This Goddess Must Be Crazy, Chapter 52 (Patreon)

The entire plaza was on fire now, and All For One gazed down at his opponent as the man’s lifeblood trickled from him. Endeavor’s mask of flames was flickering and faded, his ugly scarred face blackened and blotchy from the necrotic magic that the newly arisen lich had experimented with. He did have some scorching on his robes, and some ash on his bones. But still, nothing his various quirks wouldn’t mend in short order. 

“How disappointing. I had hoped the Number 2 hero would be a bit more of a challenge,” All For One commented. “I hope you are more suitable in undeath.”

“I’d tell you to burn in hell, but it seems you’ll just have to wait for round two,” Endeavor wheezed. “I just…I just have one final request.”

“Oh? And what is that?” All For One demanded, mildly curious. 

“Not for you. I’m just hoping he doesn’t say his stupid catchphrase,” Endeavor coughed, a bit of blood spattering on his lips. 

All For One barely had time to figure out what that meant before he heard the words, “DETROIT! SMASH!” 

It felt like the hand of god lifted him up and slapped him down onto the sidewalk a dozen yards away. His bones groaned and creaked, but did not break. Despite the pain, a grin spread across his face as he slowly rose and turned. “At last. You have arrived, my nemesis.”

“Have no fear, because I AM HERE!” All Might growled, rising up from where he’d landed between All For One and Endeavor.

“So much for my dying wish,” Endeavor coughed, looking more pained at being saved by his rival than the battle damage. 

“So, it begins at last, our final battle,” All For One chuckled, raising up one boney hand. “Now, we shall finally see, which of us is-”

Then All Might picked up Endeavor and launched himself into the sky, vanishing before All For One could even really get started on his dramatic speech. He’d been mentally writing it for years now, it was a good one. 

Realizing what had just happened, confusion and surprise were replaced by cold, all consuming fury. With a snarl, All For One let loose waves of magic destruction all around him, grabbing the souls of the nearby dead and attempting to raise them from the dead. He would not allow-

“How dare you!” 

A lance of ice as big as a telephone pole slammed into All For One, nearly overcoming his defenses and staggering him back. “Who dares-”

The temperature plummeted, and a blizzard began to whip up, as a woman with long brown hair and a purple robe slowly advanced on All For One. 

“You would call upon the souls of the departed to enslave them!?” the woman snarled, more ice forming at her fingertips. 

“The souls of the dead are mine to command, for I am a lich! The highest form of undead being!” All For One declared, raising a barrier of dark magic. Ice magic wasn’t particularly effective against his new undead body, but no reason to risk things. He’d heard of this woman, and she was supposedly one of those from another world. What was her name? Wiz. A silly name.

“You are no lich. I was a lich. You are just a dead man,” Wiz snarled. 

All For One chortled. “We shall see.” Then he tried to order his risen army to attack the intruder. Right as they all suddenly passed on to the next life, and All For One had to hastily anchor himself to prevent himself from being caught up in Wiz’s ritual. 

Then another icy spear slammed into his barrier, and All For One snarled in fury. “Fool! I am All For One! Not even All Might will face me?!”

“He’s busy, that’s why he sent his girlfriend,” Wiz declared, and blushed slightly.

Then she threw an entire avalanche onto All For One, and extinguished all the fires in the plaza at once. 

Sprinting through an icy gothic mansion while being pursued by the girl from The Ring, but with a giant pair of scissors, had not been on Kazuma’s “Raiding the Final Boss’s Dungeon” bingo card, but here he was. Personally, Kazuma had really been hoping for a fight arena. Those were always fun, and almost always had some fun leashing exploits you could use. 

This was just mostly terrifying and completely weird. What sort of sicko put a horror movie monster in his dungeon!? If there had been a feedback form, Kazuma would have been filling it out immediately. 

Another zombie appeared in front of them, only for Sero to wrap it up so thoroughly it resembled a mummy half a second later, and the party leapt over the corpse and kept right on going. 

“We have got to lose her!” Kazuma said to Chris as they hurried through the freezing prison. “Got any ideas!?”

“You remember our first night out?” Chris panted. “The Mitsubishi Special?”

“I’m pretty sure his name was Matsumoto, but yeah,” Kazuma agreed. “You gonna hit her with your signature move too?”

“You know it,” Chris agreed, giving Kazuma a thumbs up. “Ready? On three!”

“One, two, THREE!” Kazuma spun about, pointing his hand at their opponent. “CREATE WATER!” 

