Epilogue

TL: Cannongerbil

Editor: Striker, Ulti, Xenthur

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In the same old, unchanging room.

In this boring and unchanging workplace of mine, a regular customer appeared.

“Yo.”

He raised his hand and gave me a friendly greeting.

Though now is not the kind of situation to be saying ‘yo’…

“Kazuma-san… Good grief, why are you…”

Why does this person die so easily?

He even defeated the Demon King, so I really wish he’d stop popping up in here so often.

More importantly, I really wish he’d stop making himself at home here.

He had both hands behind his head and crossed his legs, completely at ease…

──This is the place where the souls of the deceased end up.

It’s not supposed to be a place where you can make yourself at home, but…

“Phew, this place really is the best place to relax. How do I put it, I feel like I’m being rejuvenated just by meeting Eris-sama.”

Saying that, he laid down, using his hands as a pillow.

“…Good grief. I had a really hard time after that, you know? Do you know how much work it took me to return here?”

“Well, I mean, you were gone by the time I got back to town. I was planning on giving you a lift.”

…Give me a lift?

No, more importantly,

“Um, could you please stop calling me Eris-sama? You are the hero who defeated the Demon King, and you know my true identity as well, so you can drop the honorifics. And you should also use your usual casual tone…”

“Well, if you speak to me like you usually do, I’ll do the same.”

“…That’s how I naturally talk when I’m a goddess… Still, you look really worn out. What happened this time? After peace was restored to the world below, I haven’t had the chance to observe it too much…”

Just what kind of monster killed him this time?

With the Demon King defeated, the monsters of that world should’ve grown weaker.

As he is right now, there wouldn’t be very many creatures capable of killing him.

“…Well, a lot of things happened. Actually, I was kicked out of the mansion for getting a little carried away. I’m the Hero who defeated the Demon King, you know? It shouldn’t be too much just to ask for a few rewards more.”

That’s terrible.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but I agree that this man deserves to be rewarded just a little more.

“Sounds like everyone is as lively as ever… Did you run into any major trouble so far?”

“Yeah, they really are lively. Nothing really troublesome has happened so far, but… Well, I have a really bad feeling. For instance, recently, Megumin has been disappearing off somewhere with Yunyun quite often and coming back with a refreshed look on her face. She must be letting off her Explosion somewhere, but who knows what she’s using as her target this time…”

…I think I’ll keep the fact that the two of them have been heading to the Demon King’s castle every day to blast it with Explosion to myself.

“As the great noble who helped defeat the Demon King, Darkness was granted new land to govern. Speaking of which, she has been complaining about receiving countless marriage proposals from not just nobles of Belzerg, but from all over the world too. Recently she has holed herself up inside the mansion to avoid meeting the messengers from the country.”

…He’s the reason why she’s rejecting all those proposals. Seriously, acting like it doesn’t concern him at all…

She faces strong rivals in the form of Megumin and his “adopted” sister, and on top of that he’s such a free-spirited person. Darkness sure has it tough.

“And Aqua, who kicked me out from the mansion, refuses to let me back in. She keeps telling me to ‘Stop saying stupid things’ or the like, but even if she says ‘stupid things’…”

“Just what did you say to get her to kick you out?”

I believe this is the second time he was kicked out of the mansion.

He has accomplished many great things to save the world, so just saying a few things shouldn’t…

“I was being showered with praises and attention after defeating the Demon King, so I let it get to my head a little and made just a little joke. It went, ‘Alright, daddy’s making a harem’.”

“……………”

“…Eris-sama, I do feel bad over that, so please don’t stay silent. It’s going to make me depressed.”

I take back what I’ve said.

This guy should definitely go through a little more hardship.

“Well, anyway, you can feel free to relax here until Senpai calls you back.”

…But I guess it’d be fine to let him relax when he’s over here.

“…Call me back? …Ah, I’m not dead, you know?”

He raised his head from the floor and said that.

“…You’re not dead? But aren’t you right here?”

“Well, yes. I came here by my own power.”

……..?

“I teleported here. Teleport. You know, I was here before the duel with the Demon King, right? I still had a spot open for my teleport destinations, so I thought…”

“!?”

What did this man just say?

“Wait, hold on a minute. You placed a Teleport destination here?”

