Nadan naturally brought the dagger he had drawn for defense toward the Long Nose, as if doing the obvious.
“It looks like it fainted, so I should finish it off.”
He had judged that it was still too early for me, who was only at the beginner stage, to directly feel what it was like to take a life.
What did he take me for?
I was the one who had attacked it.
Therefore, I strongly felt that finishing it off was also my role.
If I did not see my own action through to the end, this experience would remain at the level of pleasure.
I had said my purpose was not to have experiences that would end as something volatile, so I had an obligation to take responsibility for my own words.
If only so I could fully digest the experience and make it part of my blood and flesh.
“I’ll try it.”
“Will you be all right? The sensation is different from hitting something with an arrow from a distance.”
“I can’t tolerate leaving things half-finished.”
Nadan looked rather surprised, then seemed proud of me.
“I should reflect on myself. I thought I had to look after you unconditionally because you have not been here long.”
“Heh, it’s not as if I’m a child.”
“Are you the eldest son, by any chance?”
“I do have a younger brother and a younger sister below me. Why do you ask?”
“You look like you would be gentle, but you are surprisingly mature, like an eldest son.”
I had simply acted as I felt, but in Nadan’s eyes, it seemed to look mature.
I could only be grateful that he saw it in a good light.
I drew the dagger I had received from Layton.
The dagger and protective gear I had received from Layton were equipment made from level 20 materials.
They were not equipment imbued with a separate skill, but he said they were at a level where they could easily cut monsters below level 15 or simply block attacks received from monsters below level 15.
Under Nadan’s guidance, I placed the knife against the nape of the Long Nose’s neck and pressed down with all my weight.
SQUELCH—!
When the blade of the knife sank completely into the Long Nose’s nape.
News announcing a level-up flew in.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 5 to 7.]
-Current remaining skill points: 6
This time, my level rose by two all at once.
The experience points gained from hunting monsters were overwhelmingly greater than those gained from hunting wild animals.
By the way, had the event reward applied even though I finished it with a knife?
The event’s application condition was hunting monsters by attacking with a bow, so it seemed that striking it with the bow during the hunting process counted as fulfilling the condition.
Even though I had finished it off myself, there was surprisingly no lingering sensation.
It might have been thanks to the adaptability increase effect included in Traveler Package.
As if I had been finishing off monsters since long ago, I found myself already used to the sensation of ending one’s breath.
I naturally gripped the folding shovel I had received from Nadan.
“Now the time has come to bury another one.”
Nadan hesitated and stammered.
“Uh... yes. We should bury it. We absolutely should.”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No, how should I put it? It is strange because you act so straightforwardly. Did you do work that involved leading people in your original world?”
“I was an ordinary office worker. If my superiors gave me work, I did it as instructed, and when I finished, I reported it... I lived an ordinary life like that for ten whole years.”
“Without straying even once?”
“At the very least, no accidents occurred because of my actions, so I suppose you could say I never strayed.”
“Mm. I do not know how this will sound, but I think spending ten years in one field without causing a single accident is impressive in its own way.”
“I’m not sure.”
Was it impressive?
I did not really know.
At company dinners, my coworkers often asked me if living like that was any fun.
The work I did every day made up most of my life, so conversely, I had simply allocated my mental resources to handling the work that occupied most of my life without problems.
To me, it was so obvious that I did not know whether it was impressive.
I found a spot with soft ground and drove the shovel deep into the earth.
“If you’re tired, you can rest.”
“Huh? Uh, ah! I should dig! Tired, my ass! What do you take me for?”
Since we were near a valley stream, the damp soil obediently yielded to the shovel, and we were able to dig a pit to the desired depth in less than half the time it had taken with the previous Long Nose.
After burying the Long Nose, we carried out the work of butchering the deer.
For the butchering work, Nadan held the knife, and I took on the role of assisting him by lifting each body part so it would be easier to butcher.
Nadan grinned as he cut the torso into large pieces.
“I can tell you are no ordinary guy. Still, you have never eaten freshly caught deer, have you?”
“It is written all over your face that you want to tease me.”
“What nonsense. I have the Butchering Skill. If there is an infected part, I can tell right away. It is safe, so eat.”
The thing he proudly held out, as if being considerate, was raw liver.
Even though it was raw, steam rose from it in curls.
It had tremendous persuasive power.
The deer itself seemed to be strongly insisting that even if it was dead, it was not truly dead yet.
As if it wished for me to eat it and carry it into the next life.
I took a big bite of the warm liver.
CHOMP!
The moment an iron-rich liquid smeared around my mouth.
Nadan loaded a burst of laughter and stood by.
“How is it?”
It was mushy, yet there was something to chew, and though there was a fishy taste, savoriness immediately covered it.
It felt like chewing and eating a meat-flavored energy tonic.
I took several more large bites in a daze.
CHOMP! Crunch, crunch!
It felt as if my insides were growing warm.
CHOMP! Crunch, crunch!
It felt good.
My body spoke eloquently. This was exactly the ingredient my body wanted right now.
When I suddenly came to my senses and looked straight ahead, I found Nadan staring at me with a dumbfounded expression.
I held out the little bit of raw liver that remained.
“If... you do not mind that my mouth has touched it.”
No wonder he was horrified. I had eaten something this precious all by myself.
I had done something truly rude.
Urgh, if I followed my heart, I wanted to eat more.
While struggling not to reveal my regret, I calmly urged him to take it again and again.
Had I made it too obvious?
Nadan struck his own forehead hard with his palm and laughed openly.
“Haha, enough, enough. I was wrong. I tried to tease you, but it did not work at all. I understand why you managed to get by for ten years without storms.”
