It had been several days since the urgent cabbage-harvesting quest. We’d recently sold all the cabbages we’d collected, and the adventurers had finally gotten their payment for the harvest...

“Have a look, Kazuma! | got enough of a reward from the cabbage hunt to have them improve my armor a bit while it was in the shop. What do you think?”

Amid the commotion of every adventurer in the Guild Hall trying to claim their cabbage payout, Darkness nearly glowed as she showed off her armor. All | could say was...

“That thing looks like it was tricked out for some rich kid who wouldn’t know armor from a hole in the ground.”

“..You never say anything nicely, do you, Kazuma? You know, even | just want to hear a kind word every once in a while.” She looked uncharacteristically unhappy.

Well, how was | supposed to know?

More important...

“| don’t have time to coddle you right now. There’s a bigger problem on our hands. You need to do something about that freak over there. She’s turning out to be worse than you.”

“Ohhh... Ohhhh! | can’t staaaand it! This manatite staff is just throbbing with magical power... Ohhh! Ohhh!” Megumin was rubbing her cheek up and down the new staff she’d had made. Apparently, if you constructed it with a rare metal called manatite, it boosted the staff’s attack power. Megumin had used the generous cabbage reward to get such a manatite staff, and she’d been acting this way all day. She was convinced her explosions would be that much more powerful now.

Her Explosion spell was overkill as it was. What could she possibly do with more power? Wasn’t there some more helpful magic she could learn? | knew better than to ask her that, though. In her present state, | really just wanted to stay away from her.

l’d gotten my reward, too, and | was riding high.

We had Darkness, who’d taken on the monsters that had come after the cabbage.

Megumin, who’d blown them all up.

And Aqua, who’d gone off after whatever vegetables she could find and paid no attention to what the rest of us were doing.

We’d decided to split the reward not evenly but proportionally, based on how many cabbages each of us had caught. It was Aqua’s idea—since she’d gotten the most after me.

And now she was waiting to reap the rewards of her brilliant idea... “Whaaaaat?! Hold on—what is going on here?!”

Her shout echoed throughout the Guild Hall.

Uh-oh...

Sure enough, Aqua was at the clerk’s counter, fuming. She had the clerk by the collar and was giving her a tongue-lashing.

“Fifty thousand measly eris? Do you know how many cabbages | caught?! | can tell you it was more than that!”

“\-I-I’m very sorry to tell you this, but...”

“What?!”

“...Miss Aqua, most of what you brought back was lettuce...” “Why was there lettuce flying around, too?!”

“I-Il’m sure | don’t know, ma’am...”

It sounded like Aqua had gotten considerably less money than she’d expected. Perhaps she figured it would be futile to abuse the staff any further: She came over to me with her hands behind her back and an ingratiating smile on her face.

“Oh, Kazuma, my friend... How much did you make on this quest?” “A million even.” All three of my companions’ jaws dropped.

It was true: That quest had come out of thin air and made me a minor nouveau riche.

I'd managed to collect a number of especially high-quality cabbages packed with XP. Just another benefit of good Luck, | guess.

“You know, oh great Kazuma, I’ve always thought you were one of the...uh... well, the nicest people I’ve ever met...”

“If you can’t think of anything nice to say, don’t force yourself. Anyway, I’ve already decided how I’m gonna spend this money, so I’m not sharing.”

Aqua’s smile froze as | pulled the rug out from under her.

“But Kazumaaaaaa! | was so sure this quest was gonna pay out, | spent all my money! | ran up a hundred-thousand-eris tab at the bar here! My reward isn’t nearly enough to cover that

| peeled the beseeching Aqua off me. Why did she never think ahead? | rubbed my aching temples.

“Not my problem. You’re the one who said everyone should get ‘just what they earned and no more.’ Anyway, | want to find an actual place to live. How can we be serious adventurers if we spend our entire careers renting a stable?”

Most adventurers didn’t own houses. They traveled around too much for that. Then again, with the exception of a handful of successful questers, most lived a hand-to-mouth existence and couldn’t support a residence.

Frankly, in light of the human resources | had available, I’d given up on ever defeating the Demon King. Let the other guys who’d been sent here before me deal with him—the ones who'd picked incredible special abilities or awesome equipment or whatever.

| was sitting here as an Adventurer, the lowest job class, something any loser could do. My stats weren’t even that good. Certainly nothing like people who’d been training their whole lives for this work. | was barely better than average.

| would be happy to adventure just enough to satisfy my curiosity, in relative safety, and then retire to a nice, comfortable existence. So I’d planned to use my reward to lease a place or maybe even buy a little cabin if the price was right.

Aqua had attached herself to me, looking ready to burst into tears.

“Nooooo! Kazuma, pleeease! Lend me some money! Just enough to pay my tab! Look, Kazuma, | know you’re a boy, and | can hear the rustling from your side of the stable in the middle of the night sometimes, so | know why you want to hurry up and get a place where you can have some privacy! But pleeeease! Just fifty thousand! Fifty thousand is plenty! I’m begging youuu!”

“Geez! All right! Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand—| don’t care! Just shut up already!”