Epilogue

"Hey, Kazuma! Kazuma, wake up! Come on—get up already!"

I awoke to Darkness's voice. I must not have been sleeping very deeply, because I snapped right back to consciousness. Or maybe it was the way she was shaking me and shouting.

...… I closed my eyes again, hugged Darkness to me, and rolled onto my side… "Mrrrm, mrrrmf, I can't eat any more…" "D-dammit! I know you're awake! Oh, st— Wait, hold on...…" I was just trying to tease Darkness, who had stopped fighting me and just lay there in my arms, but then we heard:

"What are you doing? I told you to go wake up Kazuma! Good heavens, I take my eyes off you for one second and you go trying to tempt this man astray!

What a floozy!"

"Huh?! N-n-n-no, you've got it all wrong! I haven't done anything yet!"

Apparently, Megumin had come into the room, so I opened my eyes. Of course, I found myself looking right at Darkness. "So you came to attack me again?!" I said.

"Argh! Y-you…!" Darkness blushed furiously, brought to the edge of tears by my false accusation. Meanwhile, I ducked away from her, stretching as I asked the girls, "What's up, you two? It's a little early for all this commotion, don'tcha think?"

"It's noon already! And anyway, something terrible has happened! Look at this!"

I sat up in bed—I didn't bother to do any more than that—and looked at something Megumin handed me.

It was a letter. I opened it to discover a note inside, written in almost frighteningly beautiful handwriting.

Dear all: A lovely summer is upon us. I hope you're doing well.

Darkness, please stop playing that game where you deliberately stub your toe on the corner of the dresser.

Megumin, take it easy on the explosions, or you're going to end up being a major cause of global warming.

Kazuma, I know you're little more than a giant mass of libido given human form, but please stop spreading everyone's laundry out on the floor and rolling around on it.

I balled up the letter and flung it into a corner of my room.

""Ahhh!"" the girls cried.

Megumin rushed over and grabbed it. "I understand how you feel, but please read to the very end."

Fine. I resumed reading.

Now then, our world is a desolation beset by the scourge of the Demon King. In such dire circumstances, can a beautiful and lovely goddess such as myself let the Demon King go unchecked?

No, I certainly cannot.

To my faithful Axis believers who are scattered all over this world:

Rising to the faith my one billion followers have placed in me, I now go forth on a journey. Yes, on a quest to become a legend… I looked at Megumin and Darkness. "Does the Axis Church really have a billion followers?"

"If you counted every single one in the entire world, it would probably be a few hundred at best," Darkness said. Reassured, I went back to the letter.

Thus, with this lofty objective in mind… …I'm gonna zip over there and take out the Demon King.

This time, I finally stood up. "That idiot…!"

Darkness looked at me, alarmed. "Aqua's been saving the pocket change you give her, Kazuma. She's got quite a bit saved up by now. I think she might be hoping to hire some capable adventurers on the way…" I jumped down from my bed. We had to go after her…!

When I looked at the girls' faces, though, they both seemed oddly uncomfortable. I gave them a questioning look, and Megumin pointed to a corner of the letter. I looked at it… …and found that if I stared very closely, I could see the faint traces of something that had been written and then erased. She'd probably drafted the letter, then erased something that didn't sound cool enough. It said:

P.S. Please look for me.

Wouldn't you normally write "Please don't look for me"?

What an idiot.