Provocation

The earthen-floored room quickly ran out of space, so Allen stored the rest out in the garden. Although the fence surrounding the garden was worn-down and rickety, the garden itself was rather sizable. There was plenty of space for Allen and Krena to play knight and for storing crops.

Due to how big it was, when the basket was filled, it was heavier than the weight of a six-year-old child.

Despite this, Allen still managed to pick it up handily, though he did have to use both hands. Gerda sharply sucked in his breath as his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the sight of this.

Rodin, Theresia, and Gerda all knew that Allen was not weak. In fact, they believed he was stronger than the average child. The playing-knight sessions he had with Krena involved speed and power far beyond what normal children could achieve, and the way he conducted his chores did hint at his strength.

However, as it turned out, that hint had been but the tip of the iceberg.

Allen walked while carrying the heavy basket, his small feet slightly sinking into the soft, tilled soil with each step.

'Whoa, this isn't heavy at all. Looks like I was right to up Attack after all.'

The distribution of the cards in the holders of Allen's grimoire had been altered from skewing heavily toward Grass F for the MP buff to leaning toward Beast F for Attack. He secretly referred to this as "Farming Mode."

Allen had decided to put his full abilities on display, no longer holding back. He would be tackling both household chores and farm work with all the stats he had.

His father was bedridden, his mother was heavy with child, and he had a younger brother. This was no time to pull his punches.

There was a Sword Lord next door, after all, so he figured that even if he stood out a little, it would not be too much of a problem. He had been pronounced Talentless during his Appraisal Ceremony, so even if word got out about him, he expected most people to dismiss the stories as exaggeration.

'When I have to work in the fields, I won't be able to keep too many Grass cards in stock. I'm going to have to be conscientious about my card distribution. What's more...'

Allen shot a look toward a corner of the family's land where the grass had grown as tall as him. "Is that field over there also under father's care?"

"That's right. Next year, it has to be weeded and tilled."

'So it is our land. It's currently sitting fallow, the grass is mostly dry and withered, and it's pretty spacious. It should be perfect for what I'm thinking of.'

***

Just as Allen was off-loading another haul of potatoes in his garden, some people came by the house. "Excuse me. Is Rodin in?" the man asked.

"Look who it is. What're you here for, Chief?" Gerda asked, his voice tinged with a clear note of anger.

The visitor turned out to be the village chief, Deboji. Allen recognized him from having seen him up close during the Appraisal Ceremony and the feast afterward.

"Ah, Gerda. I heard Rodin's regained consciousness," Deboji replied before turning to his companion. "Come, boy."

"Y-Yes, sir." The other person turned out to be a teenager who looked around fifteen years old. Allen had never seen him before.

Deboji strode straight into the garden, indicating that he understood full well the sheer difference in social status between himself and a family of serfs. Allen and Gerda watched on as the two visitors approached the house's door.

"What may we do for you today?" Theresia asked, emerging from the earthen-floored room. However, there was something different about her voice. There was a tone that Allen had never heard before.

'She's angry all right. Well, it's not like I don't get why. If the village chief hadn't insisted on letting commoners into the hunting party, father wouldn't have gotten hurt like this.'

"I heard Rodin woke up. We're here to pay him a visit." Deboji gestured toward the small cask and foodstuffs in the teenager's arms.

Theresia paused for a brief moment, then said, "He's in the back." She led the two inside the house.

'Is it just me, or is this teenager kind of shaking?'

The face of the young man who had come in together with the village chief was pale and his eyes were shifting about uneasily.

"Honey, the village chief is here to visit you."

"Hm? Oh, I see."

The teenager set down his get-well gifts in the main room, then headed toward the bedroom. The moment he laid eyes on Rodin, who was sitting up in bed, he fell to his knees and bowed deeply.

"I-I'm so sorry you were injured because of me!!!"

'So, it's this guy's fault that father got hurt?'

"Mm... Well, if you still want to keep at it, be careful next time. We're all putting our lives on the line when we go out there."

"Huh?" The teenager looked surprised at Rodin's reaction. "Uh, y-yes, sir."

