The morning sunlight pierced through the drafty roof of the stable and stabbed mercilessly into Kōichi and Kazuma's eyes.
Neither of them had slept much at all. All night long, that number, 158,000, had circled through their heads like a vengeful ghost.
Meanwhile, the culprit herself, Aqua, was sprawled out on the hay in a starfish pose, a glistening string of drool hanging from the corner of her mouth, sleeping unbelievably soundly, as if the one who had flooded the guild bathroom last night hadn't been her at all.
"Come on. Time to face reality." With two massive dark circles under his eyes, Kazuma spoke in a hoarse voice that sounded like he'd wandered a desert for three days and three nights. "If we kneel sincerely enough, maybe Luna-san will still leave us a way out."
Kōichi took a deep breath, grabbed Aqua by the back of the collar, and dragged her along like a giant blue sack as he and Kazuma headed for the Adventurers Guild.
But the moment they turned the corner and saw where the guild should have been, both of them froze in place.
The grand, lively Adventurers Guild that had once been filled with the smell of booze and dreams... was gone.
In its place was a gigantic indoor swimming pool, still bubbling away.
Half the roof was stuck diagonally into the mud, and the thick red brick walls, once so solid, now looked like soggy biscuits, collapsing limply outward on all sides.
Several Giant Toads that should have been outside the city were happily hopping around on the water covering the guild ruins, croaking in open mockery.
Even the sign that had once read Axel Adventurers Guild was floating there alone on the surface, with a duck standing on top of it, tilting its head at the three of them.
At that instant, Kōichi and Kazuma's faces went so dark they could have been used as ink.
"A... qua..." Kazuma forced the name out through clenched teeth, his voice shaking on the verge of collapse. He turned and stared at Aqua, who was rubbing her sleepy eyes in confusion. "Last night... didn't you say you only flooded the bathroom? The hell is this supposed to be, a bathroom?! You practically flushed the entire guild like it was one giant toilet!!"
Kōichi pointed at the ruins still slowly sinking, his finger trembling like he was playing the piano. "Aqua, tell the truth. Just how much power did you put into Create Water last night? Did you purify the guild's underground support walls into thin air too?!"
Aqua stared at the disaster in front of her. First she froze for three full seconds, then suddenly covered her mouth, her eyes instantly turning red.
"Ugh... uwaaah! It's because Dust looked really scary back then! He was holding that broken stick and rushing into the women's bathroom while yelling nonsense about Slime baptism... I got scared and accidentally turned the power all the way up... I thought the guild had a really advanced drainage system! How was I supposed to know it couldn't handle that much water?!"
"Good morning, you three. Looks like you've already seen Axel's newest attraction."
A voice as emotionless and cold as an ancient glacier came from behind them.
Kōichi and Kazuma stiffly turned around and saw Luna-san standing in the mud.
Her normally neat uniform was now splattered with dirt, and she was still holding that bill. Only this time, instead of dragging on the ground, it had wrapped around her several times.
Luna looked at the two of them expressionlessly. There was no anger in her eyes, only a dead calm, the kind that came from seeing through all worldly suffering.
"Due to Aqua-san's holy flood, the guild's foundation suffered catastrophic collapse. It also swept away three neighboring houses and one weapon shop. Adding the reconstruction costs, the housing expenses for adventurers during the closure, and Dust-san's treatment for the psychological trauma caused by being flooded in the bathroom..."
Luna slowly raised four fingers. Her voice was so calm it was terrifying.
"Total, 40 million Eris."
With a thud, Kazuma dropped to his knees in the mud and stared blankly at the sky. "Forty million... heh... forty million... Kōichi, do you think this life of ours... can officially be declared over already?"
Kōichi looked at the absurdly long bill, then at Aqua, who was clutching his leg and bawling her eyes out, and felt his head start throbbing.
Forty million Eris. This was no longer a problem that could be solved by killing a few frogs. It was such an absurd amount of money that even if the three of them were chopped up and sold to the Demon King's Army as military rations, it probably still wouldn't be enough.
Beside the muddy ruins of the guild, the air was thick with the kind of despair that only the bankrupt could give off.
Kōichi took a deep breath, then with trembling hands pulled out the thirty-million Eris check from inside his clothes. Together with the last five-Eris coin in his pocket, worn smooth and shiny, he slapped them onto Luna's mud-splattered desk, which was really just a floating door panel.
