Eat More
"A q-quest?"
"Yeah. What would be good…"
Growing stronger simply by hunting monsters or running errands. It was a method of hero growth that, until now, she had never once witnessed — the sort of thing you only ever saw in games.
There were cases of heroes growing gradually by slaying monsters or demonfolk, of course…
But that's just experience.
They grew stronger through life-or-death combat experience and through handling mana until it became second nature. She had never seen anyone get stronger from something as trivial as running errands.
"Helping people in trouble is a virtue of a hero, though."
"Th-that's true…?"
"I help a lot!"
"That's right!"
The heroes began to murmur among themselves. The moment she mentioned quests, they stirred as if genuinely startled.
If the new hero-growth project that old hag had rolled out — flooding the world with mass-produced heroes — was built around quests, then the heroes themselves would already know of their existence.
Which left one problem.
How do they actually work?
The quests she knew awarded rarer, more precious rewards the harder and more uncommon they were. Hunting ten goblins living at the foot of a mountain would never pay as well as wiping out a monster legion up north. So the obvious move was to hand out difficult quests. That way they'd grow fast enough to thrash monsters, demonfolk, legion commanders — the lot.
But that was only the common sense of her previous life.
The quests that old hag had cooked up might work differently.
"Let's run an experiment."
"Pardon?"
"You, you, and you. Step forward."
At her gesture, Haring, Yong-ba, and Hidene came forward. They tilted their heads but obeyed without complaint. Lea checked each of their conditions one by one, gave them a few pats on the head, and said:
"Each of you, go kill five goblins at the foot of the mountain. Ah — Haring, you do ten."
"What?"
"Just goblins, Master?"
"Why do I have to do ten?"
"Just because. Go."
She waved them off impatiently. The three heroes cast doubtful glances at the empty air, then headed down the mountain.
Once they were gone, she called for Nya-nya.
"Nya-nya."
"Yes, Master!"
"I'll tell you where the goblin nest is. Wipe the whole place out and come back."
"…Just me?"
"Yep."
"Understood."
Nya-nya bowed, glanced once at the empty air, and left as well.
That left only Yugi and Ka-zen. Both asked whether she had anything for them; she told them no and ordered them to keep practicing their mana cultivation. They looked dejected but resumed their training.
"Ah. Yugi, you do nothing."
"Why?"
"Just because."
"…Then just one photo together—"
"We've already taken plenty."
"I just want one a little closer…"
"You wanna die?"
"No, ma'am."
"Different."
Lea studied the users who had cleared their quests and returned in a mere ten minutes. The missions had been trivial, yet something had clearly changed.
Yong-ba and Hidene, who had each killed five goblins, showed a tiny increase in mana and physical ability — so slight she would have missed it if she hadn't been watching from the start. Haring, who had killed ten, had improved by roughly 1.1 times what the other two gained. Next came Nya-nya, who had swept the entire goblin nest and rose about threefold. Ka-zen, who had simply sat and practiced mana cultivation, had increased by about four times.
Judging by that alone, quests looked useless — but these were only goblin hunts. Now that she knew rewards scaled with difficulty, sending them after harder monsters would surely pay better.
Oh, and for the record: Yugi had done nothing, so he remained exactly as he was.
"Just one photo…"
"Sit still."
After that she ran a whole series of experiments. She had them hunt orcs instead of goblins, fetch medicinal herbs from somewhere on the mountain, clean the nest — quests of every shape and kind. The experiments ran for roughly a week.
At first the heroes had trembled, but once they realized the difficulty was lower than expected, smiles bloomed across every face.
Of course they did.
Who wouldn't be happy growing by leaps and bounds while barely doing anything? Sitting still and growing through mana cultivation might be easier, but it wasn't exactly fun training. Besides, mana practice and quest-based growth were separate domains to begin with.
By about day three, watching them orbit her begging for quests had become genuinely entertaining. And through it all, she managed to pin down a few important rules.
First:
Obviously, quest difficulty and reward scaled together. The harder a quest was — and the more special — the greater the reward. She suspected the reward itself was a strengthening of the hero's power granted by that old hag.
"The more you do it, the stranger it gets."
