I Became the 101st Hero – Chapter 5

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Wjin
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‘Control your expression, idiot.’

My expression instantly returned to normal.

It must have looked extremely unnatural.

Nevertheless, I calmly resumed my role as an inn employee.

No, it wasn’t acting. I really was an inn employee.

‘I am an inn employee.’

‘Right?’

I calmly spoke to Gwen.

“Welcome to Basilia Inn. How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a room to stay in.”

“Then please follow me.”

Just when I was about to smoothly move on,

“Who are you?”

It was a sudden question.

“I’m Allen Blake. An employee at Basilia Inn.”

“An employee? The skills you displayed earlier don’t seem like those of a mere inn employee from a countryside village.”

The timing was bad.

I hadn’t planned on revealing my swordsmanship this early.

She would have found out eventually, but I had to prevent her from becoming overly suspicious of me from our first encounter.

“I learned from the adventurers who stay here. A lot of adventurers frequent this inn.”

“Is that so?”

Fortunately, she seemed to accept my excuse without much difficulty.

Meanwhile, we had arrived at the room.

“Here it is.”

I opened the door, and Gwen stepped inside and looked around the room.

Then, she twirled around. Her light movements, coupled with her small physique, reminded me of a young girl.

Although her way of speaking was the complete opposite.

“Hmm, not a bad room.”

It wasn’t a very big room, but it was neat and tidy, and she seemed to like it.

Watching her, I quickly focused my mind. In fact, there was something I wanted to test as soon as I met a playable character.

Whether I could see other characters’ statuses.

If my authority as a player had carried over, I should be able to see not only Allen’s status, but also the statuses of other characters.

‘Status.’

As I thought that, a status window popped up before my eyes, similar to my own status window, but displaying hers instead.

‘I can see it.’

I carefully examined her status window.

As expected of Gwen Reedvall, a well-raised character, even if not perfectly optimized.

Compared to me, it was an overwhelmingly superior status.

Of course, it was partly because I was too weak, but the trait [Precociousness (Large)] that Gwen possessed played a bigger role.

In fact, her stats were, on average, a rank higher compared to other heroes of the same age. Especially reaching S-rank in Swordsmanship without even being a high-ranking hero was impossible without [Precociousness (Large)].

The trait [Precociousness] might seem strange considering her physique, which didn’t match her age of 29, but that wasn’t what it meant.

[Precociousness] was related to skill growth. It allowed her to increase her skill proficiency at a much faster rate than others.

Although it wasn’t without its risks.

Anyway, thanks to her [Precociousness] trait and decent stats, she was a character often recommended to beginners.

If the goal was simply to become a hero, there was no easier character to achieve it with than her.

And because of that beginner tendency, there was a high probability that she was referring to guide communities.

My calculations showed that if she followed the guides, she would visit this village by this fall.

There were hardcore users like me who raised her to acquire better stigmas, but they were a minority compared to the number of beginners.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

Her words snapped me back to reality.

At the same time, the status window that had been displayed before my eyes vanished into thin air.

“Oh, nothing, I was just checking if there was anything you needed.”

“As long as I can sleep out of the rain, any room will do. This is perfect.”

Gwen seemed satisfied with the room.

I smiled brightly at her and said,

“Then I’ll excuse myself.”

I carefully closed the door to the room.

And took out something I had prepared for this day from my pocket.

Her status window just now, and more importantly, our conversation, had made me certain.

She was the Gwen Reedvall I knew.

I slid the object under the door.

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“It’s a peaceful village.”

Gwen, stepping out after resting on the bed for a while, observed the village scenery and thought to herself.

Adults were working in their respective fields, children were playing freely.

It was a scene that wouldn’t have been possible if not for this village’s geographical features.

After the destruction caused by ‘Chaos,’ humanity had slowly but surely found peace within the barrier. But the era of peace was shorter than the era of destruction.

War had begun within the barrier. However, the remote villages located near the barrier were relatively peaceful during the war.

The only threat to such villages would be wild animals. Or perhaps the occasional adventurer visiting the village. Even if chaos beasts occasionally breached the barrier, it was a very rare occurrence.

‘If there comes a day when I can no longer fight, spending the rest of my days in a place like this wouldn’t be so bad.’

Not that she had much time left anyway.

She smiled bitterly.

As she blankly watched the children playing in front of her,

“Hey, who are you?”

She turned her head to the right.

There stood a young girl.

She seemed to be trying to approach stealthily, but Gwen had already noticed her.

And who is she calling “you?” There was at least a 12-year age difference between them.

Well, it wasn’t the first time she had been mistaken for a child.

It was best to ignore it at times like this.

“Wait a minute. I’ve never seen such a pretty girl in our village before.”

She was going to ignore her, but the girl’s words made her feel good.

Gwen turned back to the girl and said,

“Of course, you haven’t seen me before. I’m an adventurer.”

She had come here on a personal matter, not on a mission as a hero, so it wasn’t a lie.

In any case, the title of ‘hero’ felt too burdensome to mention lightly.

“An adventurer? You look about the same age as me, and you’re already adventuring?”

“It might be hard to believe, but I’m actually 29 years old.”

She decided to tell her the truth since she wouldn’t believe it anyway.

As expected, the girl thought she was joking and giggled.

Well, it was a hard truth to believe, even for Gwen herself.

‘Turning thirty next year, huh…’

Seeing the girl still laughing made her feel even more complicated.

“Could you stop laughing?”

“…Okay, I’ll stop.”

Was her killing intent too strong?

She worried for a moment, but fortunately, the girl started asking her about adventuring.

Gwen began to tell her various stories.

