~~Bonus Chapter~~

"The Archer and the Mage"

Part 1

Ugh..

This feeling of warmth hitting the side of my face.. I can assume that it's the sun's rays.. Is it morning already?

I'm too tired to open my eyes. Damn this NEET body. Since I'm living in Ischyos now, I should really start working out.

Squish

Wait, what's this feeling of softness sitting on my stomach..? It's still pretty early..

Hold on a minute.

I am an anime protagonist. What's the cliché that happens to anime protagonists when they wake up early in the morning?

That's right.

A girl is probably sitting on top of me.

As my heartbeat started to pulsate a billion times faster and as my face started to boil, my brain started to paint different scenarios.

Who could it be? Agame? Angellica? Could it even be Sana?

It's pointless to keep wondering about it. All I'm doing is wasting time in this precious moment!

I opened my eyes to see a—

"W-WAAAAHHHH!!"

What the hell?! A corpse of a deceased death bat was sitting on my stomach and holy shit, why was it there?!

"Good morning, Kaito-ku—"

Infuriated, I ripped off one arm of the demon bat in front of me and threw it at Sana who was standing by the foot of my bed.

"Don't 'good morning' me! What the hell is this thing doing in my bed?!"

I yelled, but then I realized that I was still near the corpse, so I kicked it off me.

"Bah!"

The blonde was knocked over by the dismembered arm I threw at her. With a wounded and angry face, she slowly got back up to her feet.

"D-don't ask me! I was also in for a spook the moment I saw that thing!"

"Y-you didn't place it here? Then that must mean–"

"Good morning, you two!"

Instantly, I jumped from my bed and pinned Angellica and Agame to the floor the moment they stepped into the room.

"Explain yourselves this instant, you two! What in the world was that monster doing on my bed?!"

The mage and the marksman both turned their heads towards the death bat on the wooden floor a few feet away from them.

"It was Angellica's fault."

"E-eh?! Hey, stop lying and tell him the truth, you little brat!"

The two were bickering as I held them down by their necks but they stopped the moment I tightened my grip. Choking, both of them started to flail their hands.

"A-alright, I'll talk! I'll talk!"

With this coming from Agame, I let them breathe. After giving them a few seconds to normalize their lungs, the archer loli began explaining.

..

..

..

"Last night.."

I peeked my one eye open to see Sana-san's face right in front of me. This of course shocked me a bit, but if I was to make any noise, the people around me would wake up.

"I needed to use the bathroom, so I got up."

I mean, I tried to, but this blonde in front of me was hugging me like I was some sort of body pillow.

I grunted in irritation.

Like a worm, I began to squirm my body down the bed to escape Sana-san's clutches. The moment I was free, I hopped off the bed.

I smiled as I looked back at the sleeping blonde.

She saved me earlier from Angellica's lightning attack. It made me really guilty knowing that my initial plan was to squeeze the money out of this lolicon.

You have my respect, Sana-san. I won't let you spend that much on me.

I then turned my head to the other bed where Kaito-san was snoring loudly.

This guy is unpredictable. He's this proud sack who pays no attention to gender differences but gets beat down by Sana-san easily, yet he has already managed to defeat powerful opponents such as Reyna and Angellica.

I have such cool team members.

"I went outside and towards the bathroom. But unfortunately.."

"Eh?! Out of order?!"

My jaw hung out wide as my eyes looked up at the sign posted on the locked bathroom door.

"S-since my legs were beginning to shake and all, I knew I had to go quick. So, I didn't have any other choice."

With Apollo, I bolted out of the inn and began running down the streets.

"I knew of a restaurant nearby that had a restroom, so I decided to make a run for it."

Thankfully, the restaurant was still open. After I did my business inside the restroom, began to walk towards the exit.

"There weren't that many people since it was probably midnight already, but there was a familiar face sitting at one of the tables."

"Agame-chan?! Is that you?!"

