"You there, priest! State thy devotion! I am Aqua. Indeed, Goddess Aqua, worshipped by the Axis sect! If thou art a believer...

... it'd be a huge help if you could lend me some money."

~Aqua

"Kazuma! Kazuma!"

It was a summer day, when birds chirped under the morning sun --

"Hey, Kazuma! Don't ignore me! Look at this!"

And a certain goddess shouted in a way which makes me question whether she really was, in fact, a goddess.

"Look at what I've found! Look, Kazuma, look!"

"No, Aqua, I will not buy the rocks you stole from the children in town for one million Eris each. Asking this question for the fifteenth time won't change my answer."

"Ehhhhh? How dare you accuse me, a goddess, of stealing? You shut-in NEET, I won those stones from children who said that I couldn't beat them at rock paper scissors ten times in a row. Besides, those aren't ordinary rocks! They're gems worth three million Eris each, and I'm giving you a fifty percent discount by selling them at a third of its price!"

Is it just me, but did half of what she said make absolutely no sense at all?

"Besides, I'm not going to sell those stones to you again. It's not like I stuffed them into your bag and took the money myself. So, as I was saying--"

I let out a roar as I hurled myself towards her. The two other residents of the mansion paid us no heed as we grappled on the floor.

"So,"I asked Aqua, "where were we?" She had burst into tears when I confiscated the Eris in her purse along with two bottles of booze as punishment.

"Ah, yes," she replied in her usual carefree tone. Is she really that cheerful or had she forgotten what had happened five minutes ago? Probably the latter.

"I found a genie!" She pulled something out of her pile of peculiar objects, including funnily shaped rocks, shiny metal objects, pieces of the beard from the middle aged shopkeeper of the vegetable stall (Don't ask me how, or why, she had gotten it. As I had said before, you wouldn't gain much from looking into the details.)

"How Interesting," I answered without even looking at her.

"You don't believe me, do you? Just look at this!"

I squinted to have a look at the thing in her hands.

"Well, nice lamp you've got there. Now go out leave me alone. I'll even give you some money so you could buy some snacks from the Takoyaki stall for yourself."

"That's great! Since when have you become so- Wait, that wasn't what I was trying to say! It's not just a lamp! I sense a strong magical presence within it. A genie must be trapped in the lamp!"

"Yeah, yeah. And someday I'll have an actual goddess by my side. I won't even mind if she pads her chest."

"Wahhhhh!!!!! I'm a goddess too! Just wait and see, I'll rub the lamp and a genie would come and grant all my wishes!" saying that, she rubbed the lamp.

Just as I was about to open my mouth to let out a retort, the lamp shuddered and leapt out of Aqua's hands, shaking like a plane under turbulence. Just like how these kind of stuff happen in movies, it began to unfold upon itself.

Sensing the commotion, Darkness, being the durable 'tank' in our party, shot up. "Everyone! Behind me!" she cried, her sword in her hands.

And, of course, being the courageous adventures we are, we scrambled to our feet and hid behind her.

What trouble has Aqua brought upon us? Was it another of those Demon Generals? An ancient fire-breathing dragon?A slime monster which devours the clothing of young, innocent maidens or, more likely, masochistic crusaders? ("Darkness, you're turned on, aren't you?" "No, I'm not") A catgirl who would say "Nyah, Master, welcome home" each time I pass through the front doors of the mansion? Or was it, even more terrifyingly, a giant toad, which we still could not defeat despite having taken down enough Demon Generals to spread our fame to the princess herself?

Whichever it was, I was sure that it would spell a long, hard battle for us. Well, all except the forth one on that list.

However, it turned out that I was all wrong. The lamp continued to unfold itself until it took the shape of a blue, muscular man with the bottom half of his body being a wisp of smoke coming out from the lamp.

My whole body tensed up, preparing for the fight.

Despite what others have said, I definitely wasn't planning to offer Aqua as a sacrifice and make a run for the doors.

The man stretched his arms and gazed around. Seeming satisfied, he looked at us and said, "Greetings, mortals. After thousands of years of imprisonment, I have finally been freed--"

"This world has only been around for seven hundred and eighty three years though," a certain someone pointed out.

The man froze. He then blinked twice before deciding to ignore the self-proclaimed goddess. Good choice.

"-- As a token of my gratitude, I would grant my saviour three wishes within the extent of my powers. Which one of you was the one who freed me from this prison?"

Aqua raised her hand while not forgetting to stick her tongue out at me.

"Very well. State what you desire, and I shall bring it to you with my hands."

Aqua thought for three long seconds and said, "I want you to spread the teachings of the Axis cult and let the influence of the Axis cult reach the very ends of the world!"

The man scratched his bald head.

"I'm afraid I can't do so. The locals in this town are rather... reluctant to accept the teachings of the Axis cult."

The word "reluctant" is not strong enough.

"Alright! Then restore my divine glory as a supreme goddess and allow me to return to my old post of reading manga all day-- er... I mean sending the deceased into other worlds."

"Never-mind, I'll just carry out what you said earlier." A notepad appeared out of nowhere and the blue man scribbled a few words onto it.

"What's your next wish?" He asked.

"I want you to fill the baths with booze. So much booze I could swim in it!"

Hey, is that how you should use wishes? I'm not even going to tell her how stupid that is.

