Chapter 56: Favor Work 1
TL/Editor: Raei
Schedule: 5/Week Wed-Sun
Illustrations: Here
The screams of Grace, nestled in my arms, gradually change into delightful cheers.
A 3 gacha character was not some defenseless countryside girl.
She wouldn't be trembling in fear just because we are moving fast.
Carrying Grace while being followed by the camera drone, I dashed towards the beast den where the emaciated orcs had taken residence.
Since the only dangerous things around the village were these guys, I thought it would be best to deal with them first.
If I eliminate the orcs, any potential danger would vanish.
With that in mind, I continued sprinting toward the den.
"Roland! Are we going by the traces we saw earlier?"
"I came across the orcs earlier."
"Really?"
"Yes, but I didn't see the child."
Kicking up dust, we raced through the mountains, my loud footsteps echoing.
In less than 10 minutes, we had reached the beast's den.
The four emaciated orcs, clutching old and rusted weapons, were on high alert, alerted by our noisy approach.
"...Are those wandering orcs?"
"You see why I said they were weak?"
There were no muscular, well-built warriors.
What was there were only starving, frail bodies.
The fact that a monster's arm was thinner than that of a local farmer's spoke volumes.
The camera circled around the orcs, capturing their ragged appearance.
Thin arms, lifeless eyes, filthy skin, rusted and worthless weapons, and battered, tattered leather armor.
It would be more fitting to call them homeless orcs rather than wandering ones.
-Even orcs are dieting these days.
-With those arms, they probably couldn't even break Han Se-ah's shield.
-They must be lighter than even Han Se-ah?
-[Chat deleted by the mod]
Despite their feeble squawks, nothing would stop what was coming to them.
Unlike the monsters inside the tower, these orcs left behind corpses.
Kicking or smashing them would result in a mess of innards and filth, so they had to be killed from a distance.
Still clutching Grace, I kicked a suitable stone like a football.
The stone shattered into fragments, scattering like shotgun pellets with a resounding bang!
The orc's skin proved no match for the hundreds of stone fragments flying faster than arrows.
"Wow..."
Grace frowned at the sight of the corpses, something she hadn't seen in a while since venturing into the tower.
The camera quickly toward the natural scenery.
Then suddenly, the camera that had been following them came to an abrupt stop, slowly melting away.
They had seen enough and shifted the stream back to the village.
Unaware of the camera this whole time, Grace furrowed her brow and surveyed her surroundings intently.
Nestled in my arms, she looked rather adorable.
Maybe sensing this, she leaped down and began searching carefully.
"I can't find anything. There aren't even any wild animals around, let alone a child."
"Those guys must have scared everything away when they caught the rabbit."
"A rabbit?"
"I found traces of a campfire and a half-eaten rabbit."
Grace hopped around swiftly, diligently checking every possible hiding spot for a child.
Despite her keen searching skills, she found no traces of the girl.
The child must be hiding somewhere within the village.
A young child playing hide and seek wouldn't be scaling a 10-meter-high cliff, nor would she dare to cross treacherous valleys that even herb collectors hesitated to traverse.
Although their search focused on areas accessible to a child, they found nothing.
"As expected, she's not here either."
"Did you find any other traces?"
"No, none. It seems those orcs were the only ones. They must have been stealthily approaching the village, unable to attack the herb collectors, and instead were targeting women and children."
No matter how thoroughly they searched, all they discovered were signs of the orcs' approach to the village.
It seemed unlikely that a missing girl could elude a 6 tank and a 3 novice ranger's diligent search.
With my assistance, Grace, who had circled the area twice, finally seemed to relax.
Although she hadn't been found, at least she wasn't in immediate danger.
It felt like she had just fallen asleep somewhere - that's the feeling I got.
"Let's go back. Searching more won't help."
"Yeah..."
"Come here."
She instinctively spread her arms wide and jumped back into my embrace.
Settling comfortably, as if she had been in my arms the entire time, she nestled herself like she would in a car seat.
There was no reason to refuse, so I gently held her and made my way back to the village.
"Ah, Roland, Grace! We found the missing child!"
"Really? Where was she?"
"It seems she wanted to win at hide and seek, so she went back to the village on her own and hid. She fell asleep in a pile of straw in the village storage."
As we returned to the village before sunset, Han Se-ah greeted us with a bright smile.
Just as we had thought, the child had returned to the village.
Grace let out a sigh of relief upon hearing the good news from Han Se-ah.
