WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈

Chapter 5: Mass-Produced Julian (2)

──────

The hero's party swept toward the Demon King's Castle like a storm.

Their speed and efficiency were incomparable to the first and second runs.

"That's what you'd expect from a chosen hero."

"I've never seen such remarkable talent."

"Of course he's a legend."

Even the companions who had barely acknowledged him until the middle of the story in the first and second runs recognized him quickly.

And so, about four years passed.

"Dieeeee!"

Craaaash!

A sword strike releasing storm-like mana swallowed the Demon King whole.

"Huff... Huff..."

It was his third time, but fighting the Demon King was still difficult.

Yulian gasped for breath and shouted.

"I wonnn!"

Shing!

The Hero's Sword shone, proclaiming victory.

"Waaaaah! Yulian! Yulian!"

His companions rushed over to share in the joy.

They were all grinning from ear to ear.

They had suffered for four years to achieve this, so of course they were happy.

But Yulian alone showed little change in expression.

While everyone looked at one another, Yulian bit his lip and stared up at the sky.

Damn it. Right...

He knew the future that had already been decided.

They're all made-up characters anyway.

He had come to think of them as people who did not truly exist.

They were only actors in a story Pam had made.

Just as he was.

And now, that story was coming to an end.

Thud!

The world went dark.

Bzzzzzt!

The graphics broke apart, and words appeared again.

- Great work.

- Yulian's journey... was fun.

- Hmm, it was a little rushed, but it was solid enough.

- Congrats on finishing!

- The final battle was the least fun.

- It wasn't deeply moving, but it was worth watching.

They were not overwhelmingly positive reviews, but they were not bad either.

They were far better than last time.

The words quickly vanished, and new ones appeared.

[The End]

Words announcing the end of the story.

Pop!

Pam appeared with the words behind her.

"Kyaruru! Great work, Yulian!"

She looked quite pleased.

Because of Yulian's improvement.

He did this in only four years.

He had become a monster in just three runs.

"Congratulations, Yulian. This time, you completed it without losing a single companion."

She praised him for keeping all his companions alive.

But Yulian no longer cared much about his companions.

So he did not even ask whether there would be an epilogue.

"What was my score?"

He asked about his score.

"Huh? You don't care about an epilogue anymore? Didn't you arrange to meet the princess this time?"

For the first time, a princess character had shown affection for him.

But Yulian was no longer interested.

"Just tell me my score."

He knew exactly what mattered more.

"All right, then."

Pam grinned and revealed his score.

Whirrrrr!

Letters spun like a slot machine.

Then they stopped.

Ding!

[Evaluation: B+]

It was B+.

Just one step short of A.

Once again, he had failed to reach ten thousand.

Yulian was disappointed, but he was not greatly shaken.

This is tremendous progress.

He had decided to live as a hero anyway.

He just needed to keep doing well from here on.

What mattered was that he had improved.

"Show me the detailed data."

He only had to look at the numbers and check them.

He needed to know what had caused points to be deducted again.

"Oh my. That's classified information. You can't just demand to see it."

"Don't make me laugh. You said you were going to train me into a professional hero."

"Kyaruru! You're completely different from the first and second runs, aren't you?"

As though she liked that, Pam snapped her fingers.

Snap!

The data from this run streamed out.

Yulian scanned the figures, and his gaze stopped at the end.

[6,790]

It was still considerably short of ten thousand, but compared to the 1,520 he had received last time, it was enormous progress.

I was heading in the right direction.

He had been right about the big picture, but he still had not reached ten thousand.

He needed to analyze it.

He zoomed in and dug deeper.

What was the problem?

"Are there any places where the score suddenly dropped?"

"Here, here, and here."

There were sections where the score fell by hundreds at a time, then suddenly dropped by thousands.

[34,281]

[34,112]

[34,003]

[31,890]

For example, it would suddenly fall from the thirty-four-thousand range to thirty-one thousand.

There were sections like that in the twenty-thousand range and the ten-thousand range too.

"What caused it?"

Yulian was certain there had to be a reason.

"Uh..."

Pam said nothing.

"What caused it?"

"Kyaruru...! I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"From B+ onward, I can only guess."

"What's your guess?"

Pam thought for a moment.

After all, even if she told him, he might not be able to achieve it.