A stream of water shot out of Kazuma’s palm, soaking the floor and Running With Scissors at the same time. It was so cold that the water started to freeze nearly instantly, but Kazuma helped it along with a quick Freeze spell. At the same time, Chris extended her arms and chanted, “BIND!”

Coils of mithril chain shot out of Chris’ belt pouch and wrapped themselves around their foe, even as Kazuma hosed her down with another Create Water spell. Then he jumped over, and put hand to his foe’s mostly missing face, which had no skin, just muscle and big buggy eyes. “FREEZE!” 

Ice instantly covered the thing’s face and filled her mouth, and Kazuma fell back, watching as she struggled futilely against her bonds. “Huh. That worked.”

The others had stopped, and slowly turned around to face the struggling monster. 

“So, do we just like, leave her there?” Sero asked, frowning at the horrific creature. 

“Are you kidding? We turn our backs on her and the baby-killing horror will be on us like THAT,” Uraraka said, snapping her fingers. 

The monster suddenly spat out a chunk of ice, then wailed, “I would never kill adorable babies! How could you think that of me?! Humans are so prejudiced.”

“Easy for you to say, miss demon,” Chris said, drawing her dagger and crouching over the monster. “You’re the one who works for the Lord of the Tomb.”

“I…I have not seen Master Ainz since he locked me up in here,” the monster said, tears coming to her horrible eyes. “He…he had set me to conquer a world, but I refused, on the grounds that I would not allow all the human children to suffer. He has changed so much. Surely Lord Smaragdina wouldn’t allow such adorable creatures to suffer!”

Uraraka immediately turned to Yunyun. “It’s a trap. You know it’s a trap, I know it’s a trap. Don’t even say it.”

“...maybe she wants to be friends?” Yunyun suggested hesitantly, then squawked and tried to dodge as Megumin pounded on her shoulder with her fists. 

“We are not here to make friends, we’re here to destroy the Lord of the Tomb!” Meguimn ranted as she rained blows down on Yunyun.

“You would kill Lord Ainz!? But…but he is the last of the Supreme Beings!” the monster wailed, struggling against her chains. The scissors slowly slid across the floor toward her, until Sero quickly tapeed them down. 

“Yeah well, he kills babies. Probably eats them too,” Kazuma said with a snort.

To his shock, the monster burst into tears. “I know! I cannot stand to continue to see it…so I guard the Frozen Prison, forgotten and abandoned by even my sisters.” 

Chris and Aqua exchanged puzzled looks, and Chris shrugged. “Right. Well, we’ll just be going then. We’ve got babies to save.”

“Wait, please! Don’t leave me! I want to see the adorable babies-”

A bit of tape flew from Sero to wrap around the monster’s mouth, and he shrugged. “So, we’re just leaving her?”

“I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea,” Uraraka said with a heavy sigh. “She’ll just escape and hunt us down later.”

“Eh, those are mithril chains. She’s not going anywhere,” Kazuma decided. On a whim, he took a few scraps of cloth from a nearby wall hanging, and using his Craft skill, made a cute little baby doll and set it next to the struggling monster. “Here. Your very own baby to care for.”

The monster stopped struggling, tears appearing in her eyes as she snuggled up to the doll, like some sort of malformed child. It sent shivers down Kazuma’s spine, but they’d wasted enough time.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, standing up. He looked around, frowning. “Anyone else completely lost?”

Everyone nodded, and Kazuma sighed. “So, I know this is a crazy idea, but…”

“I don’t like crazy,” Uraraka muttered, and Sero nodded frantically. The two Crimson Demons just looked interested, while Chris smirked. 

“...what if we just had Megumin make us a door?” Kazuma asked. 

The other’s mouths flopped open, but Megumin cackled madly. “I see you have become a true connoisseur of Explosion Magic, Kazuma! Indeed, I can create a portal that will lead directly to the outside!” 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? We definitely need her Explosion later against the final boss,” Chris said dubiously. 

“I was thinking about that. And you know, Aqua’s basically a well of endless Divine Mana…but what about you? You’re a goddess, right? Even if you’re not as-”

“Kazuma Sato I swear if you finish that with ‘well endowed’ no amount of healing will fix what I do to you!” Chris snarled, grabbing Kazuma’s shirt and shaking him hard. 

“Ow! I was going to say ‘senior!’ Because you’re a junior goddess!” Kazuma complained. 

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Chris muttered, letting Kazuma go and hugging herself. “Um, sorry about that, Megumin.”

