Chapter 33: Proposal

Rodan came home late. We were just ready to have dinner, so we all ate together. He said the exact same things that he had said in early October last year.

”I was called in by the village mayor.”

Last year, he and Gerda had been called in and they were told to include the commoners in the boar hunt. As a result, the whole plan went wrong, and Rodan was mortally wounded in the hunt.

Hearing this, Theresia’s face changed very quickly. Her face looked like a mixture of worry, anger and anxiety.

“What did he tell you?” said Theresia. 

Rodan did not do anything wrong, but she was asking him a question that made him scared.

Rodan froze, holding a bowl of vegetable soup with meat crumbs in it and a wooden spoon. It seems that he can’t answer immediately. A silence develops.

After a considerable amount of time has passed, he tells us about it.

“I’ve been asked to double the amount of boar’s meat that will be delivered in two years, that is, to twenty. To do this, he wants us to allow more commoners and serfs to participate in the hunt.”

“What! No way! Last year too”

Rodan was too upset to speak properly. He was talking about what he had gone through last year. Allen’s mother, Theresia, shouted at Rodan, and little Muras began to cry.

Theresia hurriedly started to calm Muras down.

“Father, I will go and put Muras and Mash to bed, so can I hear the rest of the story later?”

“What?”

Rodan and Theresia were surprised by Allen’s behavior. Unlike Theresia, who was upset and shouted, he spoke calmly as he brought the spoon to his mouth. He acted as if he hadn’t heard anything at all.

I finished the dishes and put Mash and Muras to bed. Mash was so tired from playing knight in the daytime that he fell asleep very fast. I pulled a blanket over his shoulders.

I left the children’s room and returned to the living room. Both Rodan and Theresia were looking down. The water in the wooden cup is already quite lukewarm. Theresia anxiously grasps the cup with both hands.

“So, Father Can I ask you about the rest of the story?”

“Yes.”

Then he started talking about what he had been told by the village mayor today. He said that Gerda was also there.

”As I said before, they want us to double the number of boars we hunt in two years. I’ve already caught 10 boars between October and December, so he wants me to catch at least 20.”

”I’ll tell you more about the conversation I had with the village mayor. This is not a request from the village mayor. It was an order from the lord.” said Rodan.

Rodan continued talking,

”The lord has been asking me for years if I could increase the number of Great Boars being hunted. The lord told this to the village mayor, but the mayor had also told me and Gerda about it.”

”We had told the mayor that it would be difficult. There were few recruits. The 20 serfs who go hunting are always the same people, but we also don’t turn down new recruits like they did with the commoners last year. The serfs have families, too. Many of them think that a chunk of boar meat is a small price to pay for life.”

“So you refused this time too, right?” asked Theresia.

“We’ve refused every year.”

“Why don’t you turn it down again this year?” Theresia told him.

“If we can’t kill fifteen of them this year before they double in two years, the lord says he’ll recruit serfs from all over the land.”

”It seems that the lord really wants to increase the number of boars he can catch. SO he is even willing to recruit serfs from other lands to increase the number of serfs to increase the number of hunters.”

He told me that there are still many serfs who want to hunt in his territory.

“What? You mean more serfs in the village?”

“Yes, he will increase the number of serfs in the village, we may assign less land to each one, and maybe we will take land from serfs who don’t go hunting.”

”The serfs can’t have land. They have no right to land. The land they had taken over from their parents would be taken away from them at the decision of the lord. That’s what the village mayor told me.”

“Oh no!” Theresia replied.

Allen began to understand why Rodan had been so gloomy today.

He had been asking patiently for years. It still didn’t change a thing. The mayor of the village was told by the lord’s messenger that if he couldn’t get more, he would have to face a problem.

“Gerda and I have talked about increasing the number of hunts and hunters. I’ll gather everyone together tomorrow and we’ll talk about it.”

”We have to increase the frequency of hunting to once every ten days. That way, the numbers will increase. We’re going to talk to the serfs who participate in the hunt about increasing the frequency of the hunt starting next month.”

If they increase the frequency of the hunts next year and the year after that, they might end up accepting more serfs instead.

At this point, Allen, who had been listening to the conversation, spoke up.

“If we increase the frequency, more participants might give up going hunting.”

”There’s a reason why we hunt once every ten days, weighing the burden of hunting against the cost of living. The more times you hunt, the more meat you will be rewarded with, but the more dangerous it will be.” Allen continued.

“That’s right.”

Rodan was surprised to hear Allen say it so calmly, but it was true, and he was worried about it.

“And in order to do that, we’ll need to increase the number of participants in the hunt after all.” Allen told Rodan.

“Yes, that’s right, but we made a mistake last year when we increased the number of participants, and we don’t know if there will be any new ones who want to join, and even if there are, it will make the hunt more difficult.”

Rodan replied seriously to Allen’s words.

After Rodan had fallen seriously injured, Allen had worked in the fields, taken care of the household and his younger brother, captured more than ten Albaherons, and desperately tried to protect his family. Rodan also treats Allen as more than just his eldest son.

“I have the wisdom given to me by God of Creation, Elmea.”

“What?”

Rodan’s eyes widened in surprise. He said that Allen had been given a test that even a hundred people could not accomplish. He confesses to Rodan and Theresia that he had been given wisdom and power by the Creator God to overcome these trials.

“I hope you’ll let me solve this problem. I have a feeling I can handle it.”

Allen declared that he would try to solve this problem with the wisdom that God had given him.

It was the next morning. Gerda, Rodan, and Allen are together. The place is Rodan’s house. Allen said that he would discuss the rest of last night’s story while Gerda was there.

Without Gerda’s help and agreement, the conversation could not proceed. This was because Rodan and Gerda were the two leaders of the boar hunters.

“Allen, is it true that we can safely increase the number of participants in the boar hunt?”

He didn’t seem to trust me as much as Rodan. And also it was the suggestion of someone who had never participated in a hunt before, a six-year-old child.

“You can’t be absolutely sure.”

(There are no absolutes in hunting.)

His tone of voice towards Gerda had recently become the same as that towards his parents. 

“What?”

Rodan and Gerda looked at each other as if it was still impossible.

“But I think we can increase the safety of the hunters. You can’t have a recruit playing the important role of a wall in the first place.”

(A new recruit with a low level of defense acting as a wall?)

When he was a Kenichi, Allen had spent many hours hunting to make one of his game characters stronger. He has spent tens of thousands of hours hunting, some solo, and some in pairs. There are many ways to hunt, depending on the location and experience of the hunter. 

Boar hunts are a simple method where the boar is brought to the hunting spot, held by the wall, and killed. I am aware that this method is called fishing hunting or waiting for hunting.

Of course, I also have experience in hunting new recruits. I’ve also gained countless experiences on how to safely train new recruits.

“Oh? You mean there’s a better way?”

“Of course there is. I’ll explain it to you now and…”

“Hmm? And what’s that?”

“I’m joining you on the next hunt.”

Allen tells them that he will be joining the Boar hunt. Allen suggested to them a safer way hunt, even with the new recruits.