Of skills, levels, armor... Cabbages... and panties?

"Hey, there's something I want to ask the both of you. How do you learn skills?" Kazuma asked.

"Yeah, how come nobody explained it to us?" I added, very useful, I know.

Before me was the penniless Megumin, who hadn't had a proper meal before meeting us and was focusing on eating her lunch, and Aqua who was calling for the waitress to order more food. I would throw in a sarcastic comment about how much they are eating, but then I would be a hypocrite because I'm also stuffing my face.

"Learning skills? That's easy, look at your card and choose one from the 'Learnable skills' column… Oh right, Kazuma and you are Adventurers. In that case, you need someone to teach you a skill. You need to see the skill in action and ask the user to teach you how to use it. It'll then show up in the learnable column, then you can spend skill points to learn the skill." Megumin explained. Honestly, it sounds so simple I probably should have been able to figure it out on my own, again, I must ask, how did I never ended up in a tard yard?

"… That means if Megumin teaches me, I could use explosion magic?"

"Yeah, exactly!"

"Whoa!"

Megumin reacted strongly to Kazuma's words, and she leaned in greatly.

"That's right, Kazuma! The skill points needed would be absurdly high, but Adventurer is the only job other than Archwizard that can use Explosion. I can teach you if you want to learn. Or rather, there are no other skills that are worth learning except Explosion, right? Of course not! Come, let's walk the path of Explosion together!" Their faces were almost touching. In the midst of chaos, there's always an opportunity to be an A***ole.

I tugged her slightly and their lips met for just a quarter of a second.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH." "AAAAAAAAAH." Kazuma and Megumin screamed as they ran after me. I used the guild's table and seats as obstacles since, unlike me, Kazuma and Megumin have no parkour skill whatsoever, thankfully some fellow adventurers were nice enough to intervene by holding them off.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU." 

"HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME KISS A LOLI?"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A LOLI?!"

"Ha! That's hilarious! Hey, you're the party Darkness wanted to join, right? Do you want to learn something useful? How about Thief skills?" Someone suddenly interjected.

I turned my head and saw two women walking toward us, by this point Kazuma and Megumin lost their killing intent so they were let go.

One of the girls approaching was the blonde from yesterday. Alongside her was a girl with white hair and a big scar on her face. How do you keep a scar in a world where healing spells exist? Wouldn't it just go away when you were healed by someone?

"Um, what do you mean by Thief skills? How are they like?" Kazuma asked. Megumin marched back to Aqua, I better keep my eyes peeled around her now.

"Good question. Thief skills are very practical–such as Disarm Traps, Enemy Detection, Lurk and Steal. They're all skills that are worth learning. Your job's the basic-tier Adventurer, right? Thief skills don't require many points, so it's a great offer! How about it? I'll teach them to you for the price of a glass of crimson beer!" 

"Deal."

.ABUSONOK

We went to the alleyway behind the guild, which totally doesn't make it seen like we are selling crack btw, for the girl, her name is Chris, to teach those thieving skills.

"Well then, we'll start with Enemy Detection and Lurk. We'll work on Disarm Traps next time, since traps are rare in such a crowded place. Hey Darkness, could you turn over there for a moment?" Chris said.

Darkness did as instructed.

Chris threw a rock at Darkness and hid in the only barrel on the area.

Darkness, who was hit by the rock, moved silently toward the only barrel in the area.

"Sensing enemy… Sensing enemy… I can strongly feel Darkness's anger! Hey, Darkness? You know I only did that to teach him the skills, I couldn't help it! Please have mercy…"

Darkness toppled over the barrel.

Can I learn skills by just watching this stupidity unfold?

Chris cleared her throat and composed herself. "All right. Let's try the skill I recommend the most, Steal. This is a skill that can snatch away one item possessed by the target. It can be anything, be it the weapon gripped tightly in their hands or the wallet secured deep in their pockets.The probability of success is dependent on the luck stat. You can take the weapon or treasure of a strong enemy and run, so it's a great skill to have under any circumstances."

"Sounds good to me, right bro?" I nudged Kazuma. 

"Yeah." 

"I'll demonstrate with you as the target! Ready, Steal!"

Chris shouted as she reached her hand forward and a small item appeared in her hand. Then an item appeared on her hand.

