Why Is It Turning Into an Essay?
I secretly created a new identity through the adventurers' guild. After all, the adventurers' guild could whip up an ID for anyone as long as you had the money—Kim Cheol-su, Kim Young-hee, whatever you wanted. The only downside was that each new identity naturally wiped out all previous records and experience. But since I was already living under the fake name K, that didn't mean much to me.
I simply went to the guild, picked up requests from the bulletin board, and hunted monsters. That was exactly why I'd made the new ID. Of course, the whole idea had come from my master, that old man Decaron.
There was one month left until the Hero Festival. During that time, I needed to hunt as many monsters as possible to build up real experience.
“Grrrrraaaagh!”
An orc charged at me only to have its heart skewered by my blade and die on the spot. Was this even real? I was taking them down with a sword instead of the Saintess's power. Normally I would've blasted them with holy light, but Decaron had ordered me to do it myself. And he wanted proof, which made the whole thing a nightmare.
He'd said something vague about just cutting off body parts with my sword. Most adventurers apparently took the ears, so that's what I did.
“Oh. This is easier than I thought.”
Surprisingly, once I tried it, it wasn't that hard.
“Killing monsters, writing novels… what a pain in the ass.”
After the hunt, I wrote. Honestly, it was an incredibly annoying process. Kill monsters, then write about it. Was there anyone else in the world crazy enough to juggle both jobs like this? And because of my secret identity, I couldn't even claim the rewards for the monster subjugation requests. The actual adventurers who took those jobs were the only ones getting paid. Still, there were benefits.
In the forest that had echoed only with the cries of monsters, the hero Ras carved black trajectories with his sword, tearing apart the orcs in an instant. Where he passed, only the blood of monsters remained.
At least in battle scenes, I could pour in a bit more power now. The biggest problem with my novel had been figuring out how the hero Ras would grow stronger after becoming the first hero. Before his growth, I could get by with straightforward swordsmanship, but afterward I needed to detail his gradual reawakening as a hero, the power of the Holy Sword, and so on.
This much should be enough. Just like me right now.
“Greeeeek!”
A goblin that had recently started getting stronger spotted me. Channeling the hero Ras's rage toward the monsters that ruled over humans, I charged. I sliced through the goblin like a flash of light while simultaneously writing down the experience from the previous battle.
In the forest where the monsters had vanished, only silence lingered. When I read it back, it was getting hard to tell whether this was my real experience or just the novel. The concepts were starting to blur together.
“The real problem is that it somehow turns out ridiculously well written. It pisses me off.”
I honestly hadn't wanted this, but for some ridiculous reason, it was coming out amazingly. Maybe experience really was necessary after all. Since being an author hadn't been my original profession, making use of experiences like this was probably a good thing.
But still…
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
“Damn it, why are these things so strong?”
I ran into the A-rank party Red Claw while they were being ambushed by orcs in the forest. Were these guys really A-rank? They looked more like a B-rank party that had barely scraped into A----- rank. What the hell were they doing in a place like this? They were getting absolutely wrecked by high orcs.
“What are you even doing?”
Should I step in? Should I save them?
Before that, I asked myself a question. Could I actually defeat those high orcs right now? If I used the Saintess's power, it'd be over in seconds, but Decaron had specifically told me to handle things with the sword.
Red Claw. Honestly, I could just ignore them. There was no reason for me to babysit people who were losing because they lacked skill. But… I'd already met them once before. Ignoring them after that felt a little dirty.
I'd try with the sword first. If that didn't work, I could always use something vaguely like that holy light. After coming up with a simple plan, I jumped into the fight to save them.
Even at that moment, I didn't fully understand why I was doing it. It wasn't like I was the type to blindly trust in the Saintess's power. As a modern person, that kind of thing didn't come easily. Maybe after fighting a few times, I'd already grown somewhat accustomed to this world.
“Kyaaaaaaaack!”
“Who is that person?”
“Black armor? It's all dark…”
The members of Red Claw were first checking out the intruder's appearance. No wonder they were getting beaten. My current look was so completely covered in black gear that no one would ever guess there was a beautiful young woman underneath. It would've been better to just go with the Saintess appearance. This was all Decaron's fault. If it weren't for him, none of this would've happened.
For some reason, the high orcs that were supposed to be terrifying all started looking like Decaron to me. Ah, in that case, I couldn't hold back.
They say the student must surpass the master. Even if the Decarons in front of me were orcs, a disciple was supposed to surpass her teacher. And since they weren't the real Decaron, it didn't matter if I killed them.
So I decided to slaughter those damn fake Decarons.
“Grrrrraaaaaagh!”
Stab, slash, kill. One fake Decaron, two fake Decarons. The master impersonators disguised as orcs fell one by one.
The rough breathing of the orcs that had been charging at me gradually faded away. The heavy weight of the orcs slamming into the ground as they ran disappeared as if it had never existed, leaving only lumps of meat behind.
When I came to my senses, I had slaughtered an unbelievable number of high orcs using nothing but swordsmanship—no Saintess powers at all.
Hmm. This would make for good writing material too.
Anyway, I was cutting off the orcs' ears with my sword when I noticed Red Claw staring at me warily. The girls had sparkling eyes, but the men looked extremely guarded.
“W-who are you?”
