Character Quest — Grace's Hometown 4
I could understand Grace's behavior, at least a little. To her, I was the prince on a white horse who had saved her life — the great driving force that had decided the course of her entire existence. Benefactor to her village, her family, and her livelihood, and the man she had fallen for at first sight.
So when danger closed in and her heart grew weak, wanting someone to lean on made perfect sense. What I could not make sense of was Han Se-ah, watching the whole thing with fascinated eyes through a gap in the tent flap.
"…You're warm, Roland."
Grace, who had been sitting beside me, edged closer and closer until she was wriggling her way into my arms. Using the damp dew on the ground as an excuse, she plopped herself right onto my thigh. And Han Se-ah watched every bit of it with those glittering, intrigued eyes.
Looking at those pitch-black pupils peeking through the tent flap swaying in the night wind, a very old memory rose up, vivid and unbidden.
That was the exact look my little sister used to get when she watched her favorite celebrity's kissing scenes in a drama.
It was pure speculation, but nothing else came to mind. Han Se-ah already knew that Grace's character story was deeply intertwined with me. Female gamers who shipped gacha characters were hardly rare, so thinking of it that way, it made sense.
She had turned off the stream and was playing alone, so she must have decided to play matchmaker between Grace and me and enjoy the show. Having logged out that night, she had no idea Grace had come to jump me after drinking — so maybe she was just savoring the feeling of being Cupid for a love story.
A handsome man and a beautiful woman tangled up together — there was plenty to watch, and it probably did feel like watching a drama.
"Isn't it strange? I was so anxious earlier, but just being next to you, Roland… my heart feels a little lighter."
"……"
I patted Grace without a word, and she began to pour out her feelings in a soft, rambling stream, as if she couldn't hold them in. Cradling her against me under Han Se-ah's faintly knowing gaze, I soothed her gently as the night grew deeper.
Still, she must not have intended to stay nestled there until dawn. Grace slipped free again and headed back toward the tent. As if in thanks for the comfort, she pressed a loud little peck to my cheek before darting inside — thoroughly, endearingly mischievous. Watching her go with that bashful little smile, I could tell her spirits had fully recovered.
After that, nothing particularly eventful happened. Aside from Grace sticking closer to me than usual now that her energy was back, and Han Se-ah hovering around the two of us like a satellite.
"Alright, long time no see, everyone. Two whole days of staring at stars and zoning out by the campfire, with zero monsters and zero bandits! And after all that, we've finally arrived at Colmar County! I got pretty close with Grace unnie and Irene unnie along the way, but man, I was dying for a skip button."
After parting ways with the merchant caravan that had unloaded its cargo in Colmar County, we took a small carriage for another half-day. At the end of a journey that had truly filled every last hour of those three days of travel, a tiny village finally came into view.
Fortunately, it was an ordinary village — no smashed fences, no ashes, no corpses strewn about. Grace let out a long breath of relief at returning home after so long, and right beside her, Han Se-ah promptly flipped on her stream.
"The carriage was nice enough that riding it was actually doable. Cooking over a campfire under the stars was surprisingly atmospheric, too. Just… not great for streaming. You know that feeling of putting on a forty-hour healing playlist and not actually doing a broadcast?"
Watching the chat flood back to life after so long, I saw Grace take the lead and approach the village. Two men stood waiting at the entrance with stiff expressions — they must have spotted the carriage coming. Their rough skin and plain faces were proof enough they weren't gacha characters.
Still, the fact that we had arrived by carriage rather than as wandering monsters seemed to put them somewhat at ease; at least they didn't immediately level weapons at us. It was clearly a village in the middle of growing — a lively little pioneer settlement of more than twenty houses clustered together.
"It's been a while, mister!"
"Hmm? Who're you?"
"Come on, it's me! Grace!"
"Huh? Wait, what in the world…?"
Recognizing the two men guarding the village entrance, she threw up her arms in greeting. Their jaws dropped cartoonishly wide — she must have looked pretty scruffy when she left. Still, they weren't suspicious; they broke into bright smiles and welcomed her warmly.
They had put out the request on a nothing-to-lose basis, but the scruffy little adventurer girl who had come to lend a hand was no longer that girl. The leather armor polished to a shine with alchemical reagents, the glossy composite bow of monster materials — one look was enough to tell she was no beginner adventurer.
And she hadn't come alone. A hulking heavy-armored knight, a swordsman with an air of quiet competence, a priestess rarely seen in a rural village, and a mage on top of that. Anyone could see this was a party of seasoned adventurers who had long since shed their novice tags.
"Yer pa oughta be with the village chief 'bout now."