"That's my shield, you f**ker." I marched to her to take it back.

Chris smiled deviously as she was about to return the shield to me. "Hey… Let's have a match, all right? Try learning Steal now. I'll then let you steal one item from me. I won't complain even if you steal my wallet or weapon. Your shield is so cheap that my weapon or wallet will be more valuable. That means we'll be trading in whatever items that are stolen… How about it? Want to try?"

"Nah." I took the shield back. "This is going to sound really gay, but this shield and sword are my first weapons, therefore they have a special place in my heart." I said as I caressed the blank flat of my shield, I should make a sigil or heraldry of my own.

"Well, I want to, gambling is part of being an adventurer." Kazuma said.

I shrugged. "That's fair, see you inside then." 

With that I went inside to select my skills.

"Aqua-sama, one more time! I'm willing to pay for it, so could you perform Nature's Beauty once more?"

"Fool, Aqua-san prefers food instead of money! Right, Aqua-san? I'll treat you to a meal, so please do Nature's Beauty again!"

For some reason, there was a crowd around Aqua.

I poked Megumin to get her attention. "What's with that?" 

She swated my hand away. "Don't touch me!"

"Alright, sorry, how about I treat you to a meal? Can you forgive me then?" 

My offer made her consider. "... Yes."

Soon we are joined by a very satisfied Kazuma, a blushing Darkness and a crying Chris.

"Wat dis?"

"Chris's panties were removed by Kazuma, and then she lost all her money to him. That's why she's feeling down." Darkness said with deep breaths.

"Hey, what's this nonsense!? Hold up. Well, you're not wrong, but hold on a minute." Said Kazuma in an attempt to defend himself.

"Wow, be careful there, Kazuma." I place a hand atop his shoulder and then Whisper to him. "I could tell you were jacking it yesterday night besides me and Aqua, so you might want to be careful and not go from a C.K. to a Cosby."

"What does that even mean?!" Kazuma screamed in desperation as a deep blush spread across his face. "Hey, wait a second. The female adventurers aside from Aqua and Megumin are starting to give me cold looks, so please don't speak anymore."

Chris leaned in with a mischievous smile plastered on her face. "This is acceptable as payback, right? Well then, I'll be back after earning some cash, so have fun in the meantime, Darkness! I'll find what quests are available!"

Chris ran to the bulletin board recruiting for members after saying that.

"Ain't you going with her?" I asked Darkness.

"… No. Thieves are essential for dungeon exploration, so there are many teams that'd want to recruit Chris. On the other hand, vanguards like me can be found anywhere."

"Actually, who is she?" Kazuma asked me.

"She is the knight I talked about." 

"You didn't tell me she was… like this."

"Like what?" 

"Like…" He stopped and grabbed my hand to pull me away. "Crazy! She is crazy! We can't accept any and all crazy people into our party!" He whispered.

"Look, I know it sounds bad, but trust me, bro, I can keep them on a leash." 

Kazuma rolled his eyes. "I doubt that."

"Pish push, look, I may have low on the normal stats, but my charisma is 100, trust me, let me cook."

Kazuma gave out a sigh. "Okay." 

We returned to the table.  "Darkness, we might look this way now, but we're serious about taking down the Demon King." Said Kazuma, I nodded with him.

"That's right, you listen too, Megumin. Aqua and I want to take down the Demon King no matter what. That's our goal as adventurers. And so our adventures will only become more dangerous, especially for Darkness. As a female knight, you might experience 'that' if you get captured by the Demon King." he completed. 

Oh, I see how it is, he is trying to scare her off, unfortunately… 

"That's right! Since ancient times, getting sexually harassed by the Demon King was the job of the female knights! That alone would be worth the trip!" … Darkness is coocoo in the head.

Kazuma looked like he had a thousand and one different things to say in response to Darkness'... Passionate desires. He turned to Megumin. "Listen carefully too, Megumin. The opponent's the Demon King. Aqua and I are planning to fight the strongest being in this world, so don't force yourself by staying in this party." 

The red eyed girl stood up in response. "I'm Megumin! The top mage of the Crimson Demons, the master of explosion magic! For the Demon King to overlook me and call himself the strongest, I'll decimate him with my strongest spell!"

