The practical exam had ended, and next was the interview exam. However, the exam wasn’t that formal. Those who passed the written and practical exams were already recognized as somewhat skilled, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say they had already passed at this point.

That’s why they were finally able to take a breather. Will was still a little nervous, but the hustle and bustle from before had disappeared. Then, the interviews began, and first, Will was called into an individual room.

“My name is Will. I live in a place called the Village of Ishi.”

Will sat in a chair, and in front of him were three guild staff members listening to his story with documents on the table. Two of them were regular staff members that could be found anywhere, but the other was Thor, who was world-famous and registered the legendary hero Dan as an adventurer.

“Why do you want to become an adventurer?”

“I want to become a hero. So, I want to become stronger.”

“…A hero, huh? It reminds me of the Hero Dan that I once sent off… Your thinking is probably very similar.”

“Similar thinking?”

“Forget what I just said. Well, that’s enough questions… You may leave.”

When Thor, the guild staff member, urged him to leave, Will exited the room, and next, Eugene entered the room. Just like Will, they confirmed that he could differentiate between good and evil to a certain extent, and Thor asked that question again.

“May I ask why you want to become an adventurer?”

“To become stronger and to grab the one and only seat at the top. Besides, I heard that the Hero was once an adventurer.”

“I see, so you want to become an adventurer like the Hero in order to surpass him.”

“That’s right. Besides, this is taking too long. Let’s finish it quickly.”

“That’s enough, we’re finished here. You may leave.”

Eugene also left, and the next successful examinee from the practical exam entered the room. It was Dya, who was a childhood friend of Will’s and lived in the same village.

Meanwhile, as his interview began, the Hero Dan, wearing an iron mask, appeared before Will, who had just finished his interview.

***

Well, it seems like Will’s interview is over. I’m sure he must have passed. From what I’ve heard, once you make it to the interview, there shouldn’t be any particular issues. Will is a serious guy; he wouldn’t do something like spitting all of a sudden. Therefore, his passing is a certainty, and I figured I’d go home and get the iron mask to praise him.

The distance is quite significant, but it’s quick if you run. There are two reasons why I want to praise Will. The first is that he really did a great job. Furthermore, I feel like he has become a little more stern-looking after successfully completing the battle with the Demon Clan.

That’s why I want to praise him a bit. The first reason is something petty like that.

In other words, to be honest, the first reason is something like a bonus.

— The real reason is to maintain motivation.

I often get asked, “How can you behave so much like a hero, where does that energy, or motivation, come from?” The answer is simple, the motivation doesn’t just spring up.

This is my personal opinion… Motivation rarely rises sharply, but it often drops sharply.

In other words, what’s important in nurturing is not raising the disciple’s motivation, but not lowering it. Once motivation starts to decline, it doesn’t stop and drops continuously, and no matter how cool being a hero is or how much you’ve admired it from a past life, you’ll want to quit. I am the source of this.

Will currently really wants to become a hero. However, he may suddenly find being a hero too troublesome, like some other hero.

So, when he does well, I praise him. Will is so purely foolish, he will be pleased.

“It seems like you’ve passed.”

“Hero-sama!? Why are you here!?”

“I was busy, but I made a point of coming here.”

“S-s-such!? Thank you!!”

I was with him for two straight days. Well, I’m not lying since I’m here with Will in between my own interviews.

“But, I don’t know if I’ve passed yet.”

“If you’ve made it to the interview, you’re certainly going to pass. For you, it’s a job well done. Though the result was already clear. Everything went as I expected.”

“H-hero-sama, you believed in my success!?”

Truth is, I had considered the possibility of him failing. In that case, I thought of saying something like “now is the time to build up” to not let his motivation drop—

—Since I’m acting like a know-it-all character, let’s keep the vibe that I knew everything and behave like a wise mentor.

“Of course.”

“Hero-sama… I was able to do my best this time because I had the support of many people… and also thanks to the beginner’s sword I received from you!”

“Don’t attribute everything to the rewards from others. The pass you got is your own achievement. Be proud of that now.”

“Y-yes!”

Will seems delighted. I feel like I was in a similar state of mind when I was taking my high school entrance exam.

“Ah, also, Hero-sama.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it seems that using your name to sell used swords at high prices might be becoming a trend.”

“What?”

Hmm? I want to question the merchant who would do such a thing. But I’ve also been painted and sold in the guise of the Iron Mask Face, so I’m not concerned about it now.

“What should we do? I can’t do anything about it.”

“Just leave it.”

“Understood.”

“…Well, I should get going soon.”

“Do you have any plans after this?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Thank you very much for taking the time for me, despite your busy schedule.”

I wave my hand lightly and disappear from in front of Will at high speed. Then, after changing my clothes quickly, I appear in front of Will again.

“Hey, Will. How was the interview?”

“Ah, Ban-san! It went quite well! Good luck to you too, Ban-san!”

“Yeah, yeah, thank you.”

Will doesn’t know that I’m Ban, but when I think about this series of events myself, I think I’m emotionally unstable. I mean, I was acting like a self-important character with an iron mask in front of my disciple until three seconds ago, and then a few seconds later, I’m talking as a normal young man… Isn’t that a bit crazy?

Ah, I have to praise Eugene too… I quickly change my clothes again and this time, I go in front of Eugene to praise him. Then, I heard from Eugene that there is a merchant who sells used swords by using my name without my permission. Hmm, is that kind of thing trending? However, I don’t care about that now. I need to go to the interview soon. I change my clothes again and enter the interview room.

