Novice Quests, Part 2
Grace's appearance was a masterpiece the original art team had poured every ounce of their skill into. It was the kind of beauty that made you wonder whether a little girl from a slash-and-burn farming village — one who could barely manage a proper bath, let alone take care of her looks — could possibly grow up like this. And when a beauty like that flashed a soft, smiling glance, of course the viewers were going to react.
Which was why, as we accepted our commission and headed for the Tower, Han Sea's mouth never stopped running as she chattered away with her audience.
"Grace unnie is trying to seduce Teacher Roland? Well, they are both drop-dead gorgeous, so they do look good together. And Manager, ban that guy who just dropped the NTR joke. I'm in a great mood after getting close with Grace unnie, so don't make me start swinging."
If Han Sea had been a male player, this might have been a problem — but she was a strategy-focused gamer far more interested in NPCs that helped with Tower climbing than sexy ones. Completely unaware of the camera's existence, she just shrugged off the furtive signals Grace kept sending my way.
Well, that was the normal reaction.
Who falls genuinely in love with an NPC in a VR game after less than three days? Right now, her head was probably full of the Horned Wolf we'd be hunting on the tenth floor, not the subtle atmosphere between Grace and me.
"What, a marriage-and-retire ending joke? If a 6★ NPC disappeared like that, players would pitch a tent city outside BB Games HQ."
By this point I was curious what the chat was saying, but Grace sidling up next to me was more interesting than Han Sea staring straight into her camera drone. Last night she'd approached me pretending to be drunk for courage; today she was acting like nothing had happened, just another party member.
Then again, if she went beyond soft smiles and started openly linking arms with me, I'd be the one in a tough spot. I was genuinely grateful that a beauty of Grace's caliber had kept nurturing her feelings for years just because I'd saved her once — but I didn't want that gratitude to wreck a quest that had finally started after ten years.
...Was that a trashy way of thinking? Well, it was pretty funny for a guy who'd slept with multiple women after being seduced to play the pure one.
"What are you thinking so hard about?"
"Calculating how much force I should use when tanking the Horned Wolf."
"You have to calculate that too?"
"If I put too much power into blocking, it gets dangerous."
"...Is the Horned Wolf that strong?"
"No — I'm the dangerous one. Last time I met one, I pushed back with my shield when it stabbed with its horn, but I put too much force into it and snapped both the horn and its neck."
A max-level warrior tanking a tutorial-zone boss monster for beginners. Forget skills — even a basic attack could one-shot the boss if I swung wrong. Grace clearly hadn't expected that answer; her footsteps stopped for a moment.
Her lips moved as if she wanted to let out something like a gasp of admiration, then she lightly touched my forearm and slipped back to Han Sea's side.
"Hanna, what were you thinking about, lagging behind like that? Organizing your inventory?"
"Something like that. Lunch today is Aunt Mariang's stew again, unnie."
"It's pretty standard for novice adventurers to fill their stomachs with that place's stew for two or three years."
"That long?"
Apparently she couldn't neglect a precious 3★, because Han Sea cut off her conversation with the viewers and started talking with Grace. Naturally, the topic was the life of a novice adventurer.
Since Han Sea was a player, she didn't really understand how commoners lived in this world, so Grace seemed to think of her as a young witch overflowing with talent but with zero life skills. The way she stuck close and looked after her was probably because that cluelessness triggered some maternal instinct.
Watching the two of them, I clapped my hands loudly at the Tower entrance, making them both look my way.
"Alright, time to enter the Tower. I'll be handing each of you a lantern I've prepared in advance, recorded up to the tenth floor."
"You're giving us lanterns?"
"Some scouts carry multiple lanterns and sell the ones they've already inscribed. Like the Guild said, building combat experience below the tenth floor is basically a waste of time for you two. So today we're going the herb-gathering commission route."
"Yes!"
Grace took the lantern I handed her and clipped it to her waist; Han Sea swiped hers into thin air. I'd ordered these lanterns from Alice by saying I was training juniors and wanted to buy some — so I absolutely had to hit the café today.
Which meant today's goal wasn't combat, but low-floor material-gathering commissions based around herb exploration. It would also be the stage for assessing Grace's skills now that she'd joined the party.
"Front line is me, scout is Grace, party leader is Hanna. Objective: material-gathering commissions including herb collection. Once we enter the Tower, command authority belongs to Hanna."
"...Huh? Me?!"
"I told you the day we met Grace — this isn't Roland's party, it's Hanna's party."
So that you'd take the lead climbing the Tower.
I needed to make it clear that Han Sea was the party leader and I was just following her. That had been my policy from the moment I approached her under the pretense of training a junior. It might not seem like much, but considering Han Sea was a gamer, it was important.
