He opened his eyes. He, who'd been continuously sinking, stopped sinking and looked at the falling flesh, bones, and blood. The red things falling in this black world were enough to steal his gaze.
'Giving up everything, only then does hope appear? Ridiculous.'
He closed his eyes again, but he had no choice but to open them once more.
He could smell blood. His nose flared.
Sniff, sniff sniff!
It was rough breathing through his nose, enough to covet the falling corpses, blood, and bones by smell. Frivolous, but he couldn't stand it, because in this bone-dry darkness, it was too stimulating.
***
Black Mountain Village. A place that was once a sparkling mining village. Thanks to that, it was also a place where the mountain turned black because useless dirt dug from the mine was shoveled outside.
Rowan, born in this backwater among backwaters where you couldn't see a single monster for thirteen years since birth in both monster society and human society.
In a place where spices were fairly widespread and various fragrant vegetables were developed so he wouldn't starve to death, Rowan's only pleasure in this impoverished and culturally poor place was the sport called swordsmanship.
A month had already passed since then. Black Mountain Village was still peaceful. Though no villagers had directly seen goblins, the youth association members who went into the mine to see their corpses chattered excitedly.
The goblin subjugation incident that would be bar talk for this village for easily five years was being continuously discussed like that, because information was limited. They literally chewed it like gum and seemed ready to chew even when the gum melted.
Rowan slowly prepared to go out in the early dawn. He tied leather straps. It wasn't wild boar hide. It was fox hide, thinner than that, more convenient, and fairly elastic.
'First real combat.'
He learned a lot. That moment was short, barely one week, but for Rowan it presented a literal lump of experience.
It was no exaggeration to say Rowan's entire combat doctrine had changed since then.
'I was stupid.'
Among them, the stupidest was his past self, who quickly gave up on archery, that is, ranged skills.
Iron Pouch Mercenary Group's captain, Jose.
'He took down seven before the goblins came.'
Even with arrows stuck in arms or shoulders, it was the end. Thighs were also enough to essentially make them unable to fight. Not many warriors could fight with a long arrow stuck in their forearms. Same for monsters.
Without painkillers, continuing combat was impossible.
'I was really stupid as hell. Me.'
Even while living as a modern person, knowing guns were the most powerful weapon, he looked down on ranged combat and gave up, thinking he had no talent.
He headed not to the yard but the backyard. Running a ranch, you could say the yard had no end. The backyard was where the vegetable garden was, and seventy-five meters away, a target board existed.
"Kyak!"
"Coming early. Were you that hungry?"
Rowan smiled, looking at the crow Kaiya perched on his left shoulder. Goblin Beast Taming wasn't as effective as expected. He'd almost died failing to tame a wolf.
'Meaning I can only do fox or crow level.'
The disappointment was big. In that case, he should've gotten Jose's archery that shot goblins. Rowan called that day's dream the reincarnator's dream. He defined it as a special power given to himself as a reincarnator.
'Otherwise, only I wouldn't experience it.'
Since it was obtained by killing goblins, it could be seen as a level-up system, but since there was no development of physical abilities or such, it couldn't be called leveling up.
Rowan still only had the body of a tall thirteen-year-old.
"Kak!"
When Kaiya screamed, Rowan quickly took out a fruit from his pocket and fed it to the crow. Pecking with its beak, it spread its wings and flew, landing on an outdoor table.
Rowan shot the bow a hundred times at seventy-five meters. If distance sense was lacking, just thoroughly learn that sense for each distance through practice, and once skilled, that was it. In a place with nothing to enjoy, even shooting bows was fun.
A hundred shots a day. Three thousand shots a month. Thirty-six thousand shots a year.
Dawn training started with shooting bows and ended with shooting bows.
Rowan no longer helped with ranch work or did other villagers' odd jobs. Since having Kaiya, an excellent scout, in the forest, Rowan headed to the forest.
Because of hunter Geric, he had to go far, even deep into the forest. Carelessly entering his workplace wasn't good and could cause conflict. Fighting between socially successful Geric and a thirteen-year-old kid was stupid.
Imagine a Lamborghini appearing next to a used car driven by a rookie office worker on the main road. The answer was set. If he wanted to live, he had to run.
Especially if there was someone who thought rural hospitality was really good, Rowan, who'd lived in the real countryside for thirteen years, could kindly tell them—if there were a holy land of assholes in reality, he could firmly say it was the countryside.
'There's no place not connected from one to ten.'
So naturally, everyone was connected this way and that, and if there was one job, they had to help each other. Naturally, if you weren't included in that, you had the choice of leaving, starving, or committing suicide due to discrimination.
Hunting didn't start to make money.
Literally, the very grand-sounding name Culture's Right Foot, Barbarism's Left Foot, the case where practicing animal taming obtained through passing the goblin's black door somehow degraded into money-making.
A plan to not make money became a plan to make money.
'Secretly.'
Rowan gained much more experience while hunting together with crow Kaiya. Among them, the biggest realization was that vision in the forest was a very insignificant sense, and smell was tremendously important.
Hearing wasn't very important in the forest.
Even Rowan, who'd only been to parks pretending to be forests where not a single beast lived, was surprised. The forest was really noisy.
He couldn't use the peaceful sentence "birds chirping." Birds barked boisterously—that was right.
Insect sounds were also considerable. The forest was literally no different from a noise slum.
In that situation, hearing wasn't tremendously important. Of course, that didn't mean it wasn't important, because sounds heard nearby and sounds heard from far away were clearly different.
'This is also experience.'
