1st Place In The Ranking Is A Villager

Chapter 72

1st place in the ranking is the villager

– Volume 3 Episode 22

22. Facing the past (1)

After making a deal with Seha for the terms of the cursed underground temple, Hoya headed to Izbaront’s auction house and general store to empty her inventory.

The first place we went was the general store.

“Welcome. Ah! Hoya-san!”

Hoya’s favorite general store is located in an alleyway that is hard to reach by people in the northeast of Izbaront.

The owner of the place, Papis, was very happy when he found Hoya entering through the door while he was tidying up his belongings.

In the early days when players were known about him, Hoya felt burdened by the gaze of players whenever he visited general stores to organize his inventory, so he searched for shops with no customers as much as possible.

Then, I found the poppy’s general store located inside the alley.

Until now, there are only a handful of people who have encountered players while using this place.

Since discovering this place, Hoya has only been using this place, and the amount of items Hoya sells to Papis is high, but the quality of the items is also high.

And thanks to her favorability, when selling her items, she sets a higher price compared to other places.

“Hello.”

“Are you here today to buy potions, or is it for sale?”

Poppies put the items she was organizing on the floor and ran to Hoya and her eyes lit up.

“I want you to purchase the materials.”

“Yes, got it!”

As soon as he knew that Hoya had visited the general store to sell items, his eyes lit up brighter.

She was eagerly waiting for Hoya to sell the items, as she experimented directly with the materials or made items.

Poppies hurried out of the store with a large wooden box and calculator, put the wooden box down next to the counter, and placed the calculator on the counter.

Because Poppy’s physique is very small, the wooden box felt relatively large.

“Soundbite. Then, please take out one type at a time.”

As Hoya began to take out her items in order, Parpis checked her items with familiar hand gestures and tapped the calculator.

All checked items went straight to the wooden box.

When Papis finished tapping her calculator, she smiled contentedly and paid Hoya for her item.

“Hehe, by all means next time! Please sell it to me.”

She said goodbye to Parpis and headed to the auction house to sort out the items she had left in her inventory for listing on the auction house where she left her shop.

After she finished registering the item, she planned to purchase a warp scroll from a nearby village to return to the Dark Forest.

After completing the registration of the item, Hoya left the auction house and tried to tear the warp scroll.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

At that moment, a man in a cloak approached Hoya and greeted him.

His face looked very familiar under the hood that covered his head.He was the guide who guided Hoya when he visited the royal castle before.

“That… is that the guide? I’m sorry, I don’t know the name…”

“You can feel free to call me your guide. Fortunately, you’re still in Izbaront.”

The guide was exhaling slightly harshly, perhaps because he had run in a hurry.

The guide, who quickly calmed his breath, spoke again.

“When I heard from the soldiers that I had seen Hoya-sama, I ran right away. His Majesty the King is looking for Hoya-sama.”

“Yes?”

“It’s urgent.”

There was no reason to refuse, and the guide’s face was very serious, so Hoya followed him to the royal castle.

He honestly wondered why the King was looking for him.

As he entered the audience room as before, Geoffrino gave Hoya a warm smile with a mixture of relief and joy.

“I’m sorry for calling you all of a sudden.”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“The reason I summoned you in such a hurry is because there is one thing I want you to do. You are the most reliable of adventurers.”

It was a story about sensitivity.

Because of his highest contribution in Monster Wave, Hoya had the highest royal favor among players.

“You, too, will know that the by-products of the previous monster wave are tainted with magic.”

Jeffrey Noh followed his words and started explaining what he wanted Hoya to do.

The materials of the monsters contaminated with magic found in the Monster Wave, the conclusions reached by the central shrine through them, and the fact that the royal family also decided to cooperate with them.

“If it is known to the general public, it can cause great confusion, so to deceive the eyes, we decided to move the personnel in the central temple, the horse tower, and our royal family. I hope you can also help.”

[The quest ‘Search for the Demonic Spirit’ has occurred.][The search for the devil]

The presence of the devil was detected in the central temple.

Demonism is a group that worships demons, and its existence leads to chaos.

In order to avoid future chaos, it is necessary to identify them and punish them.

However, if the general public were to know that the magic religion still exists, they would be terrified by the unknown fear.

To deceive the public, the central shrine asked the royal family to cooperate.

The royal family, who has been asked to cooperate, wants you, the most trusted of adventurers, to give you strength.

Cooperate with each other to find and punish the demons.

Completion Conditions: Find and punish the members of the Demon Church.

Success Reward: Royal Reward for Contribution, Experience

Failure Penalty: Decreased favorability of the royal family

‘…It’s not magic.’

Knowing the cause of the tainted monsters, Hoya was very embarrassed now.

But he couldn’t tell Jeffrino what he knew.

If he refused the quest, it was obvious that Jeffrey Noh’s favorability would decrease, so Hoya had no choice but to accept the quest.

