Lucky Star 1
I wasn't sure if it was because I had no game system of my own, or if they were simply NPCs who had spawned into the city the moment Hanna logged in, but the two women currently flushed red and bickering over there were characters who each possessed stars. I hurriedly opened the board to check, and it seemed any character with even a single star held an absolute edge over those without.
It was the kind of feeling where a country bumpkin Hans fighting a 1★ “Country Bumpkin” Smith would lose every single time to Smith.
That being the case, even a 2★ female swordsman like Cora—never mind a 3★—was already talented enough to seriously aim for the Tower’s mid-floors. The two men without stars were just average adventurers who handled the lower floors and odd jobs outside, while Cora, if she trained her sword properly, could punch through the mid-floors and become a promising swordswoman. That was the conclusion I reached while pretending to watch a distant novice party and secretly peeking at the board.
All sorts of streamers had run their first party battles with 2★ companions, and nearly every one of them had gotten pushed around by the NPCs.
“You just joined the party this time and you think you know anything?”
From what I could overhear, it seemed the party’s leader—a 2★ female swordsman—and the 3★ female archer who had just joined were clashing over a difference of opinion. The 2★ swordsman had fewer stars but long experience working the lower floors, while the 3★ archer had only just entered them.
In short, it was a fairly even fight between a high-level 2★ and a low-level 3★. So that was where the “flat-chested” dig had come from.
Of course, that was only comparing their status windows. To know what they were actually fighting about, I would have to listen to the whole story. Maybe the veteran swordsman was bullying the new archer, or maybe the new archer was relying solely on her talent and doing things that flew in the face of common sense.
“Perfect teaching material right there. Let’s go listen in.”
“Ah, is that really okay?”
“We’re about to form a party of our own. It’ll be good to know why fights like that break out.”
When I casually floated the idea to Hanna, who still couldn’t tear her eyes away, she beamed. The viewers were hyping me up hard, calling me hyung and sensei. No matter how well Hanna fought, her opponents so far had only been goblins. Even for the audience, watching her go unstoppable against goblins was probably starting to get old.
As we approached at a leisurely pace, the two vanguard fighters who had been watching the argument with awkward expressions raised their swords toward us. In a world without CCTV, plenty of people moonlighted as both adventurers and bandits, so the wary stance was only natural. In situations like this, flashing credentials was easier and faster than talking.
“Hey, no need to be so tense. I’m not so broke that I’d rob you for a few copper coins.”
“An Advanced… Adventurer…!”
The moment I, who had been strolling the plains without so much as proper armor, pulled an Advanced Adventurer’s badge from my coat, both men immediately lowered their blades. It was only natural to assume that someone who could head up to the mid-floors right now and start raking in gold coins through rough camping wouldn’t bother mugging people for secondhand armor. Besides, at the Advanced level you could subdue all four of them bare-handed whether they stayed on guard or not.
“May I ask what brings you here?”
“Ah, well, I’m raising a junior, so I wanted to show her how other adventurer parties operate. But when I heard the noise and came closer, it turned out you weren’t hunting—you were arguing.”
“This is embarrassing. We’ve shown a shameful sight to a newcomer.”
The middle-aged adventurer nodded at my explanation. Judging by his demeanor alone he looked like the party leader, but the difference in innate stars was apparently something you couldn’t overcome. The younger man still hung back silently, either timid or still on edge.
I pulled my gaze from the two men and looked at the women who were still going at it. The two of them kept arguing as if they were mortal enemies. A completely unknown party had walked up and started talking with their companions, yet they paid it no mind and just kept fighting among themselves.
Hmm… A 3★ would be useful enough as a party member even up to the mid-floors of the Tower, but if the archer was the source of that vicious argument, I wouldn’t want to take her. Continuing a shouting match even after strangers approached in the Tower—just how much spite was she packed with?
“So, what are they fighting about?”
“A difference of opinion. It’s a temporary party put together for a commission, so we don’t see eye to eye very well.”
“Is that really something worth fighting over like that?”
“…You tell me.”
The middle-aged man shook his head with a troubled look. As a starless character scraping by on lower-floor commissions, he clearly had plenty of complaints about the current situation. An adventurer busy just trying to earn a living would naturally get irritated wasting time on a pride fight between girls.
