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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Wjin
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‘Honestly, an inspector in a place like this? What’s going on in Sak?’
With the all-clear given, the coachman urged the horses forward.
Thankfully, none of his passengers seemed suspicious.
‘Stopping the coach in the middle of the Gate…’
Even though Chaos Beasts rarely appeared on the Gate, he couldn’t shake off the eerie feeling that came with being near the Chaos Realm.
He was only a coachman because of the money. If he earned enough, he’d leave the Gate in a heartbeat.
‘About halfway to Sak now.’
There was still a long way to go.
With limited water and hay for the horses on the Gate, it was always best to keep moving.
That’s when it happened.
The horses suddenly stopped.
“Huh?”
He pulled on the reins, but the horses didn’t budge.
They stood frozen, as if turned to stone.
“What’s gotten into them?”
He was about to get off the driver’s seat to check on the horses when…
He noticed their heads were turned to the left.
His gaze followed theirs.
And then, he froze as well.
“Wh-what is that…!”
In all his years as a coachman, he had never seen anything like it.
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The coach came to an abrupt halt again.
The chatterbox next to me fell silent, and the air inside the coach grew heavy.
‘What now?’
The hero peered out the window, then muttered,
“Damn it.”
He jumped out of the coach.
I leaned over, following his gaze.
And then, I saw it.
‘That’s…!’
It was slowly approaching us.
A monstrous behemoth, its form shifting and pulsating, a Chaos Beast unlike anything I had ever seen.
Even though it was still a distance away, judging by its speed, a collision was inevitable.
‘With that size…’
It wasn’t something you encountered every day.
Even a group of heroes would struggle to defeat it.
And here, we only had one.
‘Damn it.’
I had said it before.
Traveling through the Gate between Basil and Sak was like crossing the Pacific Ocean.
And the coach I chose was a sturdy ship, something like the Titanic.
But…
‘Even the Titanic sank in the end.’
There was no way the hero could handle that thing alone.
Even Gwen would struggle.
If I were still a player observing from a distance, maybe… but my experience in this world told me otherwise.
‘What is he planning to do?’
The hero stood silently, hand resting on his sword, watching as the Chaos Beast approached.
At this rate, it would collide with the Gate.
The Chaos Beast’s power would be slightly weakened within the Gate’s barrier, but everyone except the hero and I would be directly exposed to the Chaos if it shattered.
‘Is he planning to use that to his advantage?’
I watched the hero. He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch.
Maybe he was willing to sacrifice our lives to defeat the Chaos Beast.
‘What should I do?’
It wouldn’t do any good to interfere.
No, it would only make things worse.
We might all die, including the hero.
‘But still…’
I glanced at the other two passengers.
Complete strangers, people I had just met on this coach ride.
But I didn’t want to see them die.
‘Then…’
I had to convince the hero.
To fight the Chaos Beast outside the Gate, and offer my assistance, however meager it may be.
As I was about to step out of the coach…
“Huh?”
The hero vanished.
And then…
Whoosh!
The sound of wind ripping through the air.
He had appeared right in front of the Chaos Beast.
‘How did he get there so fast?’
A deafening explosion followed.
It originated from outside the Gate.
The hero was…attacking the Chaos Beast with his bare hands.
“He’s insane…”
His movements were too fast to follow.
He dodged the Chaos Beast’s attacks with supernatural agility, his fists striking with precision and power.
Each blow was accompanied by an explosive boom, sending shockwaves through the Chaos Beast’s form.
‘Assist him, my ass.’
I felt ashamed for even entertaining the thought.
The battle between the hero and the Chaos Beast was on a completely different level, something I couldn’t even comprehend.
If I intervened, I would be crushed like an ant caught between two warring elephants.
Boom!
A single punch sent the massive Chaos Beast flying dozens of meters back.
But the hero closed the distance in an instant, unleashing a relentless barrage of attacks.
Chunks of flesh and bone were ripped from the Chaos Beast’s body, but none of it touched the hero. It was as if he had an invisible barrier protecting him.
‘I was wrong.’
I had assumed the hero wouldn’t be able to defeat the Chaos Beast based on my own limited experiences.
The Chaos Beast he was fighting was simply too powerful, too overwhelming.
The problem was, I had never truly witnessed a hero’s full potential.
The only hero I knew was Gwen.
And she had never gone all out in front of me.
Besides, without the Rose Sword, she wasn’t exactly one of the strongest heroes out there.
‘I shouldn’t have applied my own limited experiences to a hero.’
Lately, I had been feeling that my judgment as a player was getting clouded by my immersion in this world.
