The Super-Nognong Hero Clocks In
"Ugh..."
I had to admit it. I was a loser.
"A pathetic loser who failed to protect the worth of Nognong from the Bbangbbang faction's smear campaign...!"
Hunter Gallery had already crowned Nya = TS busty girl Seol as settled canon, and I hated myself for being unable to do a single thing in the middle of that humiliation.
"At this rate, I have no face left to show the mother of the Nognong faction...!"
Sunk in despair, I arranged my features once more into the expression of a tragic nognong pretty girl. That did nothing, of course, to restore Hunter Gallery to sanity, so I quietly closed it.
Right. Now it truly was time to work.
"I-I am absolutely not running away from those wicked Bbangbbang people."
Just you wait, world. For the future and the prosperity of the world, the Super-Nognong Hero was on her way...!
And so, for the first time in a hundred years, I got back to work. The first place I went looking was the top floor of the Tower.
Why the top floor? Because of that thing up there. Obviously.
"...Ugh."
The instant I arrived, a foul presence hit me first—a sensation like needles driving into every cell of my body, the kind any living thing would reject on instinct.
Yes. What Lady Historia had left on the Tower's top floor was none other than the corpse of the Evil God.
The Evil God's corpse. The abomination that had driven this world to the brink of ruin, and a foe that absolutely had to be put down. My reason for coming was simple. If erasing it lay within my power, then I would erase the Evil God's corpse.
"...Hard to say. I don't think you can."
Master Sophie had said it would probably be difficult. Even so, it was worth a try—and so I stood before the corpse of the Evil God I myself had once cut down.
"Been a while, you *pretty-girl cuss*."
—!!!
Had it noticed that I had come, or had it merely sensed that something living had arrived? The Evil God's corpse began to writhe, then heaved up a flood of black sludge—
—!!!
—and spat dozens of tentacles straight at me. From the ground, from the sky, from everywhere at once, they lunged.
Watching them, I—
...It got weaker?
I knew it at once. The Evil God as it was now had weakened past any comparison with its living days. Back then, the mere reach of a hand had sent thousands of tentacles surging forth. Now its final struggle amounted to a few dozen. For an Evil God, the loss of face was beyond saving.
"Well. All the better for me."
Assessment finished, I clenched my fist. At this level, there wasn't even a need to draw the holy sword. I hauled mana up out of my heart and pictured the strongest version of myself, and in answer, dozens of spells began to cast all at once.
Cognitive Acceleration
Synchronization
Mana Amplification
Pressure Control
Release — Standby
"Pretty Girl Punch——!!!"
The moment my fist flew, a tremendous blaze of light swallowed every evil closing in on me, and they vanished without a trace. Put simply, I had annihilated everything in front of me—perfectly, so completely that regeneration was left without a foothold.
"......"
Seeing that, I wanted with all my heart to shout some cool line. Unfortunately, the only lines that came to mind were things like "Did I get it?" and "Too easy"—notorious resurrection flags, every last one of them—so I made a point of staying quiet. For all that effort, the result was less than wonderful. I had most certainly annihilated the Evil God's corpse right in front of me, and yet demonic energy began to gather out of empty air, knitting itself into a lump of flesh. It didn't take long. The corpse was back, restored to its original shape.
Watching it, I left a short review.
"...*pretty-girl cuss*, this is seriously too much."
This was an ability a full step above anything the word super-regeneration could explain. Dead, and yet not fully dead—lingering on, endlessly pouring out demonic energy and monsters. That was the Evil God now. At that point, its own combat power wasn't the problem. This was the worst kind of enemy: one I wanted to give not even half a star, but zero.
"So that's why it couldn't be destroyed..."
The moment regeneration finished, the corpse spat tentacles again.
"Not a chance."
I casually annihilated the tentacles reaching for me once more, then left the top floor—along with the impression that completely erasing the Evil God was going to be harder than I had thought.
And so I returned to where I had been.
"Haa......"
I was sighing over a hopeless reality, in a manner most unbecoming of a nognong pretty girl, when Master Sophie appeared at my side.
"Why do you look half dead?"
"What else would it be. Smashing the Evil God looks harder than I thought, that's why."
"...You went and picked a fight with that thing?"
"Yup. It's gotten totally lame, y'know?"
"......"
When I gave her the rough version—that I'd ground the Evil God's corpse into nothing and it had regenerated anyway—an odd look crossed Master's face.
"Whyyy the face?"
"...Honestly. You go and pull off something that shouldn't even be possible."
"Whaaat?"
"I'm saying it because nobody has ever wrecked that bastard's corpse to that degree before, you brat."
And so I learned that, until now, no one but me had ever completely shredded the Evil God's corpse. The moment that sank in, confidence rose all on its own.
"So that means I'm super-duper amazing, right?"
