Game World's Awakening
Chapter 45: Being a Hero is... A Stupid Mistake.

Chapter 45: Being a Hero is... A Stupid Mistake.

"Yes, I was born there. But my parents moved to the Maritime City of Agora, and I lived there until I decided to come here. I arrived a few weeks ago."

Elliot nodded gently. "Why leave one of the kingdom’s great cities to live in Agora? I think the difference between Tanafler and Agora is so great that it seems like they belong to different continents."

"Hehe, Tanafler is very big and beautiful, and it has the protection of several Heroes. Even so, it’s not good. It’s very hot there, and the people are very stressful."

"Is it true what they say about them being temperamental?"

"Yes. Maybe the heat makes them that way."

"That makes sense. I couldn’t stand living in such heat. Still, Agora isn’t that different, is it? It’s a real coastal city and has the famous House of Fire. I heard that the presence of that place is enough to heat the city."

Jenna shook her head repeatedly.

"The heat from the volcanoes isn’t the same as the heat in Agora. Besides, the House of Fire is just a hot guild with arrogant people. But Tanafler is all hot. The rocks, the streets, the buildings, everything stays hot, which raises the temperature in the city. It’s horrible to live there. Volcanic ash sometimes falls like snow and bathes the city in a gray color, where going outside can burn you." She shook her head once more, this time in discontent as she remembered that hot city.

Her response was funny, so Elliot couldn’t help but laugh. "Hahaha, maybe you’re the only person to say that about the Great City of Tanafler."

She shrugged, smiling. "Maybe. They don’t let me travel in Tanafler either, because the beasts are powerful. That makes me dislike it, since I like the idea of traveling and being in an area where I can have adventures and find my own way."

"You want to find your own way, too?"

"You too?"

Elliot smiled. "That’s right. I think I can forge my own path if I’m strong enough. But I also believe that my path is already laid out before me, and I just have to walk it and steer it in the direction I want. Take revenge on my enemies, find my father, and achieve glory—become a World Champion. It’s been my dream since I was a little boy, because I’ve always wanted to be a hero."

Jenna stared at him for a moment and nodded after thinking about several things. She didn’t know how to respond.

Elliot didn’t notice that he had left her speechless because he was deep in thought, and after a while, he sighed. "Although lately I feel like being a hero is a silly dream," he muttered softly.

They weren’t words he expected Jenna to hear, but she heard them anyway. Despite that, she didn’t know how to respond either.

They lived in a complicated world that didn’t look up to the good, but to the strong. In ancient times, 500 years ago, a mindset of wanting to be a hero might have been okay.

You could do it, maybe make some technological advances to help the poor or needy and become a hero, but in the current era, being a hero is...

’...A stupid mistake.’

Even if you were a hero and saved civil society from the hardships they suffer at the hands of the awakened and the beasts, wouldn’t that make you an enemy of all the powerful people in this world? There are even gods who would choose to kill you, and when they do, will anyone else stand up for you?

No one will step forward, not even to utter a word about you. If you want to be a hero, you will go down in history as a nameless person, because even historians would not want to record the name of an enemy of a god.

No one understands this better than Elliot.

His father was once called "SkyDome Hero" because he was powerful enough to become a protective dome for the entire city. He protected its inhabitants and made Loen City a city worthy of respect.

Despite this, when he disappeared, no one stood up to say anything in his defense. The Sky Dome, protector of the inhabitants of Loen City, disappeared, and his friends did not even feel sorry for him. The families he saved now belong to the city’s rulers, but none of them said or did anything to help the family of the man who put them in that position.

That is a hero to the world. He is useless, worthless. Civilians have no voice or vote in the world of the Awakened, and they know it, but even the Awakened themselves know that when a man as strong as that disappears, it is because a greater power is at work.

Because of that, it doesn’t matter if he ever saved them; the Hero SkyDome never existed to them.

That’s why no one mentions him, barely four years after his disappearance.

At that moment, Elliot suddenly remembered his mother’s words to his father.

It was a month before his father’s disappearance, in that small house on the outskirts of town, where they lived peacefully.

"I’ll ask you again, 15 years later, my love. Is it really worth being a hero like you?"

At the time, his mother’s voice sounded slightly broken, and Elliot didn’t understand her at first, but now he understood the reasons behind those words.

He suddenly sighed and looked up at the sky through the branches of the trees.

"Is it worth being a hero?" he murmured softly, words that disappeared into a sea of questions that still lingered in his mind, questions that could not be answered.

"...It’s not worth giving your life for someone who won’t appreciate it."

At that moment, Jenna’s voice reached his ears, causing him to divert his attention from the sky and look at her.

He was taken aback by her response, but smiled a few minutes later.

"Well, a few hours ago, you were willing to die with me rather than live. I think you wanted to be a hero then. Do you think I’ll appreciate that?" he asked.

"Hahaha..." She laughed suddenly. "Well, at least I’m sure you would have valued my death more than those bastards would have."

"Is that why you haven’t even asked me why they’re after me or who they are? Doing that could have made you an enemy of a city giant, you know?"

"Everyone has their secrets, Elliot." She replied and took a bite of roast beef before continuing.

"As for who they are... The Clarks, right? I met one of them a long time ago. He was arrogant, haughty, and bossy. He has my older sister as one of his wives and doesn’t treat her well. I came here to teach the supposed new genius of the Clarks, John Clark, a lesson. So, I know a thing or two about them."

"Oh? Did you know Tyler Clark?" he asked, shocked.

If anyone was arrogant, haughty, and bossy enough to have a woman from Tanafler as ’one of his women,’ it would surely be him, since he lives there.

She nodded. "Do you know him?" she asked.

"Yes, he’s my cousin."

"Huh?" Perplexed, Jenna looked at him carefully.

Elliot laughed when he saw her suddenly on guard. "He’s my cousin, one of the ones I have to kill. I’m a Clark, too, Miss Jenna. It’s just that I belonged to the main branch before it was wiped out by betrayal. Now we only share a surname and an intense hatred."

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