There's a psychological difference between lucking into a high-level party when you boot up a game, and having a bunch of great characters gather into your own party... or so I thought as a former gamer. Han Sea might not care either way.
"Uh, then... shall we start moving? Grace unnie, please take the lead and scout the path, and Roland, please take the... rear?"
Clutching her staff, she entered the grasslands and gave a small, uncertain command. Of course, neither Grace nor I had any reason to criticize her attitude, so we just nodded and started walking.
Grace answered Han Sea with a gentle smile, glanced a few times at the grass underfoot and her lantern, then set off in a chosen direction. Han Sea and I followed at an easy pace.
Naturally, the grassland monsters were no match for us. They couldn't even interrupt our side-by-side walking. Horned rabbits and horned foxes charged at Grace with gusto, but before their small, pointed horns could pierce her, they collapsed with a sharp thwack!
"Unnie, you can do stone-throwing too?"
"Shooting those with arrows is a net loss. You're a mage so it doesn't matter much, but for an archer, damaged arrowheads burn through money."
Occasionally a low-floor goblin — smarter than the horned rabbits and foxes but still frail — would target Han Sea in the middle, but she was a gamer whose skills had been thoroughly proven. A goblin bursting from the underbrush would get shoved by the tip of her staff, tumble across the ground without getting anywhere near her, and turn into a Mana Stone.
A peaceful exploration of cutting golden silvergrass, gently gathering cotton-ball fluff, and picking up a few lowest-grade Mana Stones along the way. The only crisis was when Han Sea nearly spilled the stew she was sharing.
"Hanna, what's today's objective?"
"Harvesting golden silvergrass and cotton-ball fluff, checking the snake-root colony near the second-floor passage, and clearing the dream-lantern flower colony on the fifth floor.... Grace unnie, I heard you're not supposed to dig up the roots of other herbs, so why do we have to dig up dream-lantern flowers and destroy the colony?"
"Most herbs, like golden silvergrass and cotton-ball fluff, have symbiotic relationships. But dream-lantern flowers pack so much mana into their buds that they dry out every other herb nearby."
I'd tossed the question at Han Sea like a pop quiz in that peaceful atmosphere, and she answered with complete ease. More precisely, she paused mid-chew on her bread, glanced sideways at me, and answered. Did she have a quest window too?
And so the Tower commission was completed perfectly, without any particular incidents.
"How about it, Leader? More doable than you expected?"
"The lower floors... yeah, I can see why so many people come here."
After exchanging our bulging herb pouches and the lowest-grade Mana Stones we'd picked up for coins, it was already evening. I wanted to take Han Sea and Grace to a café, feed them something sweet, then call it a day, so I casually brought it up.
"Alright, let's hit a café today. My treat again."
"A café?"
Surprisingly, it was Grace who showed interest, not Han Sea. Well, Han Sea was a modern person who could go to a café whenever she wanted. But Grace had been a hunter living in a slash-and-burn village until recently. Of course she'd light up at the word "café."
This world was a bit of a hodgepodge — maybe because it was an RPG built from mobile game materials.
Aunt Mariang's inn sold mixed stew while the place next door sold something like terrible fried chicken. A fantasy medieval setting that somehow had modern-style cafés opening up, where artisan bakers carefully crafted fatcarons for sale — a thoroughly chaotic worldbuilding.
Back when I didn't know this was content for players, I used to think what a ridiculous world this was.
"We're going to buy desserts to bribe Receptionist Alice with. And feed you two while we're at it."
"Ah, that blonde woman."
"Memorize her face. She's got some standing among the receptionists, so being on good terms with her makes life easier."
We headed to a bizarre café that had espresso pulled with magic tools despite no Italy existing, and iced americanos despite no America. What I needed to buy was a twenty-four-piece fatcaron gift box set to bribe Alice with. I'd give it to Alice, and she'd distribute them among the receptionists to build her standing — a kind of virtuous cycle.
It was pretty funny going around saying "fatcaron, fatcaron" in a fantasy medieval world, but by its own internal logic this thing was a luxury good. One of them cost about as much as five bowls of Aunt Mariang's stew. A whole gift box set could buy you a steak and a glass of wine at The Lucky Scoundrel.
"It's so sweet...!"
"Wait, they sell these? But the taste is pretty well implemented...."
I ordered menus for both of them, and Han Sea started chatting with her viewers in bewilderment at encountering fatcarons in a fantasy world. Beside her, Grace happily savored the sweet flavor, waving her hand gently as she saw me off.
Growing up in a slash-and-burn village must have something to do with how incredibly happy she looked.
Maybe after the adventure, I should take Grace on a food tour in the evenings....