Affection Farming 2

The character quest story seemed completely insane.

I’d thought we just had to take down some orcs, but then we had to find a girl who’d been hiding. Once we found her, Grace’s parents popped out of nowhere, tearfully begging her to quit the adventuring life and come back to the village.

Han Se-ah’s face had gone stiff as a board at that dizzying turn of events.

Of course, Grace—who had already thrown herself at me while drunk and was now openly showing her affection—was never going to fold. Once we successfully persuaded her parents, Han Se-ah finally regained her composure. If a gacha character vanished as a quest reward, the users would burn the game company to the ground.

“Be careful in the city too. Still, I’m so relieved you’ll be with the sister.”

“Oh, come on. How long are you going to treat me like a little kid?”

“In a parent’s eyes, their child is always a little kid. Sister, please look after our girl well. I’ll pray that the Goddess’s blessing is always with you.”

Grace’s cheeks flushed at being treated like a child right in front of the party, but she still smiled bashfully, clearly not entirely unhappy with her parents’ love. Aside from the bizarre near-miss of a party member vanishing mid-progress, everything had worked out.

The orcs prowling around the village had been too starved to create any more victims, and the sly little brat who’d gone hide-and-seek in the mountains only to hide in the village had been dragged home by her parents and spanked until her bottom was raw. Grace’s village was safe, her parents had been persuaded, and—

—I got a ridiculously sweet reward out of it.

A reward that made the carriage ride back feel like it wouldn’t be boring at all. The corners of my mouth started curling up on their own, and Han Se-ah, sharp as a ghost, immediately zeroed in. With the drone openly filming my face, I couldn’t exactly roll my eyes around to open the internet.

Not while the camera was on my face—I couldn’t go pointing at empty air and darting my eyes around. I had no desire to look like some lunatic grinning at nothing.

The coachman, saying he’d hurry us back now that the orcs were dead and it was safe, started the carriage. We set off with a clatter of hooves, leaving Grace’s parents behind as they kept waving.

“Well, the quest reward is pretty sweet at least. Testing the bonds with your companions or whatever the hell… ahem, got a bit excited and my language slipped. Anyway, just like everyone expected, the reward seems to be an Awakening Stone. This way they can test your bonds with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your companions and slap another star on them as a reward.”

Crammed into the narrow carriage, I opened the chat window under the pretense of watching the scenery, and it was pure chaos. Of course it wasn’t just the chat going nuts. There was no way the people writing posts in real time wouldn’t spread the possibility that a companion could vanish during a character quest.

I closed the chat and checked the boards. Posts with stream screenshots were already flooding in. The material was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so sensational that even the relatively tame broadcaster boards were going pretty wild.

While I was busy browsing the boards, I noticed Han Se-ah quietly burrowing into Irene’s arms inside the cramped carriage. With Grace having almost left, the anxiety that something similar might happen to Irene was written all over her.

Irene, who had no idea what was going through Han Se-ah’s head, simply smiled brightly and hugged her close.

“Irene unnie. You’re going to keep living as an adventurer, right?”

“Of course. It’s the work of spreading the Goddess’s will. …Hehe, were you worried?”

Han Se-ah was such a terrible liar that even Irene, now that they’d grown close, could read her like an open book. The way Irene gently stroked Han Se-ah’s hair while holding her, as if to soothe her, sent the chat into a completely different ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kind of frenzy.

The chat was plastered with “gay gay” and “lez lez.” Both the chat and the boards were pure chaos and fun to watch, but I exercised superhuman patience and closed them both. What I wanted to see most right now was the internet.

I double-checked that the camera drone was pointed at Irene and Han Se-ah across from me, then turned my gaze outward. What appeared before my eyes was a pure white internet window that felt somehow familiar yet strange.

An empty white screen, a long search bar in the center, and that familiar logo sitting right on top of it.

Never thought I’d be this happy to see those words.

It was the logo of the global search engine G that I’d used plenty in my previous life. Aside from the virtual reality game, this world really was almost a parallel one. Just in case, I tried logging in with my old account, but it came back as a non-existent ID, so the worlds were different after all.

