The Majesty of SSS+ Swordsmanship

Shff—

Shrrk!

Just the way I always did it. I'd only swung the way I'd been swinging for ten years. They say that after three years at a village school, even the dog starts reciting poetry. Even I—who'd lived my whole life without so much as swinging a sickle, never once getting a handful of dirt on my hands—had spent ten years swinging a sword around in Farming World, so cutting down a few weeds was nothing.

There was the habit built up over all that time, too. The feel of the blade, earned by mowing down countless kinds of weeds, had to be settled deep into my hands by now.

But this was different.

"Hmm..."

Natural, maybe. The sword I swung didn't feel like I was just hacking at random. It felt like it was following some grain of its own. I was clearly the one swinging it, clearly the one deciding the cut, and yet it didn't feel like I was the one cutting. I had no idea what kind of bullshit sensation this was, but it was strange.

Strange—and it worked. Of course, with S-rank Strength, there was nothing odd about things shearing apart cleanly. I'd even been late checking the weapon.

A basic wooden sword's attack power is normally F-rank, at +1. This one was D− even as a basic wooden sword, probably because the resources in the front yard were D-rank. For a wooden sword, the attack power was extremely high. +5 attack was about the level of a D-rank iron sword on the original map. So S-rank Strength plus a D-rank tool meant there was nothing strange at all about slicing through weeds that smoothly.

The problem was that cutting weeds was too easy. The efficiency was too good. Calling it a problem was a stretch, though. It was a good thing. I was clearing weeds efficiently, and with less effort. Someone could ask why garbage like that even mattered, but it did.

In a sense, the thing you do most in Farming World is cut weeds, chop wood, and mine stone. And because of that damned realism, your efficiency—right down to your stamina—changes with your method, your posture, and how much force you put in. That was the reality of the game.

"This is SSS+ rank?"

Feeling the majesty of SSS+ rank over something this petty was pretty pathetic, but credit was credit. I'd spent no less than ten years researching how to squeeze out the maximum efficiency and gather resources with the minimum possible effort. And now, just from receiving some system correction or other, I was getting a feel more comfortable and more efficient than those ten years. I wasn't the conservative type who rejects anything new, so it would end in simple admiration—but it was still a pretty shocking thing.

Thanks to that, I was too busy savoring that strange, subtle sensation—my body, and yet it didn't feel like I was the one swinging—for clearing this stupidly enormous yard to feel tedious.

"Whew."

Before I knew it the day had sunk, and I'd cleared enough that there was finally visible room to move. Just tidying a patch of front yard about the size of two or three cabins had taken several hours. If it had only been weeds, a few quick swishes would have finished the job, but there were rocks and trees in between, and it wasn't the sort of mess you could clean the way you run a vacuum.

How to put it. Compared to a normal map, this Secret Farming Map felt excessive in every respect. Even the basic resources were plentiful and high-grade. Seeing that even the equipment handed out by default was high-grade, the thought that this was definitely a map worthy of SSS+ difficulty hit me from nothing more than clearing the front yard.

Which meant I needed to stay on edge, too. What difficulty influences most on a map isn't resources or anything else—it's the grade of the monsters. Not that it was something I had to worry about, when I only planned to run the tutorial and then put the rest on hold.

I hauled the small wooden box that had been beside the cabin door straight outside. Everyone has a fixed spot where they arrange their storage. When I'd built a mansion I'd made a separate warehouse, but through the early and middle stages ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠most people prioritized efficiency ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and kept things along their path of movement, and I liked lining the boxes up beside the door, where I could see them the moment I stepped out of the house. Inside, all ten inventory slots were crammed full of weeds, wood, and stone.

"I only gathered this much, and it's already over a hundred."

Stack—I suppose that's what you call the unit of resources. I don't know the precise definition myself, but in Farming World the number of resources that fit in a single slot was called a stack. It wasn't a fixed figure. The stack of resources that fit in a small box was ninety-nine per slot. Weeds, wood, and stone each went in at ninety-nine to a slot, and anything past that took another one.

What I'd gathered today came to 123 weeds, 101 wood, and 88 stone. Quite a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lot. Even granting that I'd busted my ass for hours, I hadn't cleared the whole front yard—only the ground in front of the house—and still this much.

