Darkness had settled over the chieftain's tent.
An icy wind seeped through the gaps in the roughly tanned leather, making the torch flicker.
Under that light, Jakan, chieftain of the Northern Rock Tribe, sat alone.
“......”
The face of one man surfaced in Jakan's mind.
Izak.
A man who was somewhat smaller than the other tribe members and did not look like a warrior.
A man with so little presence that he had not even left a clear memory in Jakan's mind.
Was Izak really that sort of man? The small question planted a seed of doubt in Jakan's mind.
The conviction in his eyes, and the bold spirit with which he had made demands without avoiding Jakan's gaze.
Above all, he had created food from dead land where life would not grow.
'Wisdom.'
Jakan rolled that unfamiliar word around in his mouth.
Wisdom was a foreign concept to barbarians.
A thought that could not pierce a monster's hide was mere idle thought, and a worry that could not resolve hunger was a luxury.
A world where strength was law and survival was truth.
That was why Jakan swung his sword and strove to protect the tribe.
But.
Jakan turned his gaze to the enormous greatsword in the corner of the tent.
His father's keepsake and the symbol of the chieftain.
That sword might cut down monsters, but it could not cut down hunger.
'Am I...... tired?'
The thought came to him suddenly.
He was still young. No, he was still a child.
Even by barbarian standards, he was too young to serve as chieftain.
But the previous chieftain, his father, had been torn apart and killed while holding back waves of demonic beasts on the night the ‘Red Moon’ rose.
Not only his father, but the tribe's seasoned warriors and wise elders had all vanished like dew on that night.
Those who had survived were only immature young people like himself, who still had much to learn from adults, and children who needed protection.
Jakan had no choice but to ascend to the chieftain's seat, yet strength alone was not enough to lead the tribe.
'I don't know.'
Hunger worsened by the day, and he could not judge what to do about the situation.
Then Izak had created potatoes.
He had performed a wonder that only wizards could work.
If the ancestral god had truly bestowed wisdom upon him.
Had his father's soul sent the ancestral god to his inadequate self?
“......”
Jakan's eyes sank deeply.
His thoughts tried to trail after one another, but the simple thought process peculiar to barbarians struck a wall.
For the first time, Jakan felt frustrated.
Wisdom. Perhaps he was the one who wanted it most intensely.
“Come in.”
Casting aside his thoughts, he murmured quietly toward the presence outside the tent.
Jakan did not yet know that the small miracle Izak had created was bringing a small change to his life.
.
.
.
After receiving the chieftain's summons, I stood there thoroughly tense.
'Why on earth did he call me?'
I was uneasy. Was he perhaps suspicious of me?
According to the setting of L.O.C., a barbarian chieftain was an absolute ruler.
'Calm down, Kang Jin-ho. You're the tribe's hero right now. You multiplied the potatoes fourfold.'
I swallowed dryly and steadied myself.
For now...... Let me look as respectful and intelligent as possible.
I was no longer a simple barbarian, but a wise farmer barbarian inhabited by the ancestral god.
- Come in.
Jakan's voice drifted out from the tent.
All right. I would be as polite and intelligent as possible.
[Failure! Barbarian Mind resists polite speech and behavior.]
“Chief! I here!”
But the voice that came from my throat, regardless of my will, was completely different.
- BANG!
Well, would you look at that.
Before even hearing an answer, my body kicked the leather flap aside and charged roughly inside.
My footsteps boomed, and my voice was confident.
'What the hell? Why is my body moving on its own! Even Mental Strength 10 isn't enough? Is this some kind of random-chance game?'
I screamed inwardly, but outwardly I was a scoundrel without equal.
This damned trait. Barbarian Mind!
Was it because I had not yet adapted to this body?
Fortunately, Jakan did not so much as twitch an eyebrow at my rude entrance. He simply stared at me with a frightening expression.
“You've come.”
I tried to sit quietly before the chieftain, but my body dropped to the floor with a thud and sat cross-legged.
Jakan stared directly at me.
I was scared.
Just as the heavy silence became unbearable, Jakan opened his mouth.
“Izak. Did the ancestral god give you wisdom?”
“Yes.”
When I nodded briefly, I saw Jakan's eyes shake sharply.
What was he thinking?
He said nothing again.
After staring silently at the greatsword standing in the corner for a long time, he spoke with a deep sigh.
“Then, Izak. Will you manage the household?”
Huh? What did he say?
I doubted my ears.
Manage the household? Whose household......? Why would I......?
'Could it be...... I grew potatoes too well. He wants my genes......'
