Unnecessarily Realistic
After getting enough sleep and logging back into the game, a notification from the development team was waiting for me.
Ding-dong! The development team has sent a weapon to your inventory. Starting locations in the wilderness have been patched to provide a dagger and slingshot by default.
Having a ranged weapon was nice, even if a slingshot was basically just a glorified rubber-band shooter. I worried whether something like that could actually kill a wolf, but the simple fact that I now had a way to attack from a distance filled me with joy. I logged back in immediately.
When I opened my eyes on the tree branch, the red-maned wolves below were staring up at me with burning eyes. I pulled the slingshot out of my inventory and found it attached to my wrist in a way that felt exactly like a real weapon. I gripped the handle, pulled back the heavy rubber band, and felt a surprising amount of tension. With fifty iron pellets to work with, I figured I might actually be able to handle the wolves.
Testing its destructive power, I drew the band all the way back and aimed straight at the lead wolf’s head.
Swoosh!
The iron pellet rocketed forward and struck the wolf dead-center between its ears.
Thwack!
“Kegenggeng!”
The beast leaped into the air in shock, then collapsed, trembling violently. It never stood back up. The pellet seemed to have shattered its skull. I hadn’t expected much compared to a bow or crossbow, but the lethality was more than sufficient.
The other two wolves approached their dying packmate, sniffing at it as if asking what had happened. The injured wolf could only shake helplessly on the ground. I took aim at the second one and fired again.
Swoosh!
Thud!
“Kekeng!”
It wasn’t a perfect headshot this time, but the pellet still cracked against bone. The wolf jumped, sat down hard, and started pissing itself. A moment later it tucked its tail between its legs and fled, still leaking urine as it ran. The last wolf stood there, head cocked in confusion, unsure what to do now that one of its companions was dying and the other had run away.
Swoosh!
Crunch!
“Kekekeng!”
This one caught the pellet on the side of its face instead of the head. Its jaw must have broken; it fled with its mouth hanging open, drooling blood and piss.
Slingshot. I was extremely satisfied. I hadn’t expected much, but like the saying about small peppers being the spiciest, this thing delivered incredible efficiency as a ranged weapon. Its ease of use was a huge plus—you could fire it even in tight spaces—and the way the handle naturally aligned with your line of sight for aiming earned it extra points.
I waited a long time to make sure the fleeing wolves wouldn’t return, then climbed down from the tree. The first one I’d hit was already dead. While I was wondering whether wolf meat was edible, Yanne walked over to the carcass.
She used the same rope she’d climbed the tree with to tie the wolf’s hind legs, then tried to hang it upside-down from a branch.
“Master, could you pull this for me?”
Since she was lighter than the wolf, I grabbed the rope, hauled it up, and secured it to the branch. Yanne took out a small knife no bigger than her palm and slit the wolf’s throat. The carotid artery opened cleanly, and dark blood poured out in a steady stream.
“Master, can that magic space of yours store not just objects, but meat I’ve cut like this?”
“Yeah, it can. Go ahead.”
“Wow, that’s great! It would be such a waste to throw away the pelt and meat from a red wolf.”
Yanne carefully peeled the hide off the blood-drained carcass, then sliced open its belly. The remaining blood and internal organs spilled onto the ground with a wet splat. Barefoot, she stepped on the guts without hesitation as she carved out the meaty ribs, back, and thighs.
“If you dry it in the shade for a few days and then grill it, it’s really delicious. Hehehe.”
Watching her smile brightly with both hands covered in blood, I realized she wasn’t just a simple little girl. When I remembered how she used to run for her life from goblins every day, I suddenly sensed the aura of a battle-hardened veteran coming from her. I’d thought she was just a delicate young girl… but Yanne, you feel strangely familiar with this kind of work.
Even while surprised by this new side of her, seeing how efficiently she handled the meat and pelt made me glad I’d brought her along. Since the game was bizarrely realistic, it seemed perfect to leave this kind of dissection work to her.
Now that I think about it, she’s pretty reliable!
After collecting the pelt and a decent amount of meat, we quickly left the area that reeked of blood. The experience made me realize that camping out in the open fields or along roads was a terrible idea. I wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully until I learned alarm magic or found some other way to defend myself. I also learned that the smell of cooking food could easily attract uninvited guests.
This game. It was unnecessarily realistic.
“That’s Hilton Village over there. I’ve only visited three times myself, but they have an inn, a restaurant, a blacksmith, and a general store.”
After four days of eating hard bread and smelly jerky while sleeping in trees, the village looked wonderful just by existing. Sixty or seventy houses clustered together, surrounded by wheat fields and ripening crops that created a pastoral scene. Of course, the wooden watchtowers placed here and there made it clear the peace was only skin-deep.
When the village guards heard we’d come from Honey Mushroom Village, they let us through without any trouble.
“That’s the general store where you can sell pelts. Untanned red-mane wolf hides will only fetch two or three silver coins. Though if a traveling merchant buys them, you might get one or two more.”