"That's what the industry speculates. 'Specialness.'"

"Specialness?"

"They say every story that earns an A rating or higher has specialness."

"They say? Haven't you ever made an A-rated story?"

Yulian questioned Pam's uncertain wording.

She jumped in surprise.

"W, what are you talking about? I'm the ace of our branch! Of course I have!"

"Then why do you sound like that?"

Because, in her long Story Fairy career, it had only happened once.

And even then, she had barely scraped into A.

"It's under embargo. Embargo. Being a professional hero doesn't mean I can tell you everything, you know."

Pam used an embargo as an excuse to hide that embarrassing part of her career.

"Anyway, B+ is a remarkable achievement! Yulian! Congratulations! I'll add another hundred million won as a bonus!"

"...A hundred million?!"

Before Yulian could say anything, Pam snapped her fingers.

Pop!

* * *

Honk honk!

A bus horn sounded.

Another bus!

It had been four years, but the memory was still so vivid that Jun-il nearly threw himself backward.

"Student. Aren't you getting on?"

"...Huh?"

Looking closely, the bus was waiting for him.

It was not about to slam into him like last time.

Ah... I'm back.

Jun-il looked down at himself.

He was wearing a soccer uniform.

I was on my way home after playing soccer with the guys.

He could have walked, but it was hot, so he had planned to take the bus.

"Ah, I'm getting on!"

Whoosh!

Jun-il climbed aboard at incredible speed.

Cool air from the bus's air conditioning greeted him.

Modern life really is nice.

He remembered fighting in the Furnace Dungeon, nearly roasting to death in armor.

Maylin cast a frost spell on me back then...

Leaning against the bus window, Jun-il briefly reflected on his first run.

It had been a lacking time in many ways.

Yet it remained especially vivid in his memory.

Was it because it had been special?

Specialness?

The question came back to him.

What was specialness?

Pam had said it was the path to an A.

But unlike the coaching she had given before, it was far too vague.

Should I look into it somehow?

He turned on his phone to search.

Bzzzt.

[Nara Bank]

[Deposit Notification]

[400,000,000 won]

Four hundred million won had been deposited.

Thump.

Jun-il's heart raced.

Do I really need an A...?

Humans were weak when it came to numbers.

Seeing such an enormous number in front of him, Jun-il's thoughts shifted somewhat.

Was it because he had returned to thinking with Moon Jun-il's brain rather than Yulian's?

His mind began to work in economic terms.

The difference in reward compared to the effort needed for B+ and A is practically nothing.

A was six hundred million won.

B+ was four hundred million won.

C+ was one hundred and fifty million won.

That was how it broke down.

There did not seem to be much reason to push himself for A.

It's a two-hundred-million-won difference, but...

He had internalized how to reach B+ quite well.

Did he really need to pursue A for the sake of specialness?

As far as Jun-il understood it, specialness was a double-edged sword.

Einstein had been special.

That was why people had treated him as an oddball when he was young.

Steve Jobs had been special too.

People had called him a psychopath throughout his life.

I'm nothing like people like that.

Jun-il was just an ordinary person who got good grades, with perseverance as his only real strength.

Then there was only one conclusion.

Let's focus on maintaining B+.

First, he would keep earning B+ and build up his overall level.

I'll cut back on crypto investments and put more effort into being a hero.

He shifted from gambling to stability.

He also reduced the crypto portion of his investment portfolio and increased his holdings in U.S. bonds and stocks.

At first, he had thought the initial capital of three hundred million won was all he would get, so he had taken risks to reach two billion won.

But now the money would keep coming, so there was no reason to do that.

If he put it into very safe U.S. stocks, the money would grow on its own and eventually reach two billion won.

If I do this a few more times...

What if he did hero work another four or five times with the ability to maintain B+?

The time needed to complete a B+ story would surely decrease.

At first, it had taken ten years. Then seven. Now four.

It would grow shorter still.

Maybe even down to two years.

Then he could clear stories at B+ very quickly, and within about ten years of hero work, he could buy a two-billion-won home without a loan.

This is insane.

The thought alone thrilled him.

Two billion won.

And if he earned another billion won to invest and then retired from being a hero?

He would have perfect financial freedom.

I don't need A after all.

Everything became clear.

