Chapter 297: Holy Sword and Duty 2
Chapter 297: Holy Sword and Duty 2
TL/Editor: raei
Schedule: 5/Week Mon-Fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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Upon hearing Irene's spicy bombshell of a statement, even Han Se-ah, a professional streamer, was left speechless and unable to respond properly.
"Ah! Hanna! Uhm, you don't, have to answer?"
"Well, no... I think?"
-Sh*t, I've lived long enough to see NPCs come up with measures against low birth rates LOL
-Virtual reality p*rn! Virtual reality p*rn! Virtual reality p*rn! Virtual reality p*rn! Virtual reality p*rn! Virtual reality p*rn! Virtual reality p*rn!
-Are we evolving from hot mecha girl to cyber parent or what?-But what the hell, why so suddenly LOL? How did it even come to this?
-It's not just virtual dating, it's virtual pregnancy LOL.
It's only natural to feel bewildered when a virtual reality game NPC asks an unmarried woman about pregnancy.
As is typical for female internet streamers, Han Se-ah claims she's been single all her life with no publicly known boyfriend.
She's the ultimate homebody, even doing her workouts at home.
She alternates between gaming and exercise streams without any personal life controversies.
Given that the conversation isn't about relationships but pregnancy, it was natural that viewers reacted strongly.
Irene, unaware of the semi-transparent drone camera floating nearby, continued to explain to the viewers, who were showing a variety of reactions.
"Roland likes women a lot, you know? So... I think he needs a wife to keep him grounded! It's not me saying this, but it's what they're talking about at the temple."
Perhaps because they are like sisters, Irene feels more comfortable talking to them than to me, a man.
Irene, unaware that I and thousands of viewers were secretly listening, began to pour out explanations rapidly, almost like rapping.
This all came about because of my womanizing.
My track record of relieving stress from monster hunting and killings by seducing women with my superior physique.
After being led to bed by a kind senior adventurer, I indiscriminately embraced women.
Meeting adventurers for cooperative missions, escorting a merchant's daughter, a mage holed up in a tower room stressed out, a village chief's daughter dreaming of escape, a bard searching for a story, a lonely noblewoman at night, a young lady carried away by tales from a noblewoman...
I chose the soft warmth of women to shake off the mental shock.
"So, the most suitable official wife for the owner of the holy sword, Roland, is of course, the hero, Hanna!"
"Official wife?"
Such reckless womanizing was possible not only due to Roland's superior physique but also because of the nature of the Goddess Faith.
The religion of Heroes Chronicle, inspired by Christianity, is the Goddess Faith.
This religion, which worships the Goddess of Life as the sole deity, asserts that all living beings are the creations of the Goddess.
They prioritize human life and are more hostile towards demons and undead than towards monsters.
Life is precious, so suicide is forbidden.
It was not a sin to hunt monsters and slaughter beasts as humans must live.
Farmers who nurture life should not be scorned.
Undead and demons, being desecrators of life, suffer from divine energy, etc.
This obsession with 'life' combined with the word 'subculture' has created a doctrine entirely different from reality—
"Roland is popular, so more and more nobles are seriously aiming for marriage. So Hanna should quickly secure Roland—"
"Irene?"
"Then I, I can help! I'm good at taking care of children. So, I could become the second wife."
-No backing out after declaring a second wife
-Looks like we need to change today's stream title
-Making the hero the official wife and the saint the concubine, a clever strategy to tie the holy sword to the temple
-Keep saying 'Mommy mommy' and now she really is becoming a mommy
Heroines Chronicle was a gacha game where you collect cute girl characters.
As was common in such games, there are affection items and a pledge system.
In the real Middle Ages, strict Christianity didn't just prevent polygamy; even getting a divorce required getting excommunicated by the pope, essentially screwing up your life.
But would a nerdy mobile game really stick to such historical accuracy?
What about when the pure saint and the chaste paladin confess their love to the player?
Due to the influence of Heroines Chronicle, it was no issue for me in Heroes Chronicle to frequent the chambers of noblewomen, even if the nobility and the high temple officials knew about it.
