Not All Heroes From Earth Are Bad-Chapter 61

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Based on the draft written by Hemis, Reidrun created a detailed tournament plan.

The completed official document was distributed throughout the Third Corps.

“Lady Hemis. I’ve sent the documents to each unit as you instructed.”

“Good work.”

“However… Will this be alright?”

Reidrun asked with a worried expression.

Hemis tilted her head as if she didn’t understand what he meant.

“What do you mean, will it be alright?”

“It might be too late to say this now but… I wonder if the scale hasn’t become too large.”

The initial plan was to select battalion commanders through one-on-one tournaments.

But now the scale has grown enormously.

It has transformed into a massive event selecting one regimental commander and 13 battalion commanders.

“What’s wrong with that? It’s fun.”

“There’s talk among high-ranking commanders that this tournament ignores the traditional command decision battle.”

“And?”

“They might complain to the Demon King.”

It was quite possible.

Not only were they establishing a new regiment, but they were holding a large-scale tournament with over a thousand participants.

And it wasn’t just a simple tournament – it was deciding high-ranking commanders at battalion commander level and above.

Negative reactions were inevitable.

At that moment, Hemis licked her large lips with her tongue.

“Tell anyone who has complaints to come see me directly. I’ll face them in their beloved command decision battle.”

“…”

“If they’re that unhappy, they can take my Corps Commander position and do whatever they want, right?”

“That’s true…”

“Until then, I’m the Corps Commander, so I’ll do as I please.”

“Understood.”

Once Hemis had made up her mind, Reidrun’s job was set.

He just needed to silently follow his superior’s orders.

Hemis would take all responsibility for it.

“Lighten up. Thanks to all the added rules, there’s more room for Choi Hyun-seok to shine, right?”

Hemis continued with a grin.

“My heart’s already starting to pound. Aren’t you curious what Choi Hyun-seok will do in this tournament?”

A smile tinged with madness.

Reidrun could only silently watch his excited superior.

***

“This tournament will consist of 3 competitions.”

“3? Wasn’t it just supposed to be a tournament?”

Rachel put on her red glasses and read through the paper.

“Hmm, looks like it grew much bigger than expected.”

“Yes. Keep reading.”

“Alright. In order, first there’s a large-scale preliminary round to narrow it down to 100 people.”

“Large-scale preliminary? What kind of competition is it?”

“Well… It’s running?”

“Huh? What did you say?”

Choi Hyun-seok frowned for a moment.

He asked again, thinking he might have misheard.

“Running? The running I’m thinking of?”

“Yes. The first 100 people to cross the finish line in a group running race will advance to the next round.”

Choi Hyun-seok’s expression subtly distorted.

‘Running… This seems strange no matter how I think about it.’

The Demon King’s Army pursues only one thing.

First is strength.

Second is strength.

The Demon King’s Army is a crazy group that determines commanders purely by combat ability.

For such a group to select commanders through running?

‘There must be something more…’

Choi Hyun-seok asked again, just in case.

“Are there no specific rule explanations?”

“Attacking other participants during the race is allowed.”

“Ah, now that makes sense.”

There was no way it would be just running.

It would probably become a death race with blood flying everywhere.

“Though killing is prohibited, they say.”

“That’s somewhat fortunate.”

“Listen to the end. While killing is prohibited, unintentional killing gets 1 warning. Three warnings and you’re disqualified.”

“My goodness…”

Choi Hyun-seok made an incredulous expression.

‘In other words, they’re saying they’ll overlook killing up to 2 people.’

How would they judge whether a death during combat was intentional or not?

This basically means they’ll overlook anything except obviously targeting vital points to kill.

“Whoever came up with this plan is truly insane.”

Choi Hyun-seok let out a hollow laugh.

He was already dying of excitement at the thought of participating in this death race.

“Anyway, what’s the next competition?”

“They said they’ll tell us after we pass the running race.”

“I see…”

It seemed they wanted to maintain fairness through confidentiality.

“Ah, and the first place winner in this tournament will be given the position of regimental commander for the newly established regiment.”

“Regimental commander?”

“Yes. They’re also selecting 13 battalion commanders. Eight to replace the battalion commanders who died, and five for the newly established regiment. That makes 13 in total.”

“This is quite serious.”

“Indeed. What could that lip monster be thinking, organizing something like this?”

Rachel’s expression showed genuine curiosity.

Choi Hyun-seok shook his head.

“It’s obvious. She’s probably doing it because she thinks it’ll be fun.”

“Hmm, you’re right. It definitely seems like it will be fun!”

Rachel smiled brightly.

At that moment, Choi Hyun-seok gave Rachel a light knock on the head.

“Ack! Why did you hit me!?”

“Want me to spell out that you’re not the one participating!?”

While it might be entertaining for spectators, Choi Hyun-seok, who had to actually participate in this crazy tournament, was dreading it.

“Haa… Two weeks left. I need to finish preparing within that time.”

“What are you planning to do?”

At Rachel’s question, Hyun-seok scratched his head.

“What else can I do? Just keep training.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Instead of talking about this, I should go hunting right away.”

