Hiatus Gifting This Unfortunate Guy With Blessings

I've seen many adventurers staring blankly at the giant pillar of flame that descended from the clouds. This effect was magnified by multiple cabbages, which avoided instant demise, flying out of the cloud of smoke with their leaves on fire. This scene reminded me of some natural catastrophe.

Megumin's spell took out a great chunk of assailant vegetables. She, of course, plummeted down to the ground right after casting Explosion but I noticed her hand giving a perky thumbs up.

After the initial shock settled I spotted a few adventurers giving out annoyed looks in Megumin's direction. With her disintegrating a couple of hundreds or even more than a thousand cabbages the amount of money these people could earn dropped by a lot.

Megumin didn't seem to care about that fact because when I walked up to her to move her somewhere she wouldn't be trampled on by unattentive adventurers she only gave out a satisfied smile and said:

"I love the scent of a good Explosion in the morning."

I put this Carnage Specialist by one of the boxes for captured cabbages in sitting position per her request and looked to the battlefield.

After the number of cabbages was thinned out, more and more adventurers started trying to actually catch them alive. Luna-san who had a strained smile after seeing the effect of Explosion now sighed with relief and smiled widely.

Even archers stopped releasing their arrows and came up to the front lines. Kazuma did so as well and I witnessed him being hit straight in the gut by the flying monster. That must've hurt because I could hear Kazuma curse from all the way there but otherwise, he looked fine and he soon stood up and put the cabbage he caught in the box.

A big number of cabbages seemed to target Darkness for some reason and her Endurance's admirers were soon replaced by shrewd adventurers that used the fact that cabbages lost a lot of their momentum after bouncing off Darkness body to catch them easily. Aqua also noticed that fact and used it to the fullest.

I started wondering about how could I start catching cabbages without using Darkness's sacrifice or getting hit by raging vegetables full of hateful emotions.

"Isn't that the guy who turned into a Griffin?" "Yeah, that's him."

After a few minutes of wondering what to do, I heard a couple of female adventurers whispering to each other not too far from me. A large number of adventurers with supporting jobs started to get bored and seemed to indulge in gossip. I could see multiple people looking at me.

I still had some reservations about using my power out in the open, but seeing that a lot of adventurers already knew about it and didn't act too weird I decided to stop caring about being secretive.

With a new mindset, I came up with an idea. I walked up behind the front line and waited until I saw a perfect test subject. It wasn't any different than other cabbages but it slid past the row of adventurers and rushed towards the supporters.

"Hey, watch out!"

Someone yelled out to warn the soon-to-be victim who was happily chatting and not paying attention. But before the green ball of hate could connect with adventurer's face it got stopped by a giant muscle that coiled around the cabbage and quickly pulled it in a different direction.

"What the hell is a Giant Toad doing here?!"

My idea was to use my Giant Toad's tongue to catch the unsuspecting cabbages. Before anyone got out of their surprised state I quickly dunked the cabbage to one of the boxes and then transformed back into my human form.

There were shouts of confusion going around me but I just stood there calmly and waited for another target. Every time someone tried to come up to me and ask questions on what the hell was going on with me I changed to Giant Toad to snatch another cabbage from the air and that seemed to deter most people.

But I couldn't keep it up for long. After a few dozen Tongue Strikes™ my next try ended up with the tongue traveling half a meter forward and falling limply on the ground. My Giant Toad form was completely exhausted. But before I switched back to my human form I heard someone chant a spell.

"Heal!"

And it negated some of my tiredness. I looked to my side and noticed a girl in priestly robes looking at me with a smile. I changed back to my human form and bowed my head a little while thanking her.

"No problem, Toad-san."

…

I have received a weird nickname but I decided to not mind it and continue my 'catch and release' routine on every cabbage that got past the front lines.

In time I realized that I became some sort of entertainment for the onlookers. Some of them even started playing a game of dare where they wouldn't move and trust me to catch the cabbage rushing at them before they got hit. Every time it happened I got a round of applause and some Heal spells coming my way.

"Toad-san! Toad-san! Toad-san! Toad-san!"

The loud cheers confused adventurers and some of the front line fighters finally looked back and noticed me.

"Hey, there's a Giant Toad! Where the hell it came from?!"

They moved towards me with their weapons drawn but they very quickly got scolded and shooed away by my new fan group.

The battle continued in this fashion. While there was nothing for me to do I scanned the battlefield for my teammates.

Darkness's armor was totally shattered from head to toe. She was 'bravely' taking a beating with her body alone but seemed completely fine since Aqua kept on healing her when it looked like Darkness would faint.

