Kōichi stood up, walked over to Darkness, and looked down at her with his signature sadistic expression.
He raised his foot and rudely stepped on Darkness's golden hair.
"Listen carefully, you shameless, filthy-minded perverted female Knight."
Kōichi spoke in an icy voice dripping with contempt.
"If you want to be treated like trash that badly, then I'll kindly grant your wish. Starting today, you are the lowest-ranking slave in this guest room. Your job is to scrub every single tile in the corridor clean with your face!"
"Haaah!"
Darkness let out an extremely high-pitched gasp, one that nearly cracked at the end.
Not only was she not angry, she trembled with excitement as tears streamed down her face.
"This is amazing! The humiliation of being used like a dirty rag... the physical impact of being hit in the head with crab shells... and even being hung from the city gates for public execution... Uuuh, thank you! I'll polish the floor with my face until it shines!"
The crisis was over. More than that, the royal palace's parasite Party had expanded from two members to five.
...
Over the next few days, the VIP area in the palace's east wing completely became an abyss of depravity.
Every day, Aqua acted like a bottomless wine barrel, drinking the Elven secret brews from the palace cellar, vintages older than her IQ, as if they were water. Once drunk, she would perform her miraculous Nature's Beauty in the hallway, spraying water stains all over the walls.
Megumin, meanwhile, was hauled by Kazuma in a luxurious carriage to the abandoned fortress outside the city at the same time every day. After unleashing that earth-shaking Explosion Magic, she would be carried back like a corpse and left sprawled on the sofa while maids fed her.
As for Kōichi and Kazuma, the two of them had fully evolved into boneless mollusks. Their days consisted of nothing but eating and sleeping. They even invented the ultimate lazy man's skill: lying in bed and using magic to control knives and forks to feed each other.
...
Until that afternoon.
Kōichi was lying on a velvet-covered chaise lounge, his feet soaking in a pure-gold basin filled with water from a polar ice spring.
Kazuma wore an eye mask and was enjoying an extremely gentle head massage from four royal maids.
Aqua was asleep nearby, hugging an empty wine bottle, while Megumin drooled on another sofa and mumbled about explosions in her dreams.
"Smack!"
A sharp sound shattered the decadent atmosphere in the room.
Darkness suddenly stood up from the floor and slammed down the rag in her hand, now so black that its original color could no longer be recognized.
At that moment, a rare look of noble righteousness actually appeared on her face.
"Enough! I've had enough!"
Darkness clenched her fists, her whole body trembling. Her golden eyes shone with the light of justice as she shouted in accusation.
"Look at yourselves! You've sunk into royal favor, eating and sleeping like pigs, then sleeping and eating again! You have no dignity or fighting spirit left as Adventurers! Aqua has become a drunkard, Megumin has become a useless girl who only sets off fireworks, and the two of you..."
She pointed a trembling finger at Kōichi and Kazuma.
"You two are practically tumors on the kingdom! As Lalatina, daughter of the Dustiness family, I absolutely cannot allow my companions to keep living in such luxury and debauchery! Stand up right now, take up your weapons, and let us go defeat the Demon King's Army. Let us experience those harsh battles full of blood and sweat, where monsters tear into us, tentacles coil around us... Haaah..."
By the end, certain unhealthy images had clearly surfaced in her mind again. Her breathing quickened, and a blush spread across her cheeks.
Even so, she forced herself to bite her lip and maintain her crumbling noble dignity.
The room fell into deathly silence.
Kōichi slowly removed his pure-gold sunglasses, while Kazuma pushed away the maid beside him and pulled down his eye mask.
The two of them looked at Darkness, who had suddenly awakened to righteousness, as if they were staring at an alien.
"Kazuma, did you hear that? She's actually trying to tell us what to do?"
Kōichi picked at his ear, an extremely sadistic cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"I heard her. Looks like we've been too indulgent lately, and now she's under the delusion that she's some noble Knight."
Kazuma sighed and sat up from the chaise lounge, his gaze turning extremely dangerous.
Darkness looked at the cold, malicious stares of the two men and instinctively trembled, but she still forced out her chest.
"W-What are you planning? Do you intend to use force to make me submit? Go ahead! Even if you whip me or drip candle wax on me, I will never take back what I just said!"
"Dream on, you hopeless pervert."
Kōichi cut off Darkness's delusion.
He slowly stood up, walked over to Darkness, whose face was full of expectation, and arrogantly poked a finger against her hard armor, preparing to deliver a thorough ideological lesson in uselessness.
"Listen up, Lalatina. Why do so-called Adventurers risk their lives fighting monsters? For the peace of all humanity? Don't make me laugh! Obviously, it's to earn enough money so we can lie comfortably on velvet beds like we are now, eat grapes someone else peeled for us, and live out the rest of our lives as parasites!"
Kōichi planted his hands on his hips and righteously declared an outrageous theory that would make every hero in history leap out of their grave in rage.
"We've already reached the top in one step and achieved the ultimate goal of life! And you want us to give up this perfect freeloading life and go back to wrestling Goblins in the mud? Was your brain digested by a Giant Toad's stomach acid?!"
"Exactly!" Kazuma chimed in shamelessly from the side with a firm nod. "We used our abilities to trick... no, to earn Iris's favor! This is the blessing we deserve! If you dare mention harsh battles again, I'll immediately order the kitchen to feed you nothing but the highest-grade, sickeningly sweet strawberry macarons for three days straight, completely stripping you of your right to be treated roughly!"
"No! Not macarons! Please, give me moldy black bread instead!"
Darkness was instantly defeated by that vicious threat. She clutched her head and crouched down in agony.
Just as Kōichi was about to press the advantage and grind the female Knight's pride into the floor,
"Bang!"
The heavy carved wooden door, which had only been repaired a few days ago, was violently kicked open again.
"You maggots defiling the royal palace! Get out here right now!"
Claire stood in the doorway with bloodshot eyes, gripping a brand-new knight's longsword.
When she saw the disaster scene inside the room, like the aftermath of a carnival, with wine bottles all over the floor, Aqua snoring away, Megumin drooling, and Kōichi and Kazuma in the middle of mentally abusing Darkness, the veins on her forehead bulged instantly, as if she might suffer a brain hemorrhage at any moment.
Standing behind her, Rain pushed up her glasses and expressionlessly opened her little notebook.
"One damaged high-grade Persian carpet, seventeen broken bottles of Elven secret brew, and one three-hundred-year-old carved mahogany door. Kōichi-san, Kazuma-san, I will record these charges under your names exactly as they are."
"Hey, hey, hey! Claire is clearly the one who kicked the door down! Why is that being charged to us?!" Kazuma protested loudly.
"Shut up, scum!" Claire drew her longsword and pointed the tip straight at the two of them, speaking through clenched teeth. "If Her Highness Iris had not suddenly ordered me to summon you, I would chop you into mincemeat right now and feed you to the two-headed hounds! Hurry up and wake those two useless things. Her Highness is waiting for you in the tea room in the central courtyard!"
The moment they heard the princess had summoned them, Kōichi and Kazuma immediately put away their scoundrel faces.
This was a summons from their long-term meal ticket. They absolutely could not neglect it.
The two hurriedly used water magic to splash Aqua awake, then hoisted the magic-drained Megumin up like a sack of potatoes. Their group marched grandly out of the guest room.
Darkness, like a bullied scapegoat, silently followed at the very back with her still-unwashed, dust-covered face.