I applauded Megumin. "Woooo, that's right girl! Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss!" 

Kazuma looked like he wanted to kill me.

"Emergency quest! Emergency quest! All adventurers in town, please gather at the adventurer's guild! I repeat, emergency quest! Emergency quest! All adventurers in town, please gather at the adventurer's guild!" The loud broadcast could be heard throughout the entire town. it was probably amplified through magic.

"Hey, what are 'emergency quests'? Are monsters raiding the town?"Asked Kazuma.

I felt a bit uneasy, but Darkness and Megumin seemed elated.

"… Um, it's probably cabbage harvesting. It's the season for them." Said Darkness.

"What was that, honey?"

"The cabbages in this world can fly. When their taste ripens during harvest season, they fly through cities, over plains, across the continent and to the ocean, unwilling to be eaten. Because of that, we need to catch the cabbages and eat them while they're still delicious." Aqua explained to me and Kazuma.

I want to cry blood 

KoNoSuBa.

"Why are we out here?" Kazuma asked nobody in particular.

"Because cabbages give a lot of money." I answered.

There it was, a cloud of pure green.

During the first half of the event many adventurers ran forward, it was pure chaos until Darkness appeared and all cabbages started to focus on her, breaking her armor and making me even more sure of my decision to bring her in because she has the most perfect breasts I have ever seen. From there on it was much easier to just "steal" them from midair. But them it almost went to sh*t when Megumin fired her explosion, I almost got caught in the blast.

"You have a lot of cabbages there Kazuma, think you can catch more than me?"

Kazuma smirked at me. "Is that a challenge?"

"Absolutely."

From there on out is just competition between me and Kazuma.

Konosuba.

The cabbage hunt quest ended and the entire town began serving dishes made from cabbages.

It was very profitable, so I ended up joining the cabbage hunt quest, lesser men would be all sad and stuff that they had to hunt cabbages, me? I'm swimming on that dosh, I'm on that money grindset.

"You're skilled, Darkness! As expected of a Crusader! The cabbages couldn't break through your iron-wall defense no matter what they did."

"No, I didn't do much, I'm just really tough. I'm clumsy and slow so I can't really hit my target; my only strong point is shielding others… Megumin has an impressive offense. You took out the horde of monsters that were chasing the cabbages right into town with just one explosion attack; all the other adventurers were shocked."

"Kuku, no one could stand up to the power of my explosion magic… But Kazuma and Samuel were the most active ones, he picked me up after I exhausted my mana and carried me back."

"… Yeah, when I was surrounded by cabbages and monsters, Kazuma showed up and captured all the cabbages attacking me. Thank you for rescuing me."

"Indeed, erasing your presence with Lurk, grasping the movement of the cabbages with Enemy Detection and surprising them with Steal from behind. Just like outstanding assassins." 

Aqua then stood. "Samuel, Kazuma, with my authority, I grant you the title of 'great cabbage assassin' and 'Elegant Cabbage Thief' respectively."

"Shut up! I'll slap you if you call me that! Ah! Enough, why'd things turn out this way!?" Kazuma said in anger.

"No, keep going." I love to hear people singing my praises.

"Well then. I'm Darkness, a Crusader. Theoretically, my weapon's a two-handed sword, but don't count on it too much. I'm clumsy with my hands and tend to miss. But I'm good at being a tank, so please take care of me."

"… Humph, our party's becoming great. I'm an Archpriest, Megumin's an Archwizard, and now we have the defensive specialist vanguard, the Crusader Darkness. Three out of five members having top-tier jobs is rare, Kazuma! Do you know how lucky you are? You have to be grateful, okay?" Aqua said, feeling very pleased.

I smirked at her. "Aqua, how much is seven times five?" 

She opened her mouth only to close it again, then open it again, she went like that for a few minutes, earning looks of pity from the party as she struggled with basic math.

Darkness cleared her throat. "I'm the only orthodox vanguard in this party, so don't hold back. Use me as bait or as a shield. If it's necessary, you can even cut me off as a sacrifice… Hmm! Just… Just imagining that made me tremble in excitement…!"

I smiled at her statement, a human shield who wants to be a human shield is the best thing we need so far, overall I think we are pretty lucky.