“It’s alright. If he’d stuck his foot in his mouth as usual, I would have helped you hide the body,” Megumin told Chris with a shrug.

“Come on, isn’t anyone on my side?!” Kazuma demanded, looking pleadingly to Sero. 

“No offense, man, but you have a reputation,” Sero said uncomfortably. 

“Can we go back to getting the hell out of here? And no funny business until we’re NOT in the horrible horror mansion!” Uraraka urged. 

“Sigh, fine,” Kazuma grumbled. “Megumin? Skeleton key time. You point it uh, thatta way, and try to make it smallish.” 

“MWAHAHAHA! WITNESS NOW THE GLORY OF EXPLOSION MAGIC!” Megumin cackled, and her staff and eyes began to glow as a dramatic wind picked up out of nowhere. 

“Are we really sure this is a good idea?!” Uraraka demanded, shielding her eyes and taking a step back. “Her blast radius is usually larger than ‘One Long Hallway!’” 

“Relax, I got this,” Kazuma said with a grin, and grabbed Chris’ shoulder. “Drain Touch.”

“Ahh! Kazuma, warn me before you do that!” Chris complained but didn’t shake him off. 

“Astral Barrier!” Kazuma said, and a glowing wall of light formed around the party. . He had to keep draining Chris to manage it, as with his piddly mana pool he’d never be able to both summon and maintain a high level defensive spell. 

Red of my blood, Cinder of Flames

Soul of Endless Destruction

I release now my power within

Let reality bend to my instruction!

EXPLOSION! 

Megumin let loose with not her most impressive spell, but still a mighty one nonetheless. Despite the barrier, Kazuma’s entire party was knocked flat to the ground as Megumin blew the entire front half of the mansion away, and shredded most of the rest. Even with the barrier the heat roasted them badly enough that Kazuma felt like he’d just gotten a horrible sunburn. 

For her part, Megumin seemed fine as she collapsed to the ground with a happy sigh. “At last, an indoor Explosion…Truly, none are mightier than I!” 

“Ugh, that’s one way to do a prison break,” Sero moaned, helping Yunyun back to her feet. 

Uraraka picked herself up and dusted off her costume, then grimaced. “Well, we’re out of the mansion, but look. It’s nothing but blasted rock as far as the eye can see now. And if anyone was around at all, they’ll know we’re here and that Megumin just made herself vulnerable.”

“Not for long,” Kazuma said, grabbing Chris’ wrist and Megumin’s hand. “Drain Touch.”

“Ooo, this mana feels different. Kazuma, Kazuma, we should play Rock Paper Scissors! I just know I’ll win this time!” Megumin said excitedly. 

“Hold still, it’s gonna take a few minutes to get you back to full power,” Kazuma lectured. 

“Wow, Kazuma, you trying to drag out holding two girls' hands?” Chris teased, then yelped when Kazuma tightened his grip.

“Uh, guys?” Sero said, his voice squeaking.

“Not now, let the lovers have their little spat, the horror section is over,” Uraraka told him.

“I don’t think it is! Yunyun, Yunyun help!” Sero cried, sending a wave of tape into the destroyed mansion behind them, only for a giant pair of scissors to rise up and slice through it with ease. 

“So,” the faceless girl crooned, holding her scissors in one hand and cradling the baby doll in the other. “Which of you gave me this?”

The dark waters frothed and raged as the massive hydra sent three heads at Kirishima, three at Darkness, and one each at Tanya and Mina, who both had to dodge to the side. Mina hurled a few globules of acid at the creature, but it seemed to just fizzle on the skin and do nothing. Frantically, she scrambled back behind Aqua, which the hydra was mostly leaving alone for some reason as she summoned up the water. 

A moment later, Tanya crouched beside her. “Can you swim?”

“Huh?” Mina blinked, then nodded as she formed more acid balls. “Yeah, I was on the diving team in middle school, but like, I think we have bigger problems now!” 

“Hrm.” Tanya poked at Aqua, then demanded, “Do you have a spell that lets someone breathe underwater?”

“What kind of a question is that? I’m a water goddess! Duh, of COURSE I have an underwater breathing spell! That’s like, super basic!” Aqua huffed. 

“Good, cast it on myself at Ashido,” Tanya ordered. 

“Why? You’re not going to drown, I’ll keep the water platform- AAAAAAAH!” 

