Chapter 50
“Wow, what is that?!”
Darren let out a shout of surprise as he stared at the tip of Ferdia’s finger.
There stood a massive treasure chest, adorned with a pair of sacred white wings—the symbol of the goddess—etched beautifully on its surface.
“Whoa, it must be a reward from the goddess! I’ve read about it a few times in the records, but it’s my first time actually seeing one.”
“L-Let’s open it, quick!”
Snorting in excitement, Darren ran toward the treasure chest.
As for me…
‘Hmm, so this is how they give dungeon clear rewards.’
That’s what I thought.
In most games, after you clear a dungeon, a treasure chest is waiting at the end. Nothing to be surprised about.
And yet…
‘Why… why am I so excited?’
My heart pounded wildly inside my ribcage.
Just the sight of that beautiful treasure chest made me involuntarily grin.
‘I’ve become such a capitalist sellout…!’
But hey, what’s wrong with liking money?
Let’s see, I drank about 100 mana recovery potions today.
Luckily, I made them myself, otherwise, how much would that have cost?
I would’ve gone broke.
If the goddess had any conscience at all, she couldn’t give us a stingy dungeon reward.
As I smiled and slowly walked toward the treasure chest…
“Ugh, why won’t it open…!”
Even Darren—who was strong enough to swing an enormous axe with ease—was groaning as he struggled to open the chest.
“Hey, move. What kind of man has so little strength…”
Rena scolded him and shoved him aside.
Darren looked extremely wronged, but Rena didn’t care. She cast a spell on her arms and tried to open the chest herself.
Still, it didn’t budge.
“…What the hell is this?”
For someone like Rena, who could crush padlocks with her bare hands, it was beyond baffling.
“I’m telling you, it’s not that I’m weak!”
In the middle of it all, Darren insisted that he wasn’t some weakling, yelling in frustration.
“M-Maybe only the goddess’s chosen hero can open it?”
Leo cautiously offered his opinion.
“Oh, that makes sense. Boss, come here and open it.”
“Would you quit it with the ‘boss’ already…”
Ugh, my head…
I pressed my temples, feeling a headache coming on.
Still, my feet steadily carried me toward the treasure chest.
And when I placed my hand on it…
I didn’t even use much force, but the chest creaked open on its own.
Inside the chest was…
“…”
“…”
Everyone stared into the chest in silence.
Because no one could tell what was inside.
“Don’t tell me it’s empty?”
“No way, is the goddess really that stingy?!”
That last outburst was Darren’s.
Seriously, the chest was huge, and yet—why? Why was there nothing inside?
A wave of disbelief passed through the group. Everyone tried lifting the chest, thinking it couldn’t be.
But a chest that was hard to open wouldn’t be easy to lift, either.
It was completely immovable, like it was stuck to the ground.
And then…
“…There’s something shining at the bottom.”
Adrian, now wearing glasses—when did he even put those on?—was peering into the chest.
As he said, there was something shiny stuck to the bottom.
“Ooh, gold coin!”
“A g-gold coin…”
Ferdia stammered.
Gold coins weren’t exactly common items.
Just one had the value of 500,000 Bain.
But still…
‘Are you serious? Isn’t this way too stingy? I used how many potions just to keep my forbidden arts active in that dungeon…?!’
Split into four, that’d be 125,000 Bain each.
Sure, that’s a lot compared to the money I’ve slowly saved up from previous quest rewards.
But it didn’t even come close to covering the effort and cost we poured into this.
I couldn’t even complain out loud, so I just swallowed my tears inside.
Tears of blood, that’s how it felt.
You heartless, conscience-lacking goddess!
Of course, dungeon rewards were no different from gacha pulls in a game.
Basically, loot boxes with randomized results.
Sometimes you got ultra-rare items…
Sometimes, like now, you got total garbage.
This was one of those times.
We’d been walking and fighting and walking and fighting since dawn…
And this was our reward?
If we calculated this by hourly wage, we wouldn’t even meet minimum wage, goddess!
I should have signed a proper employment contract…
When I picked up the coin from the bottom of the chest…
That annoyingly large treasure chest faded away into light and disappeared.
Now, the only thing left in this place was the magical light orb Leo had conjured.
“Shall we head back?”
“…Yeah. Let’s go.”
