[13th Round] The Hero’s Fabrication Plan
“Young adventurer, have you come to your senses? You were lying on the side of the road, so I brought you here. I am a travel guide that helps lost travelers!”
Instead of Lanuvel, an old man greeted me.
He lied to me with such a shameless expression on his face that I wanted to double-check if I was really lying on the side of the road.
I looked around.
I was in a wooden house. There was almost no furniture inside, and the bed I was lying on was cold and hard.
Ssosia’s time machine definitely worked.
Though it was strangely similar to the ‘Hero’ start.
“Adventurer, you say…”
I immediately checked my stats.
▶ Race: □□□□ □□□□ Human
▷ Level: 999+
▶ Job: □□ (All around = Level ?)
▶ Skills: Gifted ZZZ, □□ Z, Fabrication Z, Destruction MAX, Annihilation MAX…
▶ Status: □□, □□, Dragon Scale
It almost looked like a mosaic.
My race name, ‘Dual-Core Cosmic Human’, had been truncated. It seemed that its characteristics had been preserved, but the description had been distorted so much that it became hard to look at.
The Brave job also wasn’t recognized. It didn’t even activate at all.
Among the skills, ‘Divinity’ turned into boxes, and in the Status section, Holy Sword and Divine were also that way.
How did this happen?
As the MAX-Class Hero, I went through many difficulties; since I returned to the past, skills that weren’t yet available in this era couldn’t be identified and were seen as errors.
▷ An error has been detected.
▷ A bug has been found.
▷ Initiating defragmentation process.
System messages appeared. What followed was…
▷ Race: Legendary Angel
▷ Level: 999+
▷ Job: Adventurer (Adventure → Survival ↑)
▶ Skills: Gifted ZZZ, Faith Z, Fabrication Z, Destruction MAX, Annihilation MAX…
▷ Status: Magic Sword, Shaman, Dragon Scale
Because of my high Divinity rank, the system mistook me for an angel.
My job changed to ‘Adventurer’, as the old man called me, as well, Holy Sword and Divinity completely disappeared from my Status.
Gifted ZZZ’s effect immediately applied as well.
▷ Race: Angel
▷ Level: 999+
▷ Specialization: Adventurer (Adventure → Survival ↑)
▷ Skills: Faith S, Intelligence S, Fortitude A, Endurance A, Flight A…
▷ Status: Good
I pretended to be the most ordinary angel.
It was just an illusion, but I was glad to be able to fool heroes that could view my stats.
“Are you not interested in where you are?”
“Not really.”
“Hmm, I see. How strange. All the adventurers whom I had saved before were interested in knowing that…” The old man glanced at the empty bed beside him.
Seemingly adding to the evidence that this old man was involved in professionally abducting adventurers, there were many identical beds here.
Getting up, I got out of bed and went outside. Noisy like Lanuvel, the old man tried to dissuade me, but I was determined, so he quickly gave up.
It was easy to understand where I was.
To my south, there was a snowy mountain in the shape of the letter M.
I was near the Snow Mountain M, which could be seen from anywhere on the Northern Continent. Considering it was to my south, I concluded that I was in the northern part of the Northern Continent.
Not far from here was Ssosia’s house, where the time machine was located.
“It seems that everything turned out well.”
I hadn’t forgotten my goal.
If I returned to the correct time, then the dragon hadn’t eaten the Snow Woman yet.
I was convinced of this when I heard the name ‘Snow King Eshinoff’ slip through the conversation between Mercenary A and Mercenary B.
That was part of the history recorded in the system.
My goal was to trick the system, making small changes to free the Snow Woman from the closed-loop of the educational program.
I only had one chance.
Therefore, I had to make the best out of it.
I walked around the village, collecting information, and saw a scene unfamiliar to me on the local square.
“We are looking for a healer who is ready to raid the harpy’s lair!”
“We are looking for a wizard and an archer with high accuracy! We’re going harpy hunting!”
“Anyone with over a year of harpy hunting experience will do! As soon as you join, we’ll leave right away!”
“We welcome newcomers! We’ll teach you how to hunt harpies for a low price!”
“The Mobius mercenaries are recruiting. Come and let us discuss the conditions!”
I heard people shouting from different directions. They stood either on the fountain or a wooden box and zealously beckoned people.
Recruitment for a squad, recruitment for a guild, recruitment for lovers… Huh?
The ‘Mercenary Union’ carried out this hard work.
If one paid them a commission, they would find the right people for you.
“This sight makes the difference in times obvious.”
The world of Fantasy gradually developed, creating the Mercenary Guild of the present along the way.
I had reviewed the stats of these mercenaries.
▷ Race: Arch-Human
▷ Level: 95
▷ Job: Warrior (Fighting Spirit → Physical Strength ↑)
▷ Skills: Fighting Spirit D, Physical Strength E, Endurance E, Pursuit F, Dark Energy Resistance F…
▷ Status: Good
They were all like newborn chickens.
But I didn’t care about their levels and skills.
Their race caught my eyes the most.
Most of those who gathered in the square to find companions and go hunting together were of the Arch-Human race.
The ‘Arch’ title was special.
Because it meant that they weren’t natives but rather came here from another world.
If other races besides humans had the prefix ‘Arch’, they were treated as members of royal blood. The most common example of that was ‘Arch-Elf’.