There wasn’t much time.

If he wanted to survive, he needed to raise his level even by just one.

“Great! Let’s go beat up lots of monster beasts today!”

Rachel shouted while throwing mock punches in the air.

Choi Hyun-seok’s eyes narrowed watching her.

‘Someone might think she’s the one fighting…’

***

A few days later.

As usual, Choi Hyun-seok was receiving healing from Abelson to stabilize his demonic energy.

“Urgh…”

Choi Hyun-seok gritted his teeth against the burning pain throughout his body.

Having experienced similar pain before, Rachel watched with a pained expression.

“Phew, it’s done.”

Abelson Mariette sighed and removed her hands.

“Thank you.”

“Fortunately, it’s improving bit by bit.”

“That’s great news!”

A smile spread across Choi Hyun-seok’s face.

Seeing his purely optimistic expression, Abelson’s face wrinkled.

“If you’d reduce your reckless demonic energy training, you’d recover faster.”

“I’m sorry… But I can’t help it…”

Choi Hyun-seok wasn’t training because he wanted to.

If he could, he’d like to wait until his demonic energy completely stabilized, but…

The situation wouldn’t allow it.

‘The tournament is right around the corner.’

The battalion commander tournament.

Or should it be called the regimental commander tournament?

Anyway, only three days remained until the competition.

He couldn’t waste even a moment.

“I’ll head out for today. See you tomorrow at the same time.”

“Yes. I’ll bring dinner when I visit.”

“Yes…”

Abelson nodded at the mention of dinner.

To be honest, the food Choi Hyun-seok makes is extremely delicious.

The fact that Abelson, who’s usually indifferent to everything, looks forward to dinner every day says it all.

“Then, goodbye.”

After Abelson left.

Rachel came running over as if she’d been waiting.

“Hero! Hero!”

“What.”

Choi Hyun-seok answered while putting on his top that he’d removed for treatment.

“Did it hurt a lot?”

“I’m used to it now, so it’s bearable.”

“Ugh… How can that be bearable? Just thinking about that time makes my hands and feet tremble.”

Rachel wasn’t exaggerating.

The pain of demonic energy corroding the body was truly beyond imagination.

It was completely understandable why Rachel was so frightened of it.

‘The feeling of your body burning from the inside… It’s really indescribable.’

While Choi Hyun-seok had somewhat gotten used to it now, at first he really thought he was going to die.

“So don’t play around like that next time.”

“Yes… Heheh!”

When Choi Hyun-seok spoke with a deliberately stern expression, Rachel smiled sheepishly.

“By the way, Hero!”

“What.”

“Hero, you’ve gotten quite strong, haven’t you?”

“I’ve gotten stronger?”

“Yes. I just checked with the Combat Power Meter earlier, and it’s increased tremendously!”

“What did it show?”

He hadn’t checked his combat power recently.

Seeing Rachel’s reaction, it seemed the number had risen considerably.

“Don’t be surprised! It’s…!”

“It’s what?”

“Twenty-six thousand five hundred and twenty (26,520)!”

“Oh! That’s a big increase.”

Though still modest compared to the battalion commanders he was aiming to match, it was still considerable progress.

With this level of power, he wouldn’t be completely helpless even fighting against a battalion commander.

“But there’s something strange.”

“Something strange?”

“Yes. There’s a question mark symbol next to the meter that I’ve never seen before. What could it be?”

“A question mark?”

At Choi Hyun-seok’s question, Rachel wrote on the ground with a branch.

[Combat Power: 26520 + ????]

“It shows up like this.”

“Hmm… Could it be because of the demonic energy?”

“Demonic energy?”

“Yeah. In my status window, the demonic energy is still shown as a question mark. I think it might be because of that.”

Choi Hyun-seok took the opportunity to check his status window again.

▫Name: Choi Hyun-seok

▫Title: Hero Candidate

▫Level: 461

▫Hero Points: 1450

▫Abilities: Magic Power(D) and 4 others

▫Skills: Plomot and 2 others

“It’s still the same.”

As expected, the demonic energy was still showing as a question mark (?).

The only difference was that there was one more question mark than before.

‘Could the number of question marks indicate the number of digits?’

If his guess was right, it meant his demonic energy had already exceeded 100.

Choi Hyun-seok let out a deep sigh.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.

“I wonder if I’m turning into a demon at this rate.”

Even without that, he’d been feeling that his body was different from before.

His wounds seemed to heal faster, and he didn’t tire as easily.

While it could be just his imagination, looking at his stats, it wasn’t just that.

‘Even considering the rewards I got from completing the hero quest recently, my stat increases are too steep.’

Recently, Choi Hyun-seok gained a large amount of stats while creating a new fighting technique.

[A great achievement that overcame the hero’s limits and broke existing frameworks!]

[Special reward will be given!]

[Strength stat has increased]

[Agility stat has increased]

…

The total stats gained then were about 40 points.

However, even considering that, his current stats had increased too much.

‘They’ve increased by nearly 120 points compared to before…’

To summarize:

40 points from leveling up.

40 points from the quest reward.

