Hiatus Gifting This Unfortunate Guy With Blessings

Chris certainly didn't expect an unknown cat to come up to her at her new house's corridor. She was stunned for a second or two but a smile came up to her face soon after. Before she could say anything I already changed to a squirrel and did a weird pose as if I were flexing my muscles with arms in the air.

That made Chris laugh and she reached out her hand to pet me but she was too slow!

When her hand was close I jumped towards it and with a spiraling pattern, I scaled her arm and sat on her shoulder. This time I didn't evade and her hand reached my head.

I regretfully noticed that contrary to the time in my owl form I somehow felt weird while being pet.

"Hehe. Hello there. Got any more forms to show me, by any chance?"

Chris asked cheerfully to which I came down to the floor and transformed into my human form in order to say something about the lack of space but Chris immediately put a fake regretful expression and said:

"A So it was not you that kidnapped a beautiful blonde knight and then transformed into a flying half-eagle half-lion and flew in the direction of setting sun."

"You have already heard about it?"

"It's kinda big news when a Griffin appears out of nowhere in front of an Adventurer Guild. It was hard to not hear about it. The real question is why did you kidnap my friend Darkness, huh?"

She said with another fake suspicious gaze and went around me towards the living room.

"Let's hear you spill the beans while sitting instead of standing in the entrance."

When I entered the room I saw Chris suddenly turning around and she exclaimed:

"Steal!"

Similarly to when Kazuma used that skill, I saw a bright flash of light and suddenly there was an object in Chris's hand. It took me a second to realize that she was holding onto my mask that was just on my face.

"And no masks in the house! I need to see your face so I will know if you are not deceiving me about the reason why you stole Darkness from the guild!"

I was a little bit stunned but Chris didn't seem to notice and started playing with my mask by spinning it on her finger a couple of times but soon she put it on the couch safely. I shrugged, sat on the chair and started from what Chris seemed to be most interested in.

According to Chris wishes I described the events of the latter half of a day first. Chris couldn't keep up her 'interrogation' act and quickly started laughing, exclaiming and shaking her head upon hearing the events that transpired.

When I was 'absolved of any wrongdoings' by Chris I also described what happened since I left the house. I mentioned about Megumin's sneaky ploy together with the fact of me getting the Archwizard job upon which I got a happy congratulations from Chris as well.

My silver-haired listener was getting a little bit impatient about me not having mentioned meeting with a Griffin yet so I started talking about the delivery quest. She scolded me lightly for taking a quest without knowing all the details and I apologized for that, remembering how close I was to dying at one point.

Chris seemed somewhat sad when I described Young Griffin's end and she confirmed those monsters' nature of parents having children fight each other and raising only the strongest one.

Without getting hung up on that tragic part of the story I mentioned getting to the destination and about how divided and weird the village under the castle seemed.

Chris seemed to lose a little bit of cheer when I started talking about it.

I carefully relied what I've heard from the Lord Vessec and Chris's complexion kept getting darker and darker up until the point I asked about the contents of the packages I've delivered.

I didn't really know how to ask about that. She already seemed pretty shaken.

"Do you know something about goddess Eris descending... and creating some kind of "charms" to… eeem, help with that fighter-farmers lack of… drive to… um… procreate?"

It was the best I could think of at that moment.

Chris's face was already blank at the first part of the question and it got transformed into frown and utter confusion as I kept going.

"Wha-?"

Seeing that no matter how I phrased it it wouldn't sound normal I tried to explain everything about the 'charm business' and Chris lost almost all of her cheer at the expense of confusion.

When I finished my part, a moment of silence descended upon the room.

Judging by how Chris's face transcended confusion and turned into blank slate once again I presumed that she didn't know anything about that stuff.

After a while, Chris finally voiced her thoughts:

"You certainly wouldn't joke about stuff like that. I am going to have to check it out…"

"Can I help you somehow?"

Chris looked at me apologetically and answered me.

"Thank you, but-"

"I got a day free tomorrow. I can surely help you somehow."

I interjected before Chris ended her sentence. She still didn't seem convinced so I added:

"You can't take care of two places at the same time, anyway. You can check up with that Eris's Archpriest while I investigate the guild and the person who is putting up the delivery quest."

"..." Chris seemed to struggle mentally with my proposition but after a few seconds she sighed and said:

"Okay. Please check out the guild for me."

"Of course!"

This was a chance for me to repay some of the kindness Chris has shown me. I would hunt down the culprit that tried to smear Chris's goddess Eris-sama's good name.

With how the atmosphere became we both agreed to go to sleep early that day in order to have strength for the next day's hurdles.