“Yeah… I mean, come on, not even I would leave Aqua hanging here without a plan to get her back. By the way, do you think I can come here to hang out every so often? You know, when I get dragged into troublesome things…”

“No, no, no, you can’t! What are you saying!? And, you managed to register a Teleport point here? How could you do that? Actually, how do you keep doing things that no one else can even consider!?”

“W-Well, I just tried it as a test and it worked, so…”

If he could just pop in here anytime he wanted, this place would be stripped of its dignity entirely.

“Come to think of it, Darkness has been looking for Chris a lot nowadays, you know? Actually, if she could just meet you normally, there’d be no need for this charade.”

“Ugh… If I meet her now, she will chase me to the bottom of it… I’ll find time to meet with her later.”

Then, he languidly sat up.

“Seriously, how could they treat the hero who saved the world this poorly? Right, I think it’s about time I go teach them a lesson!”

He cracked his neck as he was saying that and stretched.

──The Hero who saved the world.

He says it so flippantly, but does he really understand what he has achieved?

A single powerless man with unreliable companions managed to defeat the Demon King’s generals and other strong enemies one by one, eventually managing to take out even the Demon King himself.

Even the great heroes featured in the extremely distorted fairy tales could only achieve such a feat with the help of legendary equipment and powerful companions.

“First is the idiot who kicked me out. I was just a little soft on her, and it immediately got to her head.”

He started chanting teleportation magic while doing some light calisthenics​.

Just imagining the scenes that would take place after this brought a smile to my face.

Even though chaos and trouble followed him everywhere, he always seemed to be in good cheer.

“Right, Eris-sama, I’m off to make them cry a little.”

“Have a safe trip. Don’t do anything too horrible to them, okay?”

Hearing my words, the great hero who saved the world turned around with a wry smile on his face.

──I hope that this person gets rewarded just a little more.

──I hope that he will never come to regret staying in this world instead of going back to Japan.

“Kazuma-san, please hold on for a moment. You don’t come here very often, so let me give you a little present.”

He gave me a puzzled look. In response, I extended my hand and gave him a smile.

“I wish good fortune upon you who have worked so hard for the sake of this world.”

──I hope that you’ll come to enjoy this wonderful world that you’ve worked so hard to protect.

I extended my hand towards him and offered a prayer from the bottom of my heart──!

“Blessing!”

Fin

Afterword

Thank you for purchasing “Gifting this Wonderful World with Blessings” Volume 17. I’m the author, Akatsuki Natsume.

This series grew to have seventeen entries before I knew it.

I would really like to express my gratitude to everyone who has followed me up to this point.

Now then, I’ll be explaining some events that take place in this volume. Those of you who like to read the afterword first will be spoiled, so it’s best if you leave reading this to after you’ve finished the volume.

──While Kazuma and his party were wandering around the Demon King’s castle trying to bring back the runaway goddess, the small division of the Demon King’s army sent to attack the town and the adventurers who, despite having high levels, refuse to leave the town where they started out are probably clashing fiercely in the town of Axel.

The delinquent adventurer with an evil-looking face, the former noble residing inside a stuffed mascot who only occasionally brings out his true power, the owner of the magic item shop, and a certain masked part-timer who received a large sum of money from a large-chested receptionist might be going wild.

A casual look through the inhabitants of the town with appraisal magic would also reveal oddities like a chicken with an absurdly high level, and a cat with “evil god” listed under her class column.

A soldier of the Demon King’s army who entered a certain house might even get attacked by various vegetables planted in the garden and mysterious poltergeist-like activity.

──And in the capital, the elite troops of the Demon King’s army led by the Demon King’s daughter would be clashing head on with the royal army, the cheat-wielding adventurers and the veterans of the Crimson Demons.

A certain strange suit of armour who tagged along with the Crimson Demons because of the high number of beautiful women present, would see a picture of the mother of a certain girl, whose name is only just slightly different from his, and judge that she has great future potential…

And the strongest girl equipped with the strongest sword and the strongest armour would fight alongside Megumin’s classmates, Axis Cultists, and various other adventurers, who might not be as tough to deal with as Kazuma’s companions but are still a handful, in order to eventually challenge the Demon King’s daughter to a duel.