(There's supposed to be a line break here, but I couldn't come up with anything, give me suggestions of new line breaks.)

With the money we acquired from hunting cabbages, me and Kazuma decided it was time for a new drip. Kazuma opted for keeping the color green like his tracksuit while forgoing the black, I however decided to keep the black of the hoodie I was wearing by means of using a black cape and taking a white shirt like his, but while he was wearing a normal shirt I went with a poet shirt with a big puffy sleeve and narrow cuffs because I want to larp as a nobleman. All covering my leather chest armor and metallic gauntlets and shin guards.

Aqua had also annoyed me to stop using the shield in order to use magic, but I fail to see how that works because 1: I only know basic magic anyway. Secondly: The shield is extremely useful. And C: I can cast it from the tip of my fingers.

Anyway, with new clothes and equipment for me and Kazuma we all agreed it was time to pick up a quest. 

"Kazuma, Kazuma, we should take high level missions, I know you will be scared of them, but with the exception of Suzuki and you, everyone in the team is top-tier! So we should take on a bunch of difficult quests, level up quickly to defeat the demon king." Aqua said with a lot of pride.

"… I really didn't want to say this, but… You haven't been of use so far." Aqua got surprised by Kazuma's, but before she could retort he continued. "Normally, you should be giving me powerful abilities or equipment, allowing me to live here without worries. I know that this is a free service provided by the gods, so I didn't want to complain. I was blinded by rage back then, but choosing you instead of an ability was my fault! But you're here in place of those abilities or equipment, and are you performing on par with those special abilities or equipment? Are you? You were acting so great and confident in the beginning, but you've totally not been of use, you former something." Kazuma's tone of voice and volume grew the more he talked.

"Ugh… No, not former. Um… In principle, I'm still a goddess..." She was on the verge of crying.

"Goddess!? What should a goddess be doing!? Guiding the hero to fight the Demon King and sealing the Demon King before the hero's strong enough to take him on! And what'd you do during the cabbage hunt!? You did grab a lot toward the end, but you were spinning around because of them and threw a tantrum on the floor, right? Even vegetables can make you cry! Are you really a goddess!? Are you really qualified to call yourself a goddess!? Your only contributions are getting eaten by a toad and party tricks!"

"Jesus, Kazuma, chill out."

"Are you defending her?" Kazuma asked, he was already riled up.

I'm not "defending her" It's just that you always do this. Aqua does or says something stupid, you raise your voice to scream at her, and at the end of the day everything stays the same. Can't you see it's not working?"

"Then why don't you try it?"

"Look, Aqua." I placed my hand on top of her head and she looked at me with teary eyes. "In a way kazuma is right, you need to start pulling your weight, you may be a goddess, but out there, that matters little, so if you don't start to be braver, smarter, stronger, one of us or you will get hurt or worse. Do you understand me?"

She gave a meek nod. 

"Do you promise to think more before doing something?"

"I do."

"All right, Megumin and Darkness are over there on the questboard, go talk to them." Aqua went to them, leaving me and Kazuma alone at the table.

"This is not going to work." Kazuma said bluntly.

"Maybe it won't, but it has better chances at working than just screaming at her like you do." We went to the questboard with the rest of the team. The girls were discussing which quest to pick.

"How about choosing a quest that can help Aqua level up since she wants to grind levels so much?" Suggested Kazuma.

"For that, quests with undead are an obvious option since clerics can kill them with relative ease." Darkness explained.

"Nice. What about your armor though? Didn't it break against the cabbages?" I asked.

"I'm fine without it, my full set of defensive skills aren't just for show. Even without armor, I dare say that I'm harder than adamantoise. And it feels better without armor when I get hit."

"You just said it feels good to get hit." Kazuma quickly said.

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"Uhum." I broke the two apart. "That sounds like a good plan, but I would like to add, Aqua is really strong so I don't think she needs help against undead, so I say we divide." I took one paper from the questboard. "People are complaining that there's undead in a nearby cemetery, Aqua, Kazuma and Megumin go there." I picked a different paper. "This one is about someone's white wolf that is missing or something, me and Darkness can pick this one."

Darkness blushed hard. "To fight against a powerful and hungry wolf." She muttered.

