I Swung the Sword, and the Rat Died

Even without an active skill, tutorial trash like Rats was well within reach — Big Rats or not.

Offense was the easy part. A +5 wooden sword and S-rank Strength would put them down far more cleanly than anything in an ordinary tutorial, and the only thing I was missing was armor. I didn't have a scrap of it. Even so, S-rank Endurance meant a bite from a Big Rat wouldn't kill me in a single hit. So long as I didn't let all five surround me, knock me flat, and chew on me while I was helpless, I'd be fine.

Chichichichi—

I charged the lead Big Rat, the one making that sickening noise, stepped up onto its head, and swung the wooden sword. Shhk. Right at the seam between head and body. The neck was a little thick, but the wooden blade sheared straight through it and sliced the thing like tofu, as if sneering at my worry that a wooden sword might not hold up.

"Whoa."

The Big Rat's thick neck dropped to the dirt with a dull thunk. I'd meant to land a serious wound and pull back fast. That plan was dead.

"So this is it."

Master of Melee Weapons. It hardly needed saying, but the skill was absurdly broken. I felt it the moment the sword moved. I'd had a hunch back when I started cutting weeds, but hunting made it certain. The blade in my hands was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mine, and yet something I couldn't name was correcting every motion. That was the only way to put it.

I'd spent a long time with swordsmanship as my main ability across all kinds of maps, so I was confident enough with a blade. I couldn't match a true master for precision, but I had the confidence that in Farming World, at least, I could hold my own once a sword was in my grip.

This was different. When I went for a vital point, my body moved on its own along the smoothest, most efficient line. I could see it.

"Wow..."

Confidence surged through me all at once.

The tension melted clean away. Still, just in case. This is a secret map I don't know... The moment I let that thought go, the utterly pathetic Big Rats in front of me looked like nothing but grateful quest monsters, here to hand over meat and Farm.

Four of them rushed me at once. I drove the sword into an open maw and punched it straight through the skull. Blood sprayed and soaked me, but I ripped the blade free and vaulted behind the corpse.

Thuk—

The other three died in a single stroke each. The hunt was so easy it felt hollow, and a faint aftertaste lingered. I looked down at the sword and its grip, both smeared thick with Big Rat blood.

If ten years in Farming World had taught me anything, it was that swordsmanship — and everything else that lived in the realm of talent — did not get better just because you kept at it for a long time. All those samples and all that combat experience taught you was when to dodge, when a strike would be most efficient and deal the most damage, and how to move so you spent as little energy as possible and saved your stamina.

This felt like I'd stepped past that wall. On nothing but a single passive skill. If I used this and made it mine... could I use it in the real world, too? The thought flickered past. If I drilled this sensation in until my body remembered it...

"God, that sounds like complete bullshit."

Even if, by some miracle, I turned out to have some genius talent I didn't know about and actually retained the sense, it wouldn't matter much. I wasn't a hunter. What good was swordsmanship at SSS+ Rank with nothing else attached?

Tutorial Quest 2 finished, five Big Rat corpses and all. I thought about riding the momentum, tracking down the sewers, and checking whether a boss Big Rat was waiting down there, but I dropped the idea almost at once.

"Tutorial first..."

Finding the sewers was a job in itself. Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on an SS-rank map they sat within five kilometers of the house, and walking that whole radius ate up an age. On an unmeasurable map, I couldn't begin to guess how far off they might be. Stumble around weed-choked ground in the dead of night and I'd lose the way home long before I ever found a sewer.

I dragged the Big Rat corpses over to the front yard I'd already cleared and laid them out in a row.

Butchery? Please. I'd done it tens of thousands of times — hundreds of thousands. I could handle it alone with no ability helping me. I separated hide from meat ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with practiced hands, and the organs, the blood, and everything useless simply evaporated.

Call it the charm of the game. It insisted on keeping both realism and game in the same breath, so newcomers never had to slam into a wall over systems like this. Give someone a knife and the Butchery ability, and their body simply moved and did the work. Grow skilled enough to actually lean on the game's realism, and the reward got bigger — just like this.

Thirteen chunks of Big Rat meat. Six Big Rat hides.

"Graduating from bread on day one."

Unlike Rat meat, roast a single chunk of Big Rat and you had enough to eat for at least a full day. Night had gone fully dark. I hadn't slept, and I'd been dropped straight into this map on top of that, so I was tired enough that sleeping and leaving the rest for tomorrow sounded like heaven. Leave Big Rat corpses sitting in the yard, though, and some other monster might wander through before dawn and help itself. I put in about an hour and finished the job.

"Hah."

Late for bed. In Farming World, the sleep window most farming games pinned to the early morning stayed fixed — but what was set instead was how much sleep you needed in a day. Go under six hours and you ate stat penalties and a pile of debuffs, so you had to get the rest in even if you split it into naps. Still. Work was work.

"The one thing this game gets right is the quality of life."

Brutal as it was, bathrooms and washing at least came with a measure of convenience. You didn't have to bother with bodily functions, and while a hygiene system governed washing, the hut always had hot water on tap. A warm bath was built in from the start.

"Nn. That's nice."

The first hut had no boiler, so this moment was the only way to get my temperature back up. I scrubbed the Big Rat blood off my clothes and my skin and let the fatigue soak out of me. Nothing for washing but soap, and it was still heaven.

"Haaaah."

I dried off with the towel that had been set out, pulled on the spare set of rags, and lay down. My eyes slid shut on their own.

And just like that, day one on the secret farming map — slapdash as it was — came to an end.

Diriririri— diriririri—

The alarm I'd set through the system rang through the hut. I'd washed up lightly and gotten into bed close to three, so I'd taken exactly the minimum six hours and gotten up.

"I'm tired."

On the map that had been taken from me, once the automation was more or less in place, I'd kept my sleep at eight hours or more so I could pick up the Refreshed buff. Early on a map, time was money. There was no slack for buffs like that. More than anything, I'd already been logged in for nearly two full days. Capsule junkie or not, I tried never to let a single session run past forty-eight hours, however long it got.

"I'm finishing this today."

The tutorial wouldn't take long. If it followed the usual shape of a basic tutorial, I'd get the farming lessons and a handful of side lessons for fundamental abilities, and the basic tutorial quests would be done. Out of basic human decency, they'd have to let me log out once I got that far...

I pushed through it quickly.

"Simple Craft."

The moment I spoke the command, the system unfolded, and I crafted the Supply Workbench already unlocked inside it.

For crafting of this sort, the kindly game favored convenience over realism. Anything stored in a chest inside the hut's range could be used at a workbench or through Simple Craft. The Supply Workbench materialized in front of me. A 3D hologram displayed its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠size, so I stepped outside and set it up in front of the hut. As ever, the easiest place was right by the door, on the path I walked most.

In Farming World, the tutorial was usually content you skipped. Run a map once from the start and it explained itself so kindly you never needed a second pass — and it was a nuisance besides. Right now, though, it was being shoved down my throat, and back when I'd first played, the early rewards from these tutorial quests had been decent fuel for growth. So even the veterans, when they weren't just casually farming some map for fun but settling on a main-base map to farm or play again, tended to clear the tutorial quests one by one.

Three Farming Stats already banked, and 400 Farm besides. Before the next tutorial quest could even appear, I pulled out a hoe, went down to the plot I'd cleared, and started turning the soil.