Hell Mode: Volume 1, page 16
“You caught more?” Rodin asked from inside the house.
“Yes, father. Wait, are you all right?!”
During the past month, Rodin’s condition had greatly improved. He could now both sit and stand, though his wound would still hurt if he stood or moved around for too long. Right now, he was sitting and beating the straw from their harvested wheat with a small club. After softening them up this way, they would then be woven into straw sandals and winter shoes. Because the club was quite large, Allen was worried the exertion might cause his father’s wound to open up again.
“I’ll be fine. I can’t let you shoulder every—!” The moment Rodin saw Allen’s face, he froze as if he had noticed something.
“Is something on my face, father?”
“No, it’s nothing. I must have imagined it.”
Now that’s a line that piques my intere—
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
“AH! Oh no, I’ve got to hang these up before Krena comes!”
Allen rushed out to the narrow ditch next to the house, bringing the albaherons with him. There was now a frame here where Allen could hang his game up to let their blood out. It was a simple construct that he had made out of sticks and boards that he had found inside the house. It was positioned right above the ditch so that he could bloodlet his catches directly into it.
“Alleeeen!” Krena cried cheerfully as she ran up, her wooden sword in hand.
“Hey there, Krena. Sorry, can you give me a few more minutes? I’m almost done.”
Nowadays, Allen was back to playing with Krena on a daily basis. Normally, this happened between 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. However, he had told Krena to come at the 3 p.m. bell every third day, freeing that time for himself to hunt more albaherons and hang them up for bloodletting. Today, however, he was still in the middle of the latter task when Krena arrived.
“You caught two of them today?! You’re amazing, Allen!”
Krena watched Allen at work with dazzling eyes, showing her characteristic fearlessness toward monsters. Allen prayed that some of this bravery would rub off on his scaredy-cat little brother Mash as he quickly finished securing the birds.
The two children then began their session of playing knight in the open area of the garden not occupied by crops. Mash watched them from the window. He still was not allowed out of the house yet, not until he turned three. His birthday was in spring, however, so it was not too far off.
Today, I’ve fulfilled my quota of ten albaherons.
Each bird Allen brought down yielded ten kilograms of meat, the same amount as one round of great boar hunting. Now that he had killed ten albaherons, the family should have enough with which to barter for firewood to last them through the winter. All that was left was to preserve the meat and do the actual trading.
The albaherons are gonna stop flying next month, so I’ve gotta catch as many as I can until then. For my next level up, I’ll need...twenty of them. Ugh, I don’t think I’ll be able to reach it within the year.
“You’re wide open!”
“Ow!” Allen suffered a whack to his head for being occupied with his own thoughts during the fight.
“Gosh! That’s what you get for zoning out!”
Krena pouted at Allen’s inattention, prompting him to apologize while rubbing his fresh bruise.
＊ ＊ ＊
At 4 p.m., the play knight session came to an end. Because the sun would be setting soon, Krena quickly took off back home. Allen helped his mother—whose belly had grown quite large now—make dinner. Once he was done with the preparations, he went outside to confirm that all the blood had drained out of the albaherons, then brought them inside the house. He could not very well leave them sitting outside for the entire night, after all.
Naturally, all the neighbors already knew that Allen was catching albaherons. He had killed a total of ten of them now and had hung them up outside his house every time, so it was only a matter of time until word got around. When Allen went to draw water at the well in the morning, they would pester him about how he managed it, but he never said anything beyond, “They came down and I killed them.”
Allen hunted exclusively under the cover of the tall grass in his family’s fallow field in order to hide how his hunting actually worked. Because the grass was dry, it would rustle loudly whenever anyone tried to pass through. Allen was prepared to call off his hunt if he ever heard rustling, but to this day, no one had ever come by to peek.
“That’s the tenth albaheron you’ve caught, isn’t it?” Rodin asked as the family ate dinner around the sunken fireplace in their house.
“Yes it is, father.”
“Incredible.”
Apparently it was really bothering him. In the past month, Allen had tackled all his duties with power far greater than that of any normal person. Despite how large the potato field was, he had finished harvesting it in merely two days. He brought the water every day using the same buckets Rodin had used, and caught albaherons regularly like it was nothing. Although his parents had known he was a smart child before, all of his recent feats had blown their expectations out of the water, proving just how capable he was.
Allen looked at Theresia and noticed the concern in her face. Unlike Rodin, she was not so much bothered by how Allen did what he did as she was about the fact that he had yet to share anything about himself. Truth was, he had also been thinking that it was about time he gave his parents an explanation for why he was this much stronger than other people.
So Allen shot his little brother—who seemed to be in the middle of battling his food—a glance and asked his parents, “Once Mash is asleep, can I talk with both of you?”
“Mm,” Rodin replied with an understanding nod.
Because both Rodin and Theresia stayed home all day nowadays, Mash rarely made a fuss about how long Allen was staying outside. That night, after Allen played with him a little bit, he grew tired and fell asleep.