"See? Darkness is riled up."

"Alright, I agree, any objections?" Asked Kazuma. Megumin and Aqua shook their heads.

"Okay, then." I took Darkness' hand and pulled her with me. "Let's go."

kOnOsUbA.

"Hmmm, the forest, count how many leaves there are here, Darkness."

"Heh? I don't think I can keep track of that." 

"I know, I'm just messing with you." I stopped and turned to her, I took a small glass vial and showed it to her "This is a perfume that attracts monsters, today we will look for the wolf and follow it's traill, once we know where it is we can use the perfume as a trap." She nodded along as I explained the plan.

"I'm ready." She said readily.

For a few hours we looked around the dark forest, because this is the initial area there wasn't any actual danger around here, especially this time of year, when we finally got a trail it was almost twilight, we followed the trail until daylight was fully out, then we decided to set camp.

Using basic magic I made a fire pit for us and we huddled together close to the fire.

I stared at the night sky. "This stuff is beautiful, isn't it?" 

Darkness gazed at the stars too. "Yeah, it's great."

"You can't see the sky like this where I'm from."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"Far too much light, where I'm from the city never truly sleeps, so there's too much light to see the stars like this." I explained softly.

"A city that never sleeps, sounds magical." She mused.

We stayed in silence for a few more seconds, just quiet.

…

…

…

"Can I ask you something?" Darkness broke the silence.

"Do ask." 

"Why did you take Megumin and me in? I heard from her how it was, but… why did you do it?"

"... Because everyone is useful in their own way. Since you asked me a question it's only fair if I ask one too."

She nodded. "Go ahead."

"What makes a noblewoman like you become an adventurer?"

She looked at me in surprise. "Well, I want to defend the weak, to serve the goddess Eris." she said.

"And to get beaten up by monsters?" I added.

She blushed and nodded. "... Yes… Well, my turn to ask, how did you know I'm a noble?"

I shrugged. "That's just a skill that I picked up."

"Elaborate." 

I took a moment to collect my thoughts. "My mother was a housekeeper for a guy that worked for the office of education and stuff, he got me a scholarship on one of the best schools on the state for free, I had to wake up before sunrise to get there everyday, but it was worth it, not just because of the normal education, but because there I learned how to truly judge people, how to read them." I explained to her, my voice growing melancholic as I remembered it all.

"How to manipulate them." Darkness added.

I chuckled. "That too, my family wasn't swimming in money, I had to get as many free meals as I could."

Darkness seemed pensative. "...Did you only accept me on the team because I'm rich?"

"Nah." I punched her shoulder lightly. "I took you in because you can take a hit, and we need that right now."

Darkness gave me a smile that made my heart skip a beat. "Thank you." 

I smiled back at her.

Konosuba.

Tracking animals is a hard thing, who would have guessed?

Eventually we managed to get a lead, but what was one set of paw prints, eventually became 5. When we found the white wolf we found it being harassed by 4 gray wolves.

"Oh no, what are we going to do?" Darkness asked.

"You distract the gray wolves, I get the white one." I said, 

she gave a nod and we jumped into action. I threw the bottle of perfume in the middle of the gray wolf pack, the hard scent instantly hit their noses, giving time for the white wolf to run. I chased the small beast across the forest. "Wait, I don't want to hurt you." I screamed to the beast, but it didn't listen.

When it finally ran out of breath I was exhausted. "Listen… buddy… I'm not… your enemy." I said in between breaths. 

The wolf looked at me with fear and suspicion. "Come on, man, your owner is worried sick." I carefully approached the beast, it bared its teeth, but I didn't back down. "It's fine." I said again, the fear of losing my fingers was ever present as I carefully approached the wolf's head with my hand. "Come on." Finally my hand made contact, I stroked the wolf's head and began to calm it down, after a minute of petting the beast it seemed to trust me enough.

"Follow me, it's time to go home." 

I'm not gonna say I got lost in the forest… but I'm gonna say that forests can be confusing. When I got to Darkness she was on the floor panting heavily, the wolves mauled her for a few minutes, got tired after failing to break through her skin and gave up.

We finished the quest and the wolves had torn up Darkness's clothes so I got to see a titty, great success.