Under Hanna’s gaze, which was brimming with curiosity, I let out a long sigh and explained the circumstances.
“The commission we took is to gather medicinal herbs that grow wild on the plains. Miss Cora wants us to scout the surroundings and hunt goblins while we’re at it. Miss Grace, on the other hand, insists we check multiple herb patches and focus on the commission.”
It was a trivial difference of opinion that could still spark a fight any day of the week. Lower-floor goblins died after one or two hits, so they were no burden for a four-person party. But monsters in the Tower appeared randomly—you could wander around looking for goblins and come up empty.
Some people ran into unexpected monsters and lost their lives; others searched desperately for monsters just to make a living and never found any. Wandering the deceptively warm plains fully armored and armed, hunting for goblins that might never show, was bound to drain your stamina.
In short, it was a clash between a sure but minor reward and an uncertain but slightly larger one. That alone wouldn’t have produced a fight this heated, though. The real problem came after. The first shout I’d heard had been something like, “So is that my fault?”
“So it’s my fault, then? I clearly said we should head for the herb colony.”
“If the only scout in the party failing to find monsters isn’t her fault, then whose is it?”
The one getting angry was the party leader, the 2★ female swordsman Cora. She was a brown-haired beauty with sharp, upturned eyes and thin lips that gave her a cutting impression. Countering her calmly was the 3★ female archer Grace. She was a beauty with narrow, almost half-lidded eyes and drooping outer corners that made her look gentle.
In other words, both of them were beauties.
Is this just a gacha character thing?
Maybe it was because the foundation of this Heroes Chronicle game world was the otaku gacha game Heroines Chronicle that I used to play. The first two gacha characters I had met since Hanna’s appearance were beauties rarely seen even on Adventurer Street.
How were two beauties I hadn’t spotted after watching hundreds of people pass by from a table from midday until evening suddenly out here on the field in the same party? If this was Hanna’s luck, her title ought to be something like Goddess of Fortune. The Paladin Roland and the Goddess of Fortune Hanna—something like that.
Anyway, setting the looks assessment aside and listening only to their words, the archer Grace’s opinion was the correct one. Not because she was one star higher, or because her face was more my type, or because our party needed an archer rather than a swordsman—none of those reasons.
“Hanna, what do you think?”
“Eh, me? …Um, I think Miss Grace is right.”
“What?!”
Apparently thinking we were badmouthing her, the female swordsman Cora finally looked our way. Ignoring both women’s stares, I asked Hanna another question.
“Why did you reach that conclusion?”
At my follow-up, Cora glared as if demanding a proper answer, while Grace examined us with open curiosity. The two male adventurers, who still hadn’t even introduced themselves, finally shut their mouths in quiet relief that this tedious argument might be ending.
Five pairs of eyes fixed on her, yet she didn’t shrink back and opened her mouth right away. Well, I’d heard she had nearly ten thousand viewers—what were five people to her? She was already famous for gaming, fitness, and looks, so once the 6★ NPC appeared, her average viewership had hit the ten-thousand range. There had even been congratulatory posts about it.
“Um, didn’t you say Miss Cora is the party leader?”
“Yeah, so what!”
“If the leader proposes an idea and the party members follow it, then the result is the leader’s responsibility too. If you’d run into lots of goblins and made a pile of Mana Stones, that would be thanks to Miss Cora. And if, like now, you come up empty and the adventure ends with nothing, that’s also Miss Cora’s fault. That’s what I think a party leader is.”
Hanna’s perfectly reasonable argument came out clear and measured. Cora’s face twisted red and blue as she listened. She clearly wanted to snap that a novice adventurer had no right to lecture her, but I was standing right there.
Unlike the seasoned novice adventurers who layered plate over leather armor, I was dressed as if heading out for a stroll, with nothing but a small mace dangling at my waist. In a world without mana that would just make me look like a lunatic who couldn’t read the room. But in a world where mana and superhumans existed, such a sloppy outfit actually proved your skill.
“Ah, fine! We’ve already hit the commission minimum, so just quit already!”
Everyone nodded at the female swordsman’s last prideful shriek. She seemed to have been grinding as a party leader for quite a while, yet her personality had apparently earned her a fair amount of dislike.