Hiatus Gifting This Unfortunate Guy With Blessings

'By the time you read this letter, I will surely have passed on.'

Those were certainly not the words I have expected to see written on a note pinned to my room's door after I just came into my house. Next thing I knew I already had that note firmly in my grasp and I was looking at the rest of the message with a heartbeat definitely out of the norm.

'... Did you know that it is how Crimson Demons always start their letters? Overly dramatic in my opinion, don't you think so too?'

I've read this sentence with a completely blank expression on my face.

'I didn't know how to start this letter so I thought about writing some interesting trivia first ...'

The heightened heart rate caused by this 'trivia' certainly caused my blood pressure to 'take an interest'.

'... before writing 'sorry about disappearing today so suddenly'. It definitely didn't have anything with angry Megumin-san, mind you.'

Somehow the word 'definitely' was making the latter statement even more questionable. And what's up with 'Megumin-san'? I've never heard Chris speak like that before.

'I suddenly received a distress message from one of my 'friends' on lord Vessec's lands and I had to help him with it.'

After a few seconds of thinking, I surmised that by 'friend' Chris probably meant one of her believers. Perhaps that priest she spoke about previously.

'It's not dangerous but it's something that he can't deal with alone. I have a way to easily get to and from there so don't worry about me. I will be back tomorrow or the day after, at the latest.'

And at the bottom of the letter, I saw Chris's signature.

I opened the door to my room and looked inside and there were no silver-haired girls inside so I went to the living room, kitchen, toilet and finally Chris's room to check as well because this seemed like some sort of joke. But the house was indeed empty besides me standing with a confused face in the corridor.

I jumped up, startled when suddenly there was a sound of scratching at the front door. I turned around, walked up to the door and opened it. A black ball of fur quickly rushed in without waiting for my invitation.

"Meow"

Chomusuke looked at my face briefly, sat down on the floor and started a fur-cleaning-duty by l.i.c.k.i.n.g up and down her arm.

"What are you doing here? I left food for you before leaving."

I have no idea what I expected by talking to her. Then I suddenly remembered that I had acquired a cat form so I could try and talk to Chomusuke that way. Without waiting I transformed but the only reaction I got from Chomusuke was a calm glance towards my direction.

"Do you need anything from me?"

I asked in cat language and as an answer, I got a lazy-sounding grumble.

Although Chomusuke looked like a cat with a weird shaped symbol on its forehead it was indeed something else since my power couldn't translate her speech. After this unsuccessful experiment, I changed back into my human form and opened the front door again.

"Here, go home. Megumin will worry about you."

This time Chomusuke reacted more but instead of going outside as I suggested, it stood up and walked to my room which had its door opened.

I walked to my room as well and saw Chomusuke lying in my bed's corner. When I tried lifting her up she immediately ran away just to lie down in the opposite corner. Surprisingly at that moment, she was slippery like an eel and even with my high Dexterity she somehow managed to run from me like that two more times.

I let out an exasperated sigh and gave up on throwing out the stubborn not-cat. I went to the toilet to clean myself up and found out that even after 10 minutes Chomusuke was still adamant about sleeping there.

Too weary with day's events to keep on trying to fight her out of my bed I lied down and tried falling asleep. It was downright impossible for the first few minutes because I kept thinking about Chris's letter. But after a while, I thought to myself that she wasn't obliged at all to be home every day and I certainly couldn't expect her to be and I gave up thinking about it for the night.

Even though similar to the day before I received a full-blown replay of yesterday's Chris related events each time I almost fell asleep, I somehow managed to do so after only an hour of trying.

In the morning I got woken up by Chomusuke hitting me with her tail straight across my face multiple times. Before I even managed to mutter confused "Mmmm?" I heard her jumping down the bed and then her running out of my room. Before long I could hear a muffled meowing from the corridor.

Chomusuke didn't let up and cried out every 5 seconds so I finally stood up with my eyes barely opened to see what was she doing. As I came out of my room half-asleep I saw her sitting right in front of the front door so I walked up and let her out of my house.

As I was about to close the door I heard a familiar voice:

"Oh, here you are, Chomusuke!"

I opened the door wider and immediately got hit in the face by sunrays so I shielded my eyes with my hand and walked outside as well. After giving out a massive yawn I spoke:

"Good morning. Have I overslept?"

"..."

Realizing that Sun being so high in the sky probably meant yes I waved my right hand with my eyes still almost closed.

"Give me a few minutes, I will be right back."

But before I turned around to head inside I heard:

"Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yo-you-"

"Hmmm?"

