Achievement of the Commission

What could be the new information?

I opened the note.

[Hello, this is Tang So-hye.]

(Omitted)

[I belong to the Sacheon Tang Clan. This is information I learned from the clan…]

(Omitted)

[A meeting will be held soon on a clan-wide scale.]

(Omitted)

[Depending on the agenda decided at the meeting, the perception of the game and the relationship with NPCs are expected to change significantly.]

(Omitted)

Tang So-hye’s notes became increasingly verbose with each one. I skipped the unnecessary parts and only read what I needed.

[There are three main pieces of information known so far:

The disappearance of Avatars.

The manifestation of Awakened Abilities.

And Dungeons.]

Dungeons?

I continued reading.

There was quite a bit of content that couldn’t be omitted.

To summarize:

Information related to Dungeons is confidential.

However, party recruitment will be happening soon.

There will be a briefing before the recruitment, so please contact me if you are interested.

“Hmm…”

I finished reading the note.

I sent a reply.

[Absent]

However, considering the effort she put into sending such long notes each time, I felt a little sorry and wrote a longer reply.

It’s not that I’m not interested.

It’s just that,

‘Things are getting big.’

How should I put it?

Tang So-hye seemed to have a much higher status than I thought.

She seemed to be trying not to show it in her writing, but there was an undeniable air of high class about her.

I had a feeling that if I accepted her offer even once, I would fall into a swamp from which I couldn’t escape.

‘Well, if I keep refusing, she’ll give up on her own.’

I returned to Gurumi Mountain.

I retraced my memories from yesterday.

Where was the Orc Village?

The Orc corpses that had been scattered along the way were gone.

Judging by the bloodstains that had been dragged away, a monster had eaten its fill last night.

Thanks to that, it became increasingly difficult to find traces, and I had to rely on my memory.

As I was wavering,

“Meow.”

A cat appeared.

The cat I saw last time.

The cat wagged its tail and led her along the path in her memory.

“….”

Then it disappeared somewhere.

“I feel like I’m possessed by a ghost.”

Anyway,

Thanks to it, I was able to find the Orc Village.

But there was no one there.

Perhaps it was because she had barged in yesterday and killed the chieftain, but the Orc Village was completely empty.

“This is embarrassing.”

That’s not why I killed the boss.

Rather, she was the victim.

It was the Orcs who attacked first.

If they hadn’t attacked, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.

‘This makes me look like an invader.’

Well, it didn’t matter if I was seen that way.

To monsters, the Hero is probably just such an existence, and I was just embarrassed, not sorry. They were all going to die someday anyway.

I rummaged through the huts.

I looked around the Orc Village.

“Hmm, where is it?”

The smithy was nowhere to be seen.

It didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t inside the Orc Village.

“Outside, then.”

Immediately after looking around the Orc Village, the path split into two.

One path led down the mountain.

The other path led up the mountain.

Americano started up the uphill path.

The path was more neatly cleared than the downhill path, as if it was frequently used.

The dirt path had two parallel tracks, with grass growing in the middle, resembling a country road.

Perhaps it was because something with wheels had passed by frequently, preventing grass from growing in those spots.

As I walked along the winding uphill path,

Clang!

I heard a sound.

Clang!

It was a metallic sound.

Clang!

The sound of hammering metal.

It was the sound of a smithy.

It seemed I had found the right place.

After passing the curve, the smithy came into view.

It looked more ordinary than I had expected.

I had expected a hut like the Orc Village, but it closely resembled human architecture.

Clang!

Clang…

That’s when it happened.

As I passed through the wide-open gate, the sound of forging, that is, hammering iron, stopped.

A woman, shirtless and with only a cloth covering her chest, approached with a sledgehammer in her hand.

The woman’s face showed a slight surprise at seeing the intruder.

“Human?”

“….”

Americano awkwardly bowed her head in greeting.

She hadn’t expected a human to appear either.

The woman quickly composed herself.

“Why is a human here? Orcs live down below, don’t they?”

“About the Orcs…”

It seemed the woman hadn’t heard the news.

I spoke honestly.

“I took care of them.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

She didn’t believe me.

“You ran away, didn’t you? Come in. You’re a human who came all this way, so I’ll treat you.”

“….”

I didn’t know why there was a human woman in the smithy,

Why she hadn’t grasped the situation in the Orc Village,

Why she was hammering iron,

But for now, I entrusted myself to the flow.

I was led to a table in a shaded area.

The woman excused herself to get something to drink.

Anvil, sledgehammer, tongs, furnace.

It was a location where I could see the workshop at a glance, and soon the woman brought out a tray.

“I thought you’d be plotting your escape, but you’re surprisingly docile?”

Well, I already took care of the Orcs.

The words didn’t rise from my throat.

Being an Outsider, words that I didn’t deem necessary remained heavily suppressed.

“Drink.”

What was in the teacup was plain water.

“I don’t have anything else to offer. It’s pretty hot here, you know? You’re lucky to be able to drink cold water here.”

“….”

I drank the water.

It was lukewarm.

“By the way.”

Americano carefully chose her words.

“What, are you doing, here?”

“Me? You can see, can’t you?”

A blacksmith.

I sipped.

I looked her up and down.

Up to her ears.

Down to her tail.

It wasn’t there now.