As she shared one story after another, other children began to gather around them.

The children listened intently to her stories, experiences they could never have in this remote little village.

And their innocent eyes.

Being surrounded by them made Gwen feel like she was momentarily returning to her childhood.

It wouldn’t last forever, though.

She turned her head and looked at the setting sun.

“It looks like the sun is about to set, so I’ll stop here for today.”

The children expressed their disappointment.

Sorry, but she had other things to take care of.

As the children dispersed one by one, and Gwen was about to get up,

“Sister, don’t you have any questions about our village?”

It was the girl who had first approached her.

At some point, her way of addressing her had changed from “you” to “sister.”

“Not really…”

Now that she thought about it, there was one thing she was curious about.

“Do you know the boy who works at the Basilia Inn?”

“The Basilia Inn? Are you talking about Allen?”

She seemed to remember the name correctly.

“Yes, that boy.”

The girl’s expression darkened slightly.

“About him…”

After a moment of hesitation, the girl whispered in Gwen’s ear.

“There’s a rumor that he was bitten by a wolf and turned into a werewolf. He doesn’t come out of the inn much anymore, and whenever he does, his body is bigger.”

Gwen almost burst into laughter.

It was a completely childish rumor.

There was no way she wouldn’t be able to sense a werewolf.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Pfft… Haha…”

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just, you sound like an old lady.”

As expected, she shouldn’t have fallen for the compliment about her beauty.

She turned away.

“Hey?”

She ignored the girl calling out to her.

“Are you mad?”

Yes, she was mad.

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…Actually, she wasn’t that mad.

She just had somewhere to go.

“That boy named Allen, he’s a strange one.”

The way he looked at her.

The werewolf rumor circulating among the children.

And that thing that had been slipped under the door.

“Don’t you think so, Constellation?”

There was no response.

That was the nature of a Constellation.

Unless it was a situation requiring a crucial decision, personal communication was impossible.

Especially in the case of an ordinary boy like Allen, it was rare for a Constellation to show any interest.

‘Hmm?’

The Constellation, which shouldn’t have responded, had responded.

If so, it only meant one thing.

‘As expected…’

She took out an envelope.

It was the thing that had been slipped under the door while she was closing it.

[Please come to the clearing on the west side of the village after sunset.]

It wasn’t a romantic love letter, to say the least.

Because the envelope contained more than just a letter.

She took out a small sculpture from the envelope.

Made by twisting thin wires, it was clearly a rose.

‘The mark of the rose.’

The boy definitely knew about her.

Arriving at the west clearing, she looked at the boy standing there and thought,

‘Who are you?’

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Fortunately, Gwen showed up.

This meant one of the conditions had been met.

Why did I go through the trouble of summoning her this way?

Information gap.

I know about Gwen, and Gwen doesn’t know about me.

I simply made her aware of that fact.

It might seem trivial, but it was the only way I, with nothing but [Swordsmanship (B)] to my name, could gain an advantage over Gwen.

Perhaps it was a method I could utilize precisely because Allen was a relatively unknown character.

Gwen, who was approaching, stopped at a certain distance.

Her gaze was wary.

It was definitely different from when we first met at the inn.

She was a righteous person, leaning towards the ‘good’ side.

And since she had the strength to match her righteousness, she never treated strangers with hostility.

But it was different now. She was clearly wary of me.

Honestly, it was scary.

Perhaps even scarier than facing the wolf.

But the difference from back then was that this time, I had a plan.

‘Don’t be scared.’

I could feel my momentarily frozen body relaxing.

Gwen’s eyebrows twitched slightly, perhaps noticing it.

She immediately asked,

“Who are you?”

“Allen Blake. An insignificant kid.”

“And an insignificant kid knows my identity?”

“Aren’t you a celebrity even among regular heroes?”

That would be the case if a player had raised her according to the guides.

And her status window indicated that she had indeed been raised according to the guides.

It was a standard status window with nothing particularly unusual.

“…That may be true. But how do you explain this note?”

She showed me the sculpture I had given her.

A rose-shaped sculpture made by bending wires.

I tried to replicate the rose from a corner of my mark, but now that I looked at it, the crooked parts bothered me.

It didn’t matter much though.

“What do you want me to explain?”

“I didn’t see you making this wire sculpture while you were showing me to my room. That means… you anticipated that I would come to this village?”

Yes, there was no denying it.

Knowing about her could be explained by rumors, but preparing the sculpture beforehand meant that I knew she was coming.

But that was also part of my plan.

“That’s right. I already knew you were coming here.”

So I admitted it confidently.

The rose sculpture was a simple tool to convince her that I knew something she didn’t.

Gwen’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re not denying it? How did you know?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. It’s a trade secret.”

“Trade secret?”

“Actually, the reason I called you here is because I want to make a deal.”

Waiting for her in this village.

Leaving her a letter to highlight the information gap.

All those actions were leading up to this one proposal.

“What do you want?”

“It’s not that difficult. Just take me to the ruins’ trial.”

“The trial? So you knew about that as well.”

“You’re here for the trial too, so it won’t be a waste of your time.”

“Who are you…?”

Gwen stared at me intently for a moment before shaking her head.

“Let’s hear you out first. If it’s a deal, you must have something to offer in return, right?”

“Of course.”

I raised my hand and showed her my index finger.

And said,

“If you take me to the trial, I’ll answer one question you have. Anything.”

“One question? What do you mean?”

Her tone implied that it wasn’t much of an offer.

It seemed I needed to show her that it wasn’t as simple as she thought.

“It could be the location of the relic you’re looking for.”

Finally, Gwen’s perpetually expressionless face changed.

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