Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Labyrinth Pioneering (3)
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To be honest, before Elena massacred every last goblin in the goblin village, she had seriously wondered if the lord had some ulterior motive.
That made sense, because the moment Kim Hyunwoo first hired her, he handed her two hand axes she'd never even used before and ordered her to take down the entire goblin village single-handedly with nothing but those axes.
Naturally, Elena refused the lord's mission.
She knew her own abilities all too well, and even setting that aside, it was only natural that a nameless hero like her lacked the power to clear a goblin village alone.
But the lord called it a "chance to coldly evaluate your own abilities" and sent her off to the village with the mercenaries anyway.
She arrived at the village with a heavy heart after hearing him say she could flee without hesitation if things looked dangerous once the fight started.
The moment a goblin lunged at her, Elena prepared to bolt.
Even with her infamous "failure hero" title, she was still a hero chosen by the world—she was at least at a level where dodging and running from goblins was feasible.
Despite those thoughts, she didn't run because her hands rose toward the charging goblin as if guided by some holy force.
"...Huh?"
The hand axe in her grip shattered the goblin's skull with blinding speed.
After a brief moment of failing to process the split-second event, she instinctively swung the axe at the swarm of incoming goblins.
The small hand axes danced in her hands, slicing through goblin flesh.
Her godlike hands felled one goblin per strike without fail.
The sensation of becoming someone else only stopped after she'd cleaved every charging goblin's head in two.
"Hah, hah—!"
Elena collapsed in place, gasping for breath.
Her heart pounded like mad.
Her muscles ached as if she'd been through a full-body workout, and her arms and legs trembled uncontrollably.
Yet despite her clearly poor condition, her mind fixated solely on what had just happened.
'Did... I fight that well?'
Elena reflected on herself but shook her head firmly.
Having gradually compromised with reality after abandoning her dreams, she had thoroughly objectified her own abilities.
She knew she was weak.
Just as the "failure hero" moniker suggested, she was very weak.
So she couldn't make sense of this situation.
'Is it... because of these?'
Elena looked down at the hand axes in her hands.
They were too small to be proper axes—more like tools for splitting kindling one more time or for throwing.
She twirled them around, but felt nothing special about the hand axes.
If anything, they were excessively ordinary.
'Did I... have talent?'
Talent so great that just holding a hand axe made her this strong?
The thought flashed through her mind.
But Elena shook her head firmly again.
Whether before or after earning the "failure hero" title, she'd put in tremendous effort to grow stronger and learned countless weapon techniques.
Axes had naturally been included, and she'd even swung hand axes a time or two before, but nothing like this had ever happened.
As she thought it over, she suddenly recalled the lord's words.
He'd called it a chance to coldly evaluate her own abilities.
"Just give it a try..."
Remembering the lord who'd said that to her, Elena decided to go meet him.
That afternoon.
As the sunset slowly faded and night approached, Elena arrived at the lord's castle and headed straight for him.
"What... what happened to me?"
She asked Kim Hyunwoo.
It was a question loaded with layers of meaning.
Even Elena wasn't sure what to ask first—it had spilled out instinctively—but the lord smiled as if he'd anticipated everything.
"Looks like you cleared the goblin village all by yourself."
"Yeah, but..."
Seeing her slightly confused expression, Kim Hyunwoo pulled a box from his pocket without hesitation and handed it to her.
"What's... this?"
"A gift."
"Huh? All of a sudden—"
"Open it first. If it feels like too much, just think of it as compensation for trusting me."
"..."
A bit flustered by his words, Elena opened the box he'd given her.
"This is...?"
"Your new weapon from now on."
Inside lay a pair of hand axes.
Unlike the ones he'd given her that afternoon, these exuded a more refined aura.
"Of course, once we start making steady money, I'll get you something better step by step. Make do with these for now."
Raising her gaze at his words, Elena replied.
"...How did you do it?"
"Do what?"
Kim Hyunwoo tilted his head innocently, so she fidgeted with her lips before shrinking back a little and speaking.
"I know it's not my place as someone already hired, but I'm weak. Weak enough to earn the 'failure hero' title."
"And?"
"Yet I cleared that goblin village alone—over 200 of them, in that massive place where even nameless heroes like me struggle to fight properly. This—"
"Doesn't make sense, so you're asking if I did something, right?"