"An unmeasurable resource deposit really is amazing."

Should I call this easy mode? Or should I think of it as balance adjusted to match the high difficulty? At least within the tutorial, it didn't strike me as all that bad. Unless the materials required for crafting increased just because the difficulty was SSS+, resources coming out in bulk clearly meant a drop in difficulty, at least where base-building was concerned.

Looking over the resources piled up so reassuringly, I tore into two pieces of F-rank bread and popped open a canteen, gulping it down. Early food consisted entirely of this starter supply, so you were generally better off eating sparingly—but I was only playing with the tutorial in mind anyway, and with an SSS+ melee weapon I figured food, at least, was something I could get my hands on one way or another.

After seeing an SSS+ ability, F-rank didn't so much as make itself known. It was also just one run among the thousands of tutorials I'd already been through.

"Big Rats?"

The next tutorial quest had popped as well. This one, too, wasn't different in kind from the tutorial quest originally provided, but the contents were a little different. Just like Quest 1—where the resources growing there by default had been D-rank while I cleared in front of the house—the monster Tutorial Quest 2 told me to hunt wasn't the same as the original.

Originally, you just had to catch Rats. The setup was that you drove out the rats that had claimed ground near the house amid the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠overgrown weeds, and then you started farming. Here, it was telling me to catch five Big Rats. If a Rat was an F-rank monster, a Big Rat was D-rank.

"So the bastard that showed up as a boss on the original map just comes out at the level of a basic Rat."

Now that I'd upgraded my melee weapon to SSS+, it wasn't much of a worry. I only had to be a little careful, since I had no armor. I tossed the last scrap of bread into my mouth, finished the water, drew the wooden sword, and stepped back outside.

Unlike the cabin, lit by a small lantern, outside I had nothing but one thin crescent moon to rely on—not merely dim, but darkness itself.

Shaaaa—

Every time the wind blew, the tall weeds and trees let out a desolate sound, so your average newbie, once night fell in Farming World, would hole up inside the cabin without a fight and flop straight into bed to chase sleep. The mood was one thing, but night in Farming World was genuinely dangerous, too. Most monsters were in fact active at night, and an attack that came flying out of the dark all of a sudden was awfully hard to dodge. Which was why the posts that came up as tips for Tutorial Quest 2 always carried the same line.

Because the Rats were active at night, wandering near the house after dark was the correct way to hunt them—but there was no reason you couldn't catch Rats hiding during the day, either. I just don't bother. If I had an S-rank body in Strength, Agility, and Endurance and still couldn't take down the likes of Big Rats merely because it was night, then those ten years of experience might as well have gone straight up my ass, and I wouldn't have a word of excuse.

Chk-chk-chk—

The wind wasn't even blowing, yet the weeds in the patches I hadn't cut swayed unnaturally. By day you had to go find the sewer zones that randomly respawned near the cabin and rummage through them for ages, but by night the Rats came out near the cabin looking for food, and you could find them far more easily than during the day. They also turned pretty aggressive in the dark.

Chk-chk-chk—

Eyes that glimmered faintly in the darkness pushed out through the weeds. A rat as big as I was—plump body, fluffy gray fur on full display—met my gaze with the two front teeth that marked a Rat bared.

Normally, Rats mainly raided whatever crops you'd planted. So until you cleaned out the sewer that served as their home base, most people stood watch at night, made Rat traps, or simply let a certain portion get looted and moved on. There were no crops planted on the first day, and a hungry Rat—deciding I was food, and with night having fallen besides—was simply staying true to instinct.

I extended the wooden sword and leveled it at the Big Rat. On a normal map, if you saw a Big Rat spawned on the first day, you were better off scrapping the map and starting over. But I was different now.

To think I'd be standing in front of one with stats higher than a Big Rat's. The broken balance was roughly made up for by my lack of armor, so there was no need to feel guilty. Exhilaration, more than tension, heated my body.

Hunting. The reason I liked Farming World.

Chk-chk-chk—

Beside the one that had appeared, four more gray furballs showed themselves.

"Nice. I can finish them all in one go."

I was the one who lunged at the Big Rats first.