SIAW Vol. 1 Chapter 5
Chapter 5 – Life in the Pioneers’ Village
I decided the basic plan for my stay in the village. Finally, I could live without too many worries.
Thanks to the Presence Detection skill, I could tell that Ranga woke up.
I checked the time: it was about half past five. He seemed to be changing and making preparations to go out.
I used Clear and did the same.
Ranga started moving more widely — maybe he was going to go out soon?
I went outside the barn, and it was still a bit dark out. Soon after, Ranga came out of the house, carrying two wooden pails.
“Tenma, you’re already up?”
“Yes, good morning,”
“Morning. I’m going to draw water, give me a hand.”
“Alright!”
～
Thus we headed to the well together. As it turned out, there was only one in the whole village. It was easy enough to tell when we arrived: there was a small crowd of people already, gathered to draw water.
“Hey there, Ranga.”
“Morning.”
Ranga exchanged greetings with a few people as we approached the well.
“Maybe you’ve heard from the elder already, but this kid here is staying with us for a while. The name’s Tenma.”
“Hello, nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you!”
Some answered loudly, others raised their hands in response, others just nodded.
I looked towards the well, and saw an older woman pulling up the rope.
“Ma’am, let me help you.”
“Oh, thank you so much.”
I stayed next to the well for a while, helping people draw water. Ranga was grinning: he probably thought I was going to run out of energy and give up soon.
A workout like that, however, was nothing for my stats. I could have done it all day, really.
When Ranga’s turn came up, I poured the water in his pails too.
“I’ll go back home now, can you stay here and help the others too? It’ll help you get to know the villagers.”
“Right, I’ll do that.”
So I answered, perfectly calm, and Ranga seemed a bit disappointed.
I continued helping the villagers draw water, and introduced myself to those I saw for the first time. Most villagers came two, three times: because of the weight of the water, they were mostly male.
Ranga too came three times in total. The third time, he looked at me with surprise.
“Hey, don’t overdo it now, okay? You can come back whenever you want.”
He had become worried, naturally.
I continued drawing water for about one hour: eventually people stopped coming, so I went back to Ranga’s house.
～
“You helped out at the well, I heard. Ranga made you do it, I bet.”
Sasha welcomed me back, and Ranga looked like he knew he had been found out.
“No, I just thought it would be a good way to get to know the village’s people.”
So I replied, much to Ranga’s relief. Man, Sasha’s going to chew you out if you make a face like that!
Ranga then tried to change the topic.
“Tenma, what are you going to do today? You have to do some work, don’t think you can eat for free here!”
Sasha promptly interrupted.
“What are you saying, dear? He helped everyone at the well, isn’t that enough work? Definitely more useful than standing around all day at the gate like you.”
“How can you say that? The village’s safety depends on me, and…”
Ranga started protesting, but a glare from Sasha made his voice trail away.
I glanced at Ranga, then turned towards Sasha.
“About that, I’d like to go hunting. I promised Mei to catch more meat, after all.”
“Well, actually, you see…the Horn Rabbits have been increasing a lot recently, so the elder asked a traveling merchant to hire adventurers for the village. I can handle a couple of Horn Rabbits on my own, but now they come in droves…”
Ranga explained the situation, in an unusually apprehensive tone.
“I think I’ll be fine. As I said yesterday, I’m good at Throwing.”
“But what are you going to do if you get hurt?”
Sasha warned me gently, and I smiled back at her.
“I don’t mean to worry you, Sasha. I’ll hunt close to the gates, and use as much caution as possible.”
“Hey, is it my imagination or the way you act changes a lot between me and Sasha?”
“Well, Sasha is kind to me, and she’s pretty. What else should I do?”
“Wow, is this the treatment I deserve in your eyes…?”
The conversation wrapped up, Ranga headed to the village gates for his job.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
I played with Mei for a while, then made to go out, but she wanted to come with me. Sasha allowed me to take her as far as the village gates, where Ranga was.
I walked through the village, with Mei perched on my shoulder.
Some of the villagers called out to us. Helping out at the well had already spread my fame to an extent.
Ranga told me to do it as a prank, maybe, but it turned out in my favor…
When we arrived at the gates, Ranga jumped down from the watchtower. Seeing Mei on my shoulder probably made him jealous. Once I told him I had Sasha’s permission, however, he begrudgingly let me go.
It was even too clear that she was the boss of the household…
“Hey Jeet, give Tenma his sword.”
Jeet brought me the short sword I had left with them. Once I had it back, I went through the gates and out of the village.
“If it gets dangerous, come back immediately! We’ll make sure we can open the gates any time!”
Ranga and Mei were back up on the watchtower.
“You can probably see it from there, so watch how effective Throwing can be!!”
So I said to Ranga as I started walking.
～
I proceeded along the road, for about 30 meters, towards a grassland.
According to the Map skill, there really was an abnormal number of Horn Rabbits. They hadn’t attacked me when I passed through the day before, and all my attention was towards meeting people for the first time in ages, so I hadn’t paid the monsters any mind.
As soon as I stepped onto the grassland, the Horn Rabbits charged me. I struck down one, using Throwing with a pebble, and finished it with the short sword while it was reeling from the concussion.
I barely managed to put the carcass in the Item Box when another Horn Rabbit attacked, so I used Throwing on a pebble again. Another one attacked before I could finish off the first one, so I threw another pebble. After that I quickly finished off both with the short sword. And another rabbit attacked.
I repeated the process, which seemed to continue without stopping. At the fourteenth successful catch, I decided to go back to the gates.
～
On the watchtower, Mei was jumping up and down, excited. Ranga was frozen, his mouth wide open.
“Heeey! Open the gates, please!”