That aside…
‘It looks like the beginning of a hero’s journey.’
Other than the changing of ‘Adventurer’ and ‘Hero’, everything aligned and converged perfectly.
To find out more, I decided to call my secret friend.
‘Trainee Teacher?’
▶ Blank: There is no Trainee Teacher.
To make sure she would become a teacher without any problems, I decided not to insist on it.
She probably wouldn’t be all that excited about my journey between dimensions anyway.
“You’re making me feel sad, Drug Hero! How could you forget about me!”
Sitting on my head, the First Spirit hit my forehead with her heel.
“Addicted Spirit, when did you get here?”
When I woke up on the bed, she definitely wasn’t there. However, at some point, she appeared, as if out of thin air, on my head.
I was already so used to her presence that I didn’t notice when she popped back into existence.
The First Spirit, swinging her legs, replied. “My wings can take me wherever my children are. As soon as my memories merged, I left Elfheim, who was busy with the affairs of his race, and immediately flew here.”
“Wait! You abandoned that pathetic Elf King?”
“Well, yes. Is there a problem?”
“If you left him, how will the cowardly elves fight?”
“They’ll live somehow, just like the elves of the Holy Mollan Empire.”
“Oh…”
I was only planning on changing history a little, but she had already distorted its course way too much.
“Don’t worry about it, Drug Hero. The system will cope with such changes. The problem would only arise if I ordered the children to not help out the elves. The elves have already become a race that cannot live without them.”
“You’re not lying, are you?”
“Do not suspect the First Spirit, the noblest of my kind in the entire universe. If this were the real past, the distortion would have already begun. Take a woman, for example. The moment she sees you, she’d postpone what she would do today due to a change in her state of mind. That could lead to her giving birth to a daughter instead of a son. If that happened, then their lineage would change, thus resulting in the future changing accordingly.”
“Well… your words make sense.”
First Spirit spoke of the butterfly effect.
A single flap of a butterfly’s wings could cause a hurricane on the other side of the world.
But this was a fake past.
We were in a part of history recorded by the education system.
Even if this place were reformed, the present future wouldn’t change.
Only the future will change, based on the history recorded in the system. And for stabilization, calibration is carried out.
Take the example of the First Spirit.
A pregnant woman, upon seeing me, possibly would no longer give birth to a daughter but a son due to her state of mind changing.
That was where the system calibration would kick in.
In reality, if one changed the past, the future would change accordingly.
But this world was like a supercomputer. It had the additional function of adjusting the past and assimilating it to a single, fixed future.
“But you still need to beware of murders.”
After all, if I killed any person, the generation born from them would disappear. Even calibrating the system wouldn’t help there.
I wasn’t certain if it would cause problems, but I thought it would be possible to gently touch my target’s back or neck and get away with it.
“Drug Hero, are you going to find the Snow Woman now?”
“No.”
“Huh? But she’s the reason you came here, isn’t she?”
“The dragon ate that birdbrain because of my senior’s cheerleaders. But there’s still the system calibration. Because of the wind from under her long sleeves, her wings might peep out, or on the way home, she might accidentally encounter a dragon and get kidnapped… The point is, there’s a high probability that history will repeat itself.”
In a bad scenario, she would still be eaten by the dragon.
“Oh! I got it! You want to deal with the Snow King Eshinoff! But then the First Hero will have nothing to do…”
“Just sit quietly and watch.”
Dragons didn’t leave their lair so easily.
There were people who thought that was because dragons were naturally lazy, but that was only a delusion.
Dragons had their own territory.
Sky, land, sea.
Just as humans drew state borders, dragons had their own dominions.
That was the root of the problem.
If Dragon A left its lair, its neighbors Dragon B and Dragon C might take it as an act of aggression since the fact that it left its lair could be mistaken for its desire to expand its region.
Although if it were strong, then it wouldn’t need to keep looking over its shoulders for enemies.
The perfect example of that was the Supreme Dragon of Oblivion, Noebius.
“Drug Hero, do you already know his lair’s location? If you don’t, I’ll order my children to find out.”
“That won’t be necessary. I already heard about it from Mercenary Q.”
“Boo! I just wanted to be of help, but you’ve already decided everything yourself. That’s why you’re unpopular with the harpies.”
“Shut up.”
I didn’t want to remember that shame.
Snow King Eshinoff.
His lair wasn’t far from here.
Those who were called evil dragons didn’t look at others, so they were very active. That made it easy to find his territory.
If one left and returned to the same place every day, that place would obviously be their home.
After gathering the information I needed in the square, it was time to implement my cunning plan!
I quietly left the village without touching anyone’s spines. I didn’t even spread the wings of the righteous hero. Instead, I went out of the gates like the savage locals.
” Lanuvel likes this village~”
“How about trusting her? She’s cute.”
“I agree! Lanuvel is nice anyway.”
My blood pressure rose instantly as soon as I heard that.
My right hand twitched. I wanted so badly to grab Lanuvel by the neck, who always pretended to be cute.
“Haha! Then it’s decided. Let’s go to that village! I look forward to making delightful acquaintances! A young guy passionately shouted as he followed Lanuvel, who was swaying her hips from side to side.
What? Happy acquaintances?
“That definitely won’t happen.”
“Are you talking to me?”
“Yes. You.”
I, the MAX-Class Hero, accidentally ran into my senior’s group.
