#014
I let out a hollow laugh and scanned downward with a dispirited heart. Carlisle and other NPCs I haven’t met yet were lined up in an inactive state. (As expected, it seems I really haven’t met Carlisle yet. I let out a sigh of relief without realizing it. What a relief!)
‘How is the calculation even done?’
My reputation is much lower than the main NPCs’ favorability ratings. Isn’t the reputation index hitting rock bottom? They said favorability directly connects to reputation, but what’s with this?
It would be realistic for it to take time for raising favorability with people around me to lead to raising reputation… but anyway, it meant that raising reputation wouldn’t be that easy in the end. Even raising favorability seems like it won’t be simple.
‘One mountain after another.’
I sighed and closed the window, shutting my eyes. When I was playing the game, the more things there were to do, the better… but now that it’s become reality, it’s just tiresome. It’s hard enough just trying to survive, and now I have to worry about favorability and reputation too…
Regardless of my unsettled feelings, the bus cheerfully raced along the desolate road.
An hour later, the bus arrived at its destination. While traveling, there were quite a few small fry monsters loitering around the roadside, but none showed interest in the guild’s vehicle. They guaranteed safe operation, so they must have sprinkled holy water on the bus or something.
At the field bus stop, people as haggard-looking as me were gathered waiting for the bus. They were either people who missed last evening’s return shuttle and slept rough here (they probably couldn’t sleep properly from being on guard), or people who risked danger and stayed up all night to gather rare herbs that only bloom at night.
They looked so exhausted that their souls seemed threshed out. Unlike the passengers who came with me, not one person looked at me even as I passed by carrying a hoe. They seemed to have no thoughts other than wanting to quickly board the bus, sit their tired bodies down, and sleep like fainting. Even if I had been carrying a pink rabbit doll instead of a hoe, no one would have shown interest.
The people who came with me began hurriedly moving while eyeing each other. They would walk the same path for a while, but when a fork appeared, they would all head toward the northwest path as if they had made a promise. There was an area in that direction where many herbs and edible plants with less contamination were found.
I didn’t follow them and hesitated for a moment before heading in a different direction. There were two reasons. First, where they were heading would attract crowds because there was much to gather, which meant monsters would also flock there in droves. They were properly armed, but I wasn’t. No matter how many enhancement stones I fed it, a hoe is just a hoe, not a weapon.
And I wanted to avoid competition as much as possible. What good would come from fighting armed people over a single blade of grass?
The second reason was my secret weapon, currently my only ‘reliable support.’ After walking alone in a different direction and when the sounds of people’s footsteps had all disappeared, I looked around and quietly called up my ‘reliable support.’
“Map.”
Ding.
‘It appeared!’
I clenched my fist tightly. The only thing I could rely on without proper armor or weapons was this map function.
At the top of the map, buttons for people, gathering, mining, monsters, etc. were lined up, and when I selected what I wanted, each location would appear on the map. This was the advantage of being a player. Being able to know in advance where monsters were and avoid them, being able to identify where things to gather were and move directly without wandering around.
For this function, yesterday on my way into town, I beat up small fry monsters while getting minor injuries on my barely healed body, and gathered worthless wild weeds with heavy contamination. It was pure grinding, throwing my body in solely for leveling up. Thanks to the Small Fry Repellent that Eira gave me, I was able to accomplish it with just a hoe without getting seriously hurt.
Feeling grateful to Eira anew, I tried clicking all the buttons at the top as a test. Symbolic icons for people, monsters, ores, and herbs appeared in various places and began to sparkle. Unfortunately, ores were useless without a pickaxe, so I just confirmed they activated and turned off the ore button with regret.
Since I hadn’t cleared the area yet, I couldn’t see the entire region clearly, but I didn’t plan to go in very deep anyway, so it didn’t matter much. I could see people flocking northwest on the map. Plant markers and monster markers were floating so densely in that direction that you could say they were swarming. I carefully examined the remaining areas.
