Chapter 2

The damn castle was so vast and luxurious that it took a solid three weeks to properly decorate each room, find the proper use for the obedience stone, and subdue the demons.

Then, another week to clean the castle again.

In just a month, he had his hands full.

“A contract?”

I promptly clicked to reject.

“What contract has to do with the topic of a hero!”

Heroes were said to be servants to the people! Open the castle to the public for tourism, make money from it, and earn extra income…

Your hero is planning to establish a labor union.

Hold on a moment.

“Oh, I’ll do it. I’ll do it! I promise! I’ll provide the four major insurances, and ensure a minimum wage!”

How did I raise you! Huh? I kept you alive from the age of eight so you wouldn’t die from those darn parents! I even awakened you as a hero!

As for companionship… well, there’s none in this lifetime, but that’s fine since I don’t have any either.

Anyway, I’ve fed (?) and clothed (?) you! I’ve raised you to the point of killing the demon king! And yet, you want so much.

Oh my, this is why raising kids is…

Your Hero is in the process of drafting a contract.

The Hero, seated in the abandoned office where the demon lord used to work, was quietly observed as they drafted documents. Then, I opened the game community.

[Title: Just Got Betrayed…]

Anyone familiar with a game called “Hero Awakening”? Hey guys… My Hero, whom I raised, wants to establish a labor union. Is this for real? How did I raise you!

-?

-LOL

-Looks like your attempt at raising a Hero failed, not farming children LOL

└Can’t reset itㅠㅠ

└└Looks like it crashed.

That’s better. I reopened the screen for “The Awakening of the Hero.”

Then, as if it were truly experiencing lag, the Hero who had been sitting for a while drafting the contract suddenly opened a window.

“Even as pixels, you look handsome.”

It was as if the illustrator had painstakingly crafted every detail with tears.

Ding

“Hmm?”

As I was browsing the web, chewing on some squid legs, a game notification popped up. I quickly returned to the game screen, only to find the entire screen filled with black text on a white background.

“Click.”

What’s all this?

As if to answer my question, at the very top, the word “Contract” was written in bold.

Did they really write a contract up until now?

‘Sigh, okay. Let’s give our Hero what they want.’

After skimming through the extensive contract, I clicked “Accept.”

The contract takes effect.

For the reasons stated in Article 998, Paragraph 2 of the contract,
You are summoned by the ‘World’!

It was at that moment.

My head spun for a split second. As if riding a roller coaster, my body felt flipped upside down, and instinctively, I tightly shut my eyes.

Then, as my body inexplicably lightened, upon reopening my eyes, there was a strange message floating there.

Familiar, yet unfamiliar, it was the system of the game.

But something was different.

 

You have received
a hidden quest.

“‘Huh?'”

Was the window always this big? I raised my hand to clear the message.

No, more than that, it felt like my body wasn’t my own…

“Eve! What if you don’t wake up yet? The work is piling up like a mountain!”

With a loud bang, a woman burst in, pointing a ladle at me as she yelled.

“Get up, Eve! There are so many customers now, it’s like they’re begging for a cat’s paw.”

“W-who are you…?”

Suddenly, I thought her appearance resembled that of an NPC in the village, thanking the hero who saved the besieged town.

The hero occasionally recalled, “The lady cooked for me.” I vaguely remembered her as the owner of exceptional cooking skills.

With those thoughts in mind, I blinked my eyes twice.

Did I play the game too much that I’m dreaming now? It felt too vivid for that.

Ding-

Even the sound of this notification was so vivid. Right, in the game, this alarm always sounded when entering a main quest.

Along with the quest message.

‘Wait, why is it showing up so big?’

At that moment, with a loud clang, a magnificently crafted quest window appeared.

Hidden Quest:
Protect the Welfare of the Hero!
The one chosen hero who sustains this world is ‘Adam Leonhardt.’
However, his spirit is greatly exhausted from numerous attempts at regression.
Eliminate all the hero’s stress and make him happy!
Success Reward: Return to the original world
Failure: Death

What?

What’s this?

What’s going on!

I blinked at the empty air. My eyes quickly darted up and down, reading the words.

I understood, but at the same time, I didn’t understand at all.

While Violet Aunt was asking what she might have eaten wrong, I had no room to pay attention to that.

After reading the quest window twenty-nine times, I finally realized.

‘So, um… this isn’t a scam contract?’

Just because I signed a contract made by a game character, I get transported into the game world? Huh? I need to think about this from my perspective too.

‘I didn’t even read the contract!”’

Ding-

Would you like to review the contract?

With a small notification sound ringing in my ear, a message appeared in front of me. As I opened the contract, countless pages merged into one book. Using hands smaller than my original body, I quickly flipped to the back.

There was one thing I wanted to find.

Recalling the sentence I saw before entering the game, I navigated through the densely written characters, one by one, with my fingers.

‘Clause 998, Section 2….’

Clause 998, Section 2:

“Party A” must always do their best for the happiness of “Party B.”

Even if I read it, it’s just a typical clause!

I swung my fist at the empty space where the book was, but my small arm just sliced through the air and fell limp.

“Ugh….”

Well, this possession thing isn’t so bad.

But why am I just an ordinary villager 1 from a nameless village!

There are so many potential companions (boring candidates) for the hero, why not possess them instead.

At this point, there was nothing I, as a child who hadn’t even reached adulthood, could do.

Especially for the hero. There wouldn’t be anyone who could provide what a hero, who was raised so well that it became a problem, needed.

Raising them too well turned out to be an issue. Who knew such a situation could exist?

I wiped my face in front of the mirror. Was I about sixteen years old? A young child with a soft, fuzzy body.

Unlike the heroes who typically awaken at nineteen, the hidden route didn’t involve making companions or befriending the pope, so I saved years of time.

I trained from a young age for the hidden route, accumulating experience points to defeat the Demon King.

I even went through the trouble of obtaining the Holy Sword hidden as an Easter egg.

If it were the same time as the game ending, the hero would now be eighteen years old…

I stretched my reduced stature’s cheek.

‘A face I’ve never seen before.’

Even in the in-game world, she was an extra I’d never seen. A little girl you might see passing by in a village.

With sky-blue eyes rarely seen where I came from, and similarly light pink hair.

The girl, called Eve as a nickname, had a doll-like face.

Her full eyelashes and round pupils hinted that she could grow up to be quite a beauty.

‘But she’s still an extra.”’

Within the game, there were many beautiful characters that made one’s jaw drop. Of course, the leader of the mercenary band, who was almost a hero’s companion (almost), was among them.

‘But I probably have to complete that quest to go back… What can a village girl 1 with no connection to the hero do?’

Exhaling a long sigh, I suddenly got up. There was no use in just standing there. After all, this was my hundredth time playing the game called “Hero’s Journey.”

There was no one who knew more about the hero than me.

I changed into pajamas and cautiously made my way downstairs to the attic.