At some point Yanne had turned into an aspiring merchant.
“Let’s buy bags first.”
Without proper traveling bags, people would get suspicious every time I tried to buy or sell anything. We looked around the village, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. It was only bigger than Yanne’s hometown of Honey Mushroom Village; there weren’t any proper shops.
The only inn in the village had a bar on the first floor and rented out rooms on the second. It existed for villagers who came during market days, not for actual travelers. “Instead of selling wolf pelts or goblin poison sacs here, it would be better to go to Durendal territory. There aren’t any real stores in this village.”
“I-is that so?”
Still, we bought two backpacks from the general store that sold all sorts of miscellaneous goods, along with a pair of sandals for Yanne. She had been wrapping her bare feet in cloth, but the wolf blood had dyed them a rusty brown that bothered me. Of course, she insisted she’d walked barefoot her whole life so her feet didn’t hurt, and that the magic I’d cast on them made them comfortable enough that I didn’t need to buy her any. She was trying to act mature.
But from a modern person’s perspective, I couldn’t feel comfortable about it, so I forced her to accept the sandals.
“This is actually my first time wearing shoes. Hehehe. I didn’t know they felt this good.”
Once she put the sandals on, Yanne kept jumping in place, saying her feet felt soft and wonderful.
Yeah. Seeing her smile like that makes buying them worth it.
Her bright laughter finally made her look like a girl her actual age. I wanted to buy her clothes too while she was enjoying herself so much, but the girls’ clothing sold here wasn’t much different from what she was already wearing. It seemed people here just threw sack-like garments on children and called it a day. I’d buy her proper clothes later when I found something better.
It was getting late, so we rented an inn room for one night. Including one meal, it cost two silver. Since we hadn’t eaten properly in days, we sat down at a table right away.
“Innkeeper, what’s good here?”
“Everyone loves our meat pie stuffed with plenty of dog meat. One costs a quarter silver.”
“Then give us four of those first, and—”
I was about to keep ordering when Yanne tugged on my sleeve and shook her head. She clearly didn’t want me to order the meat pie.
“Just two meat pies for now.”
After the innkeeper left, I quietly asked Yanne why she’d stopped me.
“My late father told me that while the eternal stew at places like this is okay, I should never eat the meat pies.”
“Why? What’s wrong with them?”
“If you order four, that’s a lot of meat. They say they use dog or chicken, but apparently they mix in rat or frog meat. So he told me to avoid meat pies if possible.”
“Rat or frog meat?”
When she put it that way, it made sense. Even in Korea, where there were food sanitation and ingredient origin laws, there were constant news stories about shops lying about their meat. There was no reason this world would be any different. Just as people varied, some might substitute cheap rat meat for dog meat to cut costs.
But this was a game. I couldn’t believe some insane developer had created an NPC merchant who secretly used fake meat. The Changing developers had probably based their meat pies on the ones from Australia or America, so I expected them to be small, palm-sized portions.
Instead, the meat pie the innkeeper brought out was almost the size of a small pizza.
This isn’t the Australian or American version at all.
The developers must have referenced real Earth food when designing the dishes. Yet this different style of meat pie left me confused. The ones from Australia and America were snacks rather than staple food, so they were never this big. Was this based on the original historical meat pies?
I wanted to ask Yanne, but she was already happily digging into her portion.
This kid… she’s the one who told me not to order it, yet look at her go.
Still, watching her eat so well was cute, so I set my doubts aside, picked up my own meat pie, and took a bite. The crust had no chewiness because they hadn’t used yeast or any additives. The filling, however, was packed with finely minced meat. I scooped some up with my fork and immediately frowned. I recalled the dog meat I’d tried out of curiosity a couple times before—this taste was nothing like that. A musty, gamey smell filled my mouth, along with the fishy odor of meat that had been sitting around too long. Since there were no refrigerators, it seemed the setting was that they minced up old, unsold meat to make these pies.
It was so bad I almost put my fork down, but Yanne and the other customers were eating happily, so I told myself good is good and forced the rest down.
“Hey, look over there.”
“What?”
At the chin jerk from a mercenary whose hair was so greasy it looked like it might drip, the seven men at the table turned their heads.
“The guy’s wearing a finely woven, high-class hood, but the kid across from him is in cheap linen. Can’t you see the difference?”
“Why is that weird?”
“Joy. That kind of thing is common. What’s the problem?”
“Yeah, picking up a starving kid, feeding them, and keeping them around is pretty normal.”
“Fuck! It reminds me of my little sister I lost a long time ago, okay?”
“Joy, stop talking bullshit and eat your food. Captain Chico’s already injured and we’re all feeling down enough as it is.”
“Besides, it’s actually better to sell to rich folks than to poor households.”
The others scolded Joy, but he still stood up and walked toward our table. The child sitting across from me looked too much like the sister he’d lost for him to just sit and watch.
“Excuse me. I know this isn’t the kind of thing you normally ask, but… did you buy that kid with proper money?”