My Disciples Think I’m Strong

[Congratulations. You have defeated the Demon Lord!]

I gazed at the long-awaited phrase. How much time had I spent to see these words?
Overwhelmed with emotion, my fists clenched, and I couldn’t help but sigh with relief.

I had finally cleared ‘The Three Heroes of Pretium.’
Watching the ending credits that signified the end of the game, I was filled with a profound sense of achievement.

“Wow, I finally did it. Finally! For real!”

I don’t even know how many hundreds of hours I spent solely to see the game’s ending.
Considering the average playtime in reviews was less than 100 hours, I realized anew how bad I was at games, yet I was drunk on the accomplishment.

Even after maxing out all the characters’ levels and collecting every relic part, there were a few branches that required precise control, which ate up a lot of time.
But I had cleared it in the end, and it seemed I could sleep soundly tonight.

“Haaah~ Playing for so long is tiring. I should get some sleep and work on my assignments when I wake up.”

After stretching out my stiff muscles, I was about to exit the game when the ending credits finished rolling, and a sentence appeared.

[…Updating.]

“Updating?”

This was something new.
Piqued by the unfamiliar phrase, the fatigue I had felt moments ago vanished entirely.

[‘Hard Mode’ update complete. Please restart the game.]

“Hard Mode?”

The game closed automatically, and the desktop wallpaper of a nature photo appeared as usual.
“I don’t think reviews mentioned a Hard Mode. What is that?”

Puzzled, I restarted the game.
At that moment, an intense light burst from the monitor, enveloping the room.

“Wha, what?!”
Blinded by the bright light, I closed my eyes and lost consciousness.

“…Where is this?”

I opened my eyes. A massive tree shielded me from the sun’s rays. After sitting up, I looked around.

“Wasn’t I just in my room?”

An unfamiliar scenery greeted me, with a towering blue sky stretching endlessly above.

“Huh? This seems like the meadow I used to visit. But why?”

The meadow I used to visit…?
No, this is a place I’ve never seen before…

“Ugh!”

A sudden headache caused me to clutch my head.
My mind was in chaos. The things I knew seemed to be jumbling up randomly.

About a minute passed like that.
The pain gradually subsided. I began to grasp what was happening bit by bit.

My name is Lee Han-gyul. A university student who played ‘The Three Heroes of Pretium’ game.
And another part of my memory told me my name was Praus.
A commoner living in the southern village of Secul in the Empire.

Memories of two people entangled my mind.
The sudden influx of information caused momentary confusion, but it slowly diminished.

“This is the famous meadow of Secul that the village children often visit.”

Secul. A very familiar village name. Where had I heard it before?
I rummaged through my mind to recall the word.

A village in the southern region of the capital, Pretium.
Pretium? The same one from the game?

No way.
I couldn’t believe it. It was unbelievable.

The idea of being reincarnated into a game was something I had only seen in novels. It couldn’t possibly happen in reality.

But the scenery so disconnected from the modern world seemed to tell me that this was indeed reality, however much I didn’t want to believe it.
Moreover, as the jumbled memories became organized, they demanded that I accept this as reality.

“Damn, what’s going on here?”

I remembered up until restarting the game after the ‘Hard Mode’ update, followed by a blinding light too intense to look at.
But after that, my memory was blank.

“Does Hard Mode mean experiencing it directly or something? To meet the heroes in person, train them, and defeat the Demon Lord?”

What a nonsensical assumption.
Games should remain games; there’s no such thing as real-life experiences.

“Send me back already! What is this?!”
“Oh, Mr. Praus!”

As I shouted into the empty air, someone called out to me.

“You’re here again today.”
“…Mary?”

Her name unintentionally left my lips.
Mary was a girl living in the same village of Secul as Praus. Although not yet an adult, she gave off a composed and mature vibe. I believe she was supposed to have her coming-of-age ceremony next year.

“What’s the matter?”

[Skill ‘Intimidation’ is activated.]
[Skill ‘Poker Face’ is permanently active.]

Skills…?
The sudden hologram messages should have surprised me, but for some reason, they felt very familiar.
Mary, who was approaching, knelt down. Trembling her small shoulders, she lowered her head to the ground.

“Ugh! Mr, Mr. Praus…! Your, your gaze. Your gaze!”
“My gaze?”
“Huck! Huck!”

As I turned my head, the hologram text disappeared. Only then did Mary let out a ragged breath.