My imagination shot off in a bizarre direction.
“The tribe's household affairs. Will you do it?”
Only then did I understand.
That kind of household management, not that kind.
I grew awkwardly embarrassed, but Jakan, unaware of my misunderstanding, continued with a serious expression.
“The chieftain stops enemies and hunts. But counting and leading the tribe make my head hurt.”
He tapped his temple with a finger.
“My father said a tribe needs two pillars. One is the chieftain who protects the tribe, and the other is the shaman who makes the tribe prosper.”
“A shaman......”
“Our tribe has no shaman.”
For some reason, Jakan's voice sounded lonely.
'Come to think of it, there are no adults in this tribe.'
There were only carefree boys and little barbarian children. Was that why they did not even know how to farm?
For a moment, I thought Jakan must have suffered quite a lot among those barbarians whose brains were muscle too.
He stared directly at me.
“Izak. The ancestral god gave you wisdom. Barbarians lack wisdom. You made life bloom from dead land.”
“......”
“Become our tribe's shaman. Be my brother, stand at my back, and take care of what lies behind me. I will trust you and swing my sword.”
In a way, this looked less like a proposal and more like an earnest plea.
I stared at him blankly for a moment.
According to the original scenario, I had been fated to be nothing more than Tribe Member Number 23, swinging an axe thoughtlessly before dying.
Yet the chieftain was offering me the position of second-in-command.
A shaman.
The person responsible for the tribe's wisdom, who presided over rituals and filled the chieftain's gaps from directly beneath him.
'There's no reason to refuse.'
If I became a shaman, life would be much more comfortable.
Above all, I would no longer need the chieftain's permission to put my survival plan into action.
Grin. A smile spread across my face. This time, it was not forced; it was genuine.
“Good. I'll take it.”
Jakan's expression visibly brightened at my acceptance.
After hesitating for a moment, he sprang to his feet and carefully patted my back.
“You made a good choice. From now on, you are the shaman of the Northern Rock Tribe.”
...... Wasn't the process a little too simple?
I had not expected a grand appointment ceremony, but I had not expected it to be this simple either. While I stood there flustered, Jakan rummaged beneath his bed.
Then he held something out to me.
It was an old wooden box covered in dust.
“What is this?”
“It was left by the previous shaman. Only the one who becomes shaman can have it. Now it is yours.”
Jakan held the box out to me again.
My heart began to race.
'A legacy......!'
The laws of games.
A chieftain's treasure or a predecessor's legacy always contained a hidden item or a skill book.
There might even be a spellbook inside.
Or ancient Imperial gold coins? A special artifact? This tribe might be destitute now, but perhaps it had prospered in the past.
'Finally, a chance for some gear advantage!'
With trembling hands, I accepted the box.
It was heavy. This weight. Gold? Was there a gold bar inside?
“Open it.”
At Jakan's urging, I carefully opened the lid.
Creeeak—. The rusty hinges screamed as the lid opened.
I looked into the box with eager eyes.
“......”
Then I was at a loss for words.
What was this?
Irregular slashes and holes of unknown meaning had been carved into a thin, crudely made piece of bone.
Honestly, it looked like junk.
“What is this?”
“Time.”
With a thick finger, Jakan pointed to the holes along the bone piece's edge.
Small stones tied with leather cords hung from each hole.
“Barbarians do not remember. Yesterday's fullness is forgotten by today's hunger. We live today.”
His eyes sank deeply in the shadows cast by the flickering torch.
“But someone must remember. When the Red Moon rises, when the white snow falls. The shaman ties knots in this bone and counts the days.”
Only then did I understand the identity of this crude object.
A calendar.
It was a primitive counter that allowed dates to be understood intuitively, made for barbarians ruled only by wild instinct and unable to feel any reason or need to think.
One stone represented a day, while a thick knot represented a month.
And the hole painted red.......
'The Red Moon......'
It was the day the calamity began.
I, who knew this game well, had not forgotten either.
Before the Great Famine, we had to survive the Red Moon that came each cycle.
“Now you will record it. Izak. You will protect us.”
Without speaking, I nodded and accepted the bone piece.
Slowly tracing its knots, I calculated backward the dates from the place where Jakan's final knot had been tied up to today.
It was simple arithmetic, so I could decipher it at once with a modern person's mind.
'April 30.'
A chill ran down my spine.
As I remembered, the dates and seasons in this world moved similarly to those on Earth.
The first snow fell in October, and the true ‘White Winter’ began in November.
A great calamity that froze every living thing to death.
