I Became a 6★ Gacha Character

339 - Power of the Temple 4

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/week

Illustrations: Posted in discord

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Although I was surprised by the sinister plan coming from Laurencia's tiny mouth, Han Se-ah is no less sinister.

It's a bit strange that the hero and the saint candidate are competing to see who can cause more chaos, but anyway.

With Han Se-ah freely unleashed in the heart of enemy territory, what follows is only natural. Especially since she's now free from the viewers' gaze as well?

'...So her usual behavior was actually restrained due to the sudden increase in viewers?'

It's hard to believe that planting bombs on a giant boss's shell and blasting away was considered restrained behavior... But seeing her go wild like an eight-ton truck with broken brakes once the camera's off, I can't help but accept it.

Especially after witnessing the crowd of adventurers who rushed over, their faces filled with emotion upon seeing me as I came out to assess the situation in front of the inn.

A bizarre situation where at least thirty adventurers swarm over, look at my face with awe, then disappear. After some time passes and Han Se-ah is left alone in the square, she enters the inn and is promptly cornered by Grace and Katie, obediently starting to explain.

"I thought there'd be more people since the city is so big, so I went looking for adventurers in areas Old Woman Shasha wasn't interested in."

"Ah... This place was definitely much bigger."

If the city is bigger, wouldn't more people and more bombs suffice? She moved with the idea that enslaved adventurers could be used for manpower, her inventory was full of bombs, and she could increase the quantity by asking the stone dwarves.

I wondered what she was up to after turning off the stream, and it turns out she was going around finding alchemists introduced by Old Woman Shasha to multiply her bombs.

It seems she tried to recruit as many unaffiliated adventurers as possible while on a viewer-funded mission to reveal as much of the minimap as she could.

"So you gathered people?"

"I figured many would be uneasy about Laurencia's plan."

"Well, even for a nun on a pilgrimage, the 50th floor is still the frontline that adventurers haven't even reached. Many would be anxious unless they're the holy sword's owner or the hero."

Han Se-ah sits at the table, laying out snacks she claims to have gotten on the way. From her mouth spills vivid details about the reality of the 50th floor system, heard from stone dwarves and adventurers.

Like how they use luxurious inns built by master craftsmen as slave quarters, thinking any place with a roof is a livestock pen. Or how they only want shiny art pieces, so they don't particularly torture or kill slaves. Or how stone dwarves eat rocks instead of food, so there's no need to starve them...

Instead, there was a different problem - naturally, it was the food issue.

"Even the Empire's harpies are starving because livestock turn into mana stones when they die. In the midst of this, humans have invaded, so they're full of thoughts about defeating them and plundering food."

The work of captured adventurer slaves is, of course, the chores harpies hate doing. Now that the knights have started invading and destroying the city, the adventurers naturally began moving soldiers' supplies, stripped of their weapons.

Information they naturally overhear while moving gas bombs from alchemy workshops and javelins from blacksmiths to the troops.

While stone dwarves can eat rocks from mines - tasteless but filling - it's a different story for harpies and enslaved adventurers. No, harpies have become cursed monsters bound to the tower who may starve but won't die of hunger, but kidnapped human adventurers will die if they keep starving.

"Come to think of it, the harpies on the 43rd floor were buying food, right? I forgot about that."

"They need to raise sheep through pastoralism in high mountains and supplement insufficient food through trade or plunder from other races... but all of that became impossible when absorbed into the tower."

"If they don't want to starve to death, they'll have to cooperate."

In short, the captured adventurers had no choice but to follow our plan, even if the odds were low, to avoid starving to death.

Trying to sneak out of the city to the caves was impossible, as the harpy army had gathered there due to the knights' attack.

Breakthrough the city past hundreds of high-level monsters with no equipment, wearing just a robe? If they had that kind of skill, they wouldn't have been kidnapped by harpies in the first place. Being kidnapped means they're intermediate-level at best, unable to externally manifest mana.

When even well-armed high-level mercenaries can become human meat skewers from a harpy commander's javelin if they let their guard down for money, how could mere mid-levels break through hundreds of harpies?

"Then when we cause a commotion and Laurencia leads people to escape to the caves, we can head to the imperial palace."

"Right. In the end, this war will only be resolved by dealing with the harpy empress who fancies herself a god."

In the end, they had no choice but to follow Han Se-ah, if only to avoid starving to death.

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Raei Translations

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Generally, revolutions happen because of food.

People can endure most things, but hunger is an instinct that has persisted since ancient times.