Who would be happy to discover the corpse of a teenage girl in the mountains after returning to their hometown after a long time?
Was this how the quest was meant to end?
Just as I was wondering...
"Grace? You... you little..."
An unexpected variable appeared.
***
Raei Translations
***
-I thought this was a combat quest, but it turned out to be a favorability quest.
-Sending just the two of them might have been Han Se-ah's big-picture plan.
-This is such a sh*t game.
[Chat deleted by the mod]
-Isn't this kind of trap too much?
The chat quickly fills with expletives which were swiftly deleted by a chat mod.
Despite this, Han Se-ah wasn't trying to stop the viewers or change the atmosphere.
"Wow, seriously, I almost got screwed. What kind of quest is this?"
She too was caught off guard.
The traces left by the wandering orcs had been a trap.
The missing girl could be found in the village warehouse.
However, the missing girl herself also turned out to be part of the trap.
The important part of the quest was the appearance of Grace's parents once the quest was completed.
The real content of this quest was the mother crying and catching her daughter who ran away from home to become an adventurer, and the father trying to convince her to return to the village.
"So if I hadn't tried to get close to Grace, she might have given up on being an adventurer and gone back home? What would we have done if Roland wasn't here?"
Various indicators are shown in the NPC's stat window, but there's no specific mention of favorability.
This game is about climbing a tower, not wooing NPCs or doing inappropriate activities.
Han Se-ah was friendly with her NPCs because she liked their personalities, and the dynamics in their adventure party sparked her instincts.
There was a country girl who became an adventurer to find the man she fell in love with at first sight.
A kind-hearted nun concealing her status as a saint candidate.
A young girl disguising her noble identity and masquerading as a mercenary.
And Roland, a charming blonde man, gradually becoming entangled with these female characters.
"Who will detect surprise attacks from Moss Wolves and find the passage to the next floor if we don't have a scout? Really..."
Before being a streamer, Han Se-ah was a gamer and, at the same time, an otaku.
There was plenty to see in the party besides Grace, who openly showed affection.
Irene seemed to be gradually opening up, perhaps drawn to Roland's kind nature.
Didn't that kind Irene glare at him on the way here?
As for Kaiden, the cross-dressing woman, it was a common trope.
Han Se-ah was curious to see how she would react if she pushed them into the same tent.
Who would have thought that her plan to intertwine the party members in various ways, using streaming content as a pretense, and satisfying her desires would turn out to be a godsend?
-Going to increase the party members' favorability before reaching the 15th floor~
-Treat Roland well, if the 6 runs away, it's game over
-Damn, if Roland gets bored and quits, lol
-Even if it is a realistic game, isn't it too much?
If you don't build up relationships with the team, recruited party members could potentially leave.
It seemed obvious in retrospect, but no one expected it to be a test disguised as a quest.
The chat and forum were filled with chaotic opinions, but luckily, Grace remained steadfast.
Roland's efforts managed to console the mother, who was crying while holding her runaway daughter.
Being a 6 senior adventurer and someone who had previously saved the village, Roland's promise of protection successfully persuaded Grace's mother.
Once the mother was convinced, the father nodded in agreement.
As a former ranger himself, he recognized the value of the leather armor and bow that Grace was wearingluxuries that were unimaginable in their rural village.
"That was a close call. Should I take advantage of this and push Grace forward? Should I change the genre of Heroes Chronicle? Title it 'Roland The Princess Maker'? Hmm."
Naturally, once the issue was resolved, it became content for streaming.
Although it was nerve-wracking, once the event concluded successfully, the remaining task was to make the stream exciting for viewers and rack in the donations.
Using the more popular Roland as a subject would surely attract a flood of chat messages and even donations filled with desire.
- Focus on Irene before starting Roland Princess Maker
-Shouldn't you go make offerings at the temple?
-Going to work on affection levels right away after watching this
-I'm going to be watching intensely...
[Chat deleted by the mod]
However, the anxiety that sent shivers down her spine hadn't completely vanished yet.
***
I got confused here at first so I'll explain just in case, the reference to Irene glaring at Roland on the way to the village is just meant to indicate that she is becoming more comfortable with Roland since she is usually more reserved. It happened as they were camping for the night, before Han Se-ah exposed her peeping tendencies...
Princess Maker is a life simulation game where the player takes on the role of a parent of a young girl. You have to manage the girl's life as she grows up such as her education -> jobs -> relationships -> skills etc.
5/5 Enjoy the chappy!
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