Then, just as I had thought on the day I first arrived in this world, there were only a little over six months until winter.
'It's tight. And I have to prepare for the Red Moon too.'
I swallowed dryly and looked at the primitive calendar in my hand.
It was not the gold, jewels, or magic item I had wanted, but it was almost as if I had gained something more important than those.
A sense of time.
And a deadline for the future that was approaching.
“Understood.”
I gave that short answer, tucked the bone piece into my chest, and left the chieftain's tent.
***
Three days later.
I moved busily to get a grasp on the tribe's household affairs.
The Red Moon and the Great Famine aside, first we had to eat and survive today.
My faint hope had been in vain...... The barbarians were really flat broke.
The empty storehouse in the center of the village, without a door or even guards, was truly everything they owned.
- Chief! No secret storehouse? No food chieftain hid?
- None. Barbarians do not hide.
So I had to endure three days of hell.
The upright and incorruptible Chieftain Jakan had nothing, and until the potatoes I had planted grew, I had to suck my fingers alongside the tribe members.
The one or two rabbits caught by the hunting party were nowhere near enough to fill the bellies of forty people.
That was assuming they managed to catch them at all.
'H-Hungry.'
And this needlessly large body was terribly inefficient.
Such terrible hunger swept over me that I suddenly feared I might starve to death.
At the end of my endurance, the promised time came.
“Harvest!”
At my cry, the barbarians rushed in.
RIP! CRACK! The earth turned over, and the treasures that had been hiding within it poured out.
- DING!
A clear, cheerful system notification sounded.
[You have obtained 20 F-Grade Potatoes. Your cumulative Potato harvest has reached 100. Next harvest goal: 500.]
[Crop Comprehension <Potato> increases. Current Comprehension: 20%]
Ahh! This was it.
It felt as though my hunger and fatigue had been washed away.
When I harvested the second potato stem, another message window appeared.
[Grade Up! You have harvested E-Grade Potatoes for the first time.]
[Achievement Accomplished! You are the first barbarian to harvest an E-Grade crop. You gain experience.]
[Title Acquired! You have acquired ‘Maybe I Could Be Good at Farming?’ Stat Points +1, Fame +1, Strength +1]
'Huff.'
E-Grade Potatoes!
The plump potato in my hand.
This was not F-Grade, but E-Grade.
It seemed that when my Comprehension of potatoes reached 20%, the grade of potatoes rose as well.
Then what sort of potatoes would appear once I understood potatoes 100%?
Farming...... This was too fun!
On top of that, my Strength had gone up just from farming.
“Potato wizard! Excited!”
Every time potatoes appeared, the barbarians cheered happily.
With those cheers as background music, I happily harvested potatoes until I reached the last one.
[Level Up! Your level has become 3. Lv.2 -> Lv.3]
[Level increase: Stat Points +1; class-skill proficiency increases.]
[The number of cultivable slots increases. 5 -> 10]
'Oh......!'
I clenched my fist.
I was growing fast.
This was what growth felt like.
Happily, I looked at the E-Grade potato, much larger and heavier than an F-Grade potato.
“Izak! Very big potato.”
Malko and the other barbarians held up E-Grade potatoes and cheered.
Today's harvest totaled 110 potatoes: 20 F-Grade Potatoes and 90 E-Grade Potatoes.
It was a bumper crop.
While I shared the joy of harvest with the barbarians, the brush shook and the hunting party returned.
As expected, Jakan was at its head.
A giant barbarian at least a head taller than the other large warriors.
A gaunt raccoon dog hung over his shoulder.
'Tsk. They wandered around all day, but their catch looks pretty poor.'
Jakan trudged over and stopped before us.
His gaze fell on the pile of more than a hundred potatoes forming a small hill on the ground.
I swallowed dryly. I had become a little used to him...... But he was still scary.
Yet Jakan did not say a word. He only stared steadily at the pile of potatoes, then slowly raised his head.
“......”
Without speaking, he gave a very slight nod.
'What was that just now......?'
Jakan tossed the raccoon dog beside the potato pile, then walked toward his tent as if it were nothing.
Huh.
A smile spread across my lips without my realizing it.
Had I just been praised?
It did not feel bad. Honestly, it felt quite good.
Lifting the raccoon dog Jakan had left behind and an E-Grade potato, I shouted loudly.
“Tonight, we eat until our bellies burst!”
“Waaaaah! Barbariaaaaan!”
The cheers echoed through the canyon.
Had I begun to think like a barbarian too?
There were some problems, but first, I was hungry. Let us eat.