The more quests the heroes completed, the stronger they became, and past a certain threshold their growth rate spiked dramatically. She regarded it as a kind of rank-tier growth. In the language of her previous life, it felt a lot like a level-up.
Clearing a single small quest gave a modest boost, but hitting a level-up maximized the growth.
Second was the quest limit.
"There's too many…"
"Eat more."
"No, I'm full! I can't take any more!"
"Eat more."
Past a certain number, no more quests could be assigned. She couldn't pin down the exact figure, but the cap seemed to kick in around fifty. Anyone who wanted more would have to complete or abandon existing ones first.
One lingering question: why "Hunt thirty orcs" and "Find a lost cat" paid the same reward, she still didn't understand…
"Why is that?"
"We don't know either."
"Because it's cute?"
"Because cats are even cuter."
"Hmm."
Myaaaow~
Lea nodded, cradling a cheese-colored cat in her arms and stroking it. It was pretty cute.
Anyway, as the experiments neared their end, a third rule came into view.
"Hah… hah… I got it! Hongryeon grass that only grows in the Crimson Gorge!"
"No change."
"Huh?"
"Go get five more."
"Uh, that's a bit…"
Once they reached a certain level, petty quests no longer produced meaningful growth. More precisely, growth still happened — it just wasn't worth anything. A drop of water in the ocean. At that point, focusing on mana cultivation was simply more efficient.
"Hwah! Finally, fifty-five!"
"Rank three!"
"Woooooo!!!"
In any case, the experiments and the growth had been more than enough…
"Shall I start handing out real quests?"
For nearly a week, the users who had become Lea's official disciples received strange quests. Hunting low-level monsters, cleaning the nest, fetching herbs — fairly ordinary fare. If an ordinary Village Resident A had handed them out, no one would have thought twice. But the one giving them was a dragon.
A supreme race, and the master who had trained them for months. When that master suddenly started spamming quests she had never once assigned before, the users couldn't help but tremble.
"What on earth is Lea-nim doing?"
"Dunno."
"The way she said 'quest,' too… maybe she figured something out?"
"She's not hostile toward us, at least…"
"Hmm…"
"Just do them for now? It's not like anything's wrong with it."
They quietly posted about it on the gallery and asked other users for advice, but most either knew nothing or spouted nonsense. In the end, all they could do was diligently clear quests — and by around day three, the results were impossible to miss.
"At this rate…"
"I'm rank eight right now…?"
"F-first place arc?"
Their levels were climbing like mad.
An ordinary user typically cleared one quest a day, two or three at most. Lea's disciples were clearing close to twenty a day — most of them low-level monster hunts and busywork. Even if each easy quest gave little experience, sheer volume made the acceleration absurd.
On top of that, becoming official disciples had meant clearing Fire Dragon's Training (2) for 55,000 experience, so their levels had been high from the start…
"What level are you?"
"Fifty-eight."
"I'm fifty-seven, so you're first."
"Fifty-six. Rank five."
"…This isn't a bug, right?"
"Feels like we're using hacks…"
The users in the nest swept ranks one through six of the level rankings in a single stroke. It was the kind of disaster that would make the leading rankers weep blood.
Haring, who had claimed first place in all of Frolazia among countless users, had a smile so wide it threatened to split her face.
I want to announce it!
She wanted nothing more than to march into the Prol Gallery, drop a triumphant "Kneel, you lowly commoners," and post a first-place ranking screenshot for the world to see.
But she couldn't.
"If we let this out, won't it cause chaos?"
"Feels like it's already halfway chaos."
"Ahem…"
If word got out that there was a deranged NPC handing out twenty quests a day, the fallout would be nothing like before. Ordinary users, top rankers, and major guilds would come pouring in like a flood. Of course, even a thousand rankers couldn't lay a finger on Lea — that much was already public knowledge — but still…
"Revealing this feels wrong."
"Agreed. Just us."
It wasn't something they could casually tell anyone. Especially not when it felt this much like bug-abusing.
And so, as they huddled whispering among themselves, waiting for yet another honey-sweet quest, Lea sidled up with a sly grin.
"Master! About today's quests—"
"You've got to earn your keep, right?"
"Huh?"
"Go kill the ogre chieftain and bring it back."