A hydra head dove down at them, only for Tokoyami to intercept it at the last moment. Dark Shadow bit into the monster, and it bellowed in pain. MIna hastily threw acid at the wound, which bubbled and hissed, and thankfully didn’t regrow as it hung limp and dead. 

“This won’t work, and will take too long. Cast water breathing on us,” Tanya ordered Aqua. 

“Hmph, fine, but you better praise me for it!” Aqua harrumphed, and a moment later Mina felt cool water wash over her. 

Then she started to gasp and choke as she started to “drown” on dry land.

“Oh, um, I forgot, you, er, grow gills, and you can’t breathe air anymore,” Aqua told them. “It’ll wear off soon, but-”

Tanya grabbed Mina’s hand and dragged them both to the side of the platform, then dove into the water. They could see fairly well thanks to the glowing blue liquid all around them, which mostly meant they could see the giant hydra battling it out above them. Tanya nodded, and then swam down, motioning for Mina to follow after her. Reluctantly, she did, even as the battle raged on above and behind them. 

Tanya led her down an impossibly long way, and Mina started to wonder about getting the bends. Hopefully, the water-breathing spell would help with that, but she wasn’t sure. It did feel odd to be breathing through the gills in her neck. It felt like she was breathing through her ears, which was a rather odd sensation to say the least. 

When they had gotten so deep that Mina could barely see anything, Tanya brought them to a massive metal grate in the lake bed, with bars as thick around as Mina’s arms. Tanya pointed to it, then mimed breaking it. 

Nodding hesitantly, Mina swam forward, then had to grip the bars. There was a steady flow of water out of the grate, creating a strong current. Still, Mina was by no means weak, and she was able to hold on to the great as she generated acid. It took agonizingly long minutes, but she was able to eat through the bars and make a hole large enough for Mina to squeeze through, and she watched as Tanya swam through. Wincing, she did the same, and found herself pressed against the grate.

 She felt a tugging and nearly panicked, until she realized it was Tanya. Following after the small women, they made their way along the wall as Tanya felt for something. At last she seemed to find it, and they found metal bars along the wall. Hand over hand, they pulled themselves along, until they came to a metal door. This Tanya opened with a metal key she produced from a pocket, and the door swung open into gray water beyond. 

Once inside, the current vanished, and there was a light above them. Mina and Tanya ascended to the surface, where Mina instinctively gasped for breath, but then just choked on the air. She sank back down so only her head was above water, and looked around. 

They were in a small cavern, with flickering torches on the walls above them, and some sort of glowing control panel to the side, with various switches and levers on it, all inscribed with arcane magic symbols. 

“That’s the water level management system for this floor,” Tanya rasped, her voice low and wet sounding, like Tsuyu’s after she’d been swimming. Had they turned into frogs.

“That’s good, but what do we do now?” Mina asked. 

“Well, I’m going to drain the entire lake, and turn the lights on,” Tanya told her. “What I’m worried about is the fact that we can’t really breathe without water now. How long do you think this spell will last?”

“Honestly, no idea. It’s really inconvenient to have a water breathing spell that also somehow makes it so you can’t breathe air,” Mina sighed. “How will draining the water help us though?”

“Simple, that Hydra relies on the water to support its weight. We take that away, and it will be largely helpless and easy to finish off,” Tanya explained. “Hmm. I suppose I can try a ‘remove curse’ spell on us, one moment.”

Glowing runes appeared around Tanya as she chanted a spell in a language that sounded like German to Mina. Then she was suddenly coughing up water and splashing about wildly, before she managed to grab the nearby ladder and drag herself up. Tanya was breathing hard too, and holding on to Mina’s leg for dear life. Straining, Mina hauled them both up, and they coughed on the hard stone floor for a few moments. 

“Damnable useless goddess,” Tanya muttered, then crawled over and began to activate and flip switches. She watched some readout that Tanya couldn’t understand, then nodded to herself. “Well, thankfully, our two friends are durable, and Aqua can heal any injuries.”

“Uh, why?” Mina asked, suddenly worried. Then she let out a cry as the whole place began to shake, falling flat on her rear as a thunderous roar filled her ears

“Because I just sucked out about four billion cubic meters of water using the spells here,” Tanya shouted. “It will probably liquify the Hydra, actually, when it gets sucked into the drains.”

“ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Mina demanded. “What if it liquifies our FRIENDS?!” 

“It was the most expedient solution to the problem,” Tanya said with a shrug. “I oversaw the installation of the drainage devices. Do you realize they hadn’t cleaned or inspected the lining of the artificial underground lake before I came? No one had reviewed the safety and maintenance procedures even once. Unthinkable.”