"Ain't nobody hurt yet, but their tracks keep gettin' closer. Worried some herb-picker or the women out gatherin' berries might run into 'em."
"I'm glad no one's been hurt."
The deep creases between the two men's brows smoothed out as if a steam iron had pressed them flat, and they launched into a chatty back-and-forth. We learned the entire rough outline of the story before we had even met the village chief who posted the request.
Between those two — so gossipy I wondered if they were aunties rather than uncles — the village situation was already fully mapped out.
"Suspicious tracks were found, and on closer look they seem to belong to wandering orcs. No one has actually encountered an orc, and there are no victims yet, but the traces keep increasing and drawing closer to the village. If left alone, a clash with the villagers seems inevitable, so they scraped together every spare coin in the village and put out a request — that about cover it?"
Han Se-ah summarized it not for her viewers but for us, and Irene and Grace both nodded. This way the viewers got the summary too, of course.
Just as expected, nothing major had befallen the village. Grace's father, with his ranger skills, had assessed the situation, so the odds of the information being wrong were low. The worst-case scenario I could think of now was simply a larger orc pack than anticipated.
Grace's father was a former ranger. A high-intelligence monster capable of hiding from an ex-ranger's tracking techniques was not going to show up in a backwater like this — not for a mere 3-star character story. Same principle as why a Full Moon Dragon doesn't appear on the tenth floor of the Tower instead of a Full Moon Wolf.
Setting the gacha characters aside, these developers actually balanced the game pretty well.
A game that eased you into virtual reality with walking scarecrows — horned rabbits, horned foxes, goblins. Horned wolves whose raw specs rivaled a player's, teaching the importance of weapon techniques and skills. Full Moon Wolves that taught you how to pile on a strong enemy with your party.
After that came mid-sized monsters that required party coordination, and colonies of small monsters that taught you how to handle chaotic melees. The difficulty shifted depending on which gacha characters you pulled, but the overall structure itself was packed with care.
"Go ahead and hear them out about the request."
"Huh? Where are you going, Roland?"
"I'm fast on my feet, so I'm going to take a look around the area."
So I put in the legwork to shut down even the smallest variables. For the party's experience, the proper approach would have been to hear the client's story, find the tracks, and let Grace carefully follow the trail. But just in case, I sent the party members on and turned myself toward the village outskirts.
I had enough gamer experience to roughly sketch out how the story would go. Tracking the wandering orcs' traces, only for a bloodstained scarf or something to turn up. I worried that for the sake of building tension, one or two victims might appear.
Grace put on a sly front, but deep down she had a soft heart. If she brought her party all the way to the village on a request and victims turned up anyway, she wouldn't show it — but a tender-hearted woman like her would grieve deeply.
"It hurts, so it's youth" and all that is honestly bullshit.
Pain is fertilizer for growth. It hurts, so it's youth. You have to get hurt to learn something —
Those were words that had no place in the comfortable limousine taxi driven by a broken 6-star overpowered character. For the woman who nestled into my arms and showed me her vulnerable side, wounds disguised as growth simply should not exist. That was obvious. I was the kind of man who would charge an ogre over a beauty's tears, after all.
"Ain't you the one who came with Grace? What's the matter…?"
"Which direction from the village were the orc tracks found?"
"There's a big rock under that mountain peak over there, right around thaaaat waaay——?!"
I drove power into my legs with a heavy thud and shot forward. The roads weren't properly paved, so running wild was fine — one of the perks of a rural village. Without any attempt to muffle the crashing impacts, I smashed through the dirt and plunged into the mountains.
Orcs were not particularly skilled at stealth. Only the named monsters on the twentieth floor, draped in moss-wolf hides, were exceptional at it. The best stealth an orc outside the Tower could manage was hiding inside a cave.
They didn't even bother cleaning up the traces of eating, sleeping, and defecating. Even without a ranger's or thief's scouting techniques, if you just ran around long enough, you would eventually find them. As the saying goes, if the body is weak the mind suffers — just tear through the entire mountain range and the problem solves itself.
A campfire? …Not human traces, then.
I couldn't very well raze and desolate the mountain range that was these villagers' livelihood, so I ran with controlled force — and found a dead campfire. Beside the remains, a single thin thread of smoke still curling up, lay the carcass of a rabbit torn open and eaten guts and all.
No herb-picker from the village would have gotten so hungry roasting a rabbit that they chewed it down fur and all. Using the campfire as a starting point, I followed the deliberately broken branches deeper in.
Still, they needed real combat experience, so I had no intention of wiping them all out. If there were many, I would leave about three and slaughter the rest. If there were few, a little mana massage to wreck their joints would do. Toward the rank pig-stink filling my nose, I trudged forward without even bothering to hide my presence.