Fame 3

Dinner at the Temple went more smoothly than I'd expected.

Han Sea kept pulling toys out of her inventory and putting them back in, basking in the kids' attention. Grace helped with the cleaning in practiced, efficient motions. And I told a carefully curated story about clearing orcs from some baron's lands on an outside-the-Tower commission.

Strip out the part where the client tried to screw us over, strip out the civilian casualties, and hunt for a version safe enough for children, and there isn't much left. Just a textbook adventure yarn: me plugging a narrow gorge like an anvil while the knights trampled the orcs flat.

"So, we'll meet at the Adventurer's Guild tomorrow morning."

"Yes. Please get home safely."

Thanks to spending a little money on expensive, fresh ingredients, we'd been treated to a meal far better than anything the inn served. We each left with a Temple token in hand and parted ways with Irene — as a nun, she naturally stayed at the Temple.

The tokens were a bit bulkier than the one hanging around Irene's neck. Not solid gold, probably just plated, but the golden sheen still had a way of making a person feel giddy. Han Sea floated a camera in front of her face, turning the token this way and that, and asked,

"What's this for? Like an adventurer's badge — some kind of ID?"

"Close enough. These make outside-the-Tower commissions a whole lot easier. Honestly, it's more than we deserve for half a day of watching kids. My guess is the Temple decided that taking down the Horned Wolf felt a lot like saving those children, so they decided to do us a favor."

Or maybe Candidate Saint Irene had put in a word.

This was a world without national IDs or CCTV. Ways to prove an outsider's identity were limited. Poor farmers weren't about to stop every stranger with a few gold coins' worth of magic tools, so the only thing people trusted was the seal of a reputable institution like this.

Plenty of bandits forged credentials, sure — but in a world where the Goddess handed down holy power and heretic inquisitors prowled with fire in their eyes, only a rare breed of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lunatic would forge a Temple symbol. If you were going to fake something, you'd fake a merchant guild pass or an adventurer's badge.

Impersonate an adventurer and you might end up with a bounty on your head. Impersonate a priest, and a pack of wild-eyed inquisitors came swarming. Get caught by the city guard and you were looking at prison, maybe slavery. Get caught by an inquisitor and you went straight to the torture chamber.

"Even villages that hate outsiders won't turn this token away lightly. Of course, once Irene's with us, we probably won't need it much."

I explained the Temple symbol as we walked the darkening streets. Once the analysis of the Full Moon Wolf's traces finished tomorrow, we'd be heading into a boss fight. After that, I could kit the kids out with Intermediate Adventurer gear. Savings should cover it — and if not, I'd chip in a little.

Lying in my inn bed, the first thing I did was open the forum. After ten years cut off from modern civilization, getting internet access again was ridiculously addictive. Sure, I could only get into Han Sea's stream community board — but that was still something.

Her VR game stream was, by all appearances, the furthest along in the world, and the board's population had ballooned accordingly. Gamers craving spoilers — burned by the brutal reality of a full-body VR game — had all flocked to her channel.

Two names dominated the board today. First was Charlotte, the noble young lady who'd been looking after the Temple orphans. Second was fellow streamer Kim Seokhyun.

A new beauty showing up was always going to pull eyes. Pair her with the classic young-lady-and-maid combo, and the attention was inevitable. Nobody was seriously suggesting we recruit 2★ Ambitious Charlotte or 1★ Maid Mary into the party — but roughly half the board was still talking about her.

The three B's that moved the human heart had always included babies and beauties, right? A pretty woman caring for kids at the Temple was more than enough to leave a strong impression on the viewers.

That title — Ambitious — was probably tied to her adventuring and her Temple volunteer work. A noble young lady who refused to be a trophy and wanted to become a woman of agency in her own right, borrowing the Temple's influence to do it. Noble girls didn't usually become adventurers, after all.

In mobile games you got noble ladies, princesses, even young lords climbing the Tower left and right. But this world had been built with realism cranked all the way up. If the Grand Duke of the North — the man who ruled that vast northern territory — turned into some 5★ Cold-Blooded Grand Duke character and went off adventuring, who was supposed to handle the paperwork? Who ran the politics?

