Princess Kingmaker 2
By accepting the princess's request, Han Se-ah had committed our hero party to supporting her in the Goddess's name. Grace, apparently fretting over that very point, put the question to me from inside the carriage. Even the steady clop of hooves couldn't quite mask the worry in her voice.
"But Roland… is this really something we should just jump into so lightly?"
"Hmm? Jump into what?"
"Supporting the princess. Doesn't that basically mean picking a fight with both princes?"
Han Se-ah had accepted the quest on the spot with zero intention of turning it down, but for a country girl like Grace, the scale of it all was clearly too much. Then again, she still hadn't fully registered that she'd reached the Upper-grade herself — so of course this would feel enormous.
There was a reason I'd called this annoying rather than dangerous.
"It's not quite at the level of picking a fight. These are political types — they won't bare their teeth that openly."
"Really? Why not?"
"Well, for one thing… we're all Upper-grade adventurers, and a hero party at that."
In a world where a supernatural force like mana exists, the strong inevitably get treated with respect. High-ranking mages receive quasi-noble status or get invited into the royal household with titles of their own. Even an adventurer who can project aura can become a knight. On top of that, we'd been recognized by the Temple, and though the princess had handed them over, we carried royal tokens. If anyone were stupid enough to send assassins after us outright, the Temple would start questioning whether the royal family even had the qualities of leadership — and if a few zealots went off the deep end, they might declare us heretics and open a Holy Crusade.
So long as the first and second princes weren't complete, country-ruining morons, they wouldn't lay a finger on us directly. We even had a Candidate Saint sitting right there in the party. Assassination? Not happening. And even if one of the princes did take the throne, a wholesale purge of every noble who wasn't on his side would be nearly impossible as long as the Goddess still existed.
They'd just be a pain in the ass about it.
"A pain how? Would they try to get in our way?"
"The opposite. They'll pretend to help while trying to carve off a share of the credit. If we handle everything cleanly, the glory goes straight to the princess — so they'll stick themselves in under the banner of 'assisting' us."
In short, someone might try to steal the last hit.
But that had been happening all along, so it hardly mattered. Competing with NPCs on timed objectives was one of Heroes Chronicle's core gimmicks — nothing new there.
"Mmm… politics is hard."
"Not so much hard as just full of annoying people."
"Do you think Hanna saw all of this coming and still accepted right away? Both of you are really something, Hanna and you…"
No, she just…
I couldn't exactly badmouth the one person who might pull me out of this game world, so I changed the subject. Grace's arrows would be Han Se-ah's job to prepare, and as for me — as long as my body was in one piece, today was a genuine rest day.
Not that resting and then splurging with the gold we'd piled up from tower runs would be so bad either. Buying formal clothes in case we got tangled up with nobles, or treating ourselves to fine dining at one of the high-end restaurants in the noble district.
"That's enough heavy talk. I was thinking of browsing the market for the first time in a while — anywhere you want to go?"
"I overheard the maids talking. There's a new restaurant that just opened. Want to try it?"
While I'd been buried in the internet, our sociable little archer had already made friends with the maids. She didn't seem eager to keep the complicated conversation going either, now that it was just the two of us — she smiled right away and started chattering away.
How Maid Emma could cook so many dishes she was practically more of a chef than a maid. How Butler Sebastian could snap his fingers and produce coachmen, gardeners, and every other kind of odd-job handyman, which made her wonder if he had connections with the guilds. Idle, trivial talk.
We bantered and made small talk until the carriage stopped at the market entrance. I climbed down, followed Grace's lead through the market streets — and out of habit, I cracked open Han Se-ah's stream for a peek.
"Ah, come on! Seriously!"
Her stream had opened the gates of hell.
Hell had opened, and thousands of demons lurking among the millions of spectators bared their fangs. The demons went by many names — rage-spammers, backseat gamers, lore junkies, and more. As if they'd been waiting patiently for exactly this moment, they started beating her with money.
Foreign viewers who still hadn't grasped the situation were starting to catch on and pile into chat with their own complaints — the whole thing was a living definition of pandemonium. The AI moderator was doing its best to clean up the chat window, but it couldn't stop the people willing to pay money just for the privilege of yelling.
