RMGCFW — Chapter 110 - The Hero — Face to Face
Another few days passed.
Banxia searched the surrounding forest for several days, but his luck was poor, and he never encountered the rumored white-haired elf.
He didn't give up, though. He decided to keep looking for another month.
If he still came up empty after that, it simply wasn't meant to be.
"Lord Hero, Lord Hero, could you tell us the story of how you defeated Xiaoyan?" A little girl stood obediently to the side, face full of longing.
"I really can't say no to you kids. Sit down properly..."
A heavy downpour fell that day, the first real storm in a long while.
With nothing better to do, Banxia spent the time with the children the church had taken in.
In this world, the church filled the role of grassroots institutions from his past life. Children from ordinary families and orphans alike lacked both the money and the standing to attend noble academies. If they wanted to learn their letters or make sense of the world around them, they relied entirely on the priests and nuns.
"You little ones, don't bother Lord Hero." A nun hovered nearby, trying to shoo them off.
Over the past few days, Banxia hadn't bothered concealing his identity. Word had gotten around quickly: this young man was the legendary strongest human of the South, the one who had conquered the mythological labyrinth.
"It's fine. I don't have anything going on right now anyway." Banxia waved a hand.
He had always been patient with well-behaved children.
Even more so here. Most of the kids in this church were orphans who had lost their parents young and were forced to grow up too fast. It was the kind of thing that just made you feel the weight of how harsh the world could be.
In truth, there wasn't much worth telling about the fight against Xiaoyan.
Banxia tossed out a few lines and casually glossed over the whole affair.
"Let me tell you — the monsters that are truly terrifying are actually the ones people underestimate most in everyday life..."
"Huh? Really?" The children, who had assumed the story was already over, lit up and turned back toward him.
"So if any of you ever want to become adventurers, you need to watch out for goblins."
"Goblins?" "Aren't those the ones even a farmer with a pitchfork can take out?" "Oh, I get it! Lord Hero is telling us not to underestimate any monster!"
Watching the children nod in sudden understanding, Banxia let out a quiet sigh.
Why didn't any of these kids take goblins seriously...
Of everything he had faced after arriving in this world, those little wretches were the monsters that had hit him with the greatest sense of dread.
Back then... had he really been that weak?
"Lord Hero! Lord Hero! I have a question!" While Banxia was still in his thoughts, a blue-haired child stepped forward.
"What is it?" Banxia looked at him.
"What exactly is a Hero?"
"That question..." Banxia turned it over for a moment. He looked into the child's bright, eager eyes, then paused before answering. "A person of noble character."
"..."
He sighed at the confused looks on their faces.
Right. Too vague.
Back in the South, the summoned lot like him had been crowned with the title of Hero, not out of any genuine hope they'd become virtuous people. It was a nicer-sounding word for cannon fodder. Give them a grand name and a lofty purpose, and the people pulling the strings could wring far more out of them.
But telling that to children would be too cruel.
He thought it over, then said quietly, "A so-called Hero is someone who has truly seen the world.
"Someone who can feel the humiliation of an empty purse, understand the arrogance of someone who came into money too fast, imagine the narrow thinking of a frog at the bottom of a well, and forgive the hollow bluster of someone all bark and no bite.
"Someone who can see all that conceit and vanity, all that arrogance and insecurity, and understand that every part of mortal life has its reasons.
"Neither envying the rich nor pitying demons. Neither fawning nor bullying. Neither servile nor arrogant. In this vast world, knowing you are small. Knowing how long time really is. Knowing that gain and loss, staying and leaving, all of it is just how things go."
He said it all in one breath, his full picture of what a "Hero" actually meant. Then he looked at the kids, rather pleased with himself.
"..."
It had probably been too much. These children hadn't yet been knocked around by the world, and their faces made it abundantly clear they hadn't understood a word.
"I've memorized it, Lord Hero!"
While the others were either frowning in confusion or staring at the floor in thought, the blue-haired child stepped forward, eyes bright.
Honestly, there wasn't any real need to memorize it.
Banxia didn't say that out loud. Instead, he reached over and ruffled the kid's hair. "Not bad. I can see you have an extraordinary constitution. In a bit, I'll teach you all some battle techniques. How much you pick up is up to you."
He said that last part to all of them.
"Lord Hero is the greatest!"
Amid their cheers, Banxia casually felled a few trees and carved out a stack of wooden practice swords with quick, clean strikes.
Most of the skills he had at this point were things ordinary people could never learn.
He thought it over, and there in the modest church hall, he walked them through the basic fundamentals of slashing and then carefully explained everything he knew about Sword Qi Slash — the cheapest and most accessible technique there was.
"It's mealtime," the nun called, emerging from the back room after who knows how long.
"Looks like it's time for me to head out."
"Lord Hero, why not stay and eat with us?" The church priest came over.
He had been close by since morning, watching the young man's actions with his own eyes, quietly taking in who he was.
Truly worthy of a great hero who had traveled north for no other reason than to protect humanity.
For an ordinary family to hire a high-ranking warrior to teach their children, the tuition alone could drain the whole household's savings. And even then, they might not get genuine instruction.
Yet Lord Hero, the strongest warrior of the South, had not asked for a single coin. He had given everything to these orphans who had no one else.
"I'll pass." Banxia waved his hand.
The rain outside had mostly let up.
He planned to stop lodging in the village and spend the coming month out in the forest instead.
If he still couldn't find the elf that way, then he had nothing left to say about it.
Seeing that he had made up his mind, the priest asked quickly, "Lord Hero, do you believe in the Goddess?"
"...I don't follow any religion."
"That is quite all right. The Goddess, She—"
"Stop, stop, stop." Banxia held up a hand the moment he recognized the look of someone gearing up to preach.
He'd heard plenty of stories during his days in the village.
The priest of this small church was different from the people he'd dealt with in the South. This one genuinely believed in what he was doing. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone to the city and sold off everything he owned just to keep these children fed and sheltered.
But the world didn't reward that kind of faith.
The more devoted a good person was, the less likely they were to rise within the church hierarchy. They spent their entire lives at the bottom, quietly helping whoever fell within their reach.
"Unless the Goddess turns out to be a deadpan, expressionless little girl, there is absolutely no chance I'm converting in this lifetime." Banxia turned down the sermon with complete and total conviction.
"..."
He left the priest standing there without a word. The young man patted him on the shoulder, channeled a quiet thread of mana through the contact point, then turned and walked away.
"I don't believe in gods or anything like that. But if something like that does exist out there, they'd definitely have a very generous blessing lined up for you."
"A blessing?" The old priest watched the young man walk off into the distance and shook his head.
His faith in the Goddess had never been about earning some reward.
But strangely, the moment the young man was gone, the priest felt a sudden lightness throughout his whole body, as if he had returned to his prime, with more energy than he knew what to do with.
"Father, dinner is ready... Huh?! Y-You're — Father?!"
"...What is all this fuss about? What happened?"
The stunned nun led the old priest to the water vat.
"This... this is me?" He stared at the reflection of a man who looked barely middle-aged, unable to make sense of it.
Yet those features, the ones buried in memory for decades, did not look like a lie.
"Lord Hero..." Something clicked. He spun toward the doorway, but the young man had already vanished without a trace, as if he had never been there at all.
According to ancient legend, only the Goddess held authority over human lifespan in this world.
...
(PS: Seeing that some readers were confused about the effects of status panel enhancements, to put it simply, the original skill effects are still present as part of the branched enhancement. The new and old effects don't conflict and can be used independently.)
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