Strategy for Dealing with Problematic Girls

Megumin had been sprawled in the living room with her feet propped comfortably on the sofa, sipping happy water and waiting for dinner to end so she could make Jhin give her — the Archmage who had just been promoted from "good buddy" to girlfriend — a proper massage.

The thought of getting to cling all over him again dragged the corners of her mouth upward no matter how she fought it, and she nearly let the whole mouthful of cola spill out.

That was close! Wasting cola like that would have been an insult to the cola itself!

She pinned her lips shut with a finger and swallowed, the bubbles racing down her throat into her stomach. Opening her small cherry mouth, she let out a tiny burp and went happily back to her drink.

"Ah!"

"Pfft!" The cry of pain rang out so clearly that cola shot straight out of her nose. "Cough, cough, cough — what on earth are they doing upstairs, honestly… now there's cola all over the sofa."

She banged the cup down on the coffee table, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and sprang up to head for the second floor. She had only reached the bend in the staircase when a second cry — softer, sweeter — told her something was off.

She stopped where she stood and tilted her head to listen, and her eyebrows knotted together.

That sound… why did it sound so familiar?

A second later a rapid, dense string of slapping noises punched through her eardrums and bored straight into her brain. Now she understood exactly what was happening upstairs.

"Heh~ so someone jumped the gun on me, did they… how com~plete~ly unexpected." A harsh light kindled in those crimson eyes. Head cocked like a broken doll, she padded silently up to the door of Kyaru's room.

But the racket coming from inside was genuinely appalling. The most primal of appetites, the sound of impact — the red glow in her pupils flickered like a bulb with a bad connection, and in the end the noise beat her. The hand on the doorknob withdrew.

Megumin admitted it: even with more experience than any of her companions, she did not have the courage to open that wooden door.

It's not that I can't, it's that it sounds like there are Gundams brawling in there!

"BANG!"

Something slammed into the door, and the whole wall seemed to shudder with it. She staggered back several steps and landed flat on her backside on the floorboards, staring at the door dumbstruck, horror washing through her.

Was… was it really that terrifying?

Kyaru's hoarse scream came like a steel needle jabbed into Megumin's rear. She shot to her feet and fled with her tail between her legs.

The three of them had assumed the noise would stop once it was time to eat. Instead, things developed far beyond anything they had imagined.

Nine at night. Megumin, Pecorine, and Kokkoro sat in the living room. Meeting the puzzled stares of the other two, Kokkoro calmly lifted her cup, took a sip of tea, and said mildly, "It should be fine by tomorrow morning."

Five in the morning. All three sat in the living room with matching panda eyes. Facing her companions' skeptical looks this time, Kokkoro drank a cola she would never in ordinary life have tasted, still perfectly confident. "It will definitely stop tonight."

Eight at night. Megumin finally cracked. "That potion you mentioned yesterday — it really was a Charm Potion?"

"That's right. Senior Frieren gave it to me."

"That kind of potion doesn't expire, does it?"

"…"

"Say something!"

The hands holding Kokkoro's cup trembled faintly. She, too, had grasped the gravity of the situation. "I… I don't know."

Pecorine had melted into the sofa, her half-transparent soul drifting slowly out of her wide-open mouth. "I want to sleep…"

Three days and three nights had passed since Jhin walked into Kyaru's room. The girls in the living room had learned to filter the sound out automatically. They still slept badly, but they could manage the rest of daily life — at worst their legs went weak now and then.

Megumin's mood had shifted, too, from grinding her teeth at the certified fish-thieving cat to something closer to deep, sincere admiration.

That kind of operational endurance, and at that intensity! Kyaru, I, the Archmage Megumin, hereby name you the strongest!

Kokkoro had gone from the sage with everything under control to an ant on a hot skillet, pacing circles in the living room. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought a gift from her senior would work this well — or that expiration had produced some mutation it never should have had.

Only Pecorine looked normal on the surface. She kept glancing up at the second floor, with absolutely no idea how she was supposed to face those two companions afterward.

Kyaru's bedroom looked as though a tornado had gone through it. The wardrobe hung open with clothing strewn everywhere, and plenty of it had been torn to shreds. The room's only chair had come completely apart, reduced to a ruin of sticks and boards. The books that had once sat neatly on the desk had been shoved to the floor in a heap, and a good number of them were soaked through and stuck together.

If he smoked, Jhin — sitting on the edge of the bed — would certainly have lit one now. But he disliked the smell of tobacco, and he did not smoke.

"Cough, cough…" Kyaru lay by the edge of the bed, coughing the liquid caught in her throat down onto the floor. Her lashes were so gummed together she could barely open her eyes.

"Are you all right?"

She tightened her grip on the large hand still laced with hers and answered in a rasp. "I've never been better."

"What did I do inside the dream?"

"So you've already guessed."

"It's the only explanation I can think of."

Kyaru pushed herself upright and pressed against Jhin's back, her cat tail winding tight around his arm as she quietly told him what had happened in the dream.

"You used twenty-one memory coins to bring me back, so I'm giving you the rest of my life. It's all I have. It's the only thing that's ever really been mine."

"…That scent at the very beginning. Who gave you the item?"

"Kokkoro. It was a Charm Potion."

"So it was her."

For her to do something like that meant she had already let what Kyaru did go. What Pecorine and Megumin thought was another matter.

The deed was done. Jhin pulled his clothes out of his storage space and handed them to Kyaru. "Put these on. We need to go downstairs and wash up."

"Mm."

Kyaru simply dragged the shirt over her head and tugged her sticky black hair out of the collar. Through all of it her tail stayed coiled around his arm, refusing to let go.

The two of them went down the stairs. Kokkoro and the others, who had been camped in the living room, were nowhere to be seen, and the lights were off.

"They… they must be asleep already, right?"

"Probably." Jhin did his best not to think about how he was going to face them later. He had no idea how long he and Kyaru had been shut in that room. The stuff called a "Charm Potion" had an effect that was frankly horrifying — if not for the Blade of Resurrection, that new body of hers might genuinely have been worn to pieces by him.

The bathroom door closed, and three small heads poked out of a corner. They looked at one another, and finally crept up to the second floor. As the one who had started the whole affair, Kokkoro pushed open the door none of them had dared touch until now.

The scene of utter devastation — and the thick smell that an open window alone could never hope to clear — knocked all three innocents out cold on the spot.

____

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