Then, after a few more words, the village chief left. Apparently he was here only because the teenager could not come alone. Before long, the two of them were gone.

Allen and Gerda saw them off, then returned to harvesting the potato fields.

"Who was that, Mr. Gerda?"

"Well..." Gerda thought about it a bit, then decided to share the rest of what had happened the day of the hunt.

He had said before that the whole operation had devolved into pitched battle because one of the newcomers who was supposed to hold the line had freaked out. After that, however, the boar had continued charging straight toward him.

"Rodin threw himself in front of the attack to protect the kid from just now. Ah, I'm sure you already know, but you can't tell anyone, all right? Your father doesn't really like that kind of story about him spreading."

As Allen and Gerda walked down a raised footpath, they passed by several people heading the opposite direction—in other words, toward Allen's house.

Apparently, they had heard somewhere that Rodin had woken up and were paying him a visit. Most likely, the various things in their hands were meant as get-well presents.

Allen found himself filled with pride at the sight.

***

"I'm going out for a bit in the afternoon today."

"Really? Don't stay out too late, okay?"

"Mm-hm. I'll be back before it gets dark."

All of the potatoes had been harvested and were now sitting in the garden.

The next step was to pick out the small ones to set aside as seed potatoes for next year, then set aside the sixty percent that would be going to the village chief as tax. The garden always ended up being quite crowded during harvest season.

The tax collector came by several times each year on a pretty regular schedule. The next time he was expected was early December.

Allen included "sorting through potatoes" in his list of tasks to do in the morning so that he could finish by the time the tax collector would arrive. He was starting to get more and more assimilated to the farming lifestyle.

Gerda had also taught Allen what he needed to accomplish once the potato sorting was over.

First, he needed to clear the fields of any stems and roots that were still buried in the soil—if he did not, they would be in the way when it came time to plant new crops next spring.

Second, he had to check all the irrigation channels, ensuring that they were cleared and a consistent depth their entire length. The channels surrounding Rodin's fields were also the family's responsibility.

'That seems like a good spot to do it. I finally finished preparing the cards I need.'

Currently, the distribution of cards in Allen's storage was as follows:

___

Beast F x 16

Insect G x 3

Insect F x 2

Bird F x 2

Grass F x 7

___

'I'm done readjusting my cards, and I've applied Strengthening Lvl. 2 to all of them. I'm as ready as I can be.'

In order to make all the farmwork go by quicker, Allen had replaced many of the Grass cards he had been keeping with Beast cards instead. When he had gotten the ratios just the way he wanted, he had then started dedicating all his MP toward raising Strengthening.

By now, he had figured out pretty much everything there was to learn about Strengthening Lvl. 2.

___

-Strengthening Lvl. 2 Costs 10 MP to use.

-Grants the Summon +20 to the two stats corresponding with the buffs Allen receives.

___

'This confirms that all the other skills aside from Creation have a fixed MP cost that doesn't change with level.

'Synthesis costs 5 MP, Strengthening costs 10 MP. It seems reasonable to expect these numbers will remain the same even when I continue leveling them.'

Naturally, all the cards that Allen currently had in storage had Strengthening Lvl. 2 applied for the +20 buffs, rather than the +10 offered through Lvl. 1.

Going forward, once he obtained Strengthening Lvl. 3, Allen intended on leveling up all three skills of Creation, Synthesis, and Strengthening at an equal rate.

Allen was still in the middle of sorting through the potatoes when lunchtime rolled around.

Rodin was still too weak to come out into the main room, but he was noticeably improving.

Allen had even planted a Grass F right outside his parents' bedroom window in the hopes that it might help the recovery go just a little bit faster.

After finishing lunch, Allen went outside again. Mash no longer got lonely nowadays, as Rodin and Theresia were home all day, so Allen was free to do everything he needed to do.

He went to where the family's various baskets were stacked up and picked out the one most suitable for what he was planning.

The softball-sized stones lying around the foot of the tree in the garden, completely smooth from years of being thrown, all went into the basket. Then Allen tied his wooden sword to his waist.

With the basket on his back, Allen walked out of the house. He traced the raised footpaths, making a beeline toward the area that Gerda had confirmed to be fallow ground.

