I Didn't Do Anything
The Legion Royal Capital.
It was the city at the heart of the continent commonly known as the Central Continent, home to the greatest human kingdom in existence. A golden city through which goods, people, and everything else under the sun flowed freely. The quaint medieval starter village that had seemed impressive enough at the beginning couldn't hold a candle to this sprawling metropolis.
"Whoa…"
After a full two weeks of grueling travel, Haring finally arrived at the capital's outskirts. She let out a breath of pure awe, then a long, weary sigh.
"That was long… so long."
She'd steeled herself knowing the quest wouldn't be easy. But she never imagined just reaching the entrance would take this long.
Haring's stats were high enough to steamroll most monsters without breaking a sweat. The real problem was the distance. Having skipped the basic quests, she had no connections and no legitimate routes available to her. Sure, she could have paid a fortune for passage — but she was in the middle of a critical quest right now.
"Not happening."
Unless she hit a wall she absolutely couldn't climb alone, she intended to do this on her own power. All so word of how broken the dragon quests were wouldn't spread any further.
Though the rumors already seem pretty widespread…
As always, Haring opened the gallery. The posts there had been the one thing keeping her two-week journey from being pure misery.
After two weeks of diligent gallery-lurking, Haring had the breakdown down cold: Fire Dragon content made up seventy percent of the board, the advance party twenty-five, and everything else a measly five. Just a few months ago, these people hadn't even been talking about dragons — they'd been spamming whatever random nonsense came to mind. Now they were desperate for any scrap of contact with one.
Haring closed the gallery with a swell of pride at how thoroughly the board she'd founded had transformed.
"Alright, time to move."
Aside from Haring and Yong-ba, no one else had cleared the quest yet. Most people couldn't even get close — they just circled the nest endlessly. And even those who somehow managed to approach and receive a quest had their own problems.
Three thousand laps, was it?
Compared to Haring's mere three hundred, the difficulty had skyrocketed to absurd levels. Part of it was the Fire Dragon's foul mood from the flood of visitors; part of it was that Haring's original quest had been treated as a first-clear bonus, and the difficulty had adjusted accordingly.
"I love it."
As far as the dragon was concerned, that was excellent news for advance-party Haring.
She trotted over and joined the long line snaking out from the capital's main gate. Until now she'd cut across forests and fields, taking whatever path she pleased — but entering the capital meant going through the front gate, no exceptions. Try any other route and the guards would come after you. In the worst case, a knight.
Yeah, no thanks.
Like every other player, Haring still couldn't beat a knight.
"Alright, form a line!"
"Present your identification clearly! Try to sneak through and you'll be looking at a prison cell!"
"You there! No cutting!"
A dozen or so guards manning the capital entrance glared at the crowd with hawk-like intensity. Haring watched the inspection line slowly shrink and thought it over.
I should be able to get in, at least…
Aside from the tutorial, Haring hadn't finished a single basic quest. But she had one very important thing going for her.
"Next… Oh? A Hero, are you?"
"That's right."
"Rank 4 Hero Badge… confirmed. You may enter."
That was it — her status as a Hero. By the world's lore, every player was an outsider from another continent, a Hero chosen by the Goddess, and they received somewhat better treatment than ordinary mercenaries.
Only a little better than mercenaries, though.
There were just so many players.
Anyway, the man who'd just cleared the checkpoint was Rank 4. Rank 4 earned you decent respect, and the higher your rank, the more privileges and better-quality commissions you could access. Haring, on the other hand, was Rank 7 out of eight tiers — just barely past the beginner stage. Fine for some backwater village, maybe, but nothing special in the Legion Royal Capital, where mercenaries and knights who could wipe the floor with her were a dime a dozen.
"Next!"
"Hai!"
"?"
"Ah — nothing. Here's my Hero Badge…"
Haring sheepishly fished the badge from her pocket and handed it over. This was why you shouldn't spend too much time on the gallery.
The guard gave her a strange look, then checked the badge and frowned.
"Rank 7 Hero?"
"Yep…"
"What's a Rank 7 Hero doing here? This isn't the kind of place for your rank."
"Uh, I've got an errand to run."
"An errand?"
"Letter delivery. I know someone in the city. Is there any way I could…?"