As Kim Hyunwoo put it into words, Elena nodded hesitantly, and he stroked his chin a few times as if choosing his words before speaking.
"Well, you're half right."
"Half... right?"
"Yeah, I did do something."
"Ah..."
Elena let out a soft exclamation at his words.
Of course, she'd already suspected as much.
But even knowing that, a pang of regret lingered somewhere in her heart, and she nearly wore a self-deprecating smile without realizing it.
"But what I did was only half. The fact that you have talent is real."
His follow-up made her blurt out a reflexive question.
"...Me?"
"Yes. Seems like you're misunderstanding something. I can't create power that others don't have from scratch."
I'm not a god, after all, he added before continuing.
"If I could, I wouldn't have needed to pick you in the first place."
His straightforward tone made Elena unconsciously recall what had happened earlier.
The lord grabbing her hand with surprising force and shouting.
"Ahem, ahem—"
Her face heated up at the memory, and she cleared her throat awkwardly, but Kim Hyunwoo pressed on undeterred.
"In conclusion, I can draw out your talent."
"My... talent?"
"Yes. Because what you showed isn't the extent of your potential."
Elena's body shrank back instinctively at his words.
Of course, unlike the gesture, she was thrilled inside.
For the past ten years, bearing the "failure hero" title, she'd lived more ignored than acknowledged.
So this recognition from the lord right now was sweeter than honey, igniting her body without her realizing.
Yet even amid those thoughts, her body recoiled out of habit ingrained over a decade.
The frustration of never being acknowledged crushed her instinctively.
She knew it all too well.
As always, seeing disappointment was less painful than receiving hopeful gazes only to see them turn to letdowns.
"If you can't believe in yourself, just believe in me."
But.
"I'm going to turn you into an undeniable 5-star—no, a legendary hero."
His voice brimmed with such conviction that Elena found herself nodding without thinking.
※ Proficiency Potion is currently applied to the hero.
Hero
Name: Elena
Title: None
Stars: 1★
Affection: (Measuring)
Traits
Talent
Skills
[View]
After she left, Kim Hyunwoo gazed at Elena's status window with a satisfied expression.
"Looks like it worked well."
Objectively speaking, Elena's status window hadn't changed much.
Strength and Agility each up by one, affection shifting from 0 to "measuring," and a new trust notification at the bottom—that was it.
But those three changes meant he'd achieved all his initial goals.
'First impressions are key with heroes.'
Unlike other games where you could blindly grind affection up and down, Arteil's heroes had their future affection-building difficulty drastically altered by that first encounter.
Kim Hyunwoo, who had maxed multiple characters to 5-stars before, knew this importance intimately.
And that was just the start. Arteil had tons of factors to micromanage when raising heroes.
The hero AIs, advanced enough to win awards even amid controversy over novel internet AI tech, reacted heavily to every little detail.
That's why he'd bought the temporary talent proficiency potion with his dwindling cash currency and sent her to the goblin village.
'Elena lacked confidence.'
After gauging reactions from the mercenaries and gathering basic info via Loria, he'd made that call.
A hero low on confidence fell into various debuffs.
The tavern wasn't leveled up enough to view detailed traits yet, but Elena surely had the "Slump" debuff.
A nasty one that slashed proficiency gains to one-third from the moment it triggered.
So he'd deliberately burned precious cash to boost her self-esteem and shove some confidence into her.
To wipe out the Slump debuff.
Of course, he had no plans to keep coddling her ego forever.
Constant pampering wasn't ideal either.
It depended heavily on personality, but heroes with inflated egos became hard to control.
The key was balancing carrot and stick until you'd maxed bonds and affection.
'Plus, make sure a grown hero realizes they absolutely need me to stick around.'
As those thoughts crossed his mind, he recalled one hero he'd raised.
A super-rare half-dragon whose rock-bottom confidence required chat therapy—he'd even bumped his typing speed from 300 to 500 wpm for that one.
And while Kim Hyunwoo indulged in old memories...
On a distant hill in the territory.
A place where animals and monsters had long since vanished.
"..."
Red Eyes stared intently at Elena, her steps a little lighter as she walked away.