Rowan was a brave kid who killed five wolves with the intent to tame wolves. Still, that wasn't Rowan's pride. It only seemed impressive to villagers, and occasionally hunter Geric invited him to come along when going wolf hunting.
'How many goblins have I killed?'
The strange phenomenon that appears when killing goblins—the bizarre phenomenon of boundless confidence and perfect body control when killing them. Literally, he could momentarily become a combat weapon. Rowan named it Kill the Battle.
'Is that also a reincarnator's power?'
Unknown.
Flap.
Kaiya landed and let out one short sound. Meaning it found prey to hunt. Rowan quickly followed Kaiya, who flew up again.
'This crow bastard only finds wolves.'
Wild crow Kaiya only picked wolves to show Rowan. Apparently, because Rowan had once desperately tried to tame wolves.
'One.'
Though wolves hunted in packs, this one was somehow alone. Moving to a good point, Rowan didn't forget to check left and right. He headed toward where the wind blew from. The wolf's scent rode the wind, and he smelled it strongly.
Nasty and stimulating, snot dripped from his nose. He let it flow.
'You luckily found a dead one.'
It was a deer with slightly rotted legs. Since there seemed to be quite a few edible parts except the organs, the wolf could be said to have struck gold. Apparently, it moved alone briefly, lured by the smell, and lucked into it.
The dead deer was a Bristle Deer. Its body hair was thick and sharp like bristles, making it hard to eat. It had the characteristic of legs rotting after death, but the body decay was abnormally slow.
Of course, even so, the organs would've rotted without fail.
'Seventy-five steps.'
A distance Rowan still couldn't properly hit. He had to narrow it a bit more. The wolf, focused on transporting food, didn't notice Rowan's movement at all.
Drawing the bow, he took out three arrows in his hand. They came out skillfully fitted between each finger.
'It's hard to hit with one shot.'
He had an inferiority complex about ranged shooting. Naturally lacking confidence, he planned to shoot three. Since he could get arrow materials while hunting anyway, there was no regret in shooting multiple shots.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Being a short bow, arrows shot like rapid fire. They hit as a group.
"Kyaeng!! Keoheueong!"
The wolf wailed mournfully. Rowan rushed in instantly, twisted the neck with his hand, and slit its throat right away. Blood dripped down.
"Huk!"
Exhaling strongly once, before taking care of the wolf, he recovered the arrows. He quickly wiped blood on the arrowheads and checked their condition. Still fine. The tips hadn't broken or cracked anywhere, same for the arrow shafts.
Rowan couldn't stay here long since he was alone. He tied the cut place with a rope so blood wouldn't flow freely and carried the wolf on his back down the mountain.
The deer's corpse lay sprawled alone on the ground.
The movements were skilled, but for Rowan, it was a continuous series of tension every time.
'Kaiya keeps only finding wolves.'
It was a guy who seemed to understand but didn't. Rowan skillfully handed over a fruit when Kaiya hopped and cawed on the shoulder where it perched.
The hunt ended early, just in time for lunch. Actually, more hunting was unnecessary. One wolf meant he didn't have to pay Rakson's tuition for two weeks.
Roads were rough, and the terrain was uneven in this world. Shoe durability wore down that fast, so leather was always scarce. Wolf fur was welcome anywhere. What about teeth? Wizards liked them.
Warriors preferring sleek leather armor also preferred wolf hide over fox, because the fox hide had no style.
Same for Rowan. Rowan's current leather equipment was also made from wolf hide. Though shoes were made of fox hide because they were light.
"You caught a wolf again?"
From the ranch operating standpoint, nothing could be better, because when winter approached, they always had to rack their brains over wolves.
"What about ranch work?"
At Rowan's words while draining blood at the outdoor worktable, Sernhac answered.
"One's about to give birth, so I'm watching."
"Doesn't look like you're watching. What if something big happens?"
When livestock was about to give birth, ranching literally required all-nighters. If done wrong, the worst loss was losing both the baby and the mother.
He completed butchering work. Couldn't eat the organs, so he threw them away, but the heart and liver were useful delicacies. Here, food took a big share of stress relief.
'If I had proper seasoning or broth, I could've made boiled meat.'
He only knew how to eat, not how to make it.
When he had cleaned what to sell, spread what to make into jerky, and completed all work, the sun was setting. Rowan hurried to Rakson.
Serf Mals waved to Rowan as always.
"You came pretty late today?"
"Yeah. Good work!"
Rowan hurried and ran while saying one thing. Watching that, serf Mals cursed him inside.
For a month, Rakson didn't teach additional secret techniques, but instead focused on mastering Block and Recapture (Blockieren Zuruckfang).
'A secret technique with more variations than expected.'
The most important secret technique was the unexpected one of using the shield like armor, and the point of the secret technique was stabbing the enemy's neck while turning the wrist back and greatly swinging the weapon sideways with the shield, but easier said than done. The moment it was introduced to reality, he could face tremendously many situations.
Especially since retired veteran Rakson was teaching Rowan all practical experience with the secret technique, just ingraining it in his body brought night.
Rowan, who devoted an additional hour to training even with torches lit, and Rakson, guiding him, were also soaked in sweat.
"Eat dinner before going."
"Yes."
At the well solidly existing at Rakson's house, he scooped cold water and poured it right over himself.
"Ugh!"
It was no different from usual daily life, but at dinner time, Rakson brought up another interesting story. Of course, it was interesting to him, but to Rowan, who worked tirelessly day after day, it was bothersome.
"A whole month has passed since the goblin incident. The watchtower's gotten dusty, and vines are starting to grow."
'What story is he trying to tell again?'