Our new team member Angellica waved towards me with a wineglass in hand.

"I had no choice but to walk towards her table. It was a pain, really."

"Hold up, so that's the reason why you were at that restaurant that time! You said that you were on your way to kill monsters and stopped by to get a quick bite!"

"Sh-shut up and let me finish my story!"

After I lied to Angellica, saying that I was on my to defeat monsters with Apollo and had stopped for a quick snack, I began to turn my back towards this annoying mage, but her sudden laughter distracted me.

"You wish to defeat monsters on your own during midnight?!"

"Yeah, is there a problem?"

I glared at the putrid sight of Angellica cackling. She was holding a wineglass, so she had obviously been drinking, but she didn't look completely wasted either.

"N-no, it's nothing."

"No, speak up. Tell me exactly what you were thinking just now."

"Ah, you're so cute when you're mad, Agame-chan."

These words pissed me off. Blushing in frustration, I began to make my exit, but the mage grabbed my arm to stop me from doing so.

"I can't let you go, Agame-chan. Not alone, that is. The monsters will destroy you."

I narrowed my eyes hearing this statement.

"You are underestimating me. Just to remind you, I wield Apollo, one of the Holy Weapons. I don't need help taking down a few monsters."

"But did you really plan to defeat monsters at that hour? You probably didn't want Angellica to come because you were going to go back to the inn to sleep, right?"

"S-stop butting in my story, Kaito-san!"

"Even if you wield the Holy Sword, the Holy Mace or whatever, stepping out the city gates at this hour especially during Hanzo-sama's reign would be really dangerous. Come on, let me go with you."

"No, just stay here and finish your wine! That's an expensive brand, isn't it? Don't put it to waste!"

"I am the Angellica. Wine of this caliber of fanciness is just like orange juice to me. Quit whining and let's go!"

I took a step back, annoyed at how persistent this big breasted woman was.

I didn't really want to defeat monsters. Not at this hour, at least. Ugh, I really shouldn't have lied! I just wanted Angellica to think that I was a badass!

"F-fine. Come on, let's get this over with."

"Atta girl."

"Thus we left the city gates and kept walking down the path until we could find a monster. That was when.."

"The death bat attacked?"

"Not just a death bat, Kaito-san."

Our pupils flew out of our faces as we stood there at the middle of the grassy plains, face to face with about a hundred or so death bats.

"It was a whole army of them."

Just like how I was holding my pee earlier, my legs started to shake again. This was the first time I've seen so many monsters before!

"We should get out of here, Agame-chan."

As much as I hated agreeing with Angellica, I heeded her suggestion. If I was going to fire my arrow, I'd have a hard time retrieving it with all these bats.

"You're right. Let's g—"

My face froze when I saw that Angellica had disappeared from beside me.

Sh-she was here just a second ago..

"Kyaahhh—! A-Agame-chan! H-help me!"

My eyebrows began to shakily lower as I took in the sight of Angellica being carried by a death bat in the sky with its long tongue.

Unbelievable.

"A-Agame-chan! This tongue is gross! It's slimy, sticky, and it's putting me in a lewd position! Please hurry up!"

I was debating if I should ditch her or not.

"Agame-chan~!"

"Since I knew it'd sadden you guys if our mage was eaten by a death bat before we could go on a quest, I decided to save her."

I began to gather all of my focus into my hands as I gripped Apollo and began to connect the channel between me and the gods of Ischyos.

"With the power of the gods, allow me, the wielder of the Holy Bow Apollo to destroy this darkness that taints the land! You foul creature! Be cleansed by the point of my arrow!"

The gods had answered my calls and filled Apollo with magic power. This shockwave signalled me that it was good to fire.

"Take this!"

The white arrow that was now shrouded in magic power was shot straight at the bat that was taking Angellica hostage. As the bat was impaled, Angellica started to scream as she began to fall down from the night sky.

Oh, shoot. What now?!

