Orcs and the Lady Knight 5
Would they hand over every scrap of credit in exchange for gold, or join the expedition, go for the orc boss's head, and monopolize the rewards?
"Is this not a 'can't eat it, still GO' situation? We've been gaming more than a day or two—you're gonna chicken out and call a retreat here? Hey! If someone steals the last hit, you memorize the spot and reset!"
For Han Sea—gamer and streamer both—it wasn't a question worth fretting over.
Wasn't that just how RPGs worked? You got as greedy as you could, and if you screwed up, you rolled back to the save point. One hit of the reset button and you were back at that morning. Why wouldn't you take the challenge?
Do I need to start running this a little more seriously?
Talking with her viewers, the chat, the community boards—even the Heroes Chronicle gallery—all of it seemed to want Hanna to show the dignity of a first-place runner. More precisely, it felt closer to a demand that I prove I was a genuine 6★ owner.
Hanna herself still hadn't forgotten the high of the 10th-floor rewards, and she looked ready to attempt a boss time attack even if it meant a few resets.
That was just what gamers were. Say there was a base reward and a bonus reward, and you could clear the game without the bonus. A gamer still treated the bonus like the default, and missing it felt like getting absolutely robbed.
"Now that we're adventurers, we can't just give up on adventure."
"Miss Grace is right. The fact that those things appeared before us means the Goddess has a purpose in mind."
The rest of the party, each for their own reasons, were fully set on turning down the knight order's commission and resolving the anomaly on the 20th floor. Unanimous agreement always beat a party split and flailing around.
With things going this way, it looked like we were headed straight back to the 20th floor's safe zone to stick close to Charlotte and Antenor—ready to move the moment information dropped and Hanna's quest updated.
"We've confirmed the commission and turned down the knight order's request, so we need to move a little faster. Everyone, steel yourselves—this time we're staying inside the Tower for a long while."
"We just refused them. Aren't you rushing this a bit?"
"That's because the enemy is orcs. They might look a little clever, but at the end of the day they're only good enough to attack a lady knight traveling with adventurers."
"Why's that?"
"If they were exceptionally strong, would they have settled for taking a single lady knight prisoner? They'd have snatched up those hunting nobles in a heartbeat and dragged a whole pile of them off."
Because orcs were weak and stupid. They were putting on airs like they'd cooked something up, but an orc was still an orc. If all they could manage was wiping out a 20th-floor-level adventuring party and targeting one lady knight, the moment a subjugation force moved out they'd be smashed to pieces without a bone left behind.
Dozens of elite knights—a little less durable than me, but better with a sword—would be on the move. Adventurers traveled in groups of four or five for efficiency. Knights under a king's orders? Not a chance.
If the incident looked even slightly serious, something like fifty frothing 4★-level knights would pour in and raze the 20th floor, and the knight-commander leading them might even be a 5★. There was a reason people said quantity had a quality all its own.
"Ah… that does make sense. They're strong enough to kidnap a lady knight, but only about that strong."
"Exactly. Even if it isn't the kingdom's knight order—just gold-blind adventurers gathering—they'd be wiped out immediately. So before someone steals the good cuts, we need to make the first move."
Which meant Hanna needed to bare her teeth a little.
She's a mage and she still hasn't thought of using the Magic Tower… sad…
There have to be plenty of mages interested, just like Antenor
Her IQ only thinks about the Guild and the knight order expedition, which makes it even sadder…
Jjanhae-jwa had become a fixture of the community board. From minor things like rewards she'd been overlooking to major alternate approaches to quests, he kept putting ideas forward—and the viewers who visited the board had turned him into a kind of celebrity.
Naturally, since I was the one writing those posts through the board function, it looked as if Roland was moving exactly as Jjanhae-jwa said.
The post I'd written this time had racked up recommendations and word of mouth until it spilled into chat. There was always someone who wanted to look clever, and plenty of people happy to present someone else's idea as their own.
"What, another Jjanhae-jwa post? Round up a bunch of mages? I already gave Charlotte exclusive research rights. You want me to throw the byproducts out like a public auction? This isn't some fish-market free-for-all—hmm… but it might actually work?"
And Hanna herself was a bit of an attention-seeker. The fact that she streamed under the eyes of tens of thousands of people already said something about her temperament. Hadn't she done the same thing last time—taking Jjanhae-jwa's opinion and pitching it to me as if it were her own?
I wrote as Jjanhae-jwa, the viewers saw it and offered Hanna advice as if it were their own idea, and Hanna—having taken that advice-disguised-as-scolding from her viewers—then offered the opinion to me as if it were hers. The fruit of steadily posting on the board was finally ripening.
"Roland, I've been thinking…"
"If you've got an idea, say it. Anytime."
Even as she started talking, Hanna's pupils darted busily this way and that. She didn't stammer this time, but the eye-rolling hadn't changed. Those clean black eyes working hard as she cribbed from chat's coaching.
"The Adventurer's Guild hired mercenaries, right? So the Magic Tower hasn't stepped in yet—before more competitors show up, we should cut a deal with the Tower. Lord Antenor is a high-ranking mage, isn't he? In exchange for capturing a shaman alive, what if we get support for the search with Lord Antenor and Miss Charlotte at the head?"
She must have organized her words carefully while we walked the forest toward the 20th floor's safe zone, because she laid out the whole opinion without a single stumble. The party members listening beside her nodded, agreeing it made sense.
With the Full Moon Wolf there had been damage to the city, so the Magic Tower and the Guild had joined hands—but with the 20th-floor orcs, there was no reason for them to ally. The Guild, fretting about sparks flying their way, had hastily pulled mercenaries together; individual mages had taken an interest, but the Tower as an institution hadn't moved.
"True enough—Antenor the old man's name could gather mages from the Tower. But Hanna, there's one thing you've overlooked."
"Overlooked? What?"
"Then you're the one who has to persuade Antenor."
"…Oh. It is, isn't it…?"
Watching Hanna's face go pale blue at my words, I couldn't help the laugh that slipped out. Last time she'd taken viewer questions via donation and asked them by proxy—how thoroughly had the mages tormented her?
Wedged among elderly mages, she'd had to sit through two or three hours of barely comprehensible magic theory chatter and play along. Chat sentiment had plummeted, and viewers had drained out like the tide.
"Hey, aren't you guys being way too cold? Treating a lonely elderly man that ruthlessly is exactly why people complain our society has no interest in its neighbors. How many vulnerable-elder protection programs are there—you can't be like this!"
Hanna was foaming at the mouth with such fervor at her viewers that I had to swallow a laugh into a cough. She really, truly did not want to endure that rambling. Then again, Caden and I had both run from Antenor, so I understood.
"Ah, fine. But shouldn't Roland do that part? You two are already close…?"
"It's Magic Tower business, so a mage should handle it, Leader. If an outsider tells the Tower to move, the mages will refuse out of sheer pride. But if a promising rookie who hunted the Full Moon Wolf makes the proposal, the elder mages who already like you will get moving."
Taking viewer questions by donation in the carriage had been her biggest mistake, apparently. I drew that line, and Hanna's face crumpled. I could barely handle beautiful Charlotte's chatter—there was no reason for me to sit through some old mage's monologues.
Even if the stars had smoothed out the wrinkles and scrubbed away the old-man smell, leaving a stylish elderly mage with real presence—he was still an old man.
At my refusal without a shred of hesitation, the viewers cheerfully laughed and teased Hanna.
With that much ribbing, knowing her personality, she probably wouldn't turn the stream off.