Stories Outside the Tower 3
Heroes Chronicle is a virtual reality game. Sure, it has a set main storyline—but the kingdom is packed with NPCs so lifelike they generate random events completely independent of the players. To me, it wasn't a game at all for ten years. It was reality.
Thanks to the absurd scale of this ridiculous game, everything from internet news to terrestrial broadcasts had been buzzing about VR game stability this, ethics and morality that—but anyway.
"Were that many mana stones released onto the market?"
"Horned wolf mana stones flooded it the most. The Full Moon Wolf brought out so many horned wolves, and with the tenth-floor gate open, intermediate-grade adventurers looking for safe hunting grounds started scouring the tenth floor for them too. No matter how many mana stones the mages burn through, when supply triples, you're bound to end up with a surplus."
Once the player Han Se-ah started progressing the main scenario and punching gates through the Tower left and right, mana stone prices had begun to swing wildly.
Travel times shrank, and rare monsters poured out like a flood thanks to the boss monster events. On top of that, intermediate- and upper-grade adventurers and mages who should have been higher up came swarming down to investigate the anomalies—so of course the market was oversupplied.
So there we sat around the campfire, fishing big chunks of meat out of Irene's piping-hot stew while listening to Lily Depp's story. The coachman had been planning to make do with jerky for dinner and was hanging back, but our kindhearted candidate saint had thoughtfully set aside a bowl of stew for him.
Thanks to the subspace magic of her inventory, Lily Depp had been able to enjoy the fresh, steaming stew to her heart's content—she'd already wolfed down three bowls. Now she fidgeted with the empty dish as she continued her explanation.
"Our party heard the rumors too and gathered quite a few mana stones on the tenth floor. But when the prices dipped for a bit, greed got the better of us. We figured if we took them to the western port city and sold them to the magic tower there, we could get double. Or rather—if we sweetened the deal with stories about the anomalies in the Tower and negotiated well, we could get triple."
"Triple, huh. You said you loaded a whole wagon, so I can see why you'd make a trading run of it."
Even after half a day of traveling together by carriage, the group was still speaking formally, a little stiff with each other. In a world with a class system, I supposed that no matter how cutely a northern country girl might play it, the distance that came with noble birth was hard to erase.
Well, once Han Se-ah latched on and started working her charm, they'd be on first-name, sisterly terms before we even reached the city. Grace and Irene had both fallen to her that way, hadn't they?
"So we decided to head west to Maurice County. It's a territory with lively trade to the port city, and a place our party knows well."
"Knows well—are you from Maurice County, then?"
"I'm from a neighboring territory, and one of the guys who disappeared is from there, so we know a merchant company in the area. ...Hmm?"
"Um, Roland?"
Crack, pop—the campfire spat sparks as it burned through the firewood beneath the gently simmering stew pot. Between Lily Depp's unhurried voice and Han Se-ah's curious questions, all sorts of sounds filled the gaps like background noise.
Wood splitting, sparks flying, the nearly empty stew pot bubbling and popping—and then Grace sensed something.
"...The insects have gone quiet."
Of course, with Han Se-ah's stream window floating in the corner of my vision, any sense of gravity was thoroughly ruined. We'd only been traveling by carriage for a day out from the city—nothing dangerous enough to threaten me was going to show up here.
And then, through the silence that had fallen over the forest, a quiet wolf howl echoed.
"...Wolves? Did she say wolves?"
"Wolves, huh. Think they came for the horses?"
The first to sense something off had been Grace, who'd worked as a hunter in a slash-and-burn farming village. As she turned her head, scanning the surroundings with a puzzled look, Katie—hand already on her sword hilt—asked a question of her own.
Running into a wolf pack while camping out on a long journey was less common sense and more everyday life in this world. And it wasn't just wolves—wandering monster attacks were as routine as traffic accidents.
But Grace saw it differently.