I was a little bit nervous but it only took me about an hour before I fell asleep.

***

I got woken up by Chris calling me by my name. It was very early in the morning but I thought that waking up every day like this wouldn't be too bad.

Chris was in a hurry to find that Archpriest so she left the house first while I was still in the middle of putting my clothes on.

Seeing that Chris didn't cool down after a night of sleep I redoubled my speed and soon I was going out as well. But before I could open the front door I heard a scratching sound coming from behind it.

I carefully opened the door and looked at Chomusuke using it as a scratch post.

"I am very sorry about her! I don't know why-Ah."

While my head was peeking out, Megumin had been coming up the stairs and after I turned to face her she noticed who was she talking to.

"What are you doing here?!"

I awkwardly gave her a little wave and answered:

"H-hello. I forgot to tell you that I had moved in yesterday. I was planning on surprising you today."

Megumin looked at me suspiciously and remarked:

"Then why have I been hearing a girl laughing entire last evening?"

"Ummm, I share this house together with Chris. We've been talking and-"

Megumin seemed to want to yell out her favorite phrase of the last day which was "What?!" but curbed that inside of her. She changed the topic instead.

"You living here means that I can give you those lessons whenever we have free time! Let's start-"

It seemed I was about to be lectured on the difference between using elemental mana in conjunction with my own reserves to bring out some more colors to my future Explosions so I quickly interjected:

"Sure, but I need to go to the guild for now."

"We have a free day today, don't we?" Megumin asked with a surprised voice.

"I need to talk with Receptionist-san about the quest I completed yesterday." I answered with the short version since I felt kinda pressed on time.

"Okay. I don't have anything else to do so I will generously come with you and teach you on the way."

Remembering yesterday I agreed after a few seconds. It was very early morning so I doubted I had to hurry in my owl form to be at the guild before that 'customer' posted another delivery.

I changed my form to Crimson Demon's to use all of my available intelligence in order to follow Megumin-sensei's lecture since it was becoming more and more advanced. Changing forms helped with that immensely.

Along the way, I was made to purchase some snacks for my teacher since she was hungry.

"Keeping a purse on oneself is asking to get robbed" were Megumin's words when I asked why she didn't take her money. I was about to refute with "Not keeping a purse on oneself is asking to get hungry" but decided to consider this a small tutelage fee. Megumin's teachings were probably worth more than just a few snacks.

I made sure that Megumin wouldn't collide with many stalls to keep a steady pace towards the guild. When she was about to bump into something or someone I lightly pushed or pulled her by her sleeve and she obediently followed without breaks in her talking. This caused a few curious glances but Megumin was oblivious to them. Well, I wasn't. More than few judgmental gazes were fired at me that morning.

We finally got to the guild. When I entered, more than a few faces started looking at me. Usually I wouldn't get more than a glance when I was wearing a mask so I got kinda startled with the sheer intensity of their gazes.

Megumin noticed this as well, unexpectedly stopped her lecture and quickly exclaimed:

"What are you looking at? You pickin' a fight?!"

Megumin the delinquent is out!

Surprisingly even the muscular adventurers seemed a little bit intimidated with Megumin's line.

"Isn't that the 'girl with the screw loose'?" "Stop looking at him right now or the 'girl with the screw loose' will-"

Megumin was already pulling up her sleeves and preparing to pounce but fortunately, Luna-san quickly came up to us from behind the counter and that made Megumin stop.

"Kazuki-san, you gave quite a performance yesterday."

I nervously scratched the back of my head not knowing what to answer to Luna-san.

"The higher-ups decided to leave this matter be with some interference from outside but make sure that you won't scare half of the city like that anymore."

The interference Luna-san mentioned was probably Darkness. I owed her more than one for yesterday.

"Now, with that matter taken care of…"

Luna-san suddenly pouted and said:

"I hope you didn't forget about our deal."

I promised Luna-san I would show her some animal forms when I acquired them and I even managed to get a Griffon she was so interested in.

Meanwhile, Megumin was sending me a sharp look, probably wondering what we were talking about.

"I haven't forgotten about that but… I wanted to take care of yesterday's quest first. There's been some-"

Luna-san hearing the mention of the quest put on her professional smile and beckoned me to follow to the direction of the counter.

"We already got confirmation from Lord Vessec about your delivery. Here's the quest reward."

Luna-san then handed me quite heavy money pouch and continued:

"Will you be taking this quest again? We haven't received today's package yet, but the sender always brings it in the morning so you wouldn't have to wait long."

"About that…"