Kazuma started to use Aqua's tactic of abusing Darkness pretty early as well but also find another way to catch more cabbages on the side. Surprisingly his Steal worked wonders in that situation and by using it on the flying cabbages he was able to easily capture them.

After a few hours from the start of the event, every single cabbage that didn't fly away into the distance got either killed or captured. I saw Aqua and other support adventurers start walking around and rejuvenating dead-tired adventurers.

Darkness was lying on the ground with a bliss plastered on her face while Kazuma was looking at her with a judgmental stare and also a hint of regret in his eyes. Megumin, on the other hand, sat safely where I put her and seemed to doze off happily.

Luna-san's voice once again filled the area.

"Everyone! Thank you for participation in this year's harvest season! By the estimations of guild accountants, you managed to catch twice the amount of cabbages compared to the last year. Congratulations! The rewards will be handed out tomorrow after the guild staff will be done with appraising and counting!"

Celebratory cries broke out from the crowd of adventurers.

I walked towards Megumin who was now being thanked by various adventurers for thinning out the number of enemies, not remembering how they looked at her with anger some time ago.

When I got near to pick the confused Explosion Girl who got 'rudely' woken up by a bunch of excited adventurers I heard loud exclamations:

"Oh, she's a teammate of Toad-san!"

"Toad-san?" The confusion only deepened when Megumin heard my new nickname.

"Toad-san can I ask for your autograph on my stomach?!"

"What the hell happened when I was asleep?!"

With Megumin's assistance, I managed to avoid having to write my signature on more than one woman's body. Though I couldn't say I didn't like the positive comments I was getting for my performance.

As I was explaining to Megumin what she's missed I moved towards the remaining trio of my team. I wasn't surprised when I heard Kazuma and Aqua fighting again about who would earn more money from today's quest.

"Darkness, are you alright?" Megumin asked with worried voice but Darkness just gave her thumbs up and answered:

"I have never been better. Haaaa~"

After a short conversation, we agreed to meet in the guild the next day and with Megumin on my back, I headed towards the city.

As I walked through the city gate Megumin asked me:

"Hey, what are you going to do today?"

The sun was still high in the sky so I thought about taking care of something that I wanted to do for a few days now. I would leave Megumin at her house and then go to-

"Would you maybe take me with you? I have slept too much lately and lying in my living room is really boring."

Well, that complicated matters. My plan contained something that wasn't exactly what I wanted Megumin to know… but when I turned my head to look at her she had that expectant expression on her face and… I couldn't just say no.

Judging that Megumin learning my not-yet secret early on would clear me of any guilt I would feel otherwise I nodded my head and said:

"If you promise to stay calm no matter what, then I will take you with me."

Megumin looked at me with questioning gaze but quickly nodded and said:

"Okay, but where are we going?"

"You will see."

It took me quite a while to navigate through the streets that I haven't ever stepped in and only saw from the bird's perspective but after half an hour of walking, I finally found the street I was looking for.

With Megumin in tow, I started looking around for a certain shop.

"Oh, it's here."

"A Magic Item shop? Ah, so you wanted to spend the money we earned from that bounty! Why would you be so secretive about it? "

I didn't comment on Megumin's question and just came into the shop in front of me with a fancy sign and some magical-looking items on the display.

A bell rang after I opened the door and almost immediately after I heard an enthusiastic voice coming from the backroom:

"Welcome! I will be with you in a minute!"

With some time on my hand, I looked around the shop. There were items of all kinds around. Some weapons like daggers, shortswords, and shields were placed in display cases. On the shelves standing on the left, there were dozens of jars with unknown substances.

On the right side, there were more miscellaneous items like rings, earrings, chokers, some umbrellas and even a fishing rod in the corner.

"Hmm… I got a feeling that I saw it somewhere before…"

Megumin suddenly voiced while looking at some dagger. It didn't look any different from other daggers I saw during the last few days and all I could tell was its name was "Reflective Dagger" as the note on the display said.

Before I could ask Megumin what she was talking about I heard steps coming from the backroom and a long-haired brunette in violet-colored robes came out of it while holding a glass jar full of boiling water in her hand.

Not disturbed in the slightest with the scalding hot jar, she put it calmly on the counter before looking at us. She seemed to immediately recognize me but focused her eyes on Megumin instead.

"Kazuki and... hmmm- Ah! Aren't you a daughter of Hyoizaburo-san?"

"Wiz-san?"

To my surprise, they seemed to know each other.