"Goblin right ears, forty-two. Slime cores, sixty-eight. Giant dragonfly wings, thirty-five pairs..."
Early the next afternoon, in the forest outside the starter village.
Ningning was tallying up the Hero's Party's morning haul:
"...and last, six tusks from the boar-charge half-orcs."
"Ningning, are you done counting?"
"Nyu-wu-hihi!"
Baiye had blinked to a spot behind the busily tallying Ningning at some unknown moment, and now bent down to peer over the dainty little White Mage's shoulder at the towering pile of loot heaped before her as she put the question.
Her breath brushed softly against the back of Ningning's ear.
Baiye hadn't meant anything by it, but goosebumps still erupted across Ningning's entire body, and she nearly crumpled, taking a good while to recover.
Clutching her belly, the girl turned and scolded her, half-pouting:
"Hff, hff, nyihi... Baiye! Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Sorry."
Baiye apologized at once, perfectly solemn.
She turned her face away, awkwardly, avoiding the sight of the faint blush blooming on Ningning's cheeks:
"I only wanted to ask how the haul went today."
"Oh, that's what you meant... today's take was pretty good."
Ningning pointed at the mound of loot in front of her:
"Look, just this morning's haul alone is already more than triple what we usually gather in a whole day."
"Ha ha, looks like the new tactic really is efficient..."
The words were pleasant enough, but there wasn't a shred of joy on Baiye's face, only a self-mocking bitterness:
"...this 'Let the Hero Die First' tactic."
"Yeah..."
The two of them sank into an eerie silence, and, in unison, both turned to look at the not-so-distant figure of the Hero, frozen solid into an ice sculpture, standing rooted to the spot in a bizarre pose.
Under their complicated gazes, the ice-sculpture Hero's neck snapped with a crisp crack, and his head went rolling to a stop right in front of them.
His amber eyes stared blankly ahead, as if in confusion, or as if in reproach at these heartless teammates.
Ningning, however, felt not the slightest bit that she'd done anything wrong.
The so-called "Let the Hero Die First" tactic was, in essence, this: leave the dead Hero lying to one side without resurrecting him, and have the other four members of the Hero's Party team up to deal with the monsters first.
Because!
This Hero!
Simply!
Died too many times!
On the Hero's Party's very first day out adventuring, this Hero had died a grand total of five times —
Stuck his head into a water slime and suffocated to death.
Threw a half-orc's tusk around like a boomerang and got a hole punched through his chest.
Charged headlong into a pack of goblins and got beaten to death in a gang brawl.
Startled by a giant dragonfly grazing past the back of his head, lost his balance, and fell to his death.
Ate a lava-berry that was very clearly inedible, and got his insides burned through.
After that, on the second day, the third day, the Hero's death count only climbed, and his ways of dying only grew more surreal.
Objectively speaking, the Hero's combat power wasn't actually weak. Against the feeble little monsters near the starter village, he usually one-shot them with a single sword stroke, quite the powerhouse.
But his defense was, tragically, that of a one-HP glass cannon. He was forever dropping dead, just like that, to some inexplicable AOE, or, on a whim, dreaming up some fancy stunt that got himself killed.
So much so that half of every day had to be spent with everyone huddled together to protect Ningning while she focused on resurrecting the Hero.
And the other half was spent piecing together exactly why the Hero had suddenly dropped dead again.
Back and forth like this, the Hero's Party had scarcely any time in a day to actually focus on subjugating monsters and building teamwork.
At this rate, the Hero's Party would probably never make it out of the starter village.
And so, after the Hero once again dropped dead today from eating an ice slime, the remaining four members had, with one accord, chosen to ignore for now this idiot Hero who for some reason had eaten an ice slime.
The thought made Ningning smile wryly:
"Honestly, I find it kind of amazing — he dies this many times a day, so how does he manage to die a different way every single time?"
"Who knows. Anyway..."