The reason the baguette friends shouted "Revolution!" was anger over economic depression and crop failures. The Yellow Turban friends who set the stage for the Three Kingdoms also rose up after being fed up with starvation. Even in our country, there was an incident where soldiers revolted after sawdust was mixed into their rice rations.

When hungry, people will hang or chop up even their own country's leaders. So who would tolerate being kidnapped by monster harpies and starved?

Eat rocks instead of food? Or join a bomb terror attack?

Given these choices, anyone who picks rocks isn't human but a monster. No matter how superhuman you become after mastering mana, you can't live on rocks instead of food.

"My goodness, so many of our brothers...!"

"This should be enough to cause a commotion and escape."

"Of course! And with the bombs the hero brought, we're even more reassured!"

That's why Han Se-ah, with her inventory, was like a cheat key for the starving adventurers.

Though small rations were given out, presumably because it was bothersome for the slaves they caught to die, how could the food stockpiled be infinite? In a city full of corrupt nobles who'd rather starve third-class citizens and slaves to death than go hungry themselves.

The kidnapped adventurer victims who had been filling their stomachs with withered cheap bread and dried grains the harpies didn't prefer. They seemed half-doubtful of the nun who came with the Temple Knights, hesitating to join the escape attempt due to anxiety and helplessness, instead hoping for the knights... but things change when there's a hero who pulls out food pouches from her inventory.

Han Se-ah, fully intending to smash the city and get out of the tower within three days at most. Thinking the viewer sentiment might be a bit uneasy due to the slow tower conquest pace and passive appearance with the knights taking the lead, she emptied out all the food in her inventory.

The weight of a nameless nun's verbal plans versus a hero who feeds you when you're hungry while handing you bombs and giving orders - there's no comparison.

"Um... but..."

"Yes?"

Just as hope was being found in the warm atmosphere, someone hesitantly speaks up.

Laurencia, Han Se-ah, Old Woman Shasha, and one guy pushed forward as the adventurers' representative. It was the adventurer representative who opened his mouth while they were sitting at the table talking.

Though he looked like an ordinary neighborhood uncle with shaggy hair, the sturdy muscles visible through his shabby clothes instead of a pot belly suggested he was a intermediate-level adventurer dreaming of striking it rich.

His complexion looks a bit poor, probably from the recent poor diet, but not to the point where he can't fight. Well, I guess that's to be expected since they pushed through floors 47 to 50 at a pace of about one floor every 2-3 days.

"In the end, even if we cause a commotion, we'll still have to break through the battlefield with the stone dwarves, right? We'll die helplessly if we get caught up in it without equipment."

"Th-that's right... In this state, we won't be able to block javelins, let alone dodge them..."

The adventurers standing in the lobby listening to the story start to stir at the shaggy-haired uncle's words. After all, unless you throw the entire city into chaos, you still have to flee to that narrow cave in the end.

With no food, the moment you flee to the mountains instead of the cave, you'll starve to death, so you have no choice but to break through that battlefield. And not starting from the allied side, but from the middle of enemy territory, unarmed and with non-combatant stone dwarves in tow.

Though they're cooperating to avoid starving to death, I guess the anxiety is unavoidable. Seeing the stirring adventurers, Laurencia jumps up from the table.

"Don't worry!"

"I-it's not that I lack faith in the Goddess."

"Huh? Ah, I know that faith alone doesn't change reality!"

The shaggy-haired uncle hurriedly explains as he realizes he looks like he's doubting the nun and hero in front of the armored Temple Knights. But Laurencia didn't jump up to question his rudeness.

A tiny, delicate hand popping out from the oversized gray robe. But a closer look at that hand grip reveals it can hardly be called dainty.

Scars on the back of the hand, broken nails, slightly twisted fingers, and calluses harder than those of a intermediate-level adventurer. Like a ballerina's feet seen on the internet, her hands were so trained that one might worry if they needed healing with divine energy.

"Believing my faith to be as firm as armor--!"

"Wh-what?!"

As the tiny hands clasp together like a vise, divine energy rises from them. Brilliant white divine energy settles on the adventurers' bodies, enveloping them like the Temple Knights' armor.

As the light fades, what remains are thirty adventurers startled by the divine energy armor covering their bodies, and a female warrior armed with a hammer larger than herself, clad in white divine energy armor.

Laurencia, the saint candidate, seems to be more in line with the Temple Knight class.

...Though a loli character with a giant heavy weapon is a bit of a niche character design.