In stark contrast to me, all by my lonesome in a corner, everyone else was surrounded by both nobles and other adventurers praising them to the skies.

  Megumin had a crowd of what I presumed were wizards around her. As for Aqua, all the people she had healed were mobbing her. Mitsurugi must have been used to getting along in the capital, because he greeted everyone who came up to him with practiced ease. There seemed to be a high percentage of women in his crowd.

  A closer look showed that Megumin appeared to be letting the adulation go to her head, while Aqua, for some reason, was still clutching the wine close and shooing away everyone who got near her. She must’ve been under the impression that they were out to steal her alcohol.

  And then there was…

  “Heh, whatever she says, she’s really the daughter of a major noble family.”

  Darkness was in a dress, but unlike at the party the other day, regular adventurers were participating in the victory celebration, too. Maybe that was why she was sharing a special table with the royalty and some of the high-ranking nobles. People who were probably members of the royal guard surrounded the table. I didn’t think I had a shot at getting close.

  I guess it was a little late, but I suddenly realized how big the social gap between us was, and it left me feeling kind of lonely.

  Then I made eye contact with Iris, who was also seated at Darkness’s table. She had been really angry earlier, but when she looked at me now, I thought she seemed almost sad.

  I would be going home the next day. I wished the last thing I’d seen of Iris hadn’t been her in a rage. If only I could have seen her smile…

  At that moment, as I stood there feeling sorry for myself, somebody spoke to me. “What, you’re still here at the castle?”

  Even though this was a special party, the speaker was wearing her white suit as usual. Claire had a glass in one hand and was glaring daggers at me.

  It wasn’t enough that I had been absolutely no help in the recent battle. There had been the whole body-swapping fiasco earlier, too. Suffice it to say, she wasn’t speaking to me as deferentially as she had when we’d first met.

  Maybe I was having a bad influence on her, too?

  “We’ve asked Lady Dustiness and the others to stay here tonight as guests of honor, but you can show yourself out.”

  “…Look, I get that you’re angry with me. Even I think I went a little far this time. But it’s my last night here. You think you could have a heart just this once? I mean, you seemed at least a little bit happy to get a bath with Iris.”

  “D-don’t be stupid. What are you saying? Me, happy about a bath with the princess? That’s… That’s the stupidest… But never mind that. We won’t speak of it.”

  She definitely felt something more than loyalty for Iris. Darkness and her perversions, Alderp and his creepy-old-guy mentality—were all nobles this way?

  “You didn’t catch the thief, and you didn’t do one bit of good in the battle. You really are all talk, aren’t you? I asked around, and it turns out when you defeated the Demon King’s generals, you didn’t even do it yourself. It was always Lady Dustiness or that wizard who struck the final blow.”

  This conversation was going south in a hurry.

  “I was supervising them! And hey, they’re not perfect, either, all right?”

  “I’m already familiar with their shortcomings. But it’s nothing that can’t be compensated for with some backup from our nation. I presume they’ll be asked to join Mitsurugi’s party. Together, I suspect they could defeat even the Demon King. You have more than enough money already, don’t you? Maybe you could just leave that party and spend the rest of your life lolling around town.”

  Wait a second, what’s this all of a sudden?

  “I’m all for lolling around, but where do you get off trying to force me out of my own party? I knew a young punk who thought a lot like you, but I had him join up with Aqua and the others, and he went home crying. You want to try corralling that lot?”

  “They only need to work as part of a group, as they did today. Each of them has one very specific focus, but with a large enough group, that’s fine. And what about you? Do you excel in any one thing, the way they do? Well, think about it. If you can show some ability that puts those girls and Mitsurugi to shame, then you can feel free to laugh at me to your heart’s content.”

  Asking me to show what I was capable of the very same day I got killed by kobolds. What a sadist! Fine. Forget this castle! I’m going back to my inn.

  …Wait, that’s right.

  “Let’s forget all that for a minute. What about the necklace Iris was wearing? Where did it go? Don’t let her keep it. I think it’s some kind of Sacred Treasure. If you give it to my friend Aqua, she’ll seal it away. Could you do that for me?”

  Claire’s response to this warning surprised me.

  “I can’t do that. That necklace was a gift to His Highness, the first prince, Jatice. As His Highness hasn’t returned yet, it’s not mine to give away. Anyway, it may be a Sacred Treasure, but all it does is let you switch bodies for a while. Where’s the harm in that?”

  She blushed a little, looking off to one side.

  …She was actually encouraged by all that fuss today.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. If you didn’t invoke the activation phrase, it was just a necklace. And you really didn’t switch bodies for very long.

  Then Claire gave me a thin smile and said, “I want you out of the capital tomorrow. We don’t need your strength or your abilities. If you refuse to go, I’ll evict you by force… But anyway, feel free to celebrate tonight… That is, if you’ve done anything worth celebrating.”

  9

  I went back to our inn with tears in my eyes and sat alone in my dark room, sobbing.

  “This sucks! What’s her problem anyway? We won’t see each other again after tomorrow, and she still can’t bring herself to say one nice thing to me? I mean, I know it’s partly my fault! In fact, it’s all my fault!”