With a pounding heart, I crossed my arms and wriggled my fingers under my armpit. A little trick—using my fingers like a mouse instead of directly tapping the hologram.

No matter how focused Han Se-ah was on Irene, if I kept swiping my fingers through empty air dozens of times right in front of her, she’d notice. So the thing I secretly typed into the internet window was… Heroes Chronicle Gallery.

Being an anonymous board, it was full of lunatics, but that also meant plenty of honest opinions and the occasional genius, so there was a lot of solid info. A double-edged sword for gamers.

As if to prove it, the popular posts were already spicy just from the titles. Posts that would get deleted—or worse, get you banned—on Han Se-ah’s broadcaster board were everywhere.

My wriggling fingers under my armpit almost slipped and hit the red-light district post, but I steeled myself and clicked the one below it about companions. It looked exactly like it was about Han Se-ah’s stream, so I opened it.

Even though we hadn’t been on the carriage for even an hour, it already had hundreds of upvotes and comments. Well, how shocking was it for a gamer that a companion could just vanish? If a 5★ companion disappeared, that user might end up macroing until they got isekai’d just like me.

With anonymity guaranteed, the posts were full of every kind of crude talk. Amusingly, among the posts related to Han Se-ah, the most common were body shots of Grace and Irene.

Grace’s sideboob bouncing a little even under the leather armor, or GIFs of Irene’s figure showing when the wind pressed her nun’s habit against her. Since the targets were Han Se-ah’s NPCs rather than Han Se-ah herself, the comments were pure unfiltered sexual harassment.

This is dizzying.

They really did have a ghostly knack for capturing the good angles and treating the eyes, but the posts had zero substance or value. I wriggled my fingers and scrolled down to other posts. Opening the one about folding newbies, I found byproducts of the Full Moon Wolves.

From posts declaring rebirth as a veteran instead of a newbie, to people following Kim Seok-hyun’s method of blocking horned wolves with iron plates only to get tossed around on the ground from lack of strength, to people streaming themselves climbing the Tower’s outer wall—every kind of human specimen was running wild.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lost track of time reading posts until the carriage suddenly stopped.

“We’ve arrived, adventurers.”

“Ah, thank you, mister.”

I closed the hologram and got out of the carriage. After exchanging greetings with the coachman, Grace quietly sidled up next to me. And there were the two women watching Grace and me with clear interest. While I’d been absorbed in the internet, had the three of them cooked something up while sitting all cozy together?

I looked at Grace without a word. She swallowed hard, then got to the point.

“We’re taking the carriage back to the city tomorrow anyway, right?”

“Yeah. It’s a bit late to go looking for one now.”

“Come look around the count’s territory with me. When I was little I was really curious about this place, but I went straight up to the Adventurer’s City, so I’ve never been here.”

Hearing Grace’s words, I glanced over at Han Se-ah. She was nodding vigorously, while Irene next to her was rolling her eyes around. Han Se-ah’s feelings were an open book, but what would Irene say?

I looked at her silently, full of curiosity and a little urging. As if making some major decision, Irene clenched both fists and picked up where Han Se-ah left off.

“W-we’re planning to visit the temple. I think it would be okay if we acted separately from the two of you! R-right, Kayden?”

“…Ah, yes. Sir Roland, I’ll accompany the two of them.”

Her cheeks were flushed red, and she kept saying “I” over and over. Anyone watching would think she’d just made the confession of a lifetime. Still, Kayden—who knew how to do social life from her mercenary days—quickly backed Irene up.

It seemed she’d gotten pretty serious about the shipping game, even dragging Irene into it. It was pretty entertaining. I had no reason to refuse, so I nodded, and Grace beamed as she stuck right to my side.

“Anywhere you want to see?”

“Let’s start with the market. When I was little I was really curious about a big market.”

Once again her hand naturally wound around my arm, and I let her. The camera drone quietly followed along. Seeing how hard it was pushing us, the viewer opinion must have been pretty good.