[11th Playthrough] Don’t Cry♪
Having confirmed the loyalty of the natives, I moved on to the next question.
You need money to go on a business trip, and the hero who would save the world was no exception. Although I couldn’t actively support them, it had been a long time since I raised my hands for the characters of Fantasy, from where I received everything from lodging to food and traveling expenses.
But I wasn’t worried about this either.
“Hero! I wondered what happened for you to be asking for an audience. Was it to take my time with an outrageous request for subsidies? Get out of the city, hunt monsters, and sell their by-products to make your money. How good it is to raise your experience points?”
Dumpling King said, shaking his plump cheeks. He didn’t say it out loud, but it meant that he felt very uncomfortable about it. But that was only for a moment. It was because of the sweet voice that came from his side.
“Your Majesty. To say that to the hero, I’m so disappointed with Your Majesty that my heart is broken. He is a great man who must be served with all our heart, even if he wants more than a grant.”
“Queen! What…!”
“Is there anything wrong with what I said?”
The Queen stared at the Dumpling King with wet eyes as if she were about to burst into tears. Her slender hands were gently stroking the back of her chubby husband’s hand.
“…You weren’t wrong. I must have been a little carried away.”
The Dumpling King, whose calm expression now loosening, replied. Then he called the attendant and instructed him to hand me a large bag of money, as requested by the Queen. The Queen, an E-Class demon follower, felt my Dark Energy Z from our first encounter, and her body was heating up to the utmost.
She looked at me anxiously with deepening eyes.
“Hero. You have a lot to do, but can you spare some time for me later?”
It wasn’t the type of attitude she would show next to her husband. However, the King, swallowed up by her skill, quietly listened to our conversation.
“I’ll think about it.”
“It’s an infinite honor for me!”
Klang!
Having acquired the large money bag, I turned around without hesitation. It cost quite a lot of money to get to the Elf Kingdom at the western end of the Central Continent. And now that I had secured the travel funds, I had no further business in this kingdom.
The next task was the teleportation magic circle. It wasn’t difficult to use it as long as you had money, but there was no direct path to the closed Elf Kingdom. To break this firewall, I needed an official from the Elf Kingdom, a trusted executive in the kingdom.
I knew of as many as five such beings who were active outside the country. Sylvia was the closest, but she was out of the question since that wild elf wanted to receive a true education from the black market. Therefore…
“Hero! Are you going straight to the Holy Kingdom? Didn’t you say you’re going to the Elf Kingdom? That’s what Lanuvel remembers.”
Lanuvel interfered with me as I ordered teleportation magic from the tower operated by the Dumpling Kingdom to a city in the Holy Kingdom. What I was going to tell her was already decided.
“Shut up if you’re going to keep following me.”
“Boo….”
Lanuvel and I moved to the hidden temple of the Holy Kingdom. In the 9th playthrough, I once rescued the Water Knight, one of the five knights of the Elf Kingdom, from the Wandering Troupe. Then we uncovered this secret place by defeating the traitor, the Fire Knight, trying to silence her.
I found it again. The way to enter was the same as before, going down the chimney that could be mistaken for a well into the temple and entering the hideout through the passage in the blind spot of the pit trap. There I met an elf.
“W-who are you?”
“If you ask me who I am, it’s human nature to answer. I am a MAX-Class Hero who spreads the light for free for the sake of peace in the savage Fantasy World.”
“Is the hero going to take my virginity…?!”
Was she being vigilant about being alone here? This elf’s true identity was the Fire Knight. Mage E enjoyed her narcissism to its fullest by wiping her naked body with a towel soaked in water front of a full-length mirror.
“I’m asking you seriously. What were you doing? Perhaps…?”
“Don’t ask! Or I will commit suicide!”
“It’s a new concept of threat!”
The Fire Knight, who was thought to be bold enough to betray her colleagues and the Queen, was simply neutralized by being seen naked. How could she misunderstand the righteous hero as a sex offender?!
That was a great excuse. So, I decided to clear up the misunderstanding.
“I don’t have an ounce of mind to touch a shabby elf like you or to remember your naked body. Because I already own a fair-looking elf. Take a good look.”
I summoned Spirit C. The exorcist who could slay countless demons with just one breath, and the wife and companion of the elf hero, her appearance boasted excellence among elves. If I were to rate her, she would be legendary.
She was different from the petty, foolish wizard.
“I never thought there would be a more beautiful elf than the Queen…”
The Fire Knight looked at Spirit C with her mind wandering. She had a look like an aspiring celebrity from the countryside meeting a globally successful actress.
“You’re relieved now, aren’t you?”
“My master isn’t interested in a petty elf like you, so don’t expect anything.”
Spirit C leaned against my body. The Water Spirit, which was sticking to my armpit and sniffing like a pervert, protested, but the elf didn’t raise an eyebrow.
“I didn’t know such a hero existed in the world…”
The Fire Knight quickly cleared up her misunderstandings with the hero’s tearful efforts. I was ready for a quick conversation.
“Mage E. Move me to the Elf Kingdom.”
“If you intend to destroy the kingdom, I will not cooperate.”
“I am a hero.”
I don’t do such irrational things.
“I say this because I am anxious about you.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“…It’s my gut as a wizard. You’re a very dangerous person. You introduced yourself as a hero, but there’s no way to prove-“
Pop!
I summoned the Holy Sword Nucleon.
“… You’re indeed a hero. But I still can’t trust you enough to move you to the capital city tower in the heart of the Elf Kingdom. Instead, I’ll use my lab’s teleportation magic circle, but that doesn’t matter, right?”