  Darkness and the others had made no attempt to extricate themselves from their admirers, so I assumed they were going to stay until the end of the party and sleep at the castle.

  …They wouldn’t really go to Mitsurugi’s party, would they?

  Why did this feel so wrong? All along, I’d wanted nothing more than to ditch those deadweights and join a real party, but now that it might actually happen—for some reason, I was really anxious…

  Arrrgh, forget it! I’ll just go back to Axel and live a life of leisure on the reward money from Sylvia and the payment from Vanir.

  I wondered what I’d do first when I got back to town. I was all for a life of leisure, but even I might get tired of just sleeping all day, every day. It really sucked that this world didn’t have video games or PCs.

  But wait—there was that game system Aqua brought back from Crimson Magic Village. Perfect! I’d just get it from her and spend my days playing games to my heart’s content.

  As this fantasy was running through my mind, I realized something.

  I never got to show Iris who’s boss at our game…

  So I sat around, thinking of Iris and moping. That was when it happened: There was a knock at the window of my room.

  I looked out. In the moonlight, I could discern the silver-haired thief girl perched on my window frame two stories up.

  I opened the window, and Chris slipped into the room.

  “Heyo. Didn’t you have a party today? Left early?” Then she laughed as if she knew exactly what had happened, which she probably did. How did she know about the Sacred Treasures and what had gone on at the party anyway? I wondered if there was some kind of “thieves guild” that only thieves could belong to.

  “Sneak into my room at night as many times as you want, but my answer’s not going to change. However, I will share some info with you that I happened to pick up. The Sacred Treasure that allows people to change bodies is in the castle. But you really only get to switch for a very short time. It doesn’t seem that dangerous, not like the monster-summoning one.”

  I turned toward her just long enough to say all this, then rolled over again in my bed, my back to her. Tonight of all nights, I wanted to be left to my memories of Iris. I knew Lady Eris had asked me to handle the Sacred Treasures when she brought me back from the dead, but right at that moment, I couldn’t muster the motivation.

  Chris spoke to my back. “With that item, if one of you dies during the switch, the other one can’t go back to normal,” she nonchalantly explained, even though I couldn’t care le—

  “…Wait. What did you just say?” I sat up.

  Chris smirked at my panicked expression. “It’s actually an extremely powerful magical item. If you use it right, you could even gain eternal life with it. When your body gets weak, just swap with a young, healthy person and kill the old body. If you transfer your assets before you make the switch, even better.”

  Okay, this was no laughing matter. I could see what made this a Sacred Treasure. But right now, Chris and I were the only people who knew what it was really capable of, weren’t we? If we just kept our mouths shut, nobody else had to find out, and it wouldn’t get used for evil, right?

  Chris spoke quietly, as though she had read my mind: “That item—I’m sure some noble family initially purchased it. But then, suddenly, it found its way to the princess. Don’t you think that’s strange? Who would have given it to the royal family and why?”

  There could be only one reason. To switch bodies with the most powerful person in the land…

  “Geez, this is no joke. If we don’t tell the country’s leaders posthaste…”

  Chris gave me a sad smile and a slight shake of her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it. What do you think they’d do when they found out about the power of the Sacred Treasure? I’ll tell you. For starters, every noble in this country would come after the Treasure. For that matter, even the royal family might put it to evil uses. If anything, the more power a person has, the more likely he or she is to crave eternal life.”

  I couldn’t say a word.

  Chris went on. “The reason I told you about the Sacred Treasure was because I was confident that even if you got your hands on it, you wouldn’t do anything evil with it.”

  The two of us weren’t that close. Why did she trust me so much?

  I mean, she wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have the guts to do anything really bad with an item like that. Even when I switched bodies with Iris, the worst thing I did was try to get into the bath with someone.

  …Wait a second. That seems pretty bad to me…

  As I stood there silently, Chris spoke again. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be the princess’s playmate or something?”

  Silhouetted by the moonlight, Chris looked at me from the window frame and smiled.

  “How about we go have a little playdate at the castle right now?”

  Chapter 5

  May We Stop These Accursed Plans!

  1

  Chris and I made for the castle, working our way through the night-cloaked capital.

  Chris seemed to think this would be the perfect time for a break-in. Everyone would be so thrilled at having defeated the Demon King’s army that the soldiers would let their guard down.

  “Hey, whatcha got there? That’s kinda neat. Where’d you get it?” Chris asked me. She had covered her mouth with a black cloth.

  “A weird employee at a certain magic-item shop in Axel gave this to me. Apparently, it’s one of their hottest sellers.”

  In order to conceal my identity on the off chance we were spotted, I was wearing the mask I’d gotten from Vanir.

  “Wow, really? I wouldn’t mind having one myself. Who is this weird employee?”

  “Good question. His name is Vanir, but apparently he’s always diligently keeping the crows away from the trash heap, so the ladies in town call him Vanir the Crow Slayer.”

  “Huh, he sounds like a real upstanding guy! I’d like to meet him.”

  She might not think that if she’d actually, y’know, met him. Anyway, I didn’t want to imagine what might happen if that demon came face-to-face with a devout Eris follower like Chris.