Ignoring all of that gobbledygook, Mina sprang down the ladder, to find the water had completely vanished. She slid down the slick stone like she was riding her acid, then along into the massive tunnel. It was much brighter now, with emergency lights having flickered on. There was slime and moss on every surface, but Mina ignored that when she found the ladder up to the grate. She swamped up it, then pulled herself up through the hole. 

The whole underground lake was now mostly drained, with only a few puddles here and there left. There were giant white fish flopping about, along with white crabs crawling everywhere. It was sort of gross and fascinating, but Mina didn’t care about any of that. 

“EIJIRO! RED RIOT! WHERE ARE YOU!? AQUA!? TOKOYAMI? SOMEONE, PLEASE!” Mina wailed. 

“Mina? Is that you?” Kirishima’s voice shouted back before Mina’s could even echo back to her. 

“Yes, it’s me!” Mina cried excitedly, and hurried forward, slipping and sliding on the slimy wet rocks. 

She found her friends in a wet puddle of water, looking damp and frazzled, but not much worse for wear. Except for Aqua, who was crying and miserable-looking, covered in blood and slime. Not from the hydra, but from a white fish that seemed to have swallowed her whole until the others rescued her, its dead carcass rotting off to the side. 

“What the hell happened?” Kirishima demanded, getting to his feet gingerly and walking over to Mina, who threw herself at him so hard they both fell onto the ground with a loud squelch as she hugged him, then kissed him right on the lips.

“I was so worried about you,” Mina cried, pressing her face into his stony chest. 

“Uh, me too. We were fighting, and all of a sudden the water started to go down, fast. The hydra got sucked away, but Aqua kept us on the platform just long enough for us to avoid getting sucked down the drain or whatever ourselves,” Kirishima told her. 

“Tanya took us to a maintenance room or something and pulled the plug. No one’s hurt?” Mina asked worriedly, looking around at the others. 

“Unfortunately, no,” Darkness sighed. “I was just getting started with that big, brutal hydra…”

“A maintenance room?” Tokoyami asked, looking up with interest. “Where?”

“And does it have a shower?” Aqua sniffled

“Uh, I don’t know about showers. But come on, I’ll show you,” Mina said, and led them back across the short distance to the grate, where they all made their way to the strange chamber, where Tanya was waiting impatiently. 

“There you all are. Come, I’ve managed to divine several important-” Tanya began, then let out a squawk as Aqua flung herself at Tanya, coating her in fish guts. 

“Please tell me they have a shower here!” Aqua wailed. “I don’t like being all stinky and slimy!” 

“There’s a chemical decon shower right there!” Tanya said, pointing to a curtain-covered stall. “But it’s not meant for-”

Ignoring that, Aqua stripped out of her garments, leading Mina to cover Kirishima’s eyes, and Darkness to put a hand over Tokoyami’s and Dark Shadow’s. 

“Aw, come on, I wasn’t gonna look!” Dark Shadow protested. 

“We don’t have time for this!” Tanya complained and gestured to the control panel. “Using this, I have ascertained the location of our allies. Thanks to the maintenance access passages, we should be able to get to them quickly. Kazuma’s group appears to be engaging Nigredo on the Glacier level, while Izuku’s group does battle with Shaltear on the 3rd floor. 

Behind them, steam began to rise, and bubbles floated up as Aqua hummed to herself while taking her shower. 

“Where did she get soap? Or hot water?” Tanya asked, sounding confused. “I don’t remember installing either of those.”

“Look, forget that, who needs our help more?” Kirishma demanded. 

Tanya pursed her lips. “Nigredo is strong, but Shalltear is by far the most powerful of the Floor Guardians. Still, Izuku’s group is the strongest one we have, while Kazuma’s is comparatively weak on combat power.” 

“Do we split up, go help them both?” Kirishima demanded. 

“That’s not optimal, and you need me to get through the doors and navigate the maintenance tunnels,” Tanya said with a shake of her head. “We choose only one.”

Mina bit her lip, and looked back and forth between the others. Help Kazuma, or help Midoriya? Either way, time was running out.

Just then, Aqua stepped out of the shower in a perfectly clean bathrobe, her hair in a towel. “All better! Now, what are we doing?”

“Going to save our friends,” Darkness said firmly. “Come, I know where we need to go.”

Laying out her plan quickly, Darkness explained her reasoning, and Mina nodded. They’d have to risk it all, but it just might work.