From now on, his strategy was to reach B+ quickly.

* * *

After the third run, Jun-il's life was simple.

He no longer needed a part-time job during vacation, so all his time was free.

He did not need to prepare for employment either, so he had no stress about the future.

It felt like he was on vacation.

A vacation in modern life after spending twenty years in the medieval world, returning only occasionally for a few months.

Wearing his newly bought headset, he lay on a bench in the campus park.

Is this how I connect it...?

Even using a phone felt unfamiliar now.

He even found sleeping in the soft bed in his studio apartment awkward.

It sways so much at night. Honestly...

He had spent twenty-one years sleeping on the ground with nothing but grass beneath him.

The bed made him feel like he was swaying.

This is more comfortable. Damn it.

He lay on the wooden bench and watched sunlight filter through the leaves.

It reminded him of his first run.

Once, Maylin and he had lain on the grass and talked until the stars came out.

He closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the peace.

"Oh? Oppa, did you buy a headset?"

He slowly opened his eyes.

Brown hair blocked his view.

Someone was looking down at him.

Maylin?

No.

It was Suyeon.

"What are you doing here?"

She smiled brightly and tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Ah... Just resting a little."

"Do you know you've gotten really strange lately?"

Jun-il jerked upright before he knew it.

What the hell?

What even was women's intuition?

How did she know?

"Why did you suddenly sit up?"

"Ah, my back hurt."

"That's ridiculous. All of a sudden?"

Suyeon burst out laughing.

"Why are you here, anyway? It's vacation."

"Me? Of course I came to the library."

Ah. Right.

Suyeon had always been diligent, whether it was grades or job hunting.

I used to be like that too.

Come to think of it, Jun-il had been that kind of person too.

They had become close because their daily routines overlapped so much.

It makes sense that she thinks I've become strange.

From Suyeon's perspective, Jun-il had suddenly become a loafer.

"Ah, Jun-il, if you haven't had lunch..."

Bzzzzz.

Jun-il's phone suddenly vibrated.

"Huh?"

"Ah, never mind. Answer that."

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

His phone kept vibrating.

"It's not a call."

"?"

It was not a call.

[Jun-il, come out and play just the first half.]

[Jun-il, play for just fifteen minutes.]

[Jun-il, five minutes... No, just come stand there. The guys say you're scary.]

[Jun-il, please come even for the second half and score just five goals!]

Seriously?

Jun-il shut off his phone notifications in disbelief.

After all those times they told me to just play goalkeeper.

Jun-il had suddenly become far too popular.

He sprang up from the bench.

He needed to act like he used to.

He should just have lunch with Suyeon.

"You were asking me to eat?"

"Huh? Yes."

"Let's go. I'll treat you."

"R, really?"

Of course.

He had eight hundred million won in his bank account.

Why would he let a younger schoolmate treat him?

* * *

Jun-il headed to his usual restaurant.

He had barely managed to visit once a week before.

Now, he went every day.

"Ma'am. I'll have..."

"The extra-large spicy pork set meal, right?"

"Yes."

His usual order.

It was placed automatically.

"Oh..."

Suyeon watched in fascination, then simply ordered a spicy pork set meal for herself.

A little later.

"...?"

Suyeon looked as though she were witnessing a parade of oddities.

Shovel, shovel, shovel!

"J, Jun-il... I usually wouldn't say something like this, but aren't you going to get indigestion?"

Jun-il had nearly finished a bowl of rice in thirty seconds.

"Mm?"

While chewing meat, Jun-il tilted his head.

He thought he was eating at a perfectly leisurely pace.

"Aren't you going to eat that?"

"I am. I just haven't eaten it yet. You took mine earlier too."

"Ah. Did I?"

Whoosh!

Jun-il promptly took another side dish.

"Hey! Why are you taking that?"

"You weren't eating it."

In the medieval world, if you did not eat first, someone took it from you.

He had lived that way for over twenty years.

His meals were far more combative than those of a modern person.

It seemed like nothing could stop him from eating.

But then.

Bzzzzzt!

Huh?

There had been one moment when Jun-il stopped eating.

What is this?

- Huh? lol Where is this?

- You can connect even here?

- Hi hi

The moment words appeared in midair.

Why are they showing up here?

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried