Don't Be a Hero

Joren nearly shouted at the notification he’d never expected.

“+4 enhancement? That’s possible…?”

So it seemed to be a special gift from the system.

“Well… I definitely did want to help them, but I didn’t exactly do it out of pure selfless kindness, either.”

Joren might be a good person, but he wasn’t a sucker. There had been some intent behind helping the marquis family—some notion that he’d be doing them a kindness and, in return, making them owe him one.

“Then why?”

Even after the motivation for the superior achievement had disappeared, he had diligently restored Garza’s mana. And though there had been no real need to do so, he had even spent precious EP to resurrect Dixie Balkarter.

A sincere wish for them to be happy… maybe that’s true.

Joren glanced at Rosta’s back as she led her mother toward the temple.

Just like her, she had lost her parents in an accident and been forced to become the head of the household while still young, caring for her younger siblings even as she drowned in grief for the mother she’d lost. In her, he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠saw an echo of himself.

So people like the marquis’s wife, who can’t easily be brought back by resurrection, are going to come flooding to me after hearing their stories? That’s going to be a pain in the ass. Hiss. Still, if things keep going like this, won’t I get a lot of positive events too? And I’ll be able to keep Haria’s Tear fully charged without it ever running dry.

On the other hand, he thought this might be a good opportunity.

At the time, Joren had no idea. He had no way of knowing what a huge ripple effect this act of kindness would later have on Tamer Territory.

“Anyway, the important thing right now is that I’ve hit +4. So tell me already—what’s the enhancement effect?”

That’s not the end? What the hell kind of effect could this be… I can’t even picture it.

The tooltip for +4 enhancement was very short, but brutally powerful.

Joren’s mouth fell open.

Compared to just clicking a button like with [Edification], this would be a hell of a lot harder, but if I play my cards right, I might be able to shake their whole faction apart.

And then, after reading the next tooltip, his jaw practically hit the floor.

I’d vaguely figured the heroes would get stronger, but…

That was only for humans, but the sheer increase in the number of heroes was effectively a cheat code.

(…)

A feast of green notification windows. So many, in fact, that Joren started worrying Daliha might overload and collapse.

So the default is one skill per person, huh. And the skill ranks are all over the place. Just because a character’s rank is high doesn’t mean the skill rank has to be high too?

All the heroes were fixed at level 1.

Huh? Lilian’s the only one at level 3?! And her skill’s S-rank too. What kind of mechanism is this?

A moment later, Joren froze at the final notification that appeared.

“Shrakhim….”

According to the report sent by Gunter from Darckovo village, Shrakhim’s whereabouts were unknown, but the circumstances made it certain he had been abducted by elves.

“Lord Shrakhim heard about the elves and the children from an orc, asked about their direction and location right away, and then ran straight off in that direction. We couldn’t stop him no matter what we said. We were desperate to find the missing people too, of course, but since we’d been ordered by Your Excellency the Border Count to hold this position, we judged that we couldn’t leave without permission. Still, we couldn’t just let Lord Shrakhim go alone, so one of our elite soldiers followed him….”

According to the soldier who tracked him, Shrakhim’s trail disappeared in an area where wild raspberry bushes had grown thick and dense.

“They say a child’s shoe was lying on the ground.”

There was no need to say it, but the shoe on the ground was a trap set by the Cliad Sect. It had been designed so that touching and lifting it would trigger a spatial transfer spell. A malicious snare exploiting the desperate hearts of those searching for the vanished children.

“And beside it, they found the axe Lord Shrakhim had been carrying….”

Fortunately, the elite soldier who had followed him seemed to have a fairly high intuition stat, because he had returned without touching the shoe on the ground.

You idiot, Shrakhim. I’d finally gotten you trained well enough that you seemed to listen, and now this? I told you to stay put, and you still run into the forest alone with no plan at all? Stupid bastard!

When he thought about the root cause, it was because Shrakhim had been “too well” converted. His good intentions toward rescuing the missing people, and his sincere desire to lighten the burden on the Border Count he respected so much, had gone too far, driving him into reckless action.

“You fool. Just because you’ve become a ‘Hero’ doesn’t mean you get to play hero, Shrakhim….”

* * *

He had become a hero and received a skill, but Shrakhim himself felt nothing at all. He couldn’t see a status window, and no one had told him anything. Even if they had, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

The exit. I need to find the exit, now.

He was too busy wandering through the massive cavern to think about anything else.

At each bend in the path, mana stones had been installed to shine light.

They’re less like lamps and more like markers. They don’t really light up the surroundings; they just glow on their own.

The stones were far too small, and their light far too weak, to illuminate the darkness properly.

Didn’t they say elves have excellent night vision? Yeah, I think I heard that. Their eyesight is far better than humans’, day or night.

As he felt along the wall near the mana stones, Shrakhim thought it through.

That makes sense. If this is some kind of secret base, they wouldn’t kindly leave the lights on for intruders. No, it’d be far better if it stayed dark enough that only they could barely get around.

His deduction was correct. The elves had installed the mana stones only so that they themselves wouldn’t lose their way—small fragments that could hardly be called lamps.

The stones are hung at about two meters high, so that checks out. Those pointy-eared bastards are annoyingly tall for no reason. Men, women, doesn’t matter—they’re all the same.

That was correct too.

As Shrakhim walked, carefully tapping the floor with his sword, he spotted a faint silver light leaking from one fork in the tunnel.

What’s that?

When he peered closely into the crack where the light was seeping through, something seemed off.

This stone wall is weird. It’s unusually square. Like it was carved on purpose… could it be a hidden wall?

Slowly, he pushed the wall sideways.

Sure enough, the square stone wall was a concealing barrier. The hidden space behind it was revealed.

A magic circle?!

A circular magic circle glowed on the flat stone floor. It was large enough for four or five people to stand on.

C-could this be a trap?

He stayed wary for a moment, but soon changed his mind.

No, no. If it were, they wouldn’t have hidden it behind a wall like this. They wouldn’t have drawn the magic circle so clearly on purpose, glowing like that.

Shrakhim came to the conclusion that it was probably a spatial-transfer portal.

I ended up in this damned cave because of spatial transfer, so it wouldn’t be strange if the way out were spatial transfer too. Then…!

Shrakhim hurried back the way he had come. He didn’t run, worried about making noise, but his pace was still very fast.

If anyone only saw his swollen body quivering along like a race walker’s, they might burst out laughing. But no one would be able to laugh if they saw his face.

I can’t just save my own skin. I have to rescue the children and the soldiers and get them back home. Even if I can’t save everyone… I’ll save one more person! Just as the Border Count said.

Resolve rose fiercely across his whole face.

Neither the water dripping from the stalactites nor the rivulets of sweat streaming down his cheeks could wash it away.

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