I Entered a Gacha Game That Had Been Abandoned for 10 Years

18 – Labyrinth Exploration (3)

To be honest, until recently, Elena had seriously thought that there must be something different about the lord before she slaughtered all the goblins in the goblin stronghold.

And with good reason. When Kim Hyun-woo first hired Elena, he handed her two axes she had never used before and tasked her with unconditionally using them to single-handedly deal with the goblin stronghold.

Naturally, Elena refused such a lord’s mission.

She knew her skills too well, and even aside from that, it was generally unrealistic for a hero like herself, with no notable achievements, to handle the goblin stronghold alone.

However, the lord sent her to the stronghold along with the mercenaries, saying, ‘It’s an opportunity to objectively evaluate your own skills.’

Hearing the lord’s words that she could fight once and run away without hesitation if it seemed dangerous, Elena, with an unwilling heart, reached the stronghold.

Ready to flee without hesitation as soon as the goblins appeared.

No matter how much the title of a fallen hero stuck to her, as a hero chosen by the world, she believed that avoiding goblins at least was a level of skill achievable in some way.

Despite thinking about it, the reason she did not run away was because her hands naturally lifted up towards the oncoming goblin.

“…huh?”

It was because her hand, gripping the hatchet, shattered the goblin’s skull that was approaching at an alarming speed.

For a moment, she couldn’t adapt to the situation that happened in the blink of an eye. However, she immediately instinctively swung the hatchet at the goblins pushing forward.

The small hatchet in her hand shifted positions and carved up the goblins’ bodies.

Her hands, moving as if possessed, accurately dealt with one goblin per attack.

Only after completely shattering the heads of the goblins charging at her did her movements cease.

“Huff, huff-!”

Elena gasped for breath and sat down in her place.

Her heart raced madly.

Her whole body ached as if from muscle soreness, and her arms and legs trembled.

However, despite clearly being in a rather unfavorable physical state, Elena’s thoughts were solely focused on the fight just a moment ago.

“Did I… fight this well?”

She looked back at herself, but she resolutely shook her head.

She gradually began to compromise with reality and let go of her dreams. She had thoroughly acquainted herself with self-objectification and knew her abilities well.

She was weak.

Just like how the nickname “Failed Hero” stuck to her, she was very weak.

That’s why she couldn’t understand this situation.

“Is it because of this?”

Elena looked at the hatchet held in her hands.

It was a small axe, almost the size of a firewood log, that could be used only to split it once more or as a throwing weapon.

She turned the hatchet around but didn’t feel anything special about it.

If anything, the hatchet was overly ordinary.

“Did I have talent?”

Just by wielding this small hatchet, she became this strong?

A passing thought.

Once again, Elena resolutely shook her head.

Before she received the nickname “Failed Hero” or even before that, she had put in a lot of effort to become stronger and had learned numerous martial arts.

Among them was, of course, axe technique, and she had used a hatchet a few times before. However, since this was the first time she had encountered something like this, Elena, who had been thinking, suddenly recalled the words of the lord.

The chance to objectively evaluate her own skill.

“Trust me once… that’s it.”

Recalling the nobleman who had spoken those words to Elena, she decided to go meet him.

####

That afternoon.

As the sunset slowly faded, approaching nightfall, Elena arrived at the nobleman’s castle and promptly headed towards him.

“What happened to me?”

She asked Kim Hyun-woo.

A question laden with layered meanings.

Even Elena herself, unsure of what to inquire about first, instinctively posed the question, and it seemed the nobleman, as if understanding everything, smiled and spoke.

“It seems you’ve completely dealt with the goblin stronghold.”

“Well, yes, but…”

Seeing her slightly confused expression, Kim Hyun-woo didn’t hesitate, retrieving a box from his embrace and handing it to Elena.

“What’s this…?”

“A gift.”

“Yes? But why suddenly—”

“First, open it. Consider it a reward for believing in what I said, in case it feels burdensome.”

…”

At Kim Hyun-woo’s words, Elena looked a bit bewildered, but soon opened the box he had given her.

“What’s this…?”

“A weapon for your future use.”

Inside the box were two hand axes.

However, unlike the hand axe Kim Hyun-woo had given her this afternoon, these exuded a slightly more sophisticated aura.

“Of course, as you earn money gradually, we can replace it with something better, so bear with these for now.”

In response to Kim Hyun-woo’s words, Elena raised her gaze and replied.

“…How did you manage this?”

“What do you mean?”

Seeing Kim Hyun-woo’s playful demeanor, she hesitated before slightly shrinking and speaking.

“Even though it might not be appropriate to say this from the position of someone already employed, I’m weak. So much so that I’d be labeled a ‘failed hero.'”

“And?”

“Someone like me managed to handle the goblin stronghold alone, with over 200 of them, a massive stronghold that even properly fighting is a challenge for unknown heroes like me. This is—”

“Are you asking if what I did doesn’t make sense?”

As Elena hesitated, nodding slightly to Kim Hyun-woo’s words, he carefully chose his words, clearing his throat a few times before continuing.

“Well, about half of what you said is true.”

“Half? Really?”

“Yes, I did do something, that much is true.”