The guard looked her up and down. Rank 7 Hero or not, her gear was solid and she carried herself with real combat readiness. The fact that someone of her rank had made it all the way to the capital unscathed was proof enough that she was stronger than her badge suggested.
The guard handed the Rank 7 Hero Badge back.
"Don't cause any trouble."
"Of course not!"
"A Hero Badge?"
"Yes. There are so many Heroes that they started handing out something like identification papers. It's only been around a few months, but it's proven pretty useful."
"I seee."
Two weeks had already passed since Haring left on her letter-delivery errand. I sat on a rock in the nest clearing, watching the apprentice Heroes who'd come to train.
Fwoosh!
Not far off, Yong-ba was diligently loosing arrows at a tree. Unlike Haring, who wielded a sword, Yong-ba was an archer. He was in the middle of a ten-thousand-shot training regimen similar to Haring's, but his form was so bad I kept making him start over.
Fwoosh!
Arm's up again.
"Hah… hah…"
"Your arm's raised."
"Yes, ma'am! Understood!"
I genuinely couldn't understand how his form fell apart every single time no matter how often I corrected him. Was it really that hard?
"Just go like this, like this — pew! And shoot."
"Even Heroes are still greenhorns at this stage. They're a long way from matching you, Lady Lea."
"Hmm."
Fair enough. I nodded at the words of the figure wrapped in a deep blue robe.
Anyway, Yong-ba was off training, and about ten people were running laps around the nest clearing. Fearless little pests who'd forced their way into the nest no matter how many times I told them to stay out. I'd once beaten them within an inch of their lives and they still wouldn't quit, so in a fit of pique I'd jacked up the required number of laps. Two weeks later and still no one had succeeded — but the ones who were going to make it would make it eventually. The quitters stalled out. The ones who kept at it grew stronger for it.
Crunch, crunch.
"Is that really that good?"
"Yep."
"Could I have just one?"
"You're loaded."
"I fixed your golem for you. At least consider the effort it took to cross the entire continent for that broken old messenger golem."
"That was then. Buy your own."
"So cold."
Crunch, crunch.
I stuffed my face with cream puff cookies the other Heroes had brought and shot a sideways glance at the figure whose lips seemed to be sticking out in a pout. Name: Seri. Problem-child mage. A mage who mostly operated on the Eastern Continent, always draped in a long deep-blue robe that hid her face completely. I'd seen that face myself a long time ago, but all I really remembered was red hair and burn scars. That had been when she was very young, so I had no idea what she looked like now. Of course, she'd offered to show me anytime…
Nah, I'm good.
I'd be happy to show you whenever—
If you don't want to, then don't.
She walked around every day with her face magically concealed because she didn't want anyone seeing it. I wasn't about to force a look just because I'd saved her once. It wasn't like I was dying of curiosity.
After sending Haring off, the messenger golem had outlived its usefulness, so I'd shipped it to Seri. I'd contacted her on the off chance she could repair the golem I'd received from the former Magic Tower Master, and luckily she'd come running. About three hours of her hands flying over the thing later—
Woooom!
The golem's single eye flickered back to life with a blue glow.
"Oh."
"All fixed. The former Magic Tower Master's magical tools never cease to amaze me."
"So it's fine?"
"More or less. I only got it functional, so you're looking at maybe ten percent efficiency. For proper use, you'd need to visit the Magic Kingdom."
"What a painnn."
"Shall I go for you? In exchange, I have one small favor—"
"Nope."
I had no desire to be reminded why she was called the problem-child mage. Loud, messy business was the absolute last thing I wanted.
I lifted and dropped the golem's whirring arm. Moving just fine. Most of its functions were locked, but it should be good enough for training apprentice Heroes.
I was bouncing the golem up and down when Seri, packing up to leave, added one more thing.
"Ah, and the parts are older than I expected, so handle it carefully. It'll be fine against apprentice Heroes, but against you, Lady Lea, it's fragile—"
Crack.
The golem's left arm snapped clean off.
Seventy years after first opening its eye, the golem had lost its left arm in the most anticlimactic way imaginable. I turned carefully toward Seri, still holding the severed arm.
"……"
"I didn't do anything."
"Lady Lea."
"No, seriously. For real."
It broke all by itself, okay?!