"This is my final ripple, Luna-san." He closed his eyes, his voice carrying the bleak resolve of someone marching calmly to his death. "A thirty-million check, plus these five Eris. As for the remaining eight million... even if we have to sell our kidneys, sell our blood, or scrub Giant Toads for a living, we'll pay it back. Just please don't send us to the chopping block right now."
Luna stared at the check for a full minute.
Then, with perfect elegance, she put the check away and crossed out a few zeroes on the bill.
"Deal. I'll convert the remaining eight million into high-difficulty subjugation quests. If you die on the job, I'll use your adventurer insurance payout to cover the debt." Luna adjusted her glasses and gave them a professional smile so chilling it nearly made Kazuma piss himself on the spot.
Just then, heavy footsteps came from the muddy ruins in the distance.
"He's here! That demon's here!!" Kazuma shrieked and instantly dove behind Kōichi. "Kōichi! It's Dust! He's definitely here to drown us in the mud! Hurry up and shove Aqua out there as a human shield!!"
Sure enough, Dust came staggering toward them, soaked from head to toe, a pain-relief patch stuck to his forehead, his trademark wooden stick still in hand.
His eyes looked strangely hollow, as if what he had gone through last night hadn't just been a flood, but some kind of spiritual remolding.
Aqua let out a terrified scream and clutched Kōichi's cloak tightly. "Uwaaaah! Dust, listen to me! That water last night was holy! It was meant to purify the fear of that bearded Slime out of your heart! You can't repay kindness with cruelty!!"
But then something happened that none of them saw coming.
Dust stopped three meters away.
He didn't roar. He didn't raise his stick. Instead, he solemnly straightened his tattered collar, then...
Thunk!
He gave Aqua a perfect ninety-degree bow.
"Aqua-sama! Please forgive me for my blindness!!"
Dust's voice rang out loud and sincere, with even a hint of suppressed excitement mixed in.
He kept his body bent at a ninety-degree angle, letting muddy water drip from his forehead into the puddles below.
Kōichi and Kazuma looked at each other, their jaws dropping straight to their feet at the same time.
"Huh?!" Kazuma dug at his ear in disbelief. "Dust, did the water soak your brain too? She flushed you and the toilet pit straight into the sewer!"
Dust snapped his head up. He looked miserable, but his eyes were shining with the unmistakable gleam of someone about to get rich.
As an old hand who had spent years clawing his way along at the bottom, Dust might usually look like some deranged punk, but he definitely wasn't stupid.
Last night, in the bathroom, when that tsunami-like torrent instantly smashed through the guild's load-bearing walls, the thing that flashed through his mind as he was blasted into the air wasn't his life flashing before his eyes.
It was an utterly insane business plan.
This woman is a mobile strategic-class natural disaster! She flattened the sturdiest guild building in Axel in an instant. What kind of terrifying magic output is that?! If I can trick her into joining my party, then the next time we run into a troll nest or goblin cave, I can just have her flood the whole place! No need to even draw our weapons. We just walk in and pick up the equipment and magic stones! Forget thirty million. We could make three hundred million easy!
"You don't get it, Kazuma!" Dust declared righteously, pointing at the ruins, his voice overflowing with hunger for power. "That world-destroying strike last night completely woke me up! To create destruction on that scale... ahem, I mean, such sacred purification, Aqua-sama's power is absolutely top-tier in all of Axel! Aqua-sama, please abandon these two penniless losers who have to scrape together even five Eris, and join my party! With you around, if we just flood a few high-difficulty dungeons, we'll easily make thirty million!!"
Aqua froze.
She blinked those blue eyes full of pure, crystal-clear stupidity, and then that familiar, fatal swelling of ego took over her high ground once again.
Planting both hands on her hips, puffing out her nonexistent chest, and tilting her nose almost into the sky, she flashed a goddess-like, utterly punchable smile of mercy.
"Ohohoho! My, my, even if you are a pervert with strange tastes, your eye for talent is surprisingly good! That's right. I am the Goddess of Water. A mere dungeon? With just the slightest flick of my finger, I can turn every last one of them into an indoor swimming pool! Since you've begged me so earnestly, I suppose I can reluctantly..."