Into the Forest 4

There was no tension whatsoever from the party exploring the forest. Well, with a swordsman who'd reached the 14th floor solo joining them, what could possibly go wrong on a mere 12th floor?

Grace could reliably detect a Moss Wolf's stealth, and even if I let a Helmet Deer's charge slip past, Irene's barrier could stop it cold. In chaotic melees with goblins and kobolds, Caden—who had a real knack for swordsmanship—would just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slice through the lot of them.

I should be grateful she's not some katana-wielding show-off, I guess.

An unusually long one-handed sword, no shield, the occasional two-handed swing. Rebecca's description had made me picture some samurai screaming that Japanese blades were the best in the world, but that worry had been baseless. What Caden swung was a straight-bladed one-handed sword.

Given her title of Princess of the Sword, she was probably using that weapon because of her family's sword style.

Her movements—casually deflecting poison darts and thrown rocks—proved she'd been grinding it out as a mercenary company rookie from the outside world. Even when a dozen monsters followed their instincts and turned the battlefield into pure chaos, she didn't waver.

"Caden, behind you!"

Grace's short shout—apparently even she couldn't stick to formal speech mid-combat. An arrow immediately thunked into the forehead of a goblin that had snuck into the bushes to hurl a rock at the back of someone's head.

Finding goblins rustling through the rear underbrush and shooting them on sight—her scouting ability was so sharp you had to wonder if she had eyes in the back of her head. Her archery was excellent too; the moment a goblin flinched from Hanna's Spark magic, an arrow would land dead on target.

"…Are we starting to click? We cleaned this up way faster than yesterday."

"I think it's because Caden's herding the goblins so well. No stragglers means they're easier to shoot."

Just like yesterday, I'd only kicked a couple to death for the initial shock and awe, and the party cleaned up the remaining goblin stragglers without breaking a sweat. Just like that, they turned into Mana Stones vanishing into Hanna's inventory.

Even mid-combat, the only issues were truly minor—nothing worth pointing out. Trivial stuff like overkill when an arrow hit a goblin Caden was about to cut down, or slight role-overlap problems.

"Nice. At this rate, even the 20th floor shouldn't be a problem."

"That high?"

"If you've never once let a Moss Wolf get the drop on you, you should be able to find an Orc Hunter's traps too. Caden, you said you went up to the 20th floor with your mercenary company, right?"

As an Advanced Adventurer and the party's guide, I'd ended up speaking casually to everyone. There'd been a vague unease about talking down to a Candidate Saint, but the people involved didn't seem to mind. Caden nodded at my natural informal speech.

Conversely, when addressing me, Grace and Hanna used casual speech while Irene and Caden used formal. Somehow the speech styles had split right down the middle.

"The reason Orc Hunters are scary is that they never attack you head-on. Did you run into them with the mercenary company?"

"No. But I've heard the stories from my seniors."

"Those guys tend to exaggerate, but when it comes to trash-talking orcs, they're dead serious."

The Orc Hunter—a named monster of the 20th floor that walks around draped in Moss Wolf hides. The problem is these bastards set traps, hide, snipe, and wage guerrilla warfare. Chase them and you hit traps; ignore them and they snipe you when you're resting. Absolute assholes.

"These bastards are cunning—they target you when you're resting. And they know how to get under your skin."

"Yes. I heard they shoot stew pots or campfires during mealtime so you can't eat."

"They know people get angry when they can't eat, and they bait that. Trying to pick you off one by one."

"So how do you catch them?"

Hanna casually cut into the conversation Caden and I were having while picking up Mana Stones and checking our gear. Talk of the 20th floor—a high floor her viewers hadn't even gotten close to—was bound to pique curiosity.

Chat poured down like landslide debris from a collapsing mountain. Evaluating the Tower and the game in a collective monologue. Well, watching nothing but forest exploration would get boring eventually.

Which is why Hanna was chatting a lot with her viewers while walking through the forest.

"Even traps you can make in a forest aren't that lethal, so either the tank tanks through and grabs them, or the team's scout finds their stealth and you take them out with magic or whatever."

"Scouts are more important than I thought…"

"And from the 21st floor on, it's caves where you can't even see properly. From there, scouts go from important to mandatory."

