Offer

Early one morning, several days after the first great boar hunt of the year, Allen headed to the community well closest to his house to draw water. He had set off at the 6 a.m. bell, but there was already a whole line when he arrived.

"Good morning!" Allen greeted in a loud voice. Grabbing everyone's attention was important.

"Oh! Rodin's kid! Good morning to you too."

Allen recognized several faces in line. They were serfs who had been part of the hunt a few days ago.

"You coming again tomorrow, kiddo?"

"Of course! In fact, I want to go every time. Someone, please help convince my father to let me hold a spear!" Allen made a face, trying his best to convey how troubled he felt about Rodin not allowing him to participate in the hunt directly.

"Uh, if we did that, Rodin would make sure we never saw the light of day again."

Laughter sprang up around the well. Some of the other serfs, however, looked jealous.

"You guys have it good. I want to take part in the hunts too."

"What're you saying, man? You're the one choosing to stay behind with the butchering group. We always welcome more people. I heard we're getting two more newcomers tomorrow. And Rodin's kid here is coming along to observe."

"I'd love to, but my old lady's got another one in her belly now. It's too dangerous out there. I can't risk leaving her all alone."

The first round of what Allen called the Long Spear Newcomer Induction Plan had gone over as a complete success. Consequently, the hunting party was now looking to accept two more newcomers on top of the two from last time. The idea was to slowly increase the group's numbers, two at a time, helping them level up along the way.

Although it was safer now thanks to Allen's strategy, there were still those unable to participate. The very act of facing a great boar in person still, at the end of the day, required one to put their life on the line. Allen had seen the three-meter-tall monster for himself. He knew there was no guarantee that everyone would return home safe and sound.

"Fair enough. Well, we're doing them once every six days this year, so if you ever feel like it, just let any of us know."

"You bet I will. I still need to get meat for my missus. Our fields are small, so honestly, it'd be a help just being able to participate in more butcherings."

'Oh? He might do.'

Allen turned toward the serf who had only been participating in the butcherings. "Excuse me, mister?"

"I'm not quite old enough to be called 'mister,' but, what's the matter, kiddo?"

"Can I ask you to help me with something?"

This was what Allen was actually aiming for this morning. He asked the man to come to his house at 9 a.m., then filled his buckets and headed back first.

***

When the time came, the man showed up at Allen's house.

"Oh, good morning again, mister! Thank you for coming!"

"'Mister' again... Ahem. I don't mind coming. What'd you need me for?"

Seeing the man's eyes wander toward the rack set up above the ditch beside his house, Allen said, "I caught them just now."

There were two albaherons currently hung up. The sight of blood trickling from their open necks caused the visitor to start a little. Allen turned to lead the way, gesturing for him to follow.

"Th-This is...!"

There were albaheron carcasses stacked up into a whole pile. Ever since it turned October, Allen had resumed his albaheron hunting. He had informed Rodin that he would be focusing on it throughout the entire month before finally helping out with the harvest in November. Rodin agreed readily, as he could actually manage on his own and therefore had no need to rely on Allen's aid.

Because his afternoons were now dedicated to playing knight, Allen did his hunting in the mornings, catching one to three albaheron every day. Of course, he did the hunting in a fallow field on Rodin's land—it was a different one from last year, as that one was now growing crops.

Thanks to having perfected his hunting strategy last year, Allen's catches continued piling up. Now, he had no problem with the hunting process itself, but he did have a new problem—namely, he could not butcher his catches in time.

Unprocessed carcasses kept piling higher and higher in his yard.

Allen did consider asking Rodin to help with the butchering. However, Rodin had his work with the fields, and whatever spare time he had, he spent it training the hunting party's newcomers. All things considered, Rodin was even busier than Allen was.

Currently, of the twelve albaherons that Allen had hunted in the past five days, only five were actually butchered. And so he had come up with the idea to ask someone else to take care of the remaining seven.

"I see... So you want me to butcher these birds?"

"For each one you do, I'll give you two blocks of meat."

"Huh? That's a mighty good deal. You sure about that?"

Allen indicated his confirmation.

For the sake of earning the fifty gold coins that would be needed to free his whole family from serfdom, Allen had visited the butcher in the commercial area of the village the other day to ask how much he would accept meat for.

The man had replied that unlike goods bartering, if Allen wanted to sell meat for actual money, he would charge twenty percent as surcharge, or forty percent if the game was not butchered yet. The butcher had to make money from the transaction too, after all.

With this in mind, Allen decided to ask a fellow serf who was in need of meat to do the butchering instead. The reward that he was offering was the same rate as what the butcher would charge to do the butchering—twenty percent.

The reason why he did this was because entire albaheron carcasses would be much harder to carry to the commercial area as opposed to neatly packaged blocks of meat.

'So, one albaheron nets me six silver coins. Eight if I do the butchering myself, but butchering doesn't raise my level and hunting does, so it's more effective to focus solely on hunting and leveling up while outsourcing the butchering to someone else.

Back when Allen was a gamer, he maintained a single-minded focus on leveling up. Whenever he got his hands on an item, he would immediately exchange it for money. Not once did he stop to try enchanting or upgrading what he picked up. The way he saw things was, if he ever needed anything, he could always just buy it from the players focusing on the crafting aspects of the game.

"Oh, mister. Albaheron liver is really delicious, did you know? For every five albaherons you butcher for me, I'll let you keep one liver."