As long as the married couples agreed and didn’t break their marriage contracts, it was considered fine.
But the story has turned out this way?
While cheating in a married state would mean breaking the oath of love made at the temple, it was perfectly normal in this world for unmarried men and women to freely engage in relations.
However, being known for chaotic womanizing doesn’t really give one a positive image, even if it was not illegal or against any doctrines.
In such a world, the temple's conclusion was very simple.
Wouldn't it be perfect if the hero and the owner of the holy sword got married?
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Raei Translations
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The temple, which serves the Goddess of Life, judges that prostitution and one-night stands are not problems doctrinally.
Therefore, what they hold most sacred is naturally pregnancy and childbirth.
The first blessing the Goddess bestowed on humanity was the doctrine "Be fruitful and multiply."
So, it kind of makes sense for the temple to try to tie the demon-slaying hero and the owner of the holy sword together in marriage.
“…Wow, sh*t. I've received emails about We Got Married content before, but this is the first time I'm actually being advised to get married.”
-Huh? Anyway, you got a We Got Married email but why haven't you done it?
-Practicing matchmaking in a virtual reality game
-So, she was making a major confession, and I was all excited thinking it was some grand quest like an oracle.
-The reason she hesitated in the cabin... It was embarrassing to ask Roland when he's going to marry Hanna.
Grace and Katie, realizing it was a secret conversation, scattered their senses, and morning arrived without any more progress in the topic.
After logging out and reconnecting, despite a day having passed, Han Se-ah and the viewers were still discussing yesterday's events, all the while her body busily moved.
She quickly whipped up a thick potato soup by the campfire that still held a cozy warmth.
After packing up her sleeping bag and dishes into her inventory, she headed outside as if nothing had happened, beneath the ever-cloudy sky where the sun neither set nor rose.
“It looks like we can get to the 47th floor by mid-morning, what do you think?”
“…Huh? What, what do you mean?”
"Whether to thoroughly search the cave on the 47th floor or head to the 48th."
They had taken an early rest on the edge of the 46th floor, the safe zone of the 47th floor still unexplored.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t discovered anything unusual in the caves of the 46th floor.
No matter how much they searched, a single party couldn’t explore all the caves, and aiming for 100% mapping to reach the 50th floor would take more than a year.
Han Se-ah, if she were gaming alone, might indulge in such a hardcore playstyle, but as the number one streamer, doing so would unpredictably sway public opinion.
Public opinion is already swirling like a whirlpool in an overflowing flood.
Due to Heroes Chronicle, Han Se-ah has attracted so many viewers that it's an understatement to call her just a "streamer."
Even during monotonous explorations, her viewership consistently numbers in the tens of thousands, and when the story progresses, it has soared past one hundred thousand.
With real-time viewers numbering one hundred thousand, the subscriber count has already surpassed ten million and is rapidly approaching a hundred million.
With so many caught up in the teaser about virtual reality pregnancy, chaos was inevitable.
While Han Se-ah was logged out, I did some hologram web surfing and saw that cheap internet tabloids had already started posting articles based on posts from the Heroes Chronicle Forum.
"Ah, while we're exploring the caves... let's do it like we did on the 46th floor. We'll check the side caves but won't go out of our way to check every single one. It would take too much time."
"That makes sense. Since other adventurers have agreed to handle the monster that was summoned on the 45th floor, it's best for us to move forward."
Despite being caught in a storm of confusion with the outside world questioning cyber ethics and whether it was a real pregnancy, we just kept heading to the 47th floor.
[Use the Awakening to hunt the boss monster on the 50th floor 0/1]
That was until the hologram window suddenly appeared before my eyes.
"...Hmm?"
"What's up, Roland?"
"Nothing. I thought I saw a shadow leopard because of the flickering shadows of the clouds."
As if Irene's bombshell wasn't headache-inducing enough, it had to happen at this timing.
...And what is this Awakening, and when did I have such a thing?
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