Baiye coughed a couple of times and, with a touch of guilt, dragged her eyes off the red-ponytailed Hero's head at her feet:
"...should we bring him back now?"
"Don't ask me. I'm only in charge of resurrecting the Hero. Coordinating and planning for the team is your job, isn't it, Captain Baiye?"
Ningning countered.
Baiye wrestled with herself for a while before finally making up her mind:
"You've got a point... let's leave it for now, then. We'll resurrect the Hero after today's work is done."
"No objections here."
With that, Ningning turned her gaze toward the Black Mage crouched by the crude, hastily built campfire — the cat-eared girl, Leilei, and toward the elf archer, Biluo, perched high on a tree branch keeping lookout from above:
"Do the two of you have any objections?"
With the question tossed her way, Leilei's cat ears twitched involuntarily. Flustered, she lifted the little blackboard she carried and wrote on it with magic:
『None.』
Up in the tree, Biluo, seeing it was her turn, could only raise one hand reluctantly and flash an OK sign.
"All right then... we'll hold off on the resurrection."
Baiye gazed down at the Hero's head at her feet and concluded.
The frozen ice-sculpture head looked as though it were about to cry.
Ningning slowly rose from the ground, bent down, gathered the Hero's head into her arms, and slapped it back onto his body offhandedly, a decidedly rough maneuver.
Seeing Ningning's freewheeling, no-nonsense handling, Baiye coughed awkwardly and asked:
"Ahem... Ningning, being this... careless about it, won't it really affect the resurrection?"
"When I went to the Holy Temple earlier to learn about adventurer resurrections, the clerics there told me that to bring back the dead, the corpse has to be reasonably intact."
Ningning waved a hand casually:
"It's fine, it's fine. The Hero's not like ordinary people; he won't fail to come back just because part of his body is missing, or because too much time's passed since he died."
"He's the Hero, after all. Basically impossible for him to actually, truly die."
"That's a relief."
Baiye let out a breath.
She knew Ningning was thoroughly reliable when it came to support work.
If Ningning said it was fine, then it was definitely fine.
And so, without thinking, Baiye reached out and patted Ningning's little head:
"All right, Ningning, it's lunchtime. After we eat, we've still got more monsters to subjugate."
But, having relaxed now that the Hero was dealt with, Baiye had once again forgotten one other thing —
Ningning was a glass cannon too.
And a universe-ultimate, supreme glass cannon at that, one who, at the lightest touch from a teammate, would inexplicably drop to the ground twitching.
Baiye had only lightly patted her head, yet Ningning went face-down on the ground again with a thud, looking utterly wilted:
"Uu-eh-eh-eh... I told you not to touch me..."
"Sorry, sorry! I really didn't mean to!"
Seeing Ningning collapsed limp on the ground, Baiye panicked, backpedaling several steps and apologizing over and over.
Ningning lay sprawled on the ground, panting and wheezing, taking a long while to recover from the shock of Baiye patting her head:
"Ngh-eh-eh... this is bad, why does it feel kind of blissful... don't tell me I'm actually turning into a total bottom... no, no, absolutely not..."
"Blissful? Bottom?" Baiye was thoroughly lost.
"...You misheard, I didn't say anything."
Ningning scrambled up and flashed Baiye an "X" with her arms.
"You're really okay?" Baiye still wasn't quite reassured.
"I'm fine. As long as you don't touch me, I'm fine. But why on earth is the top of my head a sensitive spot too..."
"All right then, let's eat."
Seeing Ningning start muttering these cryptic nothings again, just as she always did, Baiye couldn't help a knowing little smile —
This kid was honestly, sometimes, just too cute.
Neither Baiye nor Ningning, however, noticed a thing.
The "stick-in-the-mud," "tight-lipped" elf archer Biluo, perched on the branch above their heads under the pretext of keeping watch, was at that very moment wearing the face of an utter degenerate, giggling to herself as she watched the two of them interact:
"Heh heh, so shippable, so unbelievably shippable, heh heh heh..."