Our little party was hailed like heroes upon our return to the orphanage and the others quickly fell to the praise such that the very next day all three of them practically dragged me out the door with them as we headed for the forest to go on the hunt once more.
The lure of meat was strong, but even more than that the bones would be used for future stews, and soups.
While the fur was sold to get a tidy sum of coppers to help with expenses.
Our weapons were still nothing more than sticks and branches, but in our eyes they might have been the famous divine blades for all we cared.
Since we headed out fairly early, and the others were more open to listen to me as the self-proclaimed leader, as as such our second day was highly successful as we managed to net four rabbits in total.
When we returned to the village each of us grasping the white rabbit corpses as if they were our treasured stuff animals, we drew attention from the villagers who were all surprised to see mere children so successful at something even adult found difficult.
That of course did not stop us from being scolded by Mother upon our return but the kids were all pleased to see our supper that day included rabbit meat while more was being salted and dried to be saved for future meals, the bones likewise were dried and saved to make future broths, while the furs after being peeled from the bodies were given a simple treatment and after being preserved could be sold to merchants for more coppers.
After this day our group made tracks for the forest almost every day, the guys were enjoying the thrill of getting to hunt, while our sister was just pleased to see we were all getting along and she enjoyed being praised for bringing home the bacon (rabbit meat) more than anything as it always brought such a smile to her face it threatened to take over her face itself as her grin grew so great.
Seeing the benefit our hunts brought both in the increase of our food but also the extra income from the coppers of selling furs, i further decided to tamper with my siblings stat boards to increase our efficiency of bringing in the coppers to provide for the younger generation, and even getting the sisters to agree to giving us a simple allowance which could be invested in our hunts mainly to upgrade our equipment and try to acquire real weapons even if they were just carved sticks, or spears with a tiny tip of iron on top.
When we set out fully equipped as i called it, with us boys armed with the most basic of swords, refuse castoffs from the militia that were rusty and well worn, but would only become slag in the blacksmiths forge as they became melted down to reforge while loosing a good part of the metal in the process.
Our sister on the otherhand continued to use her spear, never liking to get to close to monsters or animals until after they were dead, we even teased about how she should use a bow so she could stay even further away during battle, which she pouted vesiferously objecting about us calling her a scaredy cat.
The day after we bought our new weapons, led to our greatest hunt and getting us all praises by the adults of the village as our position as the four rising stars were cemented within their minds.
The orphanage stores were packed with salted meat, enough that the sisters even opted to sell some of the meat along with the pelts to the villagers, which netted them a good sum of coppers as the chance to eat meat was a rare occurrence.
The number of Rabbit pelts we were acquiring was even reaching the point where we questioned if we should just use them to create fur blankets for the kids to use, but the sisters gave each of us a knock on the head stating we could simply buy new cloth blankets from the merchants off the coppers of only a handful of those pelts rather than needing dozens just to create a few fur blankets.
The attention we gained in the village was nice, no longer were we just orphaned brats being looked down upon, or shunned simply for living but now an integral part of the village pulling off greater yields as a party than the villages own hunters who also went after rabbits, and deer but returned with only a few pieces per day far from enough to provide for the entire village.
Thankfully the animal reproduction rate seemed high as our hunting yields only continued to grow without any signs of the population of the forest diminishing even slightly, and with it our grinded experience points, which allowed further investment to progress even further.
At the same time it was during this period when the increase in level and desire produced greater investment into the stat boards, and from those investments a * symbol appeared next to all of our job's which after investigating i found that we had managed to unlock new jobs after meeting the criteria based either on our life experience of slaying animals/monsters or from the investment into the specific stats themselves.
And i found i could also change our jobs as well.
Which was simple enough to do, i made my brothers in swordsmen, while sister became a spearwoman, as for myself i chose Hunter since i figured it would help me more with tracking and locating beasts in the forest.
Upon the change it was clear something was different, i started to notice things i hadnt previously in the forest, like tracks, or droppings, even some wild herbs and plants.
My brothers became like the militia guard no longer simply swinging their swords with reckless abandon but with real intent and form, though still far from the adventurers who guards merchant caravans visiting the village.
The same was true of sister, who had even deadlier stabs, but also started mixing in some slashed as well.
This newest development even further accelerated our renown as we just a pack of kids.
The grown ups even gave us a backpack like bag to carry our spoils in since our yields could be higher though we complained loudly upon returning a couple times about having to stop early since we couldn't carry everything.
Before we knew it us eight year old children had become the primary source of meat in the entire village, not yet having undergone the rite of awakening but recognized as prodigies and rising stars by all the villagers and even the merchants.
But then would come the biggest moment and the true turning point when the year turned again and we were faced with our biggest challenge as the season turned to summer once again.