Do Heroes Need Welfare Too? - Chapter 2
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 2
The Demon King’s Castle was disgustingly vast and luxurious, so it took a full 3 weeks to find each room, properly decorate them, and discover the uses of the subjugation stones to make the demons submit.
And then another week to clean the Demon King’s Castle.
In just one month, he had thrown up his hands in surrender.
“A contract?”
I pressed the sharp refusal button.
“What kind of contract from a mere Hero!”
A Hero is supposed to be someone who serves the people! Open the Demon King’s Castle for people to tour and use that money for side income…
Your Hero is planning to establish a Labor Union.
Wait, hold on.
“Ah, I’ll do it. I’ll do it! I’ll guarantee the four major insurances and minimum wage!”
How did I raise you! Huh? I kept you alive from those damn parents since you were eight! I even made you awaken as a Hero!
Companions… well, there are none in this life.
What’s the big deal about having no friends? I don’t have any either, so it’s fine.
Anyway, I fed you(?) and clothed you(?) and raised you! I helped you kill the Demon King, and now you want so much.
Ugh, this is why raising kids is…
Your Hero is drafting a contract.
I quietly watched the Hero sitting in the office the Demon King had neglected, writing documents, then opened the game community.
[Title: Just got betrayed by my own…]
Anyone know a trash game called Hero’s Awakening? No, guys… the Hero I raised says he’s going to establish a labor union, is this for real? How did I raise you!
-?
-What the hell lolololololol
-It’s not like raising kids, you failed at raising a hero lmaooooo time to reset
└Reset won’t work ㅠㅠ
└└? Must be lagging.
That would be better. I brought up the Hero’s Awakening screen again.
Then, as if really lagged, the Hero who had been sitting and writing the contract for a while opened a window.
‘He’s handsome even in pixels.’
He was handsome as if an illustrator had crafted him with tears, stitch by stitch.
Ding
“Hm?”
I was chewing squid legs and browsing the web when a game notification popped up. I hurriedly returned to the game screen to find the entire screen filled with black text on a white background.
“Cough.”
What is all this.
As if to resolve my confusion, at the very top were three bold letters: ‘Contract’.
So he really was writing a contract?
‘Fine, fine. I’ll do whatever our Hero wants.’
I was roughly skimming through the massive contract and about to click ‘Accept’ when.
The contract takes effect.
Due to Article 998, Section 2 of the contract, the ‘World’ summons you!
That was the moment.
My head spun around in an instant. My body flipped as if riding a roller coaster, and I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut.
And when my body became strangely light and I opened my eyes, there was a strange message floating there.
The game’s system, familiar if it was familiar.
But something was different.
A Hidden Quest has arrived for you.
‘Huh?’
Was the window always this big? I raised my hand and flailed around trying to dismiss the message.
No, more than that, I felt like this body wasn’t my own…
“Iberis! What are you doing still not getting up, there’s a mountain of work piled up!”
The woman who burst through the door with a bang pointed a ladle at me and shouted.
“Get up, Eve! There are so many customers right now that I’d borrow even a cat’s paws if I could.”
“Wh-who are you…”
Suddenly I thought her appearance resembled the village NPC who had grabbed the Hero’s hand and expressed gratitude after he saved the attacked village.
I vaguely remembered her because the Hero would sometimes recall ‘The lady who cooked for me,’ as she was someone with outstanding cooking skills.
Having such thoughts, I blinked a couple of times.
Was I dreaming because I played the game too intensely? It was too vivid for that.
Ding-
Even this notification sound was too vivid. Right, in the game too, that alarm sound always rang when entering the Main Quest.
Along with Quest messages.
‘Wait, but why does it look so big?’
At that moment, with a grand fanfare, a magnificent Quest window appeared.
Hidden Quest: Protect the Hero’s welfare! What sustains this world is the chosen Hero ‘Adam Leonhardt’ alone. However, his mind is very exhausted from numerous regression attempts. Remove all of the Hero’s stress and make the Hero happy! Success Reward: Return to original world Failure: Death
What?
What is this.
What kind of situation is this!
I stared wide-eyed at the air. My eyes rapidly moved up and down, reading the text.
I understood it but at the same time didn’t understand it at all.
Aunt Violet grumbled about what I had eaten wrong and left, but I had no time to pay attention to that.
After reading the Quest window twenty-nine times, I finally realized.
‘So… this is a fraudulent contract, isn’t it?’
Just signing a contract made by a game character once, and now I’m possessed in the game? What? You should hear my side too.
“You didn’t even read the contract!”
Ding-
Would you like to view the contract?
With a small notification sound in my ear, a message appeared before my eyes. When I opened the contract, numerous pages combined to form a book. I quickly flipped to the back pages with hands smaller than my original body.
There was one thing I wanted to find.
Recalling the sentence I saw before entering the game, I searched through the densely written text, pointing at each word with my finger.
‘Article 998, Section 2…’
Article 998, Section 2: ‘Party A’ must always do their best for the happiness of ‘Party B’.
It’s just an ordinary clause that you wouldn’t understand even after reading!
I swung my fist at the air where the book had been, but my small arm just cut through the air and fell.
“Haaa…”
Fine, possession is great.
But why am I some nameless village commoner!
There are so many Hero companion candidates, why not possess one of them instead.
At this point, there was nothing a child who wasn’t even an adult could do.
Especially nothing for the Hero. No one could give anything needed to a Hero who was raised so well he could kill the Demon King without a single companion.
The problem is that I raised him too well. What kind of situation is this?
Standing in front of the mirror, I touched my face. About sixteen years old? A child’s body as soft as if it had down feathers.
Unlike the Hero who usually awakened at nineteen, in the hidden route he didn’t make companions or befriend the Pope, so he saved several years.
For the hidden route, I made him train from childhood and accumulate experience to kill the Demon King.
I even went through hell to obtain the holy sword hidden as an easter egg.
If this is the same time as when I finished the game, the Hero would be eighteen now…
I stretched the cheeks of my smaller body.
‘A face I’ve never seen.’
An extra I’d never seen even in-game. Just some young girl you might see in a village the Hero passed through.
Clear blue eyes I’d never seen where I lived, and similarly light pink hair.
The child called by the nickname Eve had a doll-like face.
With abundant eyelashes and round eyes, you could see she was a girl who would become quite a beauty when she grew up.
‘Even so, she’s just an extra.’
In the game, there were numerous beautiful young ladies who appeared that would make your jaw drop. Of course, the Mercenary Captain who was (almost) the Hero’s companion also belonged to that category.
‘I need to do this Quest thing first if I want to go back, it seems… But what is Village Girl 1, who has no connection to the Hero, supposed to do?’
I let out a long sigh and suddenly stood up. There was nothing that would be solved by just sitting still anyway. When it came to Hero’s Awakening, it was a game I had played hundreds of times.
There was no one who knew more about the Hero than I did.
I changed into my nightgown and carefully went down from the attic.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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