Places with quite a few plant markers but almost no monster markers. There were even quite a few areas that looked empty because as people flocked to one place, even monsters from other areas were lured there.
Another disappointing point was that the exact types of herbs or monsters weren’t displayed accurately yet. Markers would appear once overall level reached 10 or above, but to know detailed information, I had to accumulate experience by category. In other words, to display monster types, I had to hunt more monsters, and to see herb information in detail, I had to gather more herbs.
At this stage, I planned to avoid all monsters no matter what they were, but for plants, I had no choice but to encounter them randomly and check. Gripping the hoe firmly in my hand wearing the work gloves borrowed from Elmer, with Eira’s requested list on one side and a mini map on the other, I began to move.
The work went more smoothly than I had tensed up for. It took some time to avoid places with monsters as much as possible and pick out things with less contamination, but I managed to secure most of the materials Eira ordered, including elderberry and echinacea, without major difficulty.
After successfully fulfilling Eira’s request, I had some inventory space thanks to Elmer’s vest pockets, so I gathered more herbs and caught a few mobs to store. These guys were just small fry, so whether leather or whatever, they’d be cheap, but they were better than forest small fry. In my current situation, even this was something to be grateful for.
“This is the last one, right?”
After gathering even the last fruit among the items Eira requested, I stretched my body. Gathering was also grinding work. My back was stiff and my feet and legs ached. Now that it’s become reality, it’s not just stamina decreasing as numbers. Not to mention muscle pain throughout my body, my back and knees were never unharmed.
A lot of time had passed. Following the herb markers, I had somehow entered quite deep into the fields. The map’s field of vision had also widened considerably. I could see the crowd that had mainly gathered in the northwest heading toward the bus stop.
“I should head back soon too.”
The western sky was beginning to be dyed with mysterious colors. If I dawdled and missed the bus, it would be a disaster. I hurriedly began walking toward the stop. But I hadn’t gone far when I made a discovery that made my eyes widen.
“This… could it be Melbrain?”
I discovered Melbrain flowers blooming in clusters – flowers whose roots sell for quite a high price. Looking at the game as a whole, you couldn’t call it that expensive, but in the early game when income was low, it was a cash crop that couldn’t be ignored. This had always sold for high prices even in the tutorial, and in the last playthrough it went for over 10,000 rual. Considering the terrifyingly inflated prices this time, my mouth opened automatically with the expectation that it might approach at least 100,000 rual.
‘Jackpot!’
I carefully dug up the Melbrain roots. Melbrain roots were medicinal herbs resembling ginseng, but their flowers looked exactly like common wildflowers called Inbrain that were scattered everywhere, so you couldn’t find them without digging them up one by one to check the roots. Even then, the probability of finding them was extremely low, so few people made such foolish attempts.
I easily found them because among thousands of identical-looking Inbrain, only the Melbrain sparkled as if asking to be dug up. It was the power of the game system. The identical-looking common wildflower Inbrain had no value since it was neither medicinal nor edible, so it didn’t appear on the map or sparkle.
‘I’d be fine without these perks if they’d just send me back to reality.’
Even while thinking that, my mouth was gaping open as I carefully dug up the Melbrain roots and brushed off the soil. They were quite thick in size. Seven roots even. Maybe tonight (or is tonight too late?) – at least tomorrow evening I might be able to eat proper food. Real food, not monster cuisine.
Since I had nothing else to wrap them in, I carefully wrapped the roots in the handkerchief Eira had used to wrap the carrot. (I had already eaten all the carrots when my stamina dropped during work.) Just as I was about to put the carefully wrapped bundle into my backpack, a long, sharp spear blade suddenly appeared behind me and stabbed through the bag.
“Well, well, flower beggar. You made quite a haul, didn’t you?”
Looking up in shock, there was a face with curved eyes and a gaping mouth that looked like an evil mask.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