Ranga hurriedly gave the order to Jeet. The gates opened and Jeet approached me, worried.
“Are you hurt anywhere? It was really dangerous, right?”
“Well, I didn’t come back because of that, actually. But the Horn Rabbits are really increasing at an alarming rate.”
While I was talking with Jeet, Mei came down from the watchtower and pounced on me.
“Tenma!! Cool, so cool!!”
Mei promptly climbed up, picking to ride on my shoulders this time. She started patting my head and rubbing her cheeks on mine.
Ranga had come down too.
“That was something else…”
“I told you, right? Throwing is a useful skill!”
“Yeah…”
Ranga didn’t have any more objections, apparently.
“More importantly, is there a place where I can dissect the bodies?”
“Yes, we have a slaughterhouse behind the watchtower.”
I went to the place Ranga pointed out and found ropes, a pole to let the blood out of the animal’s body and a table to place the carcass on.
I took the 14 Horn Rabbits from the Item Box, much to Jeet’s surprise: he couldn’t believe I had caught so many in such a short time.
I tied the rabbits’ legs with the rope and hung them on the pole.
“Ranga, since there are so many, is there anyone that can help? I’ll give the rabbits to the village, so.”
“R-Really? Hey Jeet, go ask the elder to send us someone!”
“R-Right on!”
Jeet immediately left.
Ranga and I started the blood removal process. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to let Mei watch, but she was on my shoulders happily chanting “Meat~! Meat~!”, so there was nothing to worry about, apparently.
We were almost done when the elder and a group of older women arrived.
“Oh my! Have you been hunting since this morning?”
“Nah, Tenma did this all by himself, in no time at all.”
“I-Is that true!?”
“More importantly, elder, these rabbits are all for the village, so can you please decide the shares? I’d like someone to help with the slaughtering too.”
“Is that really alright? We can pay, you know.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly take money from you, after you welcomed me into your village. I’d rather go hunt some more, so could someone take over here?”
The elder looked very happy to accept my proposal.
“That is simply wonderful. Please leave the rest to us here.”
～
After that, I went out to hunt again. I caught five Horn Rabbits, went back inside the village and delivered them. Rinse and repeat.
The elder too climbed up the watchtower once, to watch how I hunted, and was very impressed. Before I realized it, the watchtower became packed with children.
I was also asked to gather firewood, if possible. On the way to my “hunting grounds”, I had found a collapsed tree of the right size, so I imbued my short sword with magic, chopped it up and brought the wood back to the village, over the course of a few trips.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
That morning I — Misha — heard from my older brother that he met the rumored boy at the well. He helped everyone draw water, apparently.
(I bet Ranga just forced him to do it!)
My brother praised him, but I had a different opinion.
When my father and brother went off to the fields to work, I helped mother clean up the breakfast table, then started with the day’s house cleaning.
After that, we went too to the fields to help. On the way, I saw an older Sheep Beastman lady, who was hurrying somewhere.
We asked her what was going on: as it turns out, someone had caught a lot of Horn Rabbits, so they needed help to dress the meat.
Mother and I decided to go there too, instead of the field. If Ranga had hunted them, it was likely that he would share some of the meat with us.
When we arrived at the village gates, there were more than fourteen Horn rabbits hanging upside down, to let the blood out. A few of them had been cut already too.
Mother and I looked at each other and smiled.
Next to the slaughterhouse, Ranga was talking with someone, a wide grin on his face.
If he had caught so many, it wouldn’t be strange for him to gloat a little, I thought, and listened in. As it turned out, however, it was the rumored boy who had hunted them.
(Why does Ranga look so smug, then!?)
I quickly climbed up the watchtower and watched how the boy hunted the Horn Rabbits. He was a bit too far to see clearly, but he looked kind of tall but pretty thin, and not strong at all.
He threw something, and the Horn rabbit stopped moving. He then stabbed it with a short sword…and the rabbit disappeared.
(That must be the Storage skill…)
It was not a common skill, but not extremely rare either. Some merchants had it, as adventurers did too sometimes. It was said that having the Storage skill was enough to not fear hunger anymore, though.
While I was watching, the boy caught three Horn Rabbits, then came back to the gate.
I took a better look at him: his facial features were still kind of childlike, so it wasn’t hard to believe that he had just come of age. His face was kind of plain, not ugly nor pretty, and he had black hair and black eyes, so he looked generally inconspicuous.
He passed the gates and headed towards the slaughterhouse.
“Hey Tenma, good work out there.”
The boy called Tenma smiled at the older woman who greeted him and took out five Horn Rabbits from his Storage.
“Please take care of these too. I’ll go back to hunting.”
He immediately turned on his heels and went outside again.
(His smile is cuter than I thought!!)
What I heard from Ranga didn’t give me a good impression of him, but…
After actually seeing the boy called Tenma, such an impression changed drastically.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
I had already caught more than fifty Horn rabbits. It was past noon, so I was thinking it was enough for the day, and returned to the village. As soon as I passed the gates, an inviting smell reached my nostrils.
A cooking stove had been brought out, who knows when, on which the villagers were cooking the rabbit meat.
The elder walked up to me, an apologetic look on his face.
“I’m sorry, my boy, but we haven’t been able to hunt much recently, so it’s the first time in a while that we can taste meat. We wanted the children to eat it as soon as possible.”
“That’s alright, don’t worry. I’m just glad I could do something nice for the children.”
The other villagers seemed to be worried about it too: they looked nervous when the elder came up to me, but my reply left them relieved, so they continued cooking the meat. There was a bigger crowd around the gate now.
I wonder if the whole village had gathered?
It looked almost like a festival: the atmosphere was bright and cheerful, so I joined in and started eating too.