“You, you must be so tired. Just, just by approaching, you were on guard. Bu, but you’ve improved at controlling it compared to before? Back then, you’d knock people out every time you released your Intimidation…”

Wiping her cold sweat with the back of her hand, she forced an awkward smile.

“I guess that means Mr. Praus has opened his heart a bit more?”
“…I’ll ask again. What’s the matter?”

My tone was extremely harsh and cold.
The reason for the strange way of speaking was likely due to my Poker Face skill.

The Poker Face skill was a special ability that prevented me from showing any emotion under any circumstances. It seemed like a trivial skill useful for maintaining a poker face in gambling, but I couldn’t turn it on and off at will.
It was permanently active.

As for the Intimidation skill, it appeared to release an intimidating aura towards all living beings within my line of sight, activating simply by looking at them. Its potency seemed proportional to the mana within my body.

I couldn’t make heads or tails of what kind of character this Praus was. It was puzzling why he only had such useless skills.

“You can’t get along with the villagers when you always speak like that.”
‘Now’s not the time to worry about that.’
“I don’t care. I have no intentions of socializing with the villagers anyway.”
…? What’s with this lack of tact?
I was taken aback by the words that came out, contradicting my thoughts.
“Aye, why do you say that? You’ve lived in this village for 19 years now.”

Mary leaned against the tree. I glanced at her before looking up at the sky.
Recalling my memories as she said, this character Praus was indeed a native of Secul Village.
However, characters named Mary or Praus never appeared in the game’s Secul.

Secul was an important region used for the episode where a large-scale battle took place against the Demon Army’s commander.
If they were important figures in such a place, they wouldn’t have been named something generic like ‘Villager A’ or ‘Villager B.’

In other words, Praus and Mary were characters with absolutely no connection to the main heroes, not even extras.
Well, I suppose that’s why this character has skills like Intimidation and Poker Face.

“So why did you come here?”
“Just… wanted to see what you were up to.”
“…I see.”
“You’re lounging around all day, aren’t you short on money?”
“Money? I have plenty of money.”
“Ah~ That’s right. Your father became a butler for a Count’s family, right? I heard they pay well. You must be living quite comfortably—”
‘Sorry, but I have something I need to think about right now, so could you leave?’
“Sorry, but I’d like to be alone right now.”

I cut her off as I spoke. Geez, what an impolite way of speaking.
This Poker Face skill is really garbage the more I see it.
It’s not Poker Face, it’s more like tactless speech, isn’t it?

“Ah… I see. I must have been prying again.”

I heard Mary’s embarrassed voice. Although I felt bad for her, I had no way to deactivate the permanent skill.

“Well then, I’ll head back first, Mr. Praus.”
“…Thank you. For your concern.”
“Ah, ehehe… You’re welcome.”

I muttered to her back as she turned to leave. Mary smiled and walked away.

Hmm. It may be presumptuous, but this character Mary doesn’t happen to have feelings for Praus, does she? That would be troublesome.
I’m not the Praus you remember anymore.

“…”

In any case, now was not the time to worry about such trivial matters.
If this world was indeed ‘The Three Heroes of Pretium,’ the timing was crucial.

In the game, the three heroes were separated due to their individual circumstances, and without the player’s intervention, not only would they never reunite, but they couldn’t even survive.

One starved to death as a beggar, one was beaten to death, and the other was sold at a slave auction and tortured to death.

I remembered having to save and reload repeatedly in the game just to get those three together.

But if this was reality, there would be no save and load functions like in the game.
It was impossible to travel back in time in reality, so I would only have one chance.

Come to think of it, Hard Mode in games often meant testing how far you could go with just one life.
I seemed to understand the meaning of Hard Mode a little better now.

Regardless, I had to gather those three in order to begin this story.
Those three had to come together to repel all the demons invading the Empire.

“What year did the game start in?”

The demon invasion began the moment the three heroes became adults, as if lying in wait.
After recalling, I found the answer.

“It was October 1st, 990. This year is also 990, and October is just around the corner.”

Combining my memories with Praus’s provided quite a bit of helpful information.

“I see. My location isn’t ideal, but the timing is about the same as the game’s starting point.”

That was one worry off my mind.
But I would need to head to the Empire’s capital right away.
Two of the three heroes were in the capital, and the remaining one was on the way there.

“I should hurry home, plan things out, and record any information I know so I don’t forget.”

So they can safely defeat the Demon Lord.
I didn’t know why I was reincarnated as an insignificant extra, but now was not the time to dwell on that.