Is this Hero for Real?

[Act 5] Believe What You Want to Believe

A fantasy is a fantasy!

As expected, there were various ‘human types’.

A fantasy native would feel the same thing if they saw a ‘hyena walking on all fours’, wouldn’t they?

Anyways, my new friend turned out to be a ‘demon’.

“That’s a demon…?”

“What? You look like you can’t believe it.”

“The demon I imagined was supposed to be an extremely powerful anthropoid.”

The goddess who kidnapped us to the Fantasia dimension had told us the goal of the heroes was taking down the Great Demon King. 

There was no way the demons couldn’t be strong if it was bad enough for the gods to seek help from aliens.

But what was up with that dude?

“Bastard! How could you slap someone you call a friend?! It’s a prejudice that all demons are strong!”

“Sorry about that, but you’re way too weak.”

“…”

“Hey, don’t cry. I don’t wanna look like the bad guy.”

I had thought demons were cold-hearted creatures, but it turned out that they had extremely fragile hearts.

The demon scolded me with tears in his eyes.

“You’re just abnormally strong! What are you?! That amount of strength in a level 1 is unbelievable…!”

“It’s thanks to my blessing.”

I wasn’t strong.

“Impudent bastard! You think I’m dumb?! You tell all these lies when you have more curses than blessings.

“Oh? You can see them?”

“Obviously, since I have the Observation blessing.”

“It’s obvious?”

“There are more blessings than Observation that let me peep at status windows. You didn’t even know that?”

“I see…”

The evil goddess hadn’t taught us that important information.

“…By the way, are you going to keep choking me?”

“That’s a misunderstanding. This is just a sign of friendship that friends do with each other.”

“Is that not the same thing as saying you will strangle me as soon as you decide we’re not friends?!”

“Hey, you’re pretty smart!”

It looked like I’d found the perfect demon.

“I’m a Dark Mage. You can’t learn black magic if you’re stupid. I left my terrible hometown to undergo discipline for marriage.”

“Marriage? Already?”

He looked like he was around my age, but marriage?

It seemed you were called old if you were older than 20 in this fantasy world.

“Don’t think of me as an inferior human. I was at an age for marriage way before you were born.”

“Huh~”

[A certain God pesters you to ask more about him.]

This god was ordering me to dig into my friend’s mental wounds from marriage!

Because I would be dead without my blessing, I decided I had to ask him.

“…Are you a demon pretending to be human? How can you be so natural at such an evil face…?”

“My friend. How come you couldn’t marry anyone for all this time?”

“Just die!”

“Don’t be like that, just tell me. I could be of help.”

“Hm…”

“Wouldn’t it be a shame if you died without even marrying?”

After a moment of consideration, the demon answered, on edge.

“…I’ll tell you since it’s not a big deal. Demons can have more spouses the stronger 

they are. Being weak, I ran away because I didn’t want to be the 243rd husband of an old demon.”

“I… I see.”

Although I didn’t know skat about marriage, I thought it was a depressing reason as a fellow male.

Cheer up, demon friend!

“…by the way, how are you able to move?”

“Huh?”

What was he saying?

He might as well have asked why a living creature was alive.

“I doused you with enough paralysis potion to make even a naturally resistant fairy not able to lift a finger. How come you, a level 1 human, are so nonchalant?”

“…you did that?”

I didn’t know he was plotting such an evil plan. 

But that sequence of events… could it be?

I felt an invisible rope wrap around me.

Snip, snap…

Although it was immediately cut.

“Y-You monster! You broke binding magic that easily? That’s impossible for a mere level 1… what are you?”

“What’s your relationship with the chief?”

“What a stupid question. Do you know how many chiefs I’ve come across throughout my travels?”

“The chief with a gnoll’s head stuck to his chest.”

“…Oh! I remember him. He was a dying human with a story you couldn’t listen to without being brought to tears, so I saved him from the Fairy curse- kirk?!”

“It was you!”

The Mage who’d helped the chief who was dying from the Fairy’s curse…

I’d found the culprit!