Darren asked weakly, and Leo nodded with a tired voice.
It was time to return to the city.
The trip back to the city didn’t take as long as we thought.
In the game, all you had to do was press the “Exit Dungeon” button and you’d instantly teleport back to the forest entrance. So compared to that, yeah, this was longer.
But at least we weren’t fighting monsters on the way back.
The darkness had lifted, so nothing was blocking our path.
With clear visibility, we quickly found a shortcut and made it out.
That said, we never made it to the restaurant Ferdia had promised to take us to.
Because the moment we reached the city gates, chaos broke out.
“W-What was that?! The darkness covering the forest just vanished in an instant…!”
A well-dressed elderly man in luxurious robes came rushing toward us, yelling.
I didn’t know if the others recognized him, but I did.
He was the head of the Forest Guild.
That arrogant old man who refused to even meet with us.
“Oh, Goddess above…”
That was a familiar voice I’d heard often in this world—Priest Lucas.
It looked like everyone had rushed out in a panic after witnessing the giant white wings in the sky and the vanishing darkness.
“You—Ferdia?!”
One man in pajamas ran toward us in a hurry, having spotted Ferdia.
“Why are you with these people?!”
“Uh… I just guided them.”
She casually picked her ear with her pinky, not even pretending to be bothered.
“W-Why would you bring outsiders into this when the Guild Leader was already working on a solution?!”
The man began smacking Ferdia’s back hard with a large hand.
“Dad! Get a grip! What do you mean ‘solve it ourselves’? That darkness would’ve reached the city walls by morning. Do you know what kinds of horrors were in there? Without these people, we’d all be dead!”
She yelled furiously, her voice echoing.
So this man was Ferdia’s father.
“Y-You brat! How dare you talk back to your father like that—!”
He raised a hand, ready to slap her.
Ferdia flinched and closed her eyes, bracing for the blow.
But Adrian’s gloved hand caught the man’s wrist just in time.
“Let’s talk calmly. Miss Ferdia is our benefactor.”
“Outsiders shouldn’t interfere! Who do you think you are?!”
Ferdia’s father, face red and blue in fury, turned on Adrian.
He probably thought Adrian looked meek and would be an easy target.
But then—
“Hey, pal. We just cleaned up that darkness in the forest, yeah? Thanks to us, you can all go back to logging and herb gathering starting tomorrow.”
Darren, face already rough-looking, scowled even harder and stepped forward.
That was enough to make the man back down with a whimper.
But the confrontation wasn’t over yet.
“…We never asked for your help.”
The Forest Guild Leader walked toward us with steady steps, saying that coldly.
A moment ago, he looked terrified—face pale and panicked.
But now, there was no trace of that.
I guess you had to be this shameless to hold power in a city where the Forest Guild wielded so much influence.
“You heard what was in the darkness, didn’t you? Monsters in darkness are three times stronger. Normal people can only fight at 30% strength. Do you really think you could’ve protected the city in that state?”
Adrian calmly countered, but the guild leader didn’t back down.
“Hmph. If you hadn’t acted without permission, we would’ve handled it ourselves.”
A standoff now loomed between the Forest Guild leaders and the Hageon Hero Party.
As tensions rose, Leo let out a sigh.
“We risked our lives, and this is how we’re treated? Lady Elaine, doesn’t this make you mad?”
“Huh? Me? Hmm… nah. No point getting mad.”
Having already experienced this scene in the game, I wasn’t particularly surprised.
Sure, the first time I played, I got overly immersed and scowled, muttering, “Knew they’d pull this crap.”
But I also knew this situation wouldn’t last.
“Just wait a bit. Everyone will recognize how hard we worked soon enough.”
That was a prediction I could make because I knew how the story would unfold.
And sure enough, not long after—
“Grandpa! Stop it! These people are really kind!”
A little girl with her hair in twin braids and a cute dress burst out from the crowd, shouting.
She held a familiar teddy bear in her arms.
“J-Jennifer! Why aren’t you in bed at this hour?!”
The guild leader gawked in shock.
Jennifer was his granddaughter.
“You’re such a dummy, Grandpa! These people spent all day yesterday helping everyone in the city! While you were locked up whispering with your old men friends!”
The girl flailed her twin braids and pummeled her grandfather’s thigh with her tiny fists.
