TL/Editor: raei
Schedule: 5/week
Illustrations: Posted in discord
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The Empire, like any nation, had its share of talented individuals. With a larger population, gifted people were more numerous. Unlike the Tower's confined space, they roamed the Empire's northern battlefields, facing monster waves. This allowed rumors to spread more easily.
Tales of lone knights stopping monster waves, saints rescuing ruined villages, mages crumbling mountain ranges, and archers downing wyverns spread far and wide through bards.
The issue was the Empire's population vastly outnumbered the Kingdom's.
It's like how among a large group, you'll find admirable individuals, ordinary folks, and everything in between. But when you look at the average and count those below it, the numbers become staggering.
"I heard an adventurer from the Empire found the first safe zone."
"Really? Which direction?""Direction? ...Well, I think it's southwest from the gate."
This was proven by the party of high-ranking Empire adventurers advancing through the 51st floor. Just as countless mid-rank adventurers died from overconfidence, many high-rank adventurers had also flooded in. The speed at which the high-rank quests posted by the Magic Tower vanished surprised even me.
It dispelled worries that progress might stall due to the sharp increase in monster strength.
Still, most seemed to have come to their senses after the first day's forty casualties were followed by hundreds on the second. Nearly two hundred deaths over two days, about a hundred per day, but that couldn't be helped.
In the past, incompetent fools wouldn't have dared venture to the 51st floor, let alone the 30th. But now, with the gate, it seemed they rushed to their deaths more quickly and easily.
And so, as the skilled high-rank adventurers from the Empire rapidly took charge of exploring the 51st floor, the unskilled mid-rank adventurers who underestimated the Tower's monsters after facing monster waves quickly became corpses.
"Is it really just an ordinary plain with nothing else? Seeing only the monsters changed, I feel like there should be some change to the field too..."
-But from an RPG perspective, that makes sense lol. No way the field would stay the same
-Like a hidden stage behind the starting village?
-The 1st floor of the game start and the 51st floor of season 2 are the same stage? 100% there's a hidden gimmick here
-These guys are so obsessed with RPGs, they're just agreeing with everything lmao
The endless plain easily accommodated the doubled number of high-rank adventurers. The mages were happy, saying their research opportunities increased if they just paid gold. But for the impatient K-players, the pace wasn't satisfactory.
Even though virtual reality games had become a global trend, and viewers had grown accustomed to the slow tempo of Heroes Chronicle... a mere year or so wasn't enough to dilute the "hurry-hurry" mentality flowing through their veins.
Though Han Se-ah's world was closer to Earth 4, different from mine, the "palli-palli" (hurry-hurry) national character hadn't disappeared.
While Grace, Katie, and Irene were satisfied with the smooth progress of the 51st floor conquest and their daily-improving combat skills, Han Se-ah alone grew increasingly discontent. She chattered daily about wanting some event, even if it wasn't the passage to the 52nd floor, to the point of annoyance.
At first, viewers teased her, saying "There she goes again" and mocking her lack of patience. But soon they too began to stir, muttering things like "Shouldn't something happen on the 51st floor?" and "Did BB Games fall asleep?" You know how it goes.
"Um, Roland?"
"Hmm?"
Perhaps ready to scratch that itch for Han Se-ah and the viewers? One morning, as we gathered at the guild to receive a quest and head to the 51st floor, discussing whether to set up lodgings on the 50th floor instead...
A somewhat familiar guild clerk approached me hesitantly. If I remembered correctly, she was one of the clerks Ellis used to hang around with.
I often saw her receiving and sharing high-end desserts like macarons from me.
Wondering what this was about, I quietly watched as she hesitantly handed me the documents she was holding. I was puzzled why a guild member would need to hand me documents directly, but as soon as I saw the top line, I understood.
― 51st Floor Safe Zone Vicinity: Ogre Sighting
That was definitely an event.
---
Raei Translations
---
The word "ogre" struck fear into the hearts of fantasy world inhabitants.