They all seemed to be unharmed. The only thing that bothered me was that kid Rota—yeah, that was his name—frowning at me. This time his injuries weren't too bad. They looked like they'd heal with a potion, so I didn't need to step in.
I ignored them and continued cutting off the orcs' ears. If I talked to them now, my identity might get exposed. We weren't close enough for casual conversation anyway. They seemed to want me to say something, but right then, something else flashed through my mind.
In a truly horrific and hopeless hell, humanity was saved by a single ray of light—the hero Ras. And then...
Oh. I just got the perfect idea. I felt like I could write an absolutely perfect scene right now. An episode where the resistance fighters, dying horribly day after day at the hands of monsters, get rescued by the hero. Yes. This was it. This was exactly it. I needed to write this immediately.
Red Claw or whatever. Saving them this much should be enough, right? I should stop here. After all, I had to write. My main job was being an author, after all. This was plenty. Besides, I'd hunted enough orcs to satisfy Decaron.
As soon as I got home, I finished the manuscript and called for Jerry.
“As expected. This is truly incredible. Amazing. There's a complete difference from the early parts, isn't there?”
He was incredibly excited. Yeah, even I could see that there were parts that stood out. The difference between before I became Decaron's disciple and now was like night and day.
“Is that so? But the quality suddenly improved so much...”
“It doesn't matter. We can just say the protagonist grew compared to volume one, right?”
“Then that's a relief.”
I'd expected it, but it was good to have the publisher officially approve it. Unlike volume one, volume two was where the hero Ras truly began to grow in earnest. It wouldn't be bad at all.
“By the way, I heard a rumor that you're entering the Hero Festival.”
“That's the problem. Hmm. Is there any way to avoid it?”
“If your skills are up to it, why not actually participate?”
“Even you, Jerry?”
No, no matter how you looked at it, that seemed a bit much. It was true that the battle scenes and training sequences for the hero Ras had improved a lot, so it made sense that my editor would be greedy. But actually participating was a completely different issue.
“It would make for great related episodes too. Looking at this part, there's an internal conflict among the humans, right? You could depict the hero seizing control of the human forces through writing.”
“So you're saying I should use the real experience as reference?”
“Exactly.”
It seemed our Jerry was getting quite carried away. Convincing Decaron would be the real problem, but honestly, I didn't want to participate.
“That seems like something I need to think about. This time it's really tied to the hero selection.”
“Ah, I suppose that's true.”
Since the Holy Sword wouldn't choose me anyway, no matter how well I fought, I could never become the hero who wielded it. That sort of thing depended on compatibility, after all.
Decaron had told me to participate in the Hero Festival, but I needed to change his mind about that. I wasn't an idiot. After slicing up those orcs earlier, I'd realized something. If I participated in this Hero Festival, I would definitely win. It might sound arrogant, but the Sword Saint had trained me himself. Even though it had only been a few months, that author Parkuri had turned this body into a monster.
Unless they extended the preparation period significantly, the truly skilled people probably wouldn't participate en masse. What was the point of interfering with the person who would become the hero? There was no chance I'd be chosen by the Holy Sword anyway.
And if by some one-in-a-million chance I did become the hero, that would be a problem too. I'd have to travel to defeat the Demon King while writing novels and sending them to the publisher. Unlike before, I wouldn't be in the capital, so communication would be difficult and getting feedback would be nearly impossible. In short, the hero was supposed to be wandering around. If I accidentally became the hero, that would ruin everything. And even if I didn't become the hero, if the guy who lost to me ended up pulling the Holy Sword, that would be ridiculous.
That's what I'd thought at first. But then Decaron explained how the Hero Festival would actually unfold.
“You only need to pass the preliminaries, and then in the second round, the final candidates compete to draw the Holy Sword.”
“The one who draws the Holy Sword becomes the hero?”
“Something like that.”
If that was the logic, wouldn't it make more sense to have everyone try to draw the Holy Sword from the beginning and then have the successful candidates compete? Or maybe the Holy Sword couldn't be touched by just anyone.
Ah. This was a way to snipe Schwald. The king would probably push the other two princes into the Hero Festival for the sake of the succession issue, even if Schwald wasn't involved. Both the second prince Heintz and the third prince Leon had some martial talent, after all.
But if they just let anyone pull the sword, Schwald might somehow get involved. If they wanted to hold the Hero Festival while excluding Schwald from the start, they at least needed to have preliminary rounds. In the original setting, Schwald had never properly held a sword in his life. He was literally a civil official type who'd only studied kingship and internal affairs since childhood.
The military power that Schwald lacked was supposed to be delegated to the other princes or entrusted to Holpert, which was why he'd received education focused on kingship and succession. There was no way someone like that could participate in the preliminaries. And with the intelligence that had been shattered thanks to Sophia, he probably couldn't think of any way to get around it either.
“What do you think?”
“Huh? No, I told you I can't become the hero.”
“No, I mean your prediction. Who do you think will become the hero?”
Decaron kept asking all sorts of unnecessary questions. How was I supposed to know? I didn't even know the candidates. Wait, actually… maybe I did.
Honestly, because of that author Parkuri, I had no idea what conditions the Holy Sword used to choose its wielder. But this was reality.
“I think it'll probably be either the second prince or the third prince. Usually when there's no other plausible candidate, bloodline wins out.”