"Are you serious?!"

Organs did not sell well as they would go bad very quickly. Even after securing a portion for his family and the families of Krena, Dogora, and Pelomas, there were still leftovers. Allen's idea was to reward whoever came and dedicated themselves to the butchering work with a share.

The serf happily accepted the offer. Allen nodded in acknowledgment, then began explaining how he wanted the albaherons to be butchered.

***

Night came and went, and it was now the following day, the day of the second great boar hunt of the year. Because the party had two brand-new newcomers again, they would be using the hunting ground closest to the village, just like last time.

This was to avoid the possibility of encountering a great boar inside the forest while making their way toward a deeper hunting ground. The risk was not all that high, as Team One, the pullers, would be going ahead anyways, but there was no need to intentionally increase the chances of danger, no matter how slight.

Soon, the procession reached the clearing, and the pullers were off. The rest remained behind and got into position according to their teams.

The two latest newcomers today looked quite nervous. While they happened to be commoners again, the call for new hunting party members had indeed gone out to the serfs as well, and there were already several names on a wait list. The way the previous newcomers had returned not only unharmed, but proudly boasting about overcoming a Trial of the Gods had proved effective in arousing other villagers' interest.

Just like last time, Allen was coming along as an observer. Because he would not be contributing directly to the hunt, he was not going to receive a cut of the meat. The four long spear-wielders—the sign of being a newcomer —were going to get half the amount the other hunters would receive. This idea had also been Allen's.

In short, those with the two-meter-long spears would receive ten kilograms of meat, those with the four-meter-long spears would receive five kilograms, and those only doing the butchering would receive three kilograms. This ratio was decided relative to the degree of danger that those in each role would be exposed to.

The newcomers were currently focused on raising their levels. Once they had gone through a few hunts, they would be assigned to the team that, stat-wise, they were most suitable for. Each team required different stat builds according to their duties.

Team One, the pullers, needed high Agility.

Team Two, the surrounders, needed high Endurance.

Team Three, those dealing the final blow, needed Attack.

When Allen first heard of this idea of splitting into three teams, the first thing he thought of was the Appraisal Ceremony. Everyone in the party was likely Talentless, which meant their stats were probably somewhere between Rank C and Rank E. Naturally, the Rank C stats would increase faster than the Rank E ones.

The distribution of the ranking of each stat was different from person to person. Based on the thirty-two Statuses that he had seen—his own included—Allen had drawn the conclusion that this distribution was quite random.

Eventually, those with high Agility would be assigned to Team One, those with high Endurance would be assigned to Team Two, and those with high Attack would be assigned to Team Three. Rodin and Gerda also agreed that it was a good idea to let the newcomers overcome several Trials of the Gods first so that it was easier to see what they were good at before "promoting" them to a team.

***

Around half an hour after the pullers headed off, they came rushing out of the forest at top speed. The fact that they were all together meant they had encountered a great boar that was just by itself.

"THE GREAT BOAR IS COMIIIIIIING!" Pekej yelled.

'Oh! Here it comes! Summon: Denka!'

While Allen was in the middle of something, everyone else aside from Team One swiftly got into their respective positions. Team Two allowed the three pullers to run through their ranks, then closed their formation.

The great boar charged forward, was stopped, then Team Three stepped forward to attack the beast's neck. Everyone's movements were perfect, just as they had been last time.

"Newcomers, come on! And don't stab our backs!"

In response to Gerda's call, the four newcomers all charged forward and thrust with their long spears. Less than five minutes later, the monster's jugular had been punctured and blood jetted from its neck. Several more minutes, and it was on its side, dead.

"I got over it! I overcame another Trial!"

"Me too! So this is what it feels like to overcome a Trial of the Gods!"

Both pairs of newcomers had leveled up. What's more, Allen's grimoire also gave off a soft glow.

<You have defeated 1 Great Boar. You have earned 400 XP.>

<Your XP has reached 2,000/2,000.

You have reached Lvl. 3.

Your HP has increased by 25.

Your MP has increased by 40.

Your Attack has increased by 14.

Your Endurance has increased by 14.

Your Agility has increased by 26.

Your Intelligence has increased by 40.

Your Luck has increased by 26.>

'IT WORKED! So that counts as being a part of the fight, huh. I even leveled up from it!' While the hunt was going on, Allen had Summoned an Insect H right underneath one of the Great Boar's hoofs in such a way that it had been promptly stomped to death and reduced to bubbles of light.

After much experimenting, Allen had determined that there were two conditions as to where he could call forth his Summons: the location had to be somewhere within fifty meters of himself, and it had to be at a spot that he had direct line of sight to.

There was still quite a lot of freedom with this— for example, he could have a bird Summon appear overhead and immediately fly off. However, he could not Summon anything, say, inside a house while standing outside and looking in through a window.

In other words, he had to get the location and timing just perfect so he could Summon Denka exactly where the great boar's foot was going to land.

'Hmm, so even when it's just my Summon taking damage, I still get XP from the kill. The pullers don't hold spears, and they basically do nothing once they've returned to the party, so I assume that being targeted by a monster also counts as being part of a fight?' Allen noted down his observations.

___

Conditions for Gaining XP from a Fight:

- Attack

- Be Attacked

- Be Targeted

___

Although he ultimately was still barred from participating in the hunt itself, Allen had found a way to make following the hunting party worth his while. He smiled with satisfaction as a sense of achievement filled his chest.