"A bath filled with booze? Is that what you wish for?" The man seemed as taken back as I was.

"Yes! Make sure it's the most expensive booze in town!" The goddess of party tricks nodded with the glinting eyes of a six year old.

"Alright, alright!" The man jotted something down on the notepad again.

"Well, would you like some advice to your last wish? I could raise one of your stats if that's what you want. As an adventure, you must know that every single point makes a difference. What is it that you want? Strength? Luck? Agility? Speak, and I shall grant your wish."

Well, this is a much better idea. Much better than booze anyways.

"Ha! As a goddess, my stats are well above that of an average adventurer! My magic power is unparalleled even in the capital city of Belzerg!"

"I heard that your intelligence and luck are both well below average?"

Aqua covered her ears and looked away.

"Then why don't you have him improve your 'intelligence' stat? Luck shouldn't be a problem since you could cast "blessing" upon yourself," I suggested.

The blue haired girl puffed out her cheeks and glared at me.

"Intelligence it is. Now, your wishes would be granted swiftly, and the time for us to part has come. Once again, I thank you for setting me free."

With that, he disappeared into a wisp of smoke.

At the same moment, a bright blue light erupted from Aqua's pocket. Realising that it came from her adventurer's card, she took it out just as the light began to fade.

"It's working! See? I told you that I had found a genie. It's working!"

Magic...97, Strength...75, Agility...73, Luck...6 and Intelligence...23?

"...does that mean your Intelligence used to be less than 23?"

I don't even know how I should react to that. Should I laugh at her? Or should I give her a pat on her shoulder?

Trembling, she regarded her adventure's card with a dead look in her eyes. "It didn't work," she whispered with a hoarse voice, "Why did it not work?"

"Why! Why does this happen to me! Whyyyyyyyyyyy!" She burst into tears, shaking me as if I were a vending machine which refused to dispense drinks despite having been paid.

From how it looked, it didn't seem like it was a scam or something. The card looked exactly like it did when we levelled up. So was it --

"Hey, Aqua, didn't you say that your stats were maxed before?"

The goddess froze. Then, with a forced smile, she said, "Well... these stats are perfectly normal for a goddess like me. Aren't they, Kazuma? Aren't they?"

I was about to reply when there was a knock on the door.

"Miss Lalatina! Mr Kazuma! This is the head of security speaking! The town of Axel is in grave danger!"

The mansion was silent for a moment.

"Mage to E4. Inferno!" It seemed that Megumin and Darkness decided to play chess right after the incident with the genie.

"Demon General, teleport to D3! Vanir-Style Death Ray!" Megumin knocked the Mage chess piece off the chessboard.

I see. Megumin used her weakest piece, the adventurer, as a bait, and lured Darkness' Mage straight into the arms into her Demon General.

"Hey! Kazuma, Miss Lalatina, I know you're in there. Let me have a few words with you!"

I guess no one wanted to do so after hearing the words "grave danger", so we simply ignored the voice. It's as if we didn't have enough trouble ourselves.

"Ha! Without your Demon General's enemy sensing ability, your king is exposed! NEET adventurer, approach the king with lurk ability!"

Megumin frowned. She didn't see that coming. I scanned the chessboard. No, she didn't have any pieces close enough to save the king. The teleportation of the Demon General was still on cool down, the little girl from the Axis cult, whose only purpose was to distract amateur adventures, had been used as cannon fodder in earlier fights. Could it be that this move had been planned that long ago?

Megumin, realising her defeat, closed her eyes. Could it be that she would be beaten today? That Crimson Demon had never lost a game at chess. She took in a shaky breath and prepared to accept the defeat.

"EXPLOSION!!!!"

... or not. With such a cry, she flipped over the chessboard, scattering the pieces across the floor.

"It's a draw," she cried, marking it on her little booklet. Oh, and by the way, the page she was writing on was full of draws. The same goes for the previous one. And the one before that. You get the idea.

Sighing, Darkness went and opened the door. The head of security rushed in and said, "The peace of the Axel town is threatened! Citizens report that their houses had been stuffed with forms for joining the Axis cult along with soap and detergent! We suspect that a member of the cult has infiltrated into the city, and we have to track him down!"

Startled, Darkness asked, "Didn't I ban members of the Axis cult from entering the city ever since the Axis church was built? I'll have to check on the matters myself."

"What are you doing to my cute believers!" Aqua latched herself onto Darkness and yanked on her hair, throwing punches all the while.

Suddenly eager to leave the mansion, Darkness peeled Aqua off her back and hurried out with the lady.

Just as I was about to thank Eris for letting me stay out of trouble, I heard Aqua cry out from the bathroom.

"KAZUMAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

Slowly, I dragged myself to the bathroom, just to see Aqua standing at the bathroom door, her clothes dripping wet.

"Kazuma-"

"Yes, that's me."

"I was swimming in the booze the genie gave me-"

"Really? How nice."

"And I accidentally purified it into water!"

Ignoring the cries of a certain goddess behind me, I decided to get myself an afternoon nap.

Ah, Aqua, probably the easiest character to write about. This story has been in my head for days, so I have decided to write it out. I might post more oneshots in the future if you guys like it. Do please leave a comment if you made it all the way here!

Uploaded this from my account on Wattpad (with minor changes)