If they somehow find out that they are not magicians, the quest will automatically fail.

It was Hoya’s idea that the favorability would probably not decrease as it was a failure due to a situation in which the completion condition itself could not be achieved.

…will it not fall?

As Hoya was thinking such thoughts, he heard the voice of a soldier guarding the door outside the large door of the audience.

“Adventurer Eriman has arrived!”

what……?

“Come to me.”

As Jeffrino spoke softly, Hoya felt the audience’s door slowly open behind her back.

bum bum, bum bum.

Hoya’s head turned slowly and very slowly towards the owner of the sound of footsteps spreading widely in the audience.

The well-groomed, golden hair like the sun, and the face beneath it had a confident smile.

“Did you call, Your Majesty?”

Eriman, who arrived right next to Hoya and stopped, bowed to Geoffrino.

Geoffrey Noh, who received Eriman’s example with a small nod of his head, apologized to Hoya and gave Eriman the same explanation he had given Hoya.

Eriman, who was listening to Jeffrino’s words, continued to nod his head in a way that was not excessive.

After Geoffrino finished speaking, Eriman had a quest like Hoya.

Because Eriman was one of the heroes who saved Izbaront from the Monster Wave.

Another hero, Doban, was excluded because he had already received a quest from the central temple.

“That’s right. In such a case, for the sake of this world, I am weak, but I will add this one body, of course! Leave it to me.”

As Eriman accepted his quest, patting his chest with a fist, Jeffrey Noh, satisfied with it, nodded his head.

After that, Eriman asked Geoffrino some questions.

He had many small questions, but his most important question was whether he could get help from his fellow guild.

Geoffrino expressed his will of permission by asking not to publicize the affairs of the magyo.

“In addition to the adventurers selected in the central temple and horse tower, we will have to cooperate with the people belonging to the central temple and horse tower added to support them. Of course, the royal family will also support one knight.”

Jeffrino looked at Eriman, who was smiling confidently, and Hoya, who was unable to read his expression because of the mask, and continued.

“After two days, we are going to have a meeting in the central temple. Before that, you need to get acquainted with those who have been selected to help you in the royal family, so please come back here at this time tomorrow.”

When the story was finished, Hoya and Eriman left the audience and walked down the hallway to get out of the royal castle.

“Is this the first time we’ve met in person?”

At that moment, Eriman stopped walking and started talking to Hoya.

Hoya was walking ahead of him, so he appeared to be talking on his back.

When Hoya stopped at Eriman’s words, Eriman walked to Hoya’s side and resumed speaking.

“As you may already know, I will formally introduce myself. My name is Eriman.””……”

“……”

As Hoya spoke without saying a word and turned her head to look at Eriman, there was only silence in her hallway.

Eriman coughed in vain at Hoya’s unresponsiveness, which felt awkward.

“Hmm, you’re a very reticent person. I think we’ll be acting together for quite a while, so please take care of us for a while.”

Eriman extended her hand to Hoya with a friendly smile on her face.

Hoya looked at her hand silently, then immediately nodded her head and left immediately.

Hoya couldn’t hold her hand at all.

He didn’t want to catch it.

“…what is that, you bastard?”

Seeing Hoya’s back, who was quickly leaving the castle, Eriman whispered in a small voice as if dissatisfied.

* * *

“Kuang! ……?”

After leaving the castle, Hoya immediately went into a nook of alley and summoned his Badu.

Badu rubbed his face against Hoya’s leg as soon as he was summoned.

As usual, Badu rubbed his face against his legs, and Hoya slumped down from his lap, hugged Badu’s neck and buried his face in his fur.

Badu tilted his head slightly at Hoya’s sudden action.

“…I’m sorry, I’ll stay like this for a while.”

“Keeping……”

Badu cried at Hoya’s actions.

His tail, which had been waving violently, became quieter and quieter, and then he stopped moving.

It’s not because it’s frustrating that Hoya hugged her.

Rather, it was cozy and warm, which made me feel good.

The reason Badu calmed down was because of the slight tremor that came from Hoya hugging his neck.

His own master was showing weakness to him for the first time.

Hoya has been unable to control his emotions after facing Eriman.

Now that he is much better, Hoya himself was feeling the many changes that happened to him when he started Initium, so I thought he was out of the past… He wasn’t like that at all.

Despite being in a game rather than reality, his heart pounded when he faced the past in person.

There was no reaction in front of him, but as he moved away from him and people lost sight of him, agitation of emotion poured out like a dam that had been blocking him open.

Hoya’s emotions were so jumbled up that he wasn’t sure what his feelings were saying.

He now didn’t even know exactly which emotion was the cause of his body trembling.

Is this trembling due to fear of him, or is it due to anger towards him, or is it due to other emotions?

He wasn’t sure what was the cause.

For now, I just… I wanted to stop this shaking by leaning on something.