“Excuse me.”

“Come in.”

When I entered the private room, there were three people sitting there, including a guild staff member named Thor. I was about to sit down on a chair, but I remembered that in my previous life, I was told not to sit down in an interview until the interviewer gave me permission to do so.

“Aren’t you going to sit?”

“I have not been given permission to sit yet.”

“……Oh? Then, sit down.”

So I sat down. Then, a variety of questions were thrown at me from the three staff members. There were various questions, but I was able to answer them without any problems. However, after about ten questions, my answer to the next question was slightly delayed.

“Mr. Ban, you’re 18 years old… What kind of life have you lived up to now?”

That’s right, I was set to be 18 years old now, and I was surprised when I was reminded of this again. However, it seems to pass. It’s a surprise. This is probably thanks to my own method of acting as a hero and the benefits of the gift. A benefit gift is something like a quality that dwells in people. It’s a different kind of power that’s a little different from magic, but it’s not something that’s given to everyone without discrimination, like talent for magic. 

There seem to be innate and acquired benefit gifts. I possess the latter. However, my former party member Linlin possessed both. She, who possessed an innate characteristic called Multitask, which is multiple magic deployment processing, was easily able to activate multiple spells at the same time. It consumes a lot, but she seems to be able to do up to five at most. 

Indeed, she is the second princess of the Frontier Kingdom. However, she also owned the gift of beneficence in an acquired way. It’s called Magic One, a magic power runaway. In simple terms, it’s a constant recovery function for magical energy, which is the energy to use magic, and furthermore, it can draw out tens of times the original power temporarily, although there is a reaction. 

I think she was really talented, looking back on it now. However, fortunately, I also owned, or rather, was able to learn… I guess that’s a better way to say it.

My gift of grace… that is Self-Proclaimed Hero’s Blessing, or Brave Spirit. I came up with this name. Acquired gifts of grace are said to be rarely obtained based on the individual’s experiences, and I concluded that this is spot-on.

Because I am the prime example.

I was once weak. That’s why I trained desperately. I also used knowledge from my previous life. The first thing I did was build my body, I strictly took a balanced diet focused on breast meat. I also did effective muscle training, and since you have to get rid of waste from your body to maintain your health, I drank a lot of water every day and tried to clean my body from the inside.

Stress is bad for the body, so I meditated every day while relaxing, and got plenty of sleep. Meditation was also good for regenerating magic power, so it was really effective. Meditation is the best. Effective recovery, which allows efficient recovery, and the ability to use magic power again, increasing my magic power. But the increase in magic power was because I kept doing it for many years.

I also drew analyses of my battles with the opponents I fought in my notebook. Why did I lose when I lost? Why couldn’t I win? Why did I win when I won? What were the factors for victory? I spent many, many years piling up these serious analyses day by day and was able to acquire a gift of grace at the age of 12.

That’s the Self-Proclaimed Hero’s Blessing, or Brave Spirit. The effects are constant magic power recovery, wound recovery, continued state of physical ability, and status abnormality nullification.

At first, the effects were tiny, but gradually the amount of recovery and the range of nullification increased. Magic power recovery is probably a gift from meditation. It means that the relaxed state gradually permeated my body and my recovery became faster than others.

Wound recovery is probably because I’ve been wounded too many times in repeated battles, I felt sorry for having Linlin heal me every time, and my body’s survival instinct in brutal battles decided that it needed to heal more.

The maintenance of physical abilities, there’s an effect that keeps me young. I feel that the activation of this effect is due to my own resolve. I used to think that I would always serve as a hero for others. I wanted to stay young and be a hero for my whole life.

And then, status abnormality nullification. This, I think, is a cheat. I immediately realized that the cause of obtaining this was water. Water removes waste from the body. As I kept repeating this, my body improved its function to not retain waste. After all, humans have an immune function, such as white blood cells, which eliminate harmful substances from the body.

Even the curse of the Curse King, at first, I felt sluggish, like a slight fever, but after drinking a lot of water, exercising, sweating, and going to the bathroom, I felt better in about an hour and a half. I thought to myself, “I really am strong,” at that time. At the same time, I started to get tired of being a hero around the time of the Curse King.

Moreover, I have a capability like being eternally active. I can’t quit because of the cheat. Also, there’s a theory that one of the reasons I look young is because I was wearing an iron mask, so I hadn’t been exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays all the time.

My skin is very young. I also drink a lot of water and hydrate from inside the skin. Water is great.

Now, this is just three seconds of thought… what should I tell the interviewer…

“I used to grow vegetables in my hometown. I also occasionally went hunting.”

“I see.”

The interviewer started taking notes again. It seems tough filling out various things. At that moment, a man named Thor started to speak.

“Back in the day, I was the hero Dan…”

I’ll ignore this. He’s just saying the same things as he did when he was taking notes. He didn’t seem interested in me at all back then, but now he’s acting like he’s the one who created me. It’s a bit off to act like a guild staff member from the rear when he didn’t care at all until the results came out.

Well, I’ve been thinking while listening to him, is his story about to end? When it did, I appropriately bowed and left the room.

Afterward, when I checked the results, I had unquestionably passed. The twenty-one successful candidates, including me, were issued what’s known as an adventurer’s card, and we were set to participate in a briefing as adventurers.