  Our objective was to break in to the castle and steal Iris’s necklace.

  All the sexual harassment notwithstanding, I had never in my life committed a crime more serious than jaywalking or peeing in an alley, so I was a bit nervous about my first real criminal activity.

  I had left my sword at the inn. I didn’t want to hurt anybody, and besides, I didn’t have the nerve to use it. I had left my chest armor behind, too, the better to run away, and I had changed into black clothes to help me blend in with the night. I did bring my bow, since it could serve a number of uses when it came to infiltration.

  Finally, Chris stopped walking. She stood and stared at the castle from a distance.

  “Okay, my adorable subordinate, you ready?”

  “I’m good anytime, boss lady.”

  ““………””

  “Um, maybe don’t call me ‘boss lady.’”

  “Then don’t call me your subordinate. Why do I have to be the lackey anyway?”

  Hidden in the shadows, we argued with each other in whispers.

  “Look, being a thief is my job. My main class! And your class is Adventurer.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the one with the Second Sight skill. I’d say that makes me more suited to thief work. Practically speaking, I’m the boss here.”

  It would hardly do for us to call each other by name while we were breaking into the castle, so we’d spent all night trying to come up with good code names for each other. But so far…

  “Hey, I’m the one this whole city knows as ‘the righteous thief’! This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s settle this with some kind of contest.”

  “A contest, huh? Okay. Thieves need Luck. How about a rock, paper, scissors battle with me?”

  The one thing that set me apart was my excellent Luck. I didn’t think Chris knew about my stats.

  “Rock, paper, scissors? Okay, let’s go! Come to think of it, I lost to you in a Steal contest a long time ago. Now it’s time to pay you back!”

  “Ha, I like your spirit, Chris! But I’ve never lost at rock, paper, scissors. Here we go! Rock! Paper…!”

  “First things first, Lowly Assistant. We need to get inside the castle.”

  “Sure do, Chief. You know, I wasn’t just living the NEET life here. I wandered around the castle to kill time, so I’ve got a good idea of the general layout. I can get us in.”

  I had lost at rock, paper, scissors for the first time in my life. I guess the Luck of those who worship Eris, goddess of good fortune, was nothing to sneeze at. We each compromised a little and wound up with our current code names.

  We had avoided the front gate, which had guards posted at it, and instead worked our way around the castle ramparts.

  “This is where we’re going to break in, Lowly Assistant? The walls are really high! At least three stories up. Even your lovely friend Chris couldn’t—”

  Before she finished talking, I pulled out my bow and readied an arrow.

  “Deadeye!!”

  I fired an arrow with a hook at the tip and a rope attached to the shaft, like we’d used in the battle with Destroyer. The skill gave me extra distance and accuracy, and the hook lodged easily on the edge of the rampart.

  Chris tugged experimentally on the rope, mouth agape. “You’re pretty useful to have around, Lowly Assistant. If you ever quit adventuring, how about you join up with me? We could specialize in stealing from evil rich people.”

  “If I ever burn through my savings and end up with nothing but time to kill, I’ll think about it… All right, let’s get started!”

  2

  It must have been about two or three in the morning. The lights in the castle were out; everyone was asleep.

  “I think I’d better go first from here on,” I said. “I’ll use my night vision, and I’ll take it slow. You just follow me, Chief.”

  “Got it, Lowly Assistant.”

  At the moment, we were in the castle gardens. Our objective, Iris’s room, was on the top floor of the castle.

  We encountered our first problem when we reached the door from the gardens into the castle proper.

  “Bad news, Chief. The door’s locked.”

  “Let me at it. Get a load of my Lockpick skill.” Chris crouched in front of the door and pulled out two objects that looked like ear picks, then inserted them into the keyhole. After a moment, there was a click, and the door swung open.

  That’s a specialist for you. I had some skill points I hadn’t used—maybe I would pick up this ability.

  Inside the castle, we were plunged into darkness. I led, of course, Chris following close behind me. For now, there weren’t even any soldiers patrolling the castle halls. I wondered if things would always go this easily without the luckless Aqua along.

  “Let’s hide in those shadows over there, Lowly Assistant. Don’t forget to activate your Ambush skill.”

  No sooner had we ducked into the dark corner than we heard the click-clack of boots on the floor. A patrol, most likely.

  “H-hey, Lowly Assistant, why are you sticking so close to me? We’ve got Ambush; we don’t need to be quite this hidden.”

  “Can’t take any chances, Chief. Huddle up now, quick.” I pushed Chris deeper into the darkness, keeping very, very close to her.

  “Lowly Assistant, I wouldn’t mind just a little personal space!”

  “This is all part of filching the Sacred Treasure and saving the world, Chief. Just roll with it!”

  As we argued in whispers, the patrolman came to a halt. “…Is someone there?” he said, raising a lantern. Our Ambush skills must have prevented him from seeing us, because he said, “Just my imagination…?” and resumed his route. I let out a breath.

  “Gosh, Chief, didn’t I tell you? No chances. If I hadn’t been so careful to keep us hidden, we could’ve been in real trouble there.”

 

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