If I were still a player, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
As if to prove my point, the hero’s fist tore through the air, creating a visible crack.
Crack!
It was the finishing blow.
The Chaos Beast exploded into a shower of flesh and bone.
The hero stood amidst the carnage, as if nothing had happened.
That… that was the true power of a hero.
‘These monsters easily defy the laws of reality.’
While I was busy dealing with bandits and thugs, heroes were shattering steel and battling monstrous Chaos Beasts.
High-ranking heroes cleaved mountains and dried up lakes.
And Saint-ranked heroes… their individual power could influence entire continents.
My recent successes had made me complacent.
The kind of hero I aspired to be… they were on a whole other level.
Otherwise, I would forever remain a hero candidate, never reaching my full potential.
Just like Allen Blake on his 100th playthrough.
‘He tried his best. But he couldn’t overcome the limitations of reality.’
The wall of reality was high and thick.
Higher and thicker than the Gate that separated me from that hero.
No matter how much I stretched, I couldn’t even touch the top.
“Let’s get going.”
As if defeating a Chaos Beast was just another part of his job, the hero casually returned to the coach.
His clothes were spotless, free of any grime or blood.
The chatterbox next to me was pale and speechless.
“Didn’t I tell you to get going? That was quite a fight. More Chaos Beasts are probably on their way.”
“Just a moment, Hero. I want to get going as well, but I need to calm the horses down…”
The coachman soothed the horses, and the coach finally started moving again.
As the hero predicted, more Chaos Beasts were gathering behind us.
But none of them seemed as powerful as the one he had just defeated, so there was no need to worry.
‘To become a hero…’
I watched the hero, who was sitting diagonally across from me.
Suddenly, I remembered a scene from the Trial, a glimpse into the past.
The figure I saw then, always running ahead of me… it overlapped with the hero.
The distance between us felt insurmountable.
But I had to prove myself.
That if I didn’t give up, if I kept running towards my goal…
Could I achieve something?
Could I become a hero?
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‘Tch, it failed.’
Raus, the 54th Demon King, watched the exploding Chaos Beast with a frown.
It seemed the hero he had seen earlier was stronger than he anticipated.
There were always a few like that, individuals who, despite lacking powerful Stigmas, honed their martial skills to the limit.
‘Well, it’s not worth the risk.’
He couldn’t reveal his true identity just to take out one hero.
He had only tried to stir up the nearby Chaos Beasts for an easy meal. It wasn’t a big deal.
‘But that boy sitting across from the hero…’
He thought back to the boy who had been sitting in the coach.
There had been something unsettling about his gaze.
‘What was it?’
As he turned his attention back to the coach, a voice rang out in his mind.
(Raus!)
“Violet?”
(I have a message from Big Sis. That’s enough for that operation.)
Figures.
They had probably forgotten all about him.
“Where do I go next?”
(The Lodraim Kingdom. Go there and assist the 72nd Demon King.)
“Good.”
He turned away from the coach.
‘It must have been my imagination.’
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“Thank you for your service.”
We finally arrived in Sak and disembarked from the coach.
The talkative middle-aged man thanked the hero profusely, but the hero just looked annoyed.
‘I wanted to thank him as well, but…’
He had already disappeared.
I quickly left the coach station before the middle-aged man could rope me into another conversation.
‘So this is Sak.’
The atmosphere was completely different from Basil.
Basil smelled of earth and grass, while Sak was a city of iron and concrete.
During its period of isolation from other barriers, Sak had made significant advancements in technology.
The term “steampunk” often came to mind when describing this city.
Various machines and contraptions were scattered throughout the city.
From primitive automobiles to trains that crisscrossed the cityscape.
It was a sight I would never have seen in Basil.
But there was another unique characteristic of Sak.
‘The city where the sun never rises.’
If Basil was known as the city of eternal sunset because of its red barrier, then Sak was a city shrouded in perpetual darkness.
Incandescent lamps cast a reddish glow on the streets.
‘I can’t even tell if it’s day or night.’
Sak was also known as the city of freedom.
Without a set day or night, people lived according to their own schedules and rhythms.
After taking in the sights, I turned away.
‘Well, that’s enough sightseeing for now.’
My curiosity had been piqued by finally seeing a location I had only experienced in the game.
But now, it was time to focus on why I had come to Sak in the first place.
‘The training facility in Sak that was only accessible to those with the Royal Crest.’
I needed to find it.
Perhaps, just perhaps…
It would help me reach the top of that seemingly insurmountable wall.
It was that significant.
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