Chapter 61
“Here, lift this part.”
“Yes, Chef.”
Allen was helping butcher the White Deer in the yard.
Allen had brought home a White Deer and caused an uproar throughout the mansion. However, the order had come from Tomas, the second son of Baron Granvelle, in front of everyone at dinner. No one could blame Allen.
He had helped butcher it late into the night yesterday, but because of its enormous size, he had only managed to remove the organs and skin it before he had to stop. They would have to make more progress today.
Since Allen had a knack for it, the head chef asked the butler to let him help butcher the White Deer instead of attending to Cecil that day. He’d phrased it more like he was borrowing Allen, but that was the head chef’s way of asking.
“You’ve got a real knack for this. You should become a chef instead of the young lady’s footman. Want me to talk to Sebas?”
The head chef called the butler, his superior, by his first name.
“Th-thank you. Young Lady Cecil has been very kind to me.”
Allen politely declined. The head chef asked if it was really true that that young lady treated him well.
Allen didn’t want to be Cecil’s footman, but he didn’t want to be a chef either. As Cecil’s footman, he could run errands around town, and since Cecil had a lot of lessons, he had plenty of free time. That was why he was helping butcher the White Deer now.
“Still, you pick things up quickly. Our Buns is pretty slow on the uptake.”
The head chef sounded impressed.
(That’s probably thanks to my Intelligence.)
He had gotten good at serving, too, but lately he seemed to remember things unusually well. Or rather, he had ever since his time in Krena Village. As he leveled up, this became more pronounced. He could remember just about anything, as if his previous life as Kenichi had been a lie. It wasn’t as if his personality had changed, but he could learn anything, and his body moved naturally, too.
He didn’t feel any smarter. He still couldn’t think of things that hadn’t occurred to him before, and it didn’t seem like his Intelligence had risen enough to make him a genius.
(I’d rather have had an A in every stat than an S in Intelligence. The White Deer was incredibly heavy yesterday, too. Summoners are a back-line class, after all.)
Summoners had an extremely high Intelligence stat of S, but their Attack was mediocre at C.
Since Allen threw things and sometimes fought with a sword, he would have preferred an A in every stat to having C Attack as some kind of compensation or adjustment for his S Intelligence.
Even as he thought about this, his hand holding the knife moved without hesitation. He made quick work of the butchering.
After helping with the butchering until late at night, Allen returned to the mansion, where the butler told him to come to his office after his serving duties were over.
He thought to himself that he seemed to be getting called in a lot lately. Since the butler had asked him to come, he went to the office after his serving duties were over.
Knock, knock.
“Excuse me. It’s Allen.”
“Come in.”
It was quite late. He entered the butler’s office. As always, the butler told him to sit on the sofa.
“I’m sorry I made you work so late yesterday, even though it was your day off.”
(Hm? He apologized to me?)
Since the butler had apologized for some reason, Allen replied, “It’s all right.” The White Deer hunt had taken place on his day off, and he’d only helped butcher it late into the night to get its Magic Stone.
“What did you need me for today?”
“Hmm. First, this.”
He placed a small pouch on the table between the sofas.
“What’s this?”
“A hundred silver coins.”
(Huh? Is this one hundred silver coins as my reward for the White Deer?)
The White Deer had at least five hundred kilograms of edible meat. Its beautiful hide must have been worth a fair amount, too. One White Deer should have been worth far more than a hundred silver coins.
“By the way, that includes your wages for this month.”
(Wha!? So the reward for this is only fifty silver coins? I’m never doing that again! It took up my whole day off. Absolutely not!)
Allen was paid at the end of every month. His monthly wage was fifty silver coins, so he assumed that meant he was being paid fifty silver coins for the White Deer.
“I see.”
His reply was nearly a sigh. He felt as if all his pent-up frustration were draining out of his mouth.
“Allen, you’re a clever boy, but you’re also quite honest. This is your wages starting this month.”
“Huh?”
“You do excellent work, and you’re very diligent. But that’s not why I’m giving you one hundred silver coins.”