“Oh…”

In response to Kim Hyun-woo’s words, Elena let out a soft sigh.

Of course, she had already suspected as much.

However, even though she had a sense of what was happening, a lingering feeling of disappointment crept into her heart. Elena found herself unintentionally trying to muster a self-deprecating smile.

“But what I did is only half of it, and the fact that you have talent, Elena, is true.”

At Kim Hyun-woo’s follow-up, she unconsciously questioned.

“…Me?”

“Yes. You seem to be misunderstanding something. I can’t create a power that others don’t have in the first place. I’m not a god,” Kim Hyun-woo added, then continued.

“If that were the case, I wouldn’t have needed to choose you.”

In his matter-of-fact tone, Elena unknowingly recalled the events that had occurred just moments ago—a firm handshake and the dignified appearance of the Lord she had shouted to.

“Hmm, hmm-“

As she remembered, a slight flush appeared on her face, but Kim Hyun-woo continued without hesitation.

“In conclusion, I can bring out your talent.”

“My… talent?”

“Yes, Elena, your talent is more than what you think.”

At Kim Hyun-woo’s words, Elena instinctively recoiled.

Despite her body language, she was actually quite pleased.

For the past ten years, she had lived a life of being ignored rather than acknowledged by someone. So, receiving recognition from the Lord at this moment was incredibly sweet and automatically ignited a sense of warmth and praise within her.

However, despite having such thoughts, the reason Elena’s body instinctively recoiled was due to the habits and thoughts engraved in her body for the past ten years.

The instinctive weight of frustration and disappointment, never having received approval for a whole decade, pressed down on her. She knew it well—seeing a disappointed expression after receiving hopeful looks was more painful than constant disappointment.

“If it’s difficult to believe in yourself, just believe in me.”

However.

“I’m planning to turn Elena into a 5-star hero, no, a celebrity.”

In response to Kim Hyun-woo’s confident voice that followed, Elena found herself nodding involuntarily.

####

—–

※ The state of proficiency boost is applied to the hero.

Hero

Name: Elena

Title: X

Star Rating: 1 star ★

Affection: (Under measurement)

Stats

Strength: 20↑ Agility: 25↑

Intellect: 17 Luck: 18

Magic Power: 15

-Traits-

Diligent: Effort is applied diligently to any task, and the efficiency of training and performance is always maintained at the maximum.

Insight: When using a weapon with talent above ‘innate,’ there is a 50% chance that the attack will be considered as ignoring defense.

-Talent-

Possesses innate talent with a hand axe.

-Skills-

[Read]

※ The hero trusts you.

—–

After she left, Kim Hyun-woo looked at Elena’s information window with a satisfied expression.

“It seems to have worked out well.”

Elena’s information window, objectively speaking, had not changed much.

The only changes were an increase of one each in strength and agility, the shift of the affection level from 0 to “under measurement,” and the appearance of a trust indicator in the notification window at the end.

However, with these three changes, Kim Hyun-woo had achieved all the goals he had initially set out for.

“First impressions are important for heroes.”

Unlike other games where one can increase and decrease their likability through recklessness, the difficulty of building likability in Arteil’s heroes drastically changed depending on how their first impression was formed.

Kim Hyunwoo, who had previously made all his characters 5 stars, was well aware of the importance of first impressions.

Was that all? Arteil had many elements that needed attention in order to raise heroes.

At that time, internet AI technology, which had been the subject of many discussions, had been applied to create exceptionally well-made hero AIs that were influenced by every small detail.

In the first place, the reason Kim Hyunwoo temporarily raised his talent proficiency to a certain level and used cash currency to send Elena to the Goblin Stronghold was related to this.

“Elena lacked confidence.”

Observing the mercenaries’ reactions and gathering information about Elena through Loria, Kim Hyunwoo made that judgment.

A hero with low self-confidence falls into various debuff states.

Although he had not yet raised the Tavern Level and had not seen the detailed temperament of the hero, Elena probably had the debuff of ‘slump’ applied to her detailed temperament without fail.

First of all, this debuff is a very troublesome debuff that reduces the efficiency of all skill training to one-third as soon as it is applied.

That’s why Kim Hyunwoo deliberately spent the remaining cash currency to boost Elena’s self-confidence.

To remove the slump debuff.

Of course, he had no intention of constantly boosting Elena’s self-confidence.

Continuously coddling her was not a good option either.

Although this is a factor that is fundamentally influenced by one’s personality, in the case of heroes, if their self-confidence rises too much, it becomes difficult to control them.

In other words, the key is to arrange carrots and sticks well until you raise affection and regard in the hero.

“In addition, it is necessary to make them realize that my presence is indispensable so that the hero who has grown to a certain extent does not leave.”

Kim Hyunwoo had such thoughts and suddenly remembered one of the heroes he had raised.

Surely it was the rare and precious Half Dragon who had a pitifully low self-confidence, so he had to console him through chat and raised his batting speed from 300 to 500.

And when Kim Hyunwoo was momentarily lost in old memories.

A hill in a distant corner of the territory.

In that place where animals or monsters had not been visible for some time.

“…”

The red eyes were fixedly staring at Elena who was walking with slightly excited steps.