Adaptation Period 3
While racking my brain over which magic to recommend as Jjanhae-jwa, I continued turning over my own thoughts about Holy Power. Mana and Holy Power coexisted within my body without mixing, and through actual use I'd managed to pick out a few differences between them.
Enhancing my shield with mana felt like an immensely powerful, solid iron wall—an unyielding steel barrier that neither bent nor flexed, standing firm against whatever impact came its way.
But enhancing it with Holy Power was more like… bulletproof glass? Reinforced plastic? I didn't know enough to make a good comparison. Anyway, unlike mana enhancement, Holy Power enhancement carried a much stronger sense of embracing, absorbing, and channeling force away.
An enhanced reflection-damage version versus an enhanced damage-reduction version, I guess?
Going purely by feel and thinking of everything in game terms, that was about right. Roland's passive skill had two components—damage reduction and damage reflection—and Holy Power and mana each seemed to maximize one of the two.
Using a single skill for two different functions despite a limited skill window was also a skill-management style found in Heroes Chronicle. The form-change characters who were always broken the moment they dropped.
Heroes Chronicle had characters like the Future Guardian of the Canyon or the Spider Queen, whose skills changed when they transformed through their ultimates. A dealer who looked like a young girl, turning into a unicorn tank to hold the backline when it came under attack. Or a scantily clad big-sister type healer who transformed into a bear and tore people apart when she was on the brink of death.
As a natural-born 6-star new character, Roland's body was just as shamelessly—
"…Roland, are you there?"
Knock, knock—
I was sprawled out on my bed late in the evening when a knock came, accompanied by Grace's voice. If she'd come all the way to my room at this hour after heading to her lodgings with Han Se-ah, there could only be one reason.
I got up from the bed and approached the door, already sensing her quickened breathing and the pounding of her heart. Even with my superhuman body, this was something else.
Well, when a man and a woman who'd had a drink for courage met in a private room late at night after going as far as they had—what else would they be doing? Grace's racing heart was clearly pounding with anticipation of exactly that sort of thing.
"What's up?"
"Um, Roland? Want to go to the market with me…?"
I opened the door without hesitation, and what greeted me was Grace in a simple dress instead of her leather armor. Of course, simple didn't mean she hadn't put in effort—a sweet fragrance reached my nose, suggesting she'd dressed up more carefully than I'd expected.
Even with the appearance and cleanliness buffs that gacha characters received, it was only natural that a thorough wash, some makeup, and a spritz of perfume would show. Especially in a fantasy world that bizarrely mixed medieval, early modern, and contemporary elements.
The problem wasn't Grace's subtle fragrance, nor the figure her dress put on full display. It was Han Se-ah, doing her best to hide around the corner of the hallway.
…Her stream's offline. She's something else, in more ways than one.
No translucent camera drones in sight, and a quick glance at the holographic internet window confirmed Han Se-ah's stream was marked offline. Someone who should have ended her stream, saved at her inn bed, and logged out of the game was instead clumsily hiding over there. Why?
Even the densest person would have to notice by this point.
"Um, Roland?"
"Yeah, just give me a second."
Grace's voice wavered with a hint of anxiety—she'd probably taken my glance at the internet window as a rejection of the date. I smiled to reassure her, then slowly closed the door and headed for the wardrobe.
I couldn't go on a date in the shorts and worn-out sleep shirt I'd been lounging in on the bed.
That said, did Han Se-ah not realize I was superhuman?
Sure, I was a warrior type with no scouting-related passives, but I was still a superhuman who enhanced his body with mana. I might not be able to detect enemies dozens of meters away in dense forests or dark caves, but if someone was peeking around a hallway corner less than ten meters away, I could pinpoint their location even without making eye contact.
"The market, huh? Going to buy arrows?"
I swapped the old, comfortable shirt for the clean shirt and pants I wore when taking private commissions. Being a medieval fantasy game based on the world of Heroes Chronicle, men's clothing options were pretty limited.
In a fantasy world that had cafés selling macarons and iced Americanos, women's clothing ran the gamut from underwear to coats in every modern style imaginable—yet men's casual wear was just shirts and suits.
"That, and to celebrate reaching the 21st floor, I wanted to, um… grab a drink together."
"Drinks, huh? Sounds good. Want to check out arrows first?"
"Yeah. Or since it's getting late, should we just go straight for a d-drink?"
Dressed and stepping outside, I found Grace with flushed cheeks suggesting drinks, and Han Se-ah still peeking just her head out to watch. I genuinely wanted to ask if that counted as hiding, but acknowledging it somehow felt like losing.
I knew she was trying to help things go well between Grace and me. Ever since we'd gone to Grace's hometown for that character quest, she'd been subtly steering us together as the party leader. But I hadn't expected her to go this far with active date coaching.