* * *

* * *

Rejecting the goodwill and help from the temple, hero Oh Hanwoo was struggling from feeling the difference between books and reality.

—Especially bodily functions.

The bathrooms citizens in the fantasy world usually went to were hell to him.

“No one mentions this shit in novels or comics…”

If it was mentioned, they used individual bathrooms with a bathtub or sauna. 

He still couldn’t forget how the inn owner looked at him like he was insane when he requested those things at the inn.

“You are the most incompetent hick I’ve ever seen. Did you learn about the world through a fairytale?”

“It’s because it’s his first time.”

Even the acute judgment from the beautiful girl walking past him… all Oh Hanwoo could do was endure it. 

She had paid everything for him for the past two days, after all. 

That wasn’t all, either.

She had even gotten him armor and weapons, although it was cheap.

“You, walk next to me. It gets on my nerves when you stare at my butt from behind.”

“It’s not what you think.”

He was looking at her from head to toe, not just her butt.

“I got it, now walk next to me.”

“I feel more comfortable behind you.”

A seemingly unique girl helping a boy(main character) she’d never met before with no 

connections…

Excessive goodwill…

He never thought much of it when he saw it in novels or comics, but it was extremely unrealistic after experiencing it first hand.

Oh Hanwoo knew the reason he was experiencing it…

[Special]

It was the effect his blessing had!

It was a main character buff.

“Do you know how shocked I was when you tried to attack the slime?”

“That was…”

He couldn’t come up with an excuse. The slimes Oh Hanwoo learned about from fantasy novels and books were just easy exp globs.

He didn’t know they were protected for being a helpful creature to humans.

“I understand how you feel.”

“What?”

“There aren’t any requests a total beginner mercenary can take. At most, it’s running errands to the city.”

“I’d rather die than do that!”

This wasn’t an RPG game with generous exp and rewards.

He’d never seen the main character grow stronger through mere errands in novels or comics.

And above all, he’d get laughed at by the other heroes if they saw him.

“But there are no goblins that are fit for you to hunt who live nearby. Most of them are gnolls, and if you go past the forest of the gnolls, it’s the orcs’ habitat. Don’t even dream of it, orcs are much more dangerous than gnolls.”

“I get it.”

“…are you sure you get it? Your reply is too absentminded.”

“I got it, really.”

Oh Hanwoo answered again with confidence.

Although he was staring at a pretty girl’s butt at the moment, he would surely get over it, as the main character does!

[A certain immature God of  Dice waves and calls out to a friend.]

[A certain god of wind asks if it’s okay to anticipate.]

[A certain immature god of dice urges someone to just sit.]

[A certain evil god passes around hot popcorn.]

“Hahaha.”

There were more gods watching.

While the other heroes were growing slowly like a greenhouse flower, he was going to monopolize the gods’ blessings by actively engaging in the real game!

*TN: ‘greenhouse flower' is a korean idiom meaning a sheltered life.

His plan was perfect.

“Stop that dark laugh, and get ready to take your sword out at any moment. From here on out, it’s the gnolls’ territory. It’s too much for a slime-level mercenary.”

“Okay, I’ll follow right behind you.”

“That’s my least favorite part.”

Slime-level mercenary…

It was the lowest level given to every newcomer.

Oh Hanwoo had gotten two things after enrolling as a mercenary in his guild:

One was a mercenary ID with a round slime drawn on it…

And the other was…

[Name] Oh Hanwoo

[Level] 1

[Blessings] Hero F, Special F, Mercenary F

[Curses] –

[Dividend] 1.95

It was a Mercenary blessing.

He was rank F in the ‘slime ranking’

As easy as it was to acquire, the effects weren’t that extraordinary, but it was still much more valuable than a simple mercenary ID that only proved his skills and identity.

[Mercenary]

> You get extra exp if you successfully complete a request.

> You lose a significant amount of exp if you give up or fail a request!

An effect that gave you exp as a reward like in RPGs. 

Even though there was a restriction that he couldn’t mindlessly accept or throw out requests, it wouldn’t apply to ‘main character’ Oh Hanwoo, who was only going to go up from there.