[Human Woman]

Gray text.

I doubted whether that information window was real.

Monsters who hide their identities often use similar gimmicks in games.

More than anything, her tone was saying, ‘I’m not human.’

Still, she was pretending to be human on the outside, so I played along.

“Why is a human, doing the job of, an Orc’s blacksmith?”

“Uh… just because?”

“Just because?”

If you’re going to act like a human, at least prepare a more plausible excuse.

I stared at her as if she were stupid, and the woman made an excuse as if trying to dispel suspicion.

She made an excuse, but,

“I was kidnapped at first, but I found it fun, so I became a blacksmith?”

She said, questioning why she had come to be the Orc’s blacksmith.

Is this woman a Gumiho?

“Then are you, the one who’s been making, axes for the Orcs, down there?”

“Yeah. I make them pretty well, you know? If you inject Magical Power into them, they’ll just cut through other weapons.”

“The Orcs didn’t, seem to use them well, though.”

“…Did they?”

“Yeah.”

This woman is a Gumiho.

Orc axes are Magic Swords.

The condition for making a Magic Sword was to make it with special fire.

Magic metal is important, but special fire works magic to turn ordinary iron into magic metal.

Americano took out an empty fox orb from her Inventory.

The woman flinched.

“….”

I didn’t say anything, but the woman, being a Gumiho, immediately recognized what it was.

“Do you, happen to know, what this is?”

“I wonder. What could it be?”

“….”

Should I try to deny it a little more?

“If you’re going to pretend you don’t know, don’t strain, your eyes, okay? You know what this is, don’t you?”

“….”

“Thanks for the water.”

Americano got up from her seat.

“If you follow me, I’ll, give you, this.”

“A human…”

She’s being chased by Orcs.

She ran away.

That’s when she realized that was wrong.

The woman’s expression changed from moment to moment.

Her pupils changed color from black to yellow.

She revealed the aura just before entering a boss fight.

Americano returned the empty fox orb to her Inventory and placed her hand on the hilt of her sword.

But,

“Hoo.”

The woman released her hostility.

The color of her pupils returned to black.

“What do you want?”

“You’re not going to attack?”

“How could I? How could I, who was captured and imprisoned by Orcs, beat you? More than that, you want something from me, don’t you?”

Americano nodded.

“Eheheh!”

Gusta laughed heartily.

A nine-tailed fox was held in his arms.

The fox was being petted with a disgruntled expression.

“Thank you. Thank you so much!”

“It’s a request. I have to carry it out. More than that, does this complete the request?”

“Of course! Give me the request form quickly. I’ll sign it to say it’s completed.”

When I handed him the request form, he immediately scribbled a completion signature on the spot.

Then,

“But what about the fox orb?”

“….”

Americano shrugged.

“Oh dear. I’ve done a terrible thing. Well, if the fox orb was intact, you wouldn’t have been quietly captured by the Orcs. I’m sorry.”

Gusta handed over the request form.

“Look at the reward items.”

[Reward] [Fox Orb, 3 Magic Swords, Skill Book, 10000 Gold]

[*If the Fox Orb cannot be obtained, future Magic Swords will be provided free of charge.]

“Come find me whenever you need a Magic Sword. You won’t be coming often once you leave the village? Then I’ll give them to you for free every time you come! How about it? My sincerity? Even if it’s not a Magic Sword, just say the word. I promise to cooperate as much as I can.”

Gusta shouted his thanks.

I left the weapon shop.

[Gumiho Capture Request] Completed.

‘I was told to submit this to the guild, right?’

Americano went to the Hero Guild.

The Hero Guild was where Heroes earned money or where various events were held.

As I got closer to the guild, the proportion of people who looked like Heroes increased.

The people filling the streets all wore weapons, so the frequency of armament was high.

However, there were fewer people than in the Hero Guild I had seen in screenshots.

This was a beginner village, so it was natural that there were fewer people compared to the guilds in other villages.

The guild was also smaller in scale.

No, it was like a guild in a beginner village.

It felt more like a bar with a high ceiling on the second floor and a slightly larger area.

I submitted the request form at the guild counter.

“An S-rank request? Please wait a moment.”

“Yes.”

Americano looked around the guild while the reception process was being completed.

Even though it was my first time at the guild today, I could feel that there were unusually many people gathered.

This was because the people who came to the guild didn’t sit at the tables but crowded around the monument with the rankings, increasing the population density.

As I stared at it,

“Someone has updated the rankings.”

The female employee smiled.

“It hasn’t been updated recently, but it was updated so ridiculously that everyone gathered to see it.”

“Hmm.”

“Aren’t you curious, Hero?”

“I’m the type who, doesn’t care about, rankings.”

No matter what game I played, rankings were too far removed from me, so I stopped paying attention to them.

The testimonies of the rankers, who had to invest not only money but also a lot of time to maintain the top ranks, were not very welcome.

The female employee said, “I see. I’ve seen people who are obsessed with rankings, and it doesn’t end well,” and handed me a piece of paper.

“Is this your first time using the guild today?”

“Yes.”

“If someone as pretty as you came, there’s no way I wouldn’t remember. While the reception process is being completed, would you fill in these blanks here?”

“Yes.”

Americano received a paper called [Hero Registration Document] and filled in the blanks.