Snap.
A large tree slowly fell, shattering into logs that Shiki put into his backpack, along with tree seeds scattered all over the ground.
He had to pick them up one by one.
It was frustrating early on without a magnet ring; picking things up was too troublesome.
He swung the axe again to chop up the tree stump.
Looking at the empty space he had cleared in front of his cabin, Shiki satisfiedly put down the axe, opened his phone, navigated to the crafting section, and used wood to make his first chest.
This type of chest can store 36 different types of items, with a maximum of 999 units per item type.
But what Shiki always wanted to complain about was that this chest, which looked only half a person tall, required 50 units of wood to craft.
He knew that cutting down one tree, including the stump, only yielded about twenty-something pieces of wood.
Now, this single chest required two large trees.
A tree and its stump require 15 chops to fell.
Each swing of the axe consumes two stamina points.
This means that crafting one chest costs him 60 stamina points just for the chopping.
Early on, he only had 270 stamina points in total.
If he did nothing else all day, he could only make four chests.
But he had to make chests; his backpack was too small.
With only 12 slots, tools alone took up 5 slots.
If he didn’t store things, he wouldn’t be able to pick up anything he found outside.
After putting the lumber and tree seeds from his backpack into the chest, Shiki started hoeing the cleared ground.
He planted a packet of windbreak grass seeds and watered them.
By the time he finished working the field, it was already noon, and his stamina was nearly depleted.
This area of land was basically equivalent to a standard 5×5 plot in the game.
With such limited stamina early on, this was all the work he could manage.
“Alright, that’s enough for now.
I’ll go wander around town and see what the Community Center looks like in reality.” After putting everything from his backpack into the chest, he only kept a hoe on him.
If he saw ground where earthworms were poking out on the road, he could hoe it.
In these spots, things were buried underground, which the game called ancient spots.
Many items could be dug up, and several Villagers required items dug up from underground to be unlocked.
“Let’s go!” Walking the road to the town again, Shiki wasn’t scared at all this time.
He had walked this path countless times and was extremely familiar with it.
“Heh, leek.” Strolling along the path, Shiki looked around.
Soon, he spotted a well-grown leek on the ground not far away and quickly plucked it.
This was one of his early sources of stamina.
Although it didn’t restore much, every little bit counted.
In the early stages, having anything to eat was good enough.
Standing once again at the junction of the dirt road and the stone path, Shiki stepped forward, then stopped at a hole in a fence, a habit ingrained in his DNA.
He passed two houses south of the fence and stood in front of a trash can.
“Hello, is anyone home?” Instead of immediately checking the trash can, Shiki first peered through the window into the house.
The empty house looked very clean, without a speck of dust, but it also lacked furniture; it was just a simple unfinished shell.
After confirming no one was there, Shiki opened the trash can.
As expected, the trash can was clean enough to be used as a water vat.
That made sense; how could there be trash if no one lived there?
Shiki was surprised by this level of detail in this place, having assumed things would respawn like in the game.
So, he really had to rummage through trash cans for other people’s unwanted leftovers.
In that case, he decided against it.
No matter what, he wouldn’t stoop to rummaging through trash cans for food.
But if that was the case…
Shiki opened his phone and found an unlock condition he had seen earlier on the Villager page: Rummage through a trash can every day for a month straight.
“Who could it be…” Shiki thought while opening the trash can in front of the neighboring house—it was a pure muscle memory reaction.
When playing the game, even if he didn’t lack food later on, he would still instinctively check the trash can when passing by.
Arriving at the Seed Shop, Shiki peered through the window.
The shelves were empty, and there was no one inside.
This was terrible.
After planting the 15 windbreak grass seeds he had, they would be gone.
What would he do afterward?
Would he really have to chop down weeds to get random seeds?
Walking to the right of the Seed Shop, Shiki saw a set of stone steps leading up the mountain.
This was the path to the Back Mountain, but the height difference…
what was a two-step walk in the game now presented Shiki with an elevation change of at least a hundred meters.
Huff, huff.
“Holy crap, I finally climbed up.” Shiki, an office drone who always took the elevator, hadn’t done such intense exercise in a long time.
He had to use both his hands and feet to climb the last short section of stairs, nearly killing him from exhaustion.
It was strange.
Chopping trees required stamina, and mining stones required stamina, but he didn’t feel tired.
Yet, climbing these stairs nearly killed him.
It seemed the stamina bar on his status panel was calculated separately from his physical stamina.
Sitting on the ground and catching his breath for a while, Shiki continued walking.
Soon, a massive Community Center appeared before him.
The dilapidated Community Center was even worse than the Farmhouse; at least the Farmhouse wasn’t covered in holes and vines everywhere.
This time, Shiki managed to push the door open very easily.
“Meow?” The instant he pushed the door open, Shiki thought he heard a cat meow, but when he walked inside, he found nothing.
The tattered Community Center was drafty everywhere, and the walls were covered in creeping plants.
As Shiki entered, a cloud of dust rose.
Under the sunlight, the center looked imbued with a sense of historical decay.
When the dust settled, Shiki saw the scroll lying on the floor.
In the game, this scroll was written in Junimo Script.
He would need to go to the Wizards Tower in the Southwestern Forest to find the Wizard to decipher it, thus starting the Community Center Bundles, or he could ignore it and just pay money to unlock it when JojaMart arrived.
Shiki had played so many game saves and never once taken the JojaMart route; he was a completionist.
“I didn’t mishear it just now.
There really was a cat meow.” Walking over to the scroll, Shiki immediately noticed several plum blossom paw prints on the ground next to it.
They were very obvious in the dust, extending all the way to a hole in the wall before disappearing.
“In that case…
that meow must have been the Chen?
But I shouldn’t have met the conditions yet, so how did she appear?” Picking up the scroll, Shiki glanced at it.
The scribbled characters were completely incomprehensible.
He tossed it straight into his backpack, deciding to worry about it in a few days after clearing a path from the farm to the forest.
Pondering why the Chen had appeared here, Shiki left the Community Center.
He was now wondering if the Chen could appear here, could he possibly go to Gensokyo, and if he did, would his current immortal body still be useful…
After Shiki left, a black cat head poked out from the hole in the wall.
Its large eyes blinked.
Seeing that the scroll had been picked up, it ran off.
Lady Yukari had told her to write a letter, greet the owner of this place, and invite him to help Gensokyo solve its Food Crisis.
She had completed her task and could go play now.
But after a while, a Gap tied with bows at both ends opened up, swallowing the black cat that was running around in the Back Mountain.