"...And what pose is that supposed to be?"
I planted both hands on my hips with perfect naturalness and put on a look of supreme confidence. The legendary Proud Nognong Pose.
"Ahem! Headpats, right now, if you please!"
"......Yeah. You did well."
Any other time, Master would have looked at me with open contempt. This time, even she could not refuse the cuteness.
Cuteness: confirmed...!
Basking in Master Sophie's headpats, I kept the conversation going.
"Maaaster, listen, though."
"What is it?"
"If I'd known it would turn out like this, wouldn't it have been better if I never killed the Evil God?"
It was, for once, a serious question.
"......"
"I'm right, though. If I'd just not killed the Evil God, the world wouldn't have gotten this bad, and—"
"......You."
"Demon Kings would've kept showing up, sure, but you just send a hero to take those down. No matter how I think about it, not catching the Evil God would've been—"
BONK—!
"KYAANG!!"
What came back in answer to my serious point was unreasonable violence.
"Why'd you hit meee! Violence is bad, y'know!!"
"Because you're saying something stupid."
"What's stupid about it, I'm ri—"
BONK—!
"KYAAAANG!!!"
Merciless violence, aimed at me without even a gap in which to speak.
"So what—you're saying you should have died during the subjugation?"
"......That's not what I meant."
"The decision to subjugate the Evil God was Historia's. It isn't your fault."
"......Uuu."
"If a mistake was made, Historia made it, and even now she's doing everything she can to take responsibility for her own mistake. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"......I'm sorry."
And I realized that the mistake had been mine. Subjugating the Evil God had been the dearest wish of every one of us. If I denied that, it would be no different from turning everything we had done until now into wasted effort.
"If you're sorry, then get to work. Eight days left until the Tower opens."
"Okaaay......"
Once I understood that, I couldn't refuse the order Master was giving me. As a former hero, I wanted to bear my own share of responsibility for this world.
"Unghihi, let's get to work~"
And with that, my duties as Tower Administrator—I, Iserin, officially on the clock—began.
I opened a system window at once, logged in with my administrator authority, and pulled up the information on the first floor, humming all the while in a soft, squishy little voice.
"Nong nong nong~ nong-norong, nong nong nong~"
And the moment I actually checked what the first floor contained—
"...Nong?"
I froze solid.
"Nong nong? Nong nong nong?"
The shock was so great that, for an instant, I lost the power of human speech entirely.
"...What's wrong? Is there a problem?"
Master Sophie clearly had no idea why. In answer, I immediately began to have a fit.
"...Who designed this?"
"Designed? Designed what?"
"I'm asking who designed the first floor."
"Huh? I did, obviously."
Culprit: apprehended on the spot.
"Maaaster, do you seriously not know what the problem is?"
"...This seems plenty reasonable to me."
But at the look on Master Sophie's face—pure, genuine incomprehension—one fact crashed over me all at once.
These people are absurdly strong by the standards of outside the Tower!!!
There was a staggering gap between common sense inside the Tower and common sense beyond it. Even the weakest of my acquaintances would count as an overwhelming powerhouse the moment they stepped outside—enough to swat an ordinary S-rank Hunter without a second thought. The Tower had been made by people like that, gathered together. Of course its difficulty had no conscience.
And I had every reason to be convulsing this hard.
What was the first floor of the Tower? A place every Awakened could enter. C-rank and D-rank Awakened walked in there, people who had shown up thinking they would only have to deal with a few goblins. And what Master had prepared for them was—
Skeleton Warrior × 2
Skeleton Archer × 1
Skeletons, famous for being nearly impossible to deal with without holy power. Monsters that required at least a B-rank Hunter to handle alone had been placed on the first floor of the Tower—and in a vicious pairing of melee and ranged, no less.
"What? Too easy? Want me to switch it back to the original plan?"
"...What was the original plan?"
"I was just gonna let one orc loose."
"......?"
"Oh. That too easy as well? Should I tack on a few goblin shamans?"
And then came the additional explanation that this was already the nerfed version. I genuinely felt as if my mind were about to leave me.
"...Um, Master?"
"What? What's the problem?"
In the end, I had to teach her the fundamentals of stage design from the ground up.
"First, let's split the difficulty, okay?"
"...Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Verily!!! A tower must have three difficulties—no, four at the very least...!"
For the record, after hearing the explanation into which I had poured my entire soul, Master said:
"...Hmm. Is that so?"
"Of carrot course! What do you even know?!"
"No idea. Do whatever you want. You'll know that better than I do."
And with that declaration of total dereliction of duty, she fled to another floor of the Tower.
Left all alone on the first floor, I—
"*pretty-girl cuss*, is this even riiiight?!?!"
—had realized I'd been scammed into the job, and there was nothing left to do but scream.