How to Enjoy the Game 1
Various isekai worlds, huh… that's actually pretty convincing.
A long popular post on the Heroes Chronicle board. Hundreds of comments had already devolved into a messy free-for-all over who was right, who was wrong, what was headcanon, and what was pure delusion — but I found myself thinking the original poster was probably onto something.
Heroes Chronicle was built on the foundation of Heroines Chronicle, after all. Drifting in that direction felt entirely plausible.
Maybe around the 60th floor a ruined city would suddenly appear, a companion recruitment event would kick off, and you'd get a 5★ Android from a Ruined World (Female-type) or something. I felt a little bad for the Heroes Chronicle developers, but that was exactly the kind of game Heroines Chronicle had been.
A game that would mix every dimension imaginable if it meant selling more female characters. Absolute commitment to the boob-service hustle.
"Roland, the meal's ready."
"Thanks."
"It's nothing. Cooking is far more comfortable and enjoyable than standing watch."
I was still sorting through my thoughts after reading the long post when Irene's voice drifted from behind me, carried on a rich, savory aroma.
After we'd dealt with the Golden Golem — or rather, after we'd listened to its story and then left it behind — the Tower had returned to its original form. Goblin and kobold packs squawked noisily across the cave plaza, while cave spiders and vampire bats blocked the narrow passages with their bulk.
On the off chance something might happen, I'd occasionally poured mana into the panels that appeared here and there, but all that came out were rock golems and steel golems. The Golden Golem, intelligent enough to hold a conversation with us, never appeared again.
"So what are we supposed to use these mana stones for? Like I said before, they're red. They've got to be for something on the cave map. And that key-shaped mana stone the Golden Golem left us — anyone can tell that's for opening a door."
"Yeah, that's a wrap for today's stream. Honestly, nobody wants to watch hours of me standing night watch and shooting the breeze, right? I can just skip past that part on my own."
In a quiet corner of the 25th floor, which we'd climbed steadily to reach, Han Se-ah finished off her stew with a slurp and ended the broadcast. Breakfast and lunch were thin soup without chunks plus bread, since we needed to keep moving; dinner was a thick, meat-heavy stew to restore our strength.
Irene's cooking had that home-cooked warmth to it, and the heat spreading from my stomach was genuinely comforting. Her title was "Candidate Saint," yet her cooking rivaled a 1★ chef's. Granted, that only applied to the limited menu of soups and stews.
Maybe helping cook for the children at the Temple had made her good at large-batch meals. The rest of the party looked just as happy, chewing contentedly through the chunks of meat in their stew.
"The commission wrapped up faster than I expected. Who knew the cave mushrooms grew in whole colonies? I'm familiar with grasslands and forests, but I need to study caves more."
"Well, a cave this massive isn't exactly a place you run into every day."
"If the Tower is imitating monsters from outside, that means caves this huge exist beyond the Tower too, right? I'm a little curious about that."
"I've heard there's a massive cave somewhere in the southern part of the kingdom. Adventurers made quite a stir exploring it for ore and anything else worth harvesting."
"Huh. So it's a real place. Just as the Goddess said…"
Grace was delighted that the gathering commission for luminescent moss and glow mushrooms from the alchemist had finished so quickly, while Irene and Kayden chatted curiously about the enormous cave. The three of them murmured back and forth over their meal.
Then Han Se-ah, stream ended, sidled up to Grace and whispered something. The combination of post-stream Han Se-ah and Grace — I had a pretty good idea what was about to happen.
After their hushed exchange, Grace got another bowl of stew from Irene and started walking my way. Han Se-ah pretended to turn her back while slyly pulling out her camera drone again, and Grace approached me with cheeks flushed bright red from whatever she'd been told.
She's more serious about this than I expected.
Why was Han Se-ah so invested in shipping people in this game? Looking at her old videos on the streaming site, she never seemed like the type to pair characters together for fun. Did she treat VR games like a drama unfolding right in front of her?
Han Se-ah was suspiciously committed to pairing me with Grace. She was being so obvious about it that even Irene seemed to have caught on — after ladling out the stew, she stood right next to Han Se-ah and stared openly in our direction.
Only Kayden, either uninterested or putting on a stoic act, kept polishing her sword. Bolstered by the two spectators' gazes, Grace plopped down beside me.
"You haven't finished already, have you, Roland?"
"Even if I had, I could still sit with you."
"Really? Then did I get this extra bowl for nothing?"
"If I'm full, just give me less. We can share."
Sitting on the thick blanket we'd laid out as a cushion over the uneven cave floor, I accepted a portion of the stew Grace had brought into my already-cleaned bowl. Just sitting side by side sharing food — a simple scene, but it seemed to mean something different to our audience.
From behind us came soft little gasps of oh my and hyaa—, whatever those were supposed to mean. Grace paid them no mind and began slowly working her spoon, close enough that our arms brushed.
Turn my head and her breath would touch me. Close enough that, mixed with the savory smell of stew, I could catch the sweet scent of her skin. A warmth different from the stew's heat settled over me. Every time I moved my arm to eat, there was a slight awkwardness — but Grace seemed to like even that.
"…That Demon King guy. He's strong, right?"
"Well, yeah. He'd have to be."
Out of the easy silence, Grace chose the Demon King as her topic of conversation.
Maybe meeting the Goddess together had planted a sense of mission in her. Inside Grace's head, our party's default setting no longer seemed to be adventuring through the Tower — it was defeating the Demon King and saving the world.
She set her stew bowl on her firm thigh, fidgeted with her fingers, and continued.
"How do I put this… it just doesn't feel real."
"Hmm?"
"Until not long ago I was a hunter from a slash-and-burn farming village, arguing with the party leader over goblin hunting on the lower floors of the Tower."
"Ah, that… female swordswoman."
"And now I've met the Goddess, received a blessing of holy power, and I'm preparing to fight the Demon King. If someone had told me this as a prophecy back then, I'd have written them off as one of those cultists who occasionally pass through the village and run them out."
She talked slowly, but her fingers never stopped squirming, so I quietly took her hand. Grace went still. When she was drunk she threw off her clothes and launched full-body assaults, but sober she was surprisingly girlish.
Part of me wanted to push things further myself… but the camera drone floating overhead and the two spectators behind us sending intense stares our way were a bit of a problem.