“You will not eat it?”
“You eat the rest. How fascinating. Usually, even if I guarantee it is safe because I have the Butchering Skill, people show at least some resistance. How is it that you are sitting there liking it even more?”
“I know, right?”
“Hahahaha! You strange guy!”
Nadan sent me to the valley stream to wash my face, which was smeared with fresh blood, then finished the remaining butchering work alone.
The parts we would carry were the loin, ribs, hide and antlers, and the organs.
When I asked why we were taking the organs, Nadan’s answer when he came back was quite something.
“We need to use them to lure monsters. Those rotten things are sensitive to the smell of blood.”
***
We slowly moved toward the base camp, placing bait at every clearing with an open field of view.
According to Nadan’s teaching, a place was not necessarily suitable for placing bait simply because the view was open.
A place where I had the advantage and the opponent was disadvantaged was best.
A place where I was in an ordinary position and the opponent was disadvantaged was second best.
He told me that anywhere else was unsuitable for placing bait.
Nadan’s policy was that if you were not going to make the opponent disadvantaged, another method was better than bait.
It was an equation that could be used not only in hunting, but in every field.
It was a highly educational time.
After setting up the bait we had, we continued changing locations at intervals and gathered medicinal herbs and edible plants.
Within a distance where we could check whether prey approached the bait.
Saying that a hunter’s virtue was not wasting spare time, Nadan passed all sorts of miscellaneous knowledge on to me without resting at all.
Surprisingly, experience points trickled in simply from accumulating knowledge I had not known, and my level rose again.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 7 to 8.]
-Current remaining skill points: 7
As we watched the bait and did odd jobs, monsters occasionally approached near the bait.
Sometimes they were level 8, sometimes level 10, sometimes level 6......
The type and level of monster approaching the bait varied greatly each time.
Whenever a monster approached the bait, Nadan had me take a shooting stance and personally adjusted the aiming angle for me.
Surprisingly, every shot hit.
Thanks to that, a large amount of experience points came in each time I hunted a monster.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 8 to 9.]
-Current remaining skill points: 8
[Level increased. Level has risen from 9 to 10.]
-Current remaining skill points: 9
At first, I thought he was making me repeat the process until I became used to shooting.
But immediately after we hunted the fifth monster, Nadan slapped his own forehead and said.
“Ah, did I not tell you? Since earlier, we have been fulfilling the conditions for passing down Stabilizer.”
“So there were conditions required to pass down a skill directly.”
“I thought the guild manager told you. In any case, he shoves everything off onto someone else. The conditions for passing down skills differ by skill. They can be passed down through direct instruction, by visiting a specific place, or learned through a skill book. In Stabilizer’s case, the condition is for me to personally set the aiming angle for you. And you have to land ten hits.”
Hitting just anything with an arrow would not do.
The count for the Stabilizer transmission condition rose only when the target was at least a level 3 monster.
Since wild animals were judged to have no level, they were not included in the count.
The number of monsters I had hit with arrows so far was five.
Five more remained.
There was plenty of bait, and it was not difficult to find monsters lured by the smell, wandering closer.
The sixth, the seventh.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 10 to 11.]
-Current remaining skill points: 10
The eighth, the ninth.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 11 to 12.]
-Current remaining skill points: 11
By the time only one last monster remained, the day had grown dark.
Nadan buried the eleventh catch of the day deep underground together with me, then declared that we would rest.
“Let’s go to the base camp now. Night is the monsters’ time. From here on, monsters level 20 and above will be active, so let’s rest somewhere safe.”
“It is a shame when only one is left.”
“You must not get greedy. They say that even with eating, it is best to stop when you still feel it is a little lacking, right? Getting greedy in an area where monsters appear is forbidden.”
“If that is what you say, Mr. Nadan. But is the base camp safe?”
“Would it be a base camp for no reason? It is safe because I plastered it with traps made from substances cats hate. It took quite a bit of time and money to complete.”
If I hunted just one more monster, I could learn the skill called Stabilizer.
When I asked what kind of effect the skill had, Nadan told me to personally check and judge for myself tomorrow.
He said that even if I fulfilled all the transmission conditions, whether to learn it or not was something I should judge after directly encountering the skill’s effect myself.
A one-hit-kill shot that had instantly killed a monster in a single blow.
Considering that today, even with Nadan’s help, I had not killed a monster instantly even once, I realized all over again that Nadan’s skill had a tremendous effect.
Filled with anticipation, we arrived at the forest base camp that Nadan had completed after cultivating it for several years.
Was it a coincidence?
No, I suspected it had probably been intentional.
Nadan’s base camp, its precise coordinates, were identical to the coordinates of the exploration point marked as ‘Deep Inside Cat Forest.’
-Arrived Deep Inside Cat Forest.
-Alhen Region Exploration Rate increased to 75 percent.
-3,500,000 won has been added to the Travel Reward Fund.
-Current accumulated fund: 6,000,000 won.
In addition, the fund did not merely accumulate. A new kind of unfamiliar event occurred for the first time.
-You have successfully stepped on all exploration points in the Alhen Region, excluding hidden exploration points.
-As you have conquered the regular exploration points of the Alhen Region, rewards will be granted accordingly.
-From now on, when Mr. Jo Seong-jin obtains a skill, it will be registered in the skill window at level 5. If the maximum skill level is below 5, this does not apply. Whenever a skill level is increased, the skill level will rise by 5.
-When deleting a skill and receiving a point refund, only the points invested in increasing the skill level will be refunded. This is a measure to prevent point creation through repeated skill registration and refunds.
-Next recommended travel destination: Omoreo Region.