A Crusader to Protect

"A Crusader to Protect" is a short story, written by Natsume Akatsuki as part of his KonoSuba light novel series. It was originally released as a special booklet that came with a Blu-ray disc for the anime adaptation in 2016 and was later featured in the first volume of the Yorimichi anthology series, published by Kadokawa in 2020.
==Synopsis==
Kazuma and his companions investigate a large forest located towards the south of Axel, after finding out about a mysterious high bounty monster that is said to be lurking there. Although they managed to escape the monster when Megumin blasted it with her Explosion during their encounter, it was still able to put a curse on Darkness that made her physically weak. The others were forced to take care of Darkness for a while until the monster was hit by a second Explosion, finally destroying it and breaking the curse.
==Behind the Mythos==
The monster that the protagonists encountered was clearly meant to be Nyarlathotep, as it is explicitly referred to by the aliases "The Mighty Messenger" and "Crawling Chaos". Its physical description also recalls certain avatars of Nyarlathotep, being a humanoid creature with tentacles and no visible eyes. However, it should be noted that the Cthulhu Mythos is a fictional story in the KonoSuba universe and the entity was an earth spirit that got its appearance from scanning the thoughts of the first person it met, meaning that it technically isn't the actual Nyarlathotep.
Category:Mythos-Adjacent Works 
Category:Crossovers