Chapter 10
Late October. An Albaheron flew north. It was the bird Allen was named after.
(Harvest is almost over, so I guess it’s officially hunting season now.)
Lately, Allen’s father, Rodan, had been in a good mood. Hunting season had arrived. In October, the men coordinated their schedules and went hunting. This year, they’d already gone twice between potato harvests. Rodan was a large, solidly built man over 180 centimeters tall. He’d wanted to be a hunter, and he looked forward to hunting season. Telesia needed good nutrition for their second child, too.
Allen and Krena were growing up healthy as well. When a hunt succeeded, everyone who took part received a block of meat as a reward. It was a valuable source of animal protein for serfs, who usually relied on beans for protein. They typically managed about ten successful hunts between October and December, so they might be pretty skilled.
Apparently, from January through March, they went hunting for White Deer, C-rank magical beasts resembling elk. Snow covered the ground, and the beasts were pure white and difficult to spot, so they didn’t catch as many as they did Great Boars in autumn.
(Hmm. Now, how did my tests turn out?)
Yesterday morning, Allen had the Beast G mole dig a hole and put an Insect H grasshopper inside. Now he checked on it.
"Oh! Denka! You’re alive! So now I know there’s no problem with keeping you summoned for a full day!"
He’d put the grasshopper in a hole he’d dug in the corner of the yard to test how long a summon called from a card could stay summoned.
There were no strategy guides or anyone to answer his questions, so he had to figure out how summons worked through trial and error. Now that he could go out into the yard freely, he’d decided to test all sorts of things.
Denka was the name Allen had given his Insect H summon.
Each summon had a feature that let him give it a name. He could create, summon, and synthesize it by its nickname instead of calling it Insect H. He didn’t even need to say the name aloud; he only had to think it.
Summon Names
・Insect H: Denka (Grasshopper)
・Insect G: Pyonta (Frog)
・Beast H: Chorosuke (Mouse)
・Beast G: Moguzo (Mole)
・Bird G: Chappie (Parakeet)
These were clearly names for pets, not summons. He could change them as often as he liked by simply editing the name field in the Grimoire.
(All right, next...)
Leaving the Insect H summon where it was, Allen went to the tree in the yard. Ten pebbles lay at his feet. He’d put them there. He picked them up and began throwing them at the tree one at a time. As he threw, he remembered arriving in this other world about three years ago.
(If I remember right, the Hell Mode explanation was, “At the start, you can only acquire Skills selected through your Job.” In my case, that’d be Summoning. That definitely doesn’t mean I can’t acquire any other Skills, right?)
After throwing ten pebbles at the tree, he collected them, made tally marks on the ground, and started throwing again.
(For now, I’ll throw a hundred. I need to throw a hundred every day and figure out the pattern behind the conditions for acquiring Skills.)
Allen wanted to see if throwing stones would let him acquire a Skill like “Stone Throw.”
He wanted to find out as soon as possible whether he could acquire Skills unrelated to summoning through throwing pebbles, and what the conditions for acquiring Skills were. Since he’d been reincarnated in another world from birth, there was no harm in finding out early.
He was currently earning Synthesis Skill Experience, but that basically just involved spending Magic. He was done after three sessions of a few minutes each per day. For Allen, who wanted to really dig into this other world, that was far too little.
A bell rang in the distance to announce noon.
"Allen, lunch is ready!"
"Coming, Mama!"
It seemed the steamed potatoes for lunch were ready, so Allen went back inside. It was still before lunchtime. He was trying to make throwing stones part of his morning routine.
"Let’s play again tomorrow, Allen!"
"Yeah."
Four hours later, Allen was there again, exhausted from playing knights. At Telesia’s prompting, Krena ran home. The Pioneer Village didn’t have many lights, and the outskirts were especially dark at night. Since it was dangerous, they rarely asked her to stay for dinner.
(That’s another day done. If Krena comes every day, Swordsmanship might level up first.)
He’d been on the defensive again today. If they were going to play knights every day, he hoped he’d get some kind of sword-related Skill, too.
That evening, the dinner Telesia had prepared was laid out, and the three of them sat around the hearth. Serfs lived simply and were poor, but it wasn’t as though they didn’t have enough to eat. Just look at Rodan: a well-built man over 180 centimeters tall who did physical labor from six in the morning until four in the afternoon. He burned more calories than the average person in the modern world.
They needed a fair amount of food to get enough calories, despite using little oil or other seasoning and rarely eating meat. There were potatoes, bread made by kneading wheat flour into dough and baking it, and beans. The thin soup had vegetables they’d picked in summer and dried.
"By the way, I saw you throwing stones at the tree today."
"Yeah."
Telesia had been concerned, naturally, since her son was doing something she couldn’t understand.
Rodan reacted, too. Telesia told him that Allen had been quietly throwing stones at the tree.
"Why were you doing that?"
"Because you said there might be magical beasts outside, Papa. If one shows up, I’ll beat it with a rock and protect Mama!"
He answered with a childlike smile, giving the reason he’d thought up. Telesia and Rodan had kept telling him not to leave the house because there might be magical beasts outside.
The Pioneer Village was surrounded by a fence, and Allen had heard that only low-ranking magical beasts lived beyond it. But even those beasts sometimes slipped through gaps in the fence. The guards or other adults in the village dealt with them as soon as they were spotted, but they were still dangerous for children.
(Wasn’t it something like a horned rabbit? It was delicious.)
As far as he could remember, Rodan had caught two of them in the past, and they’d ended up on the dinner table. They were horned rabbits about the size of medium-sized dogs. The unwritten rule was that whatever someone caught was theirs, so anyone who spotted one would rush to catch it for its precious meat.
"Oh, Allen!"
Though they were still eating, Telesia was so moved by Allen’s answer that she hugged him tightly.
"Oh, is that so? Good for you!"
Rodan seemed happy that his son was growing up brave. It was almost a perfect answer for a child. As Telesia hugged Allen, Rodan ruffled his hair.
"You’ll protect Krena-chan, too, of course, right?"
"Yeah!"
Rodan had heard from Gerda that Krena could already hold her own against a horned rabbit. That was one reason Krena came to Allen’s house on her own.
"That’s right. You two have fun playing knights together, and when you turn five, you’ll have your Appraisal Ceremony. I hope they find you have a talent!"
"That’s right."
(Oh? What’s that? That’s the first time I’ve heard that.)
"The Appraisal Ceremony?"
"When you’re five, the gods will see if you have any talents."
Telesia explained that everyone in this other world, serfs included, underwent a ceremony to assess their talents. Many people were told they had no talent, so his parents said he shouldn’t get his hopes up. But Allen could tell that they were the ones hoping for a good result. Apparently, being found to have a talent was one of the few chances to escape serfdom.
And so the days went on: throwing stones in the morning, playing knights in the afternoon, testing summons whenever he had time, regularly using Magic to gain Skill Experience, and helping Telesia.