"I looked around while gathering firewood, and there wasn't a single trace of small animals here. Prey must be scarce, so animals are few. Coachman, there's no village nearby either, right?"
"Huh? Ah, yes. Of course not. If there were a village nearby, we'd be staying there instead of camping out."
Low hills covered more in short scrub than trees. True to the western lands, the place leaned more barren than lush—no rabbits, no deer, no herbivores of any kind. No village nearby meant no livestock to raid either. So how could a wolf pack even exist out here—
Lily Depp and Katie swallowed hard at Grace's words, then nodded and drew their weapons. In the gathering dark, blade and spear tip gleamed coldly in the firelight.
In a fantasy world of mystery and magic, anything that defied common sense was usually dangerous—so tension was inevitable. Still, unlike the coachman, they weren't truly afraid. Probably because their eyes kept flicking toward me.
Why would we suddenly hear wolf howls? I sat blankly by the fire pondering that as the sounds drew steadily closer. In place of the silenced insects, scrub rustled and the growling breath of predators grew near enough to hear.
They must have caught the smoke from the fire and the smell of stew, because they'd come right up over the ridge of the hill. I'd been planning to just sit still out of laziness, but they were clearly coming for us.
"Doesn't look like they're just passing through—they're after us. I'll go check it out. Lily, you and Katie stay here and guard the horses."
"Ah—oh no! The horses!"
I stood, gathering up my mace and shield as I spoke, and the coachman nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd come running to us in terror at the wolf howls—apparently without a single thought for the horses he'd tied up.
Wolves, horned wolves, wolf-adjacent monsters—I could handle any of them without breaking a sweat. But if the horses died here, we'd have to walk all the way to the next city that sold mounts. The horses absolutely had to be protected.
If the horses died here, it'd be faster for Han Se-ah to just reset the game in the morning.
"Where did you tie the horses? I'll go with you and bring them back here."
"Y-yes! Please, adventurer!"
For a coachman whose life ended the moment his horses did, he wasted no time dragging Lily Depp off beyond the clearing. Fortunately for all of us, the horses had been tied on the opposite side from where the wolves were coming.
The coachman's stumbling, stone-tripping scramble made a stark contrast to Lily Depp's silent, balanced stride as she moved with her long spear. Two innate 4-star melee characters plus an innate 5-star protection-specialized priest—nothing dangerous should happen.
"Irene, if anything happens, cast your protective holy magic right away. Hanna, if any enemies circle around and try to snuff out the fire, don't bother attacking—just light up the area with light magic. Lily Depp and Katie can handle whoever shows up."
"Yes, understood."
"Got it!"
Leaving Han Se-ah to weather another round of attacks from viewers who assumed "mage" automatically meant offensive magic, I set off toward the hill.
Making no effort to hide my presence, I tromped through the dry earth with the clank of armor, shoving brush aside as I walked. The growling grew louder. A beastly reek hit my nose, along with the unpleasant dampness of their breath—wolves, all right, but...
"...What the hell is this?"
Wolves—or more precisely, saddled wolves with orc warriors astride them. Like a cavalry unit on parade, orc riders on wolfback stood silhouetted against the moon atop the hill, looking down at me.
Wolf Riders—orc cavalry. I'd seen them before in Heroines Chronicle. Orcs were easy to mass-produce, so they got the full treatment: warriors, shamans, hunters, cavalry, plus color variants in green, red, black, and so on, showing up constantly in farming dungeons and the like.
But that was Heroines Chronicle. This was Heroes Chronicle—and a place not far from the kingdom's capital and the Adventurer's City, practically a safe zone.
"...Don't tell me these things came out of the Tower?"
Dozens of orcs roaming a barren mountain range with nothing to eat, each with a wolf of their own. Grace had already said a wolf pack existing here was strange enough—what the hell had these orcs been feeding on?
No wonder the rest stops had been empty.
Screeeech—
The camera came flying overhead just as the big one at the front charged straight at me.