The butler explained that a footman of Allen’s age would normally earn one hundred silver coins a month. However, Allen’s pay wasn’t being raised to one hundred silver coins this month because of his good work.
“Um, does that mean there’s another job worth fifty silver coins?”
“I see. Clever as ever. That’s right. I was thinking of having you work as a gamekeeper as well, Allen.”
“A gamekeeper?”
The butler had told him that he wanted Allen to take on a new job as a gamekeeper. In his previous life, the equivalent position among the British nobility was known as a gamekeeper.
“That’s right, Allen. You like hunting, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He answered immediately.
“A gamekeeper’s duties are...”
Sebas explained what a gamekeeper did.
Some great nobles, such as earls, had several, but the Baron Granvelle household had never employed one.
A gamekeeper’s duties were as follows:
• Hunt monsters and obtain meat.
• Help anyone outside the city who is having trouble with monsters.
“Ohhh!!!”
Having heard that much, Allen let out a cry of delight. He understood it as a hunter in a noble’s employ. Helping people in trouble with monsters while out hunting was part of the job, too.
In Allen’s previous life, medieval gamekeepers were responsible for raising game for nobles to hunt and preventing commoners from poaching the wild animals that belonged to the nobles. It seemed the job was quite different in this other world, where monsters were everywhere.
“You see, this was something the servants asked for, too.”
“Huh?”
The butler looked troubled as he explained the difficulties he’d faced.
Over the past few days, most of the servants had asked the butler to let Allen hunt more. Even before Allen had hunted the White Deer, it was obvious how skilled he was. Every time he had a day off, he brought back five Horned Rabbits. As a result, the servants’ meals had improved a little.
But only a little. If Allen hunted a bit more often, the servants would get more leftover meat from the baron’s household. The servants had all been telling the butler this.
The butler had been pressed hard by the servants, who insisted it would be better for the Granvelle household to have Allen hunting than running errands while attending to Cecil. He’d spent the past few days dealing with those requests.
“That’s how it is. I didn’t think you’d actually bring back a White Deer. To be honest, the Granvelle household is also short on money.”
The household had decided it would be more economical to increase Allen’s monthly wages by fifty silver coins than to keep buying monsters from him. A White Deer would require them to pay him in gold coins, but they couldn’t afford that. Their finances were so tight that they had planned to hold a modest New Year’s party.
“I see. Understood. I’ll accept the gamekeeper position for the extra fifty silver coins. So I start tomorrow?”
(If that’s all it is, they don’t even have to raise my pay. I’ll hunt a few monsters for food, then spend the rest of my time enjoying my goblin hunts. I-I can feel myself drooling. Woohoo!)
It felt like exciting hunts were about to begin. Smiling, Allen accepted the gamekeeper job, thinking that he might get to hunt every day starting tomorrow.
“Now, wait. I said you’d be doing gamekeeper work, too, didn’t I?”
“Huh?”
“Of course, you’ll still attend to Young Lady Cecil. I want you to work as a gamekeeper one day a week.”
“Wha!?”
He was being told to keep looking after Cecil as before.
Until now, he’d gone hunting on his one day off each week. Now he’d have another day for hunting among the five days he worked.
“Hmm? Are you dissatisfied? I can always take back the offer of a gamekeeper position.”
“Wha!? I wouldn’t dream of it. Of course I’ll accept...”
“Don’t look so down. You learn quickly, too. If you work hard, you might be able to become an attendant. It’d be a waste for you to work only as a gamekeeper, wouldn’t it, Allen?”
For some reason, the butler even brought up becoming an attendant, a position a footman could be promoted to. From Allen’s behavior so far, he seemed to have figured out that Allen didn’t want to be a footman.
“Urk.”
“What’s wrong? Will you accept the gamekeeper job one day a week?”
“Y-yes. Thank you for considering all my duties.”
And so, Allen ended up with three jobs in the Baron Granvelle household: Cecil’s footman, a server, and a gamekeeper. Two months after coming to the mansion, he now had two days a week to go hunting.