Talking about the Tower seemed to spark interest—questions flooded the chat. Quite a few people seemed to want to hear my stories indirectly through Hanna. Of course, while she was a beginner in the Tower, as a streamer she was a pro—she wasn't about to answer free questions.

Even with something like slow mode, there were so many viewers that questions vanished before you could read them, and the ones serious about the game would drop five or ten bucks for paid questions.

Since Hanna kept calling me "Sensei" on stream, paying lecture fees or education fees had become the natural thing. If this was all a grand scheme for collecting money, her title might as well be "Doctor of Collections" Hanna or something.

"No, but I'm a little worried—what are people gonna see if I stream in a cave? If I accidentally turn off Light magic mid-fight, you guys are all gonna spam chat staring at a pitch-black screen. Questions? Lecture fees always accepted."

Hanna glanced at the chaotic chat window, then mid-conversation with her viewers started talking about lecture fees. Come to think of it, this damn system had separated chat viewing and donation checking the same way it stripped out post-writing and camera functions.

I felt like a hardcore fan crying over a predatory game company's DLC sales while still buying them.

"Roland? I've got a question."

"What is it."

I closed the chat window that was nothing but empty noise and chaos. Probably because of the memory of getting burned after taking money for questions from a Magic Tower mage, the viewers had started spamming "su" and "geum" letter emoticons.

Whether they were cursing "collection time," calling her a golden beast, or saying she was a money-grubbing animal—even the spammers probably didn't know. Either way, Hanna, who'd taken money as lecture fees from her viewers, paid it no mind and tossed a question my way.

"You said Horned Rabbits, Horned Foxes, and Horned Wolves still have the instincts of their original animals, right? So are goblins, kobolds, and orcs a lot different inside the Tower versus outside?"

…That was a much more serious question than I'd expected.

Normally the chat was full of degenerates burning for "noona" and "mommy" content, so I'd been ignoring them a bit—but a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠solid question coming out of nowhere surprised me. Apparently some of Hanna's viewers were genuinely serious about Heroes Chronicle.

The party's gazes gathered on me instantly, curious about Hanna's question. I stopped walking briefly for Grace, who was mid-scout, and opened my mouth.

"Pseudo-humanoid monsters like goblins, kobolds, and orcs look the same as the ones outside, but their behavior patterns are completely different. The biggest difference is their blind hostility toward humans."

Monsters outside the Tower attack people too, of course. They raid small villages, kidnap people to rape and eat them, hunt humans who enter their territory. That's why adventurers keep getting outside-Tower commissions.

But the biggest difference is aggression. Outside the Tower, the ones with brains run if their lives are in danger. Inside the Tower, nothing runs.

Even the scrawny goblins from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor 10 and below will kyaek-kyaek charge at us even when we outnumber them. Orc Hunters don't flee when outnumbered either—they switch to guerrilla warfare.

"Why is that?"

"I don't know either. Even the monster ecology researchers at the Magic Tower probably don't know."

"There are mages like that?"

"Most of the mages who actually enter the Tower are that type. They come in to directly observe the plants and monsters inside and write papers."

That's what Magic Tower mages are like. Zombie-like people who wander from the continent's remote corners to the Tower's top floors hunting for research topics for their papers. Somehow explaining this had turned into a mage digression.

When I finished and closed my mouth, Grace shrewdly resumed scouting. We still hadn't found a Tower passage today, but it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠didn't matter. They could feel themselves growing bit by bit.

A few days had passed since I'd written a post with some minor tip.

The image of Hanna as lucky but dumb, and Kim Seokhyun as unlucky but smart, had taken hold. Naturally—because of the posts I diligently wrote every single day.

Of course Kim Seokhyun was watching Hanna's stream as future knowledge and following as efficiently as possible. That inevitably made him look much smarter than Hanna, who was going through trial and error. But for viewers looking for a laugh, that didn't matter at all.

"Aaaargh, damn it! If it's not in the quest window, of course you'd think there's no reward, people! This guy keeps going 'so sad, so sad' on every single post he writes. And he doesn't even write other posts—every single one is about how sad I am."

Once the carriage thing had drawn aggro, I'd become famous for the purpose of teasing Hanna.

The first button had been fastened perfectly.