“No problem.”
Unless it was too far from the capital, I moved on to the next step.
*
Teleportation magic ignored time and space to move you in a blink of an eye. It was very convenient to hear, but just as an airplane needed an airport to take off and land, this magic also needed a magic circle to designate the scope of its passengers.
I received the magic circle coordinates and code from the Fire Knight. It’s kind of like a house key. It meant that with access to a teleportation magic circle and enough catalysts, I could move directly to the Fire Knight’s lab anytime, anywhere. Just like right now.
Hssst!
Lanuvel, Mage E, and I moved to a dark place. The walls were packed with herbs, medicine bottles, and books.
“What a shabby place.”
“Excuse me. And the password will be changed soon, so don’t think about using it next time.”
“Really? That’s not good….”
“Whether you’re in trouble or not, this is my home–“
Clash.
I gently caressed between the 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae of Mage E, who showed her back unprotected. Her body was torn down beautifully.
“It’s great to have a high level.”
I didn’t know why I could see beyond Level 999, but many monsters and elves exceeded Level 1000, so it tasted like retrieving their experience point.
▶ Explanation: I can explain that part right away! I recently read it in the manual! It’s a special entrance exam. As Cadet Kang Han-soo said, many beings are over Level 1000, so there’s no point in checking their abilities. So, the limit to see the level has been extended to Level 9999 only for the entrance exam.
Thanks for the informative explanation, Miss Trainee Teacher!
The dead Mage E’s body was erased without a trace with the Blessing of Death, one of the Blessing Skill effects. Originally, it was something to be done by visiting the nearby temple. Still, no priest in the Fantasy Continent could be superior to a hero with Divinity Z and Blessing MAX.
“May you be born as a human being in the future, not an inferior elf…”
I’m a good hero who also prays for the best for others. My interference was really…
“Hero, hero! Can’t Lanuvel talk now? Lanuvel’s mouth that lost its freedom is as painful as a bluebird in the cage!”
“Do not. And do not blaspheme the bluebird.”
How could you compare it to Lanuvel?
“But what a surprise! Lanuvel was skeptical when you said that you were going to the Elf Kingdom. But then you went to the Holy Kingdom in the east, and then to the Elf Kingdom in the west once again! I can’t believe this happened in just one day!”
As explained by Lanuvel, who opened her snout and started chatting like a waterfall, not even one day had passed yet. This was the power of teleportation, magic circles, and money! If I had collected money directly from hunting as the Dumpling King suggested, I would have been hovering around the Dumpling Palace even now.
That was extremely inefficient.
“…Lanuvel.”
“Yes! Hero!”
“When you’re done talking, shut your mouth again.”
“I’m not done yet! Why did you kill the elf a while ago? She gave the impression of an evil witch hiding in a secret passage in that dungeon infested with monsters, but she was still an elf!”
“Put aside the prejudice that elves are unconditionally good.”
“But that’s the truth?”
“Don’t insist and look at the world a little wider. This is the real world. Many shameless elves define ugly humans who want to marry an elf slave as evil and think they are the most unlucky people in the world who have been sold into slavery. How many people die of starvation because they didn’t buy them as slaves?”
“Boo….”
Lanuvel pouted her lips with a disappointed expression but didn’t refute my words. I looked around the lab and found the exit. She lived in a house without a window like a grim wizard, but even when I opened the door and came out, the surrounding areas weren’t brighter.
“It’s already night.”
I hadn’t done much, but the day has passed. This was because it took a lot of time to go through things like identity checks and preparation whenever using the teleportation magic of the magic tower. Still, this was pretty fast. Because I was a sacred guest in any case with Divinity Z, I could use the teleportation magic circle as a top priority without waiting in the queues.
The location of Mage E’s lab was better than expected. It was outside the capital of Elf Kingdom, but so was the butcher I was about to visit. I planned to use the butcher’s secret passage to reach the sewer where the First Spirit was imprisoned.
“Hero, are you not sleeping?”
“Are you sleepy when the world is in crisis?”
“Uh…but Lanuvel still gets sleepy. After all, I firmly believe that you will save the world! It’s been like that in the past, and it’s going to be like that in the present and the future. Cause, that’s the truth!’
“Let’s not talk.”
It was my fault for trying to talk to Lanuvel. However…
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Whirling, whirling!
Was it because the Elf Kingdom couldn’t exist without the spirits? As it was a town with a high density of spirits, the number of spirits hovering around me had also increased sharply, waiting around because there was no room left to rub me. Far from decreasing in number, it became more crowded as the spirits spread the word.
This made it difficult to sneak in.
I turned to the spirits.
“If you keep following me, be careful not to get caught. If the wild elves discover you, you have nothing to gain. Okay?”
Pretending to be innocent, the spirits nodded as if they knew.
“Don’t cry ♪ Don’t cry ♬ They say that the human hero didn’t help the crying elf~♬ The human hero knows ♪ who is a good elf or a bad elf ♪ They said they went tonight~.♬”
The lyrics were strangely different, but it was a familiar melody of a children’s song. In the elf’s household, it seemed that the human hero was a pushover, and he had been systematically trained since childhood.
Thud-! Squeeze! Whing~
In the direction of the grotesque agitation, the fire soared, and the ground split, followed by a whirlwind to sweep away the wreckage.
“This, perhaps…?”
The spirits who removed the witnesses (?) were caught giving high-fives.