Just as the word "mountain king" arose from the fear of tigers in the Joseon Dynasty, "ogre" had become a term for a terrifying being that people dared not confront.
Goblins could be beaten down by farmers, and orcs could be dealt with by well-trained soldiers. In fact, if it was a starving wanderer, even village youths banding together could kill it with slings.
But ogres were high-rank monsters, giant-type creatures that could handle mana. No matter how well-trained the elite soldiers or how sharply honed their steel spears, they couldn't pierce an ogre's hide. No wonder they were objects of fear.
"Ogres, huh. In a way, it makes sense."
"After goblin infantry and orc javelineers, now ogres. ...So, are these ogres the siege engines?"
-After all that talk about armies, they really gathered all the troop types lol
-Infantry, javelineers, cavalry, siege engines - if you've got all that, it's a real army, right? lol
-But are ogres really that strong? We always hear about them...
-When I tagged along with a mercenary band as a porter, I saw one. Even ballista shots didn't leave a scratch
-It'll be a piece of cake for Teacher Roland anyway lol. The rumors of him killing ogres are already out~
Moreover, there was another reason they became objects of fear: they appeared more frequently than other large monsters.
Following goblins and orcs, ogres seemed to have cockroach-like adaptability among the greenskins. Most large monsters threatening rural villages were ogres.
There were snow ogres in the northern tundra, hunting elk and reindeer, and swamp ogres in the southern jungles, preying on crocodiles. It wasn't some cheap RPG recycling monster palettes - ogres were everywhere, north, south, east, and west.
That's why the infamy of ogres had spread throughout the kingdom, and now even to the empire, more so than rare monsters like giant worms or wyverns.
"What do you mean it makes sense, Roland?"
"Well, this Demon King guy gave standardized equipment to goblins and alchemical bombs to orcs. So I figured if he had a powerful card to play on the plains, it'd have to be ogres."
"I suppose if you're making a monster army, ogres would be good to use in large numbers..."
"I've heard many brothers and sisters on pilgrimage warn about ogres."
Thanks to this, Grace, Katie, and Irene nodded without much comment to my mumbling. The huntress from the mountain village, the northern grand duchess, and the saint candidate who served in the temple had all heard similar stories about ogres.
Yet despite their notoriety, I sensed no anxiety from my companions. They'd already faced large monsters like the giant worms in the cave floors, after all.
That's why their eyes burned not with worry and fear, but with fighting spirit and curiosity. They seemed confident that, having reached the high ranks, they could face an ogre and emerge victorious. While arrogance is poison to adventurers, this level of confidence could be considered medicine rather than poison.
"So, an ogre appeared, and?"
"W-well, Ellis said to inform your party first, Hero, if anything unusual happened..."
Even as we discussed this, the guild clerk clung to our table like a restaurant waitress. Seeing her cheeks flushed red as she stared intently at Han Se-ah, I wondered if she might be a fan of the hero.
With trembling hands, she quickly gathered up the ogre sighting report we'd finished reading, then pulled out new documents from her bosom.
If the first document was the ogre sighting report, this one was a request from the Magic Tower to the guild. Naturally, it would be an urgent request from mages whose eyes had lit up at the news of the first ogre sighting in the Tower.
"Urgent purchase of ogre mana stones, request to record ogre ecology, request to observe ogre interactions with other monsters, ogre capture... Is capture even possible?"
"Um, I heard the mages have already set up a makeshift research lab at the first discovered safe zone..."
Han Se-ah nodded at the clerk's timid mumbling, which nevertheless conveyed clear information. Then she voiced her opinion loud enough for both the viewers and our party to hear.
After all, it would be a failure as a streamer not to go looking for a new monster that had appeared.
"Well then, shall we go face an ogre? The quest reward is hefty, and I'm curious to see how well we fare against one."
"I'm in. We don't know when it might show up with a goblin army, so we should learn how to deal with it."
And so, with everyone's agreement, our journey to search for an ogre began.
...Would Han Se-ah's luck allow us to encounter an ogre in time?
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