Then where did the remaining 40 points come from?

Originally, there were two ways to increase stats.

‘One is investing bonus points gained from leveling up. The other is stat increases from battle or training…’

While the former gives 1 point per level up, the latter is not easy to achieve.

Sometimes stats wouldn’t increase even after gaining 10 levels.

‘But now stats are increasing as much as from leveling up…’

This was impossible in the past.

‘It makes sense if it’s reflecting my body being strengthened while adapting to demonic energy.’

The recently improved condition.

Abnormally increasing stats.

Everything could be explained if it was due to his body changing from demonic energy.

“Hero. Is something wrong?”

When Choi Hyun-seok showed a serious expression, Rachel’s face showed concern.

“Just wondering what I’d do if I turned from human into a demon.”

“Come on~ That won’t happen!”

“Right? How could such a thing happen.”

Fortunately, there were no external changes yet.

Choi Hyun-seok decided not to worry about this issue anymore.

‘I’m not in a position to be picky.’

He was prepared to even sell his soul if it meant gaining power right now.

‘Just increasing demonic energy is actually something to welcome.’

Grow stronger by any means necessary.

Survive and do what you want to do.

I decided to only think about that for now.

***

The capital of the Holy Empire of Gatren.

Pope Orban IV was having a conversation with his trusted Cardinal Elrond.

“Has there been any news since then?”

“Yes. The last report was that they arrived at the Black Giant Star and would begin the raid.”

“Then we must consider the mission a definite failure.”

It had been nearly a month since the hounds, including Oseld Gefen, departed to assassinate the Holy Maiden.

Given there’s still no news, it would be right to assume they are all dead.

“It’s regrettable that the Empire’s talented individuals have vanished so meaninglessly…”

In this incident, one hero-class figure and three other powerful individuals of similar caliber died.

Considering that a typical nation has only two or three hero-class warriors, this was an enormous loss of military power.

“There shouldn’t have been the Grotesque Eater at the Black Giant Star… I can’t understand how they failed the mission.”

“I apologize.”

“No. How could it be Cardinal Elrond’s fault that they failed their mission?”

Elrond carefully observed the Pope’s expression.

Though he maintained his usual gentle expression on the surface, it was clear that he was quite angry.

Deep anger was burning in his eyes.

Elrond carefully changed the subject.

“What will you do about the next Holy Maiden, Abelson Mariette?”

“Abelson… We can’t leave her be like this. She’s always been a troublemaker, and now it’s come to this.”

Abelson Mariette was a headache even from the Pope’s perspective.

Unlike other Holy Maidens, she didn’t follow the Pope’s control and wandered around outside.

She had deep public support and many followers, so they couldn’t treat her carelessly.

Her background as a princess of the Mariette Kingdom was also one of the reasons she was troublesome.

“We tried to deal with her and silence her using this opportunity, but since we failed, there’s only one option left.”

“…”

“From this moment, I revoke Abelson Mariette’s position as the next Holy Maiden. And officially announce that she has conspired with the Demon King’s Army.”

The Pope’s declaration fell.

Elrond showed a surprised expression.

“Will that be alright? There are many in the Empire who support Abelson Mariette. Moreover, how the Mariette Kingdom will react…”

“It doesn’t matter. From now on, Abelson Mariette is a traitor. Those who side with her will be considered complicit in treason. This applies to the Mariette Kingdom as well, so announce it as such.”

“Understood.”

Pope Orban made a bold move.

It was unavoidable.

If the popular Abelson spoke carelessly, it could cause major unrest within the Empire.

It was better to definitively settle the matter even if it meant enduring some unrest.

The Pope furrowed his brow deeply and opened his eyes fiercely.

“The Grotesque Eater who caused this incident must pay the price one way or another.”

Grotesque Eater Hemis.

Looking back, all of this happened because Hemis kidnapped Abelson.

She had been interfering with the great work from the past.

Fortunately, with the Demon King’s cooperation, they succeeded in confining her to the Black Giant Star, but they didn’t expect things to escalate like this.

“About that. We received this report recently.”

“Report?”

“Yes. It’s a report from a spy who recently made contact with the Demon King’s Army.”

Cardinal Elrond handed over a paper.

The Pope’s expression subtly changed as he received and read it.

“A large-scale event is being held at the Black Giant Star?”

“They say they’re establishing a new alliance and selecting appropriate commanders for it.”

“Hahaha! That’s interesting.”

The Pope laughed loudly as if he truly found it amusing.

“To think these creatures who know nothing but battle would do something like this. Is this also the Grotesque Eater’s doing?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Hmm, it’s interesting, but not a good thing.”

The Pope’s eyes grew cold.

“Those fools haven’t changed for the past 500 years. And they should stay that way.”

“…”

“Demons that change? This cannot be overlooked.”

“What will you do?”

“This might actually be fortunate. We should use this opportunity to reduce the Grotesque Eater’s influence within the Demon King’s Army. To prevent her from causing any more trouble.”

As the Pope spoke, his eyes resembled those of a snake eyeing its prey.

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Schedule: [4 Chs a week]

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