Despite her valiant efforts, she would eventually be on the verge of being overwhelmed by sheer numbers when the monsters suddenly grew a lot weaker, giving her the chance to escape. She would then be the first to realize that a certain someone defeated the Demon King, and her brother complex would only intensify…

Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to write about these events in the main series proper, so I’ll just have to briefly summarize them here.

If I ever get the chance I might end up including these events in a spinoff or something, but this is a story about a protagonist with NEET tendencies along with defective companions performing really well in spite of everything, and eventually even taking out the Demon King, so this will be the conclusion of the main story.

However, there are still plenty of foreshadowing, plot hooks and mysteries that have yet to be resolved.

For example, the origin of the names of the Demon Kings, and why the Demon King’s army is so hell-bent on the destruction of humanity. Such questions that the top minds of this world have been agonizing over for such a long time are now forever doomed to remain a mystery thanks to the actions of a certain someone.

And there’s also the daughter of the Demon King, who was beaten up by a certain combative princess and returned to her castle only to see her armies scattered by Explosion magic. I wonder what kind of hardships she would experience after that.

As for our protagonist who defeated the Demon King, he’s eagerly looking forward to attending the awards ceremony the country would hold.

However, he has no way of knowing that his “adopted” sister has done something that far overshadows his own achievements.

And there’s the promise that Megumin made to do some amazing things after they get back, and the traditional right granted to anyone who defeats the Demon King to marry into royalty──

There are still many stories left to tell in this world, so I hope I will be able to write a sequel to this series in the future.

However, for now, let’s allow Kazuma who has worked so hard to enjoy a little break and a peaceful life for a while.

──Now then, to all the people who’ve worked to get the series out in the world, including this volume.

To the four generations of editors in charge of this project, to everyone in Sneaker Bunko’s editorial department, the designers, the proofreaders, the marketers and the people who work in the bookstores all over the world.

To the people who worked on the comic versions, the anime, the games, the movie and countless other works.

And to the one who brought such quirky characters to life, who has drawn wonderful illustrations for us each time despite harsh deadlines, Mishima Kurone-sensei.

It’s only thanks to everyone that so many volumes were able to be delivered to readers all over the world, so you have my greatest thanks──

And of course, to everyone who has read this series, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Akatsuki Natsume

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And that’s Volume 17. I’ll be honest, when I started working on this series three years ago, I never expected it to become such a large part of my life, and I certainly never expected to be working on it all the way until the series ended. It was originally an impulse decision that drove me to work on this series, and I fully intended for it to be little more than a stopgap until the active translator of the time got back into the game, but, well, here we are.

I hope you enjoyed the conclusion of Konosuba. I certainly liked Volume 17, even if the ending isn’t quite as definitive as I would’ve liked. Still, there are plenty of awesome moments to make up for it, and there’s always the possibility of a sequel that Natsume himself teased in his own afterword.

Speaking of which, there have been rumours floating around about Natsume having confirmed one, but all those rumours come from this one tweet, where Akatsuki Natsume mentioned a potential title for a sequel spinoff, which he hopes to eventually work on. I don’t want to be too much of a wet blanket, but it’s not an official announcement, and that’s the only thing we’ve heard about it, so it’s best for everyone to temper your expectations accordingly.

Now, while the main series might have ended, that doesn’t mean I’m retiring just yet. As everyone knows, there’s still the last Dust spinoff volume I’ve yet to get to, and there are still plenty of short stories I’ve yet to get to, including two more from this volume. There’s also the matter of the short story booklets that were released alongside the movie, which I’ve been sitting on for quite some time now, but I just could never find the time to properly work on them. With things winding down, those booklets should be making their way to the site sometime very soon.

Now, I’d like to thank my artists, Kasen, who provided all those lovely colourized insert images in all the chapters, Magzh and Fructose for cleaning the insert images, and Ulti and Fructose for doing the typesetting. In particular, Ulti has been doing the banner images that are gracing each chapter, so great thanks for that. Additionally, I’d like to thank my editors, Striker, Ulti, and Xenthur, for making sure my works aren’t complete drivel by the time they make it to your screen, and Shaoqi for supporting me all this time. And of course, all of my Patreons, for your support

Tentatively, Dust 7 will be going up some time in September, so look forward to it. I’ll also keep everyone apprised of any additional details as I come across them.

Now, till we meet again.

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