I opened my eyes properly, already used to light at that point, and when I looked at Megumin I saw her staring at me with her eyes wide open. Quickly realizing what was going on I issued the [Imitate] command to change into my Crimson Demon form.

Due to being half-asleep I forgot to grab my mask which I always took down to sleep.

I stood there, waiting for Megumin's reaction while sweating bullets from every pore in my body.

"Your face- and those scars-"

She hasn't ever seen them before. When I accidentally went nude while trying out Crimson Demon form for the first time, right in front of her, something else occupied her attention at that time. Like a barcode placed in a strange place.

I was preparing for the worst but after taking a huge breath in Megumin yelled out:

"They are so AWESOME! You look like… a Demon King's General!"

'HOW IS THAT AWESOME?!' is what I wanted to immediately shout out but I have seen a few people that were passing by the building lookup with surprised expressions towards me and Megumin.

"I bet that if you were to walk into the guild without the mask everyone would be intimidated after looking at you!"

She spurted that line out as if that was some good thing. Before I could interject she continued with great favor:

"You would be the most famous adventurer in no time if you stopped using this mask!"

What was she thinking?!

"I didn't want to become famous because of my terrifying face!"

Megumin ignored me and continued:

"And you could go around the restaurants and no one would ever try to make money from you! Free meals forever! And anyone that would see you in an alley would immediately hand you his money!"

"That's just a crime!"

I had to put a hand on Megumin's mouth to stop her shouting. There was already a sizeable crowd looking at as from the bottom of the stairs. Imagining that snatching Megumin and bringing her into my house would probably result in my house being immediately raided I had to settle on simply silencing her by putting a hand on her mouth.

Even though I felt that I was being dissed by Megumin when I saw her eyes full of sparkles in them that notion quickly escaped my mind.

"C-can you be a little bit quieter?"

She vigorously nodded her head so I took away my hand before anyone would come to me and accuse me of attacking Megumin.

Still louder than I would want Megumin asked me:

"Why are you wearing this mask?! You look much better without it! What's the point of wearing it if it hides your face?"

"Precisely so it would hide my face! What kind of question was that?!"

But before I could say that I involuntarily exclaimed "Wha-!" and quickly dodged back before Megumin snatched the mask currently resting on my face.

"Hey, stop it!"

Seeing that a little girl was attacking me and not the other way around the crowd quickly dispersed. Hey, what about age and gender equality?!

Without witnesses around, I grabbed Megumin's arms to stop her from trying to unmask me. But after two seconds I started to realize that she somehow was slowly overpowering me. Because of the level difference she had more Strength!

"Okay, stop it. I mean it. Seriously."

This didn't seem to deter her at all so I thought of something else.

"I thought I would let you finally fly normally with me in my Griffin form today. But if you don't stop-"

She immediately stopped using her strength and after I let her go she quietly started staring at me with a pouting expression.

I didn't try showing my face to Megumin up until that point, even though she deemed my other forms to be cool, because there's a difference between how people perceive animals and other humans. If one person were to be put in one room with a scarred animal like an owl and yakuza-looking guy I would bet the former one would be cute in comparison.

Of course, monsters such as Griffin even without scars would be scarier than a simple human with them but that is a different matter entirely.

Saying that… I was extremely relieved, nearly moved to tears, that Megumin didn't immediately flee upon seeing my face. But although she thought it was looking 'amazing' herself, because of her and her race's quirkiness, she also knew exactly what an effect it would have on other, normal, people.

I calmed myself down with few deep breaths and said to Megumin, deciding to end the subject for now:

"Okay… please wait a second. I will get dressed."

As if remembering it suddenly Megumin, already calm, stopped pouting and asked:

"Chris left already or is she inside? I wanted to apologize to her."

"She had something to take care of and left me a note that she would be back today or tomorrow."

"Ok…"

Seeing that Megumin didn't have any other questions I went inside to quickly get my human form dressed. Afterward, I came out, and together with Megumin, we went towards the guild.

It was the first time I felt awkward while walking with Megumin because she kept staring at my masked face and would only answer with half-sentences to my questions. Even to ones about Explosion. That worried me immensely.

The fact that I saw many people walking around in robes and hoods on their heads also didn't help my heart calm down this morning. But fortunately, nothing happened on the way to the guild.

However, the guild that day was much rowdier than usual. Hundreds of adventurers were sitting and standing around the guild with little to none space between their bodies.

As Megumin and I were scanning the crowd we suddenly heard Luna-san's voice:

"All the rewards from yesterday's harvesting event have been accounted for. Please proceed calmly to-Waaaagh!"

Luna-san was kidnapped by the wave of adventurers rushing for their rewards.