Five thousand, ten thousand — the donations kept stacking up. If those had been actual bills, Han Se-ah might have been crushed to death under a mountain of cash.
"What, so I should've turned down a quest this big? If I hadn't taken it, you'd all be screaming about that instead!"
The party leader wasn't me — it was Han Se-ah. Back when she'd been a beginner adventurer, I'd tagged along under the vague pretense of helping out as a senior. But now she was an Upper-grade adventurer same as me. Ten extra years of adventuring experience didn't mean I needed to second-guess every call made by the party's leader and hero.
That was my take, anyway. The spectators watching from the sidelines seemed to feel rather differently. The "Roland Sensei" nickname had stuck so hard that the fact Han Se-ah hadn't consulted me first had them frothing at the mouth.
Most of it was fine, but watching the Roland's Blazing Mace and Iron Club crowd foam at the mouth about her "disrespecting Roland" made me a little sad. What exactly were these gay-for-me fans so angry at the world about that they'd get this over-immersed?
And with my name plastered on their handles, no less… the odds of any of them being women were vanishingly small.
"Roland? What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just got a few things to think about after all this."
"Yeah, it is a bit complicated. But for now, let's set it all down and rest properly."
I'd paused for a moment at the carnage on stream, and Grace — walking ahead — turned back with wide eyes. A ranger that sharp-sensed meant no zoning out on the job.
I took one last look at Han Se-ah paying the price for mindlessly skipping the story, then closed the hologram window. Whether it was tonight or tomorrow morning, I was going to have to sit her down for a proper lecture if she was going to survive this.
That said, we'd come all the way to the market for a date — I couldn't exactly summon the carriage again and head for Han Se-ah's alchemy workshop. Watching her take a cash slap every time she ground an alchemy ingredient, she didn't seem all that upset about it either.
With that thought, I followed Grace deeper into the crowded market streets.
"Well now, if it isn't that adventurer girl from before! Here, take one of these!"
"Hey, Roland! Or should I be calling you Hero now?"
Lately we'd been stuck on the 35th floor, then the palace, then the mansion — so I hadn't been through the market much. The fruit-stand lady who'd gotten help during the Full Moon Wolf incident piled Grace's arms full of apples, and an Intermediate-grade adventurer I used to see around the taverns came over to say hello, using the greeting as an excuse to knock back another drink.
Our declaration as heroes hadn't spread all that widely, but after I'd thrown money around under my own name during the Full Moon Wolf incident, we seemed to have a bit of a reputation.
"What, Grace? You're more of a celebrity than I thought."
"Ahaha — probably from coming to the market so often when I was helping Irene. But more people recognize you than me, don't they?"
"Well, I did give up on the tower and basically live in taverns for a few years."
With a little exaggeration, roughly half the city's drinkers had probably run into me at a tavern at some point. This wasn't a modern city where you could grab beer at a convenience store — if you wanted a drink, you ended up gathering at an inn. Thanks to that, I had a fair number of middle-aged fans who'd shared a bottle with me and appointed themselves my supporters.
Grace with her arms full of fruit and sweets, and a drunk skewer-stand vendor who'd decided to close up shop and shove an assortment of skewers into my hands. Without Han Se-ah, our inventory manager, this kind of thing was inconvenient.
Famous faces, a handsome man and beautiful woman who'd saved people, plus Irene — the Temple's mascot — helping care for orphans on top of it all. While I'd been holed up in a corner of the mansion drowning in the internet, the rest of the party had somehow finished a full reputation campaign without even realizing it.
"…Should we take all this home and share it at dinner? Or stash it in Hanna's inventory and heat it up quick in the tower?"
"There's enough to share and still have leftovers. Want to grab takeout from that restaurant the maids mentioned and head straight back?"
"Sounds good. They gave it to us to eat — not like we can throw it away. Next time I should just stop accepting free stuff."
And so what was supposed to be a market-street date had somehow turned into collecting tribute from merchants. Even ordinary citizens who weren't adventurers seemed to have gotten the message that we were impressive, decent people, what with the Temple making so much noise about us.
On the way back, loaded down with fruit, skewers, and even panne pasta from the new restaurant, Grace's smile never left her face just from walking side by side with me. All things considered, I decided, it wasn't a bad day at all.
"Hanna. Come over here and sit down for a minute."
"Eh?"