask:
"And what about you?"
Mrs. Shizuka was silent. In the end, she just shook her head.
…
The next day, at the Axel Adventurer's Guild.
Makoto's group occupied the largest long table in the center of the hall. The table was spread with maps, quest sheets, and a few glasses of bubbly beer that had barely been touched.
"What does everyone think? About making our name known."
Makoto leaned back in his chair, his legs crossed and resting on the table.
"Just complete a high-difficulty quest."
Yunyun thought for a moment, then raised her hand like an honors student answering the teacher's question, and answered: "Isn't that how the Adamantite-rank adventurers like Blue Rose and Red Drop did it?"
"That would be too slow, right?"
Kazuma was eating breakfast, breadcrumbs still stuck to the corners of his mouth. "We're at the lowest rank, Copper. To rise to Adamantite Rank, we'd be at it until the pigs are able to fly?"
Yu crossed his arms over his chest. "We should have left our names behind in that country."
That night in the Melromarc palace was enough to shock the world.
Too bad they left in too much of a hurry and didn't carve a line of identification on the faces of Aultcray and Malty.
If they had left 'Nishikawa Family was here' on their faces, wouldn't they already be famous?
Too bad it was too late to go back and make up for it now. That father and daughter had probably already been buried by their citizens.
"Want to become famous? That's easy."
A passing adventurer team stopped. The leader was a little blond with a tear mole at the corner of his left eye. He smiled and interjected, "Just kill a big shot, isn't that right?"
Makoto glanced at him.
He remembered this blond. In the original work, he was Kazuma's troublesome friend... Dust.
"Dust, you bastard! Don't talk nonsense!"
A female adventurer with a ponytail punched him on the head, making Dust's head sink down. She smiled apologetically at Makoto, put her hands together, and bowed repeatedly. "Sorry, sorry, this guy's not very bright. We're leaving, we're leaving—"
Although Makoto's group had just arrived in Axel, anyone without brain damage could see that this group of people was not to be messed with.
The Teddy Devil suddenly crawled out from under the table. "What's the use of just apologizing? Sleep with me and I'll let you off."
As he said this, his gaze licked the ponytailed female adventurer from head to toe.
Makoto raised his foot and stomped down. With a muffled 'thud', the Teddy Devil exploded, bright red flesh and blood spraying across the floor like an abstract painting.
The entire hall fell silent. Even the bard playing the harp in the corner stopped playing.
Makoto waved to Dust and the others, signaling they could leave.
Dust and his team turned and left, their hearts still pounding, their steps as fast as if they were fleeing for their lives. The ponytailed female adventurer didn't even dare to look back.
'This group was not normal.'
The Rabbit Devil skillfully pulled a blood bag from his pocket and poured it on the meat paste on the floor.
The blood soaked into the shredded flesh. Blood vessels grew from the severed ends.
The Teddy Devil crawled back up from the ground, shook the remaining flesh off his head like a dog shaking water off after a bath.
"Boss, it's not like you'd want that kind of goods anyway. Let me have some fun with her." His mouth was still grinning, but his voice was much more subdued.
Makoto looked at him expressionlessly. "We're discussing serious business. Keep your dick out of it."
The Teddy Devil's mouth shut.
"Ha... ha... ha..."
A rough panting sound came from nearby.
Everyone turned to look.
A female knight with a blonde ponytail had somehow come to the table.
"Ha... ha... ha..."
Her face was as red as a crab just taken out of a steamer. Her gaze lingered on Makoto's face for a moment, then moved to the still-uncleaned bright red bloodstains on the floor. "Excuse me, are you recruiting team members?"
Yu's gaze rested on the female knight's face for two seconds. He thought, 'This woman has pretty good taste.'
Then he asked, "Why do you want to join us?"
The female knight's breathing grew even more rapid.
She looked at Makoto, her lips trembling, her eyes misty as if she were drunk.
"I saw this gentleman just now..."
Her voice grew more and more excited. Anyone listening would think she had been drugged. "...step on that ugly dog and turn it into meat paste... I found it very exciting. I, I've always wanted to be treated like that too..."
Her fingers twisted together. Drool dripped from the corner of her mouth.
"A-after I join your team... can you treat me like that too? Ha... haha..."
Her face was red, her breath ragged. Her body twisted like a snake. The joints of her armor made faint rubbing sounds as she moved.
Anyone listening would think she had eaten the aphrodisiac cooking made by Erina and the others.
The corner of Yu's mouth twitched slightly. He turned his face to the other side without expression.
The three Uzaki women, the Miyano sisters, and Kazuha, who had just been about to enter the guild, all stopped in their tracks.
"What a pervert..." Shiho muttered quietly. Then she glanced at Megumin and Aqua in her own team.
She felt that if these three women were put on the same team, they would definitely be invincible.
She wondered what kind of god could possibly command these three.
Makoto nodded, reached out his hand toward Darkness, and said, "Alright, welcome to the team."
Yu leaned in and lowered his voice. "Senpai, are you sure? I feel like there's something wrong with this woman."
Makoto smiled and said nothing.
Darkness saw Makoto's outstretched hand, her face lit up with joy, and she reached out to take it.
"Who said you could shake my hand?"
Makoto's tone suddenly changed.
Darkness's hand froze in mid-air.
"Kneel!"
Makoto pulled a black leather collar from thin air... the standard kind of dog collar.
He had clearly just taken it out of his item bar.
He had prepared it before transmigrating to use on Shin-chan's goddess, Nanako. Unfortunately, he hadn't had the chance to use it before being transported.