Red-haired characters were passionate. Blue-haired characters were cold. By that same lazy logic, pink-haired characters got the lewd, sultry image — which explained why the word "PinkThot" was plastered all over the board.

Of course, neither her adventurer gear nor her casual clothes had a single scrap of fanservice exposure. Just elegant garments with a bit of frill. But to a feral chat, that clearly didn't matter. More than one comment simply said, "She's just pretty, okay."

The next thing that caught my eye was the post sitting right below it.

Every time I refreshed, maid-uniform nudes and master-servant harem manga rec threads got moderated into oblivion — but this one post held the number-one upvote spot like a fortress.

Kim Seokhyun — the guy who'd introduced his inventory as a keepsake from his adventurer parents, the kind of half-baked explanation the system more or less let slide. Same streamer who'd last been featured on the board after taking a Horned Wolf charge head-on with a small buckler and getting skewered for it.

Han Sea had met me — a 6★ — and started on the 10th floor, putting her at number one in game progress. And the man using her stream like a living spoiler feed to stay right on her heels was apparently this Kim Seokhyun.

A Horned Wolf lunging out of nowhere. Kim Seokhyun shoving his hand into empty air, pulling out an iron plate bigger than my shield, and bracing it like a barricade.

Whether he'd thought of it from experiencing a Horned Wolf's charge firsthand or staged the whole thing for the stream, it made for good viewing. With an inventory that worked by reaching into thin air and pulling things out, you could pull off applications like that.

From the board chatter, most people seemed to be using their inventories as weapon lockers. Users who'd picked greatswords or warhammers stashed the bulky weapons inside and did a midair draw the moment combat started — a kind of spatial quick-draw.

Of course, there were also stories of people getting ambushed by a Horned Wolf, frantically yanking a weapon out of thin air, eating a game over, and waking up to the next morning's sunrise.

I lay there for a long while. Outside the window, the moon was sinking. If I closed my eyes now, I could still get a couple hours of sleep before heading out. In my previous life's body, that would have left me dozing straight through to lunch, wrung out with fatigue. But Roland's superhuman physique could maintain near-perfect condition on two hours of sleep a night.

Of course, what I was doing with that superhuman body was browsing a forum at dawn, so I didn't have much room to talk.

It felt like less than two hours had passed when a rooster's crow pulled me awake. Despite the absurdly short sleep, the drowsiness burned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off the moment I sat up and stretched.

I marveled, a little absurdly, at how even the small things about a superhuman body made life richer — then washed up and headed for the Adventurer's Guild. In that brief window, nothing of note had happened; no posts stood out while I was getting ready.

"Ah, you're here."

"You're out incredibly early."

"Mornings at the Temple start early. I came straight after morning prayers."

Normally I was the one who arrived first and waited for the rest of the party. Today Irene was already seated at a guild table, waiting for me. Come to think of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, Alice had mentioned that Irene had shown up before the guild doors even opened to request a party transfer.

I'd assumed she'd come early out of nerves over the transfer request. Turns out she was just an early riser.

Irene greeted me with a bright smile — apparently my storytelling for the kids yesterday had paid off. If half a day of volunteer work had earned us Temple tokens and raised the favorability of a beauty like this, the whole thing had been pure profit.

"Once everyone's here, are we heading to the Tower?"

"We're going to the Magic Tower to hear about the Full Moon Wolf's traces."

"Ah, right — from yesterday. Will they have results in just one day?"

"They should. They're mages."

More precisely: it was a quest.

We'd found boss-monster traces. Was the game really going to make us wait two days, three days, on and on? That was my thinking as I answered her, and her small head bobbed in a nod. Her lips moved faintly, as if she were steeling herself for something. I enjoyed the quiet for a moment — then the guild doors burst open.

"Whoa, you guys are out super early. Hello, Miss Irene!"

"If everyone's here, let's go to the Magic Tower!"

Grace came bustling over with her usual chatter, Han Sea stuck close behind her — they'd clearly come together again. The absolute certainty in Han Sea's eyes as she demanded we head to the Magic Tower right away told me something had changed on her quest progress window.