It's like she's playing the heroine in some romantic comedy.
The heroine trailing a date to pair the dense guy with the leading lady. For anyone steeped in subculture, this was a situation so familiar it was practically comfort food.
Stepping out of the inn and matching pace with Grace, she quietly took hold of my arm. Apparently she still didn't have enough alcohol in her system for the courage to hold hands or link arms. At the same time, hurried footsteps—patter-patter—echoed down the inn hallway.
She couldn't lie, and she couldn't tail people either. Then again, would it be weird if a modern woman were good at that?
"Got a restaurant in mind? Or somewhere you've been wanting to try?"
"Well then…"
Grace tilting her head and starting to deliberate over my question was utterly adorable—mostly because it was painfully obvious she was putting on an act of thinking it over, when she'd clearly planned this with Han Se-ah.
Han Se-ah also stammered or blinked and stared into empty space whenever she lied for the stream, and Grace's eyes were darting around the air the same way—whether from embarrassment or something else.
Like streamer, like viewer—or rather, I'd heard pets take after their owners, but this was the first time I'd seen an NPC take after a player. Given that she was pushing dates, giving relationship advice, and teaching makeup techniques, they must have gotten pretty close…
"Let's just go to the Lucky Scoundrel Tavern. The drinks there are the best."
"Yeah? I could take you somewhere nicer."
"No, it's fine! The drinks we had there were really good."
Grace flinched at my casual suggestion and waved her hands in refusal. Whether it was for Han Se-ah trailing us at a distance or not, she showed a fierce rejection of my offer to treat her at a pricier place.
With our party's finances after reaching the 21st floor, the Lucky Scoundrel was somewhere we could visit as casually as a neighborhood convenience store. Even spending silver coins on a single meal was something a single goblin pack could cover.
But if I took Grace to a restaurant that charged in gold coins for the atmosphere, Han Se-ah trailing behind wouldn't be able to tag along. Not that I knew what she was following us for.
"That so? Glad you like it."
"Ahem, ahem… There are a lot of waitresses, but the drinks are good, so…"
Having reacted more intensely than expected, Grace cleared her throat awkwardly—probably worried I'd caught on—as we walked side by side down the street. The Adventurer's City streets, with the sun having set into dusk, were incredibly lively, making it easy for Han Se-ah to tail us in secret.
Of course, she'd been made from the inn hallway, so I'd know even if she snuck through the crowds—but Han Se-ah and Grace probably thought she was well hidden.
Drunks already tipsy enough to link arms and hum off-key, mercenaries whose mouths stretched ear to ear from a big score, adventurers in worn and filthy gear trudging wearily toward their inns.
"Still packed around here."
"That's how generously the Tower provides for adventurers. Might sound a bit irreverent toward the Goddess, though."
"Hard to argue when we've made quite a bit ourselves. A few fights for acclimation and heading straight back down, and we already get to feel a fat pouch of silver coins."
The Tower had the downside of requiring you to risk your life, but it supplied Mana Stones so abundantly that cities sprang up around it. Thanks to that, the Lucky Scoundrel Tavern was once again full of men showing off to catch the waitresses' eyes.
The funny part was that despite the abundance of horny men—from the streets to inns that offered prostitutes—public order was maintained. Otherwise, Han Se-ah walking alone behind us would already have been grabbed by street thugs and gotten into a scuffle.
The reason public order held was very simple.
There were too many adventurers.
"Welcome, you lucky scoundrels! Table for two?"
"Just a meal for the two of us. No rooms needed."
"Oh my, you two… on a date? That's a bit of a shame."
A waitress greeted us cheerfully and threw out a natural flirt. Still, she didn't seem inclined to push further with a male-female pair of customers, taking our order smoothly and disappearing.
Turning from our table toward the kitchen, she swayed her hips with exaggerated flair. As her skirt hem fluttered and her ample hips rolled like waves, nearby adventurers whistled and stared hard enough to burn holes through the fabric.
The boy blushing at that short skirt, the young man who tried to wrap an arm around a waitress's waist in a drunken haze only to get pinched, the burly middle-aged guy being helped upstairs to a room by two waitresses after what must have been a big haul—all of them adventurers.
"Hey, I said I want to drink alone!"
"…What, a fight?"
And adventurers were the sort who lit up and charged in at even the slightest chance at renown.
"That looks like Hanna."
"M-maybe just someone who looks like her?"
"…Yeah, well. It'll sort itself out without me stepping in."
For example, if some thugs were hitting on an exotic black-haired beauty sitting alone at a table—
"The lady said she wants to drink alone!"
"Hey, what's the big idea? You're ruining the drinks!"
A place where a dozen people instantly appointed themselves knights in shining armor out of a petty sense of justice and thoroughly self-serving motives.
That was the secret to maintaining public order on the streets.