“I don’t see any gnolls.”

“…How strange. We’re quite deep into the forest, yet we didn’t come across a single one. Something must have happened in the forest.”

“Of course it did.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

“Since I came here.. Ahem. It’s nothing.”

Of course, something would happen wherever the main character went!

…Knowing he’d be seen as mentally ill if he explained that, Oh Hanwoo saved his breath.

“This is bad. I thought we could complete the request to bring five gnoll ears quickly…”

It would be detrimental to give up an easy request like this. 

Aside from the cancellation charge, it would leave and be a loss of all of that precious exp.

“We’ll just go further in.”

The girl knit her pretty brows into a frown and dissuaded hero Oh Hanwoo’s simple solution.

“…No. We will go back to the mercenary guild and come back after checking for new information.”

“It’s okay. Just trust me.”

It was a fantasy rule for the main character to enter a difficult situation like that and solve everything!

Oh Hanwoo took the lead after staring at a pretty girl's butt the whole time. 

“Where did you get all that confidence… oh?! Be careful!”

“Huh?”

“#$%!”

“#$ $%!” 

“#% $%!”

Gnolls with iron armor barged their way through the dense forest.

Flash! Flash!

Their red, glowing eyes were drenched with fear, and there were all sorts of wounds on their bodies.

“Oh Hanwoo! Leave me and run!”

“I can’t do tha—”

“There’s no time for nonsen—”

“$# %^!”

“# _^%!”

The hungry gnolls all charged at the strong female who guarded the weak human male.

Pow!

“Kirk?!”

Oh Hanwoo passed out from a randomly flying rock.

[A certain god of wind is busy rolling on the floor laughing.]

[A certain god looks for their missing belly button.]

[A certain immature god of dice enjoys their popcorn.]

[A certain god…]

The festive gods cried for an encore.

***

[A certain god is bothered by the noise.]

“Oh! Was I too loud?”

I let go of the demon’s ankles that I was using as a gold club.

Flop.

“Urrhh…”

The demon went silent after screaming every time I swung him into rocks lying on the ground.

‘Be thankful the outsider god has sensitive hearing, alright?’

Otherwise, I would have swung him until his skull cracked.

“My friend…”

“…”

“Shall we do this again, demon? I almost died in a ditch because of the chief you helped out of sensibility.”

“T-talk.”

Droop.

The demon’s face, which looked like a mashed-up steam bun covered in ketchup, returned back to its handsome state in an instant.

Did the demons usually have such incidental traits?

I wanted to experiment with it more, but I decided to give up for the day. The sensitive god was complaining about the noise.

“My friend!”

“How stubborn…”

“Take me to the closest city.”

“I can’t.”

“Do you want to die?”

“I still can’t. Prologia, the City of Beginnings, is guarded by a terrifying saintess. I can’t die until I get married.”

“That damn marriage…”

“It’s more important than my life! If you’re not in a hurry, what about the second closest city from here? I can take you there peacefully.”

“It’s decided.”

I didn’t tell the demon, but the city guarded by the Saintess was a no from me at all costs.

The Saintess was a pawn of the goddess.

If she noticed I was alive, it was obvious she’d try to kill me.

“Oh! I almost forgot.”

The demon leading the way stopped in his tracks and changed direction.

“What?”

“The knights from the Knight Kingdom blocked the forests two days ago, so we have to take a long detour. The most that happens to you if we get caught is an identity check, but it’s risky for a demon like me.”

“…Too bad, then.”

I wasn’t a demon, but it would still be risky to get an identity check because of the language barrier.

‘Damn that Goddess!’

‘I’ll make her regret making me an outsider someday.’

[A certain god is joyful.]

“Oh! And…”

“What is it this time?”

I answered, on edge. My mood went down when I saw that the god was happy.

The demon shrugged.

“It’s nothing. It shouldn’t be a problem, you slaughtered all those gnolls, after all. Don’t worry about i— kirk?!”

“Say it now.”

Hey, everyone! Twist the leg of that suspicious demon!”

TN: “leg twisting” was a common torture method in the past dynasties of Korea.