As I rushed to try and catch her, my running stopped when I noticed that a giant bubble began to form beneath her, cushioning her fall.

"Th-that was close!"

I fell silent. How could I have forgotten that she knew a lot of spells..?

"Agame-chan, thank you so much for shooting down that bat! Aww, you really do care about me!"

"Sh-shut your yammer, you! I just didn't want you to die if I could have done something about it."

This mage was really starting to get on my nerves.

I picked up the silver arrow that had fallen to the ground after it had killed that death bath. However, as I did—

"Eh?"

I felt something moist wrap around my torso. Suddenly, I found myself being pulled backwards.

W-was a death bat pulling me with its tongue?!

I shrieked as this happened, when a flurry of white feathers passed right beside me.

Hearing an explosion soon after, I looked back to see a huge crater on the ground. A few death bats were on the ground, lifeless, while the one whose dismembered tongue wrapped around me belonged to was completely disintegrated.

I turned back once more at the smug looking Angellica.

"Y-you're amazing, Angellica-san!"

"Aww shucks, Sana-san!"

"Anyways.."

"It's my turn to save you, Agame-chan. You see? If you went out on your own tonight, who knows what would've happened?"

"Y-yeah.."

I never intended to do so in the first place.

..

But she did save me. I guess I am grateful.

"Thank you, then.."

"What was that? I didn't hear you!"

"Don't push it!"

I angrily shot at the mage beside me when the shadows of the remaining death bats flying in the sky took my attention.

"There's still like, fifty of them."

"What should we do, Agame-chan? I'm feeling really weak for some reason. Is it the wine?"

"You drunkard! Has the alcohol affected your mana?!"

The bats all lunged themselves at us.

"I dropped Apollo in fear and all Angellica and I could do was cover our faces with our arms. When suddenly.."

All of the bats froze mid-air at the same time, and I had no idea what was going on.

"What in the.."

Even Angellica was confused, so it wasn't her doing, then.

In an instant, blood suddenly came gushing out from all of the bats' bodies. The blood came from slits on their bodies, like they were cut or slashed. Angellica and I were speechless. Once the bleeding ceased, all of the bats fell to the ground, dead.

"What.. just happened..?"

"I don't really know."

We paid no attention to the gooey green blood that we were covered in, because we were too shocked to even let out more words.

In the corner of my eye, I noticed a black human-like silhouette.

"Who's there?!"

I yelled, but the figure immediately disappeared into black smoke.

"Was that thing responsible for this massacre..?"

"Probably."

I replied, looking at the bodies of the death bats.

"These aren't death bats. These are dead bats."

"Hey, should we bring one corpse to Kaito-san as a gift? He could use it to collect bounty at the guild."

"Good idea, Agame-chan! Come here, let me hug you!"

"Stop being unnecessarily moe and let me go so we could head back home, darn it!"

..

..

Part 2

"..and that's what happened."

I held my chest after hearing that ending of Agame's story.

"Aww.. You got it for me as a gift? I'm touched, you guys!"

I was feeling warm inside for some reason. Suddenly I didn't feel as mad anymore. So, I grabbed the two by the arm and pulled them towards me for a big hug.

"E-eh?! Err, Kaito-san..? What are you..?"

Agame whimpered.

"Thank you so much, you two! Let's head to the guild to collect the bounty right now!"

"You're saying that, but it doesn't look like you're going to let go for some while. Can you stop now? You're gonna wrinkle my coat."

"Nope! This hug is a symbol of our friendship! Get in here, Sana!"

I called out for the blonde who happily skipped to my direction to join in.

"Ah, might as well enter the frey! For friendship!"

As Sana cheered out loud, the other two looked at each other and chuckled awkwardly.

Part 2

After Sana and Kaito left the room first, I turned to Angellica and whispered.

"Should we have told him the truth that we placed the bat on his bed not as a gift but to prank him instead?"

"I really think we should've."

End of Volume 1: Bonus Chapter