When he got there, he found himself facing weeds as tall as he was. They had been allowed to grow entirely as they pleased, and were now all dried out and withered.

Allen dove straight in. Somewhere along the way, he placed his basket down, then continued going even deeper, parting the grass as he went.

'First, I've got to get a general feel for this field.'

Due to how tall the weeds were, it was difficult to determine just how large this plot of land was. Allen went to and fro quite a few times, until he figured out roughly where the center was.

He then promptly proceeded to stomp all the grass flat in the area. The dried blades of grass cracked under his feet as he continued wordlessly.

Eventually, a circle roughly ten meters in diameter was completed.

'Yep, this should do.'

Allen returned the way he had come to fetch his basket. Then he took the stones out and randomly scattered them throughout the open area. He also drew his sword and held it up at the ready.

'Summon: Hopper.'

A frog roughly the size of an American bullfrog appeared in the middle of the mystery circle. This was Insect G.

'Hopper, use Provoke.'

"Ribbit, ribbit."

Insect G started jumping as its normally green skin flashed red, green, yellow.

Allen hid among the grass, bracing himself with bated breath.

***

Ten uneventful minutes passed.

'Hmm, this isn't going how I'd hoped.'

Allen looked up at the sky with his sword still in hand. He saw birds of various sizes soaring high above.

'There are birds flying. Is it because there are too few of them? Or is it because the effect of Provoke doesn't reach all the way up there?'

Winter was coming. In order to get through it, firewood was an absolute necessity. Every year up until now, Rodin had procured this firewood to keep the family warm by bartering the great boar meat he had earned from the hunts. Mash was still very young, and Allen himself, being only six years old, was not all that resistant to the cold either.

For every great boar that got taken down, Rodin received ten kilograms of meat. And every year, he and his hunting group would kill around ten great boars. Half of all the meat from these hunts would go toward purchasing firewood.

This year, however, Rodin could no longer participate in the coming hunts. The family only had the single ten kilogram block of meat from the hunt that had nearly cost his life and the small amount of food that the village chief had left behind when he stopped by.

The other members of the hunting party had also brought over what they could, but it was far from enough to procure the amount of firewood that could have been had for a hundred kilograms of meat.

In order to protect his family and provide for them, Allen had come up with the idea to catch birds instead.

'Albaherons aside, the birds that look like cranes should have at least two kilograms of edible meat, right? I'd thought it wouldn't be too hard to catch fifty of them, but turns out I was wrong.'

There were other bird monsters also migrating north, but Allen had zero intention of getting involved with them.

All he was aiming for were the large, crane-like birds flying overhead. The idea was to lure them down into a trap using Hopper's Ability.

However, a whole hour had passed with none of the flying creatures taking even the slightest interest.

'Should I add another Insect G? I'm glad I made three of them just in case.'

Out came the second Insect G. The two frogs started jumping side by side, flashing provocatively.

***

Another hour passed.

'Ughhh, looks like even two Hoppers isn't enough. Or maybe the effect just isn't reaching all the way up into the sky. I have no idea what the range is for this Ability.'

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The village bell tolled, signaling that it was now three in the afternoon.

'It's already three? I hope Krena's not taking the break from playing knight too hard.'

In light of all the things that Allen now had to do for his family due to Rodin becoming bedridden, he had told Krena that he could no longer play knight with her anymore for the near future.

She had looked sad for a brief moment, but then answered that she understood. She therefore had not come over these past two days.

'All right. Gonna put the last one out too. This is all I've got.'

"Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit," croaked all three frogs as they leaped all around inside the open area, their skin flashing intermittently between red, green, and yellow like broken traffic lights. Allen still had his sword held up in readiness, but there was still no change.

'I shouldn't have put so much stock in this idea, looks like. No, no, it's still too early to give up. Maybe I should ready a few more Insect G cards and try again tomor—'

That very moment, something huge crashed down in one fell swoop.

Allen, who just happened to be on the verge of giving up and had thus let his guard down, watched in astonishment as the form waved a leg with glinting claws and tore through one Insect G, prompting the Summon to quickly disappear into bubbles of light.