When Allen came back out into the main room after tucking Mash into bed, he found both his parents sitting and waiting for him. He settled into his own seat.
Before he could say anything, however, Theresia stated emphatically, “Allen, you will always be my son, and I will always love you.”
“Thank you,” Allen replied. “This might get a bit long. Is that okay?”
Rodin nodded with a brief grunt.
“The truth is, I received a message from the gods when I was one year old.”
“A message?”
“From the gods?”
“Yes. It said, ‘Allen, I will grant you wisdom and strength.’”
“Wisdom?”
“Strength?”
“Mm-hm. Basically, making me smarter and stronger than normal people. But there was a second part to the message: ‘I am also giving you Trials that even a hundred men together might not achieve. Overcome them using the wisdom and strength I grant you.’”
“A hundred?!”
“Trials of the Gods!”
Allen had purposefully used the term “Trial” in place of “level.”
“But if even a hundred men cannot achieve it...” Anguish filled Theresia’s face. “Oh, heavens, why are you gods doing this to Allen?”
In contrast, Rodin’s reaction was a lot calmer. “I see. And you overcame the first of those Trials today?”
“What?” Allen asked, caught by surprise.
Rodin touched his son’s cheek with a knowing look. “You might not have noticed it about yourself, but you used to have a scar right here. But it was gone when you came home this afternoon.”
During his first ever fight with an albaheron, the monster’s razor-sharp teeth had dug into Allen’s cheek and left him with a scar. However, just as Rodin pointed out, that scar had disappeared completely. Allen had no idea.
Wait, leveling up doesn’t just restore HP to full, but also heals old wounds? Allen thought. Now he finally understood why the rest of the hunting party had continued trying to kill the great boar on the day that Rodin had been injured. They were hoping that his wound might be healed if he managed to overcome a Trial of the Gods through the death of the boar.
“I...think I really might’ve overcome my very first Trial of the Gods,” Allen agreed. “I felt much stronger all of a sudden.”
“I see. So, did this god who gave you a message tell you their name?” Rodin asked, as this world had numerous gods and goddesses.
“Um, it was Elmea. Do you know who that is?”
“Th-That’s the God of Creation. You shouldn’t really call him by name so casually, son. Most people call him Lord Elmea.”
“Okay. I’ll add the ‘Lord’ when I’m in public, then.” Apparently Allen had not even the slightest shred of religious piety.
“Ummm...I suppose that will do. Do you know what happened with your Appraisal Ceremony, then?”
During his Appraisal Ceremony, all of Allen’s stats had shown up as “E,” and he had been declared Talentless. Rodin had always believed this reading to be strange. In light of everything he had seen his son do, he could not imagine him being Talentless, and neither did he think his son’s stats were so low.
“Oh, Elmea gave me another message two months ago explaining what happened.”
“Th-That recently?!”
“He said the stat readings were based on how fast I can overcome my Trials and grow stronger, so the readings were correct. But about my Talent, he said that it couldn’t be Appraised because it was so new. He didn’t tell me what my Talent actually is, though.”
“S-So that’s what happened...”
Allen did not intend on telling his parents that he was a Summoner. This was a Talent that involved calling forth monsters from thin air and having them do his bidding. There was plenty of room to cause misunderstandings, especially because it would be Rodin and Theresia’s first time hearing of such a class. As such, Allen planned to maintain a wait-and-see attitude for now, keeping an eye out for another opportunity to sit his parents down once again to reveal everything.
For now, the goal was to only convey the fact that the gods had assigned him Trials that could not be achieved even by a hundred people, and that they had also given him the wisdom and strength to overcome those Trials. This was enough to explain why he seemed smarter than his peers and why he could do things which many people could not.
Of course, he had also not told his parents that he had been reincarnated and maintained memories of his previous life. The moment he was born, he had made a decision to keep this to himself. If having black hair and eyes was a sign of having been reincarnated from another world, then the surprised reactions of the villagers proved that other people like him were either extremely rare or just outright did not exist. There was the possibility that the villagers were just ignorant about the world at large, as this village was quite closed off. However, the knight captain had also shot Allen very curious looks during his visit, which seemed to imply that his rarity was not limited to this frontier village alone.
Theresia gave her son a big hug as the image of him throwing stones at the tree in their garden until its bark peeled off came to mind. Now, he was regularly fighting albaherons for their family’s sake. When she thought of how he had been struggling to overcome these cruel Trials all by himself this whole time, a twinge of pain shot through her chest.
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Rodin agreed. “I also wish you’d told us earlier. We’re your parents. But at least now I understand why you’re so smart.”
“Sorry, father, mother. I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you. But I am serious about overcoming these Trials.”
Unease filled Theresia’s eyes. Her beloved son was apparently resolved to walk a path that was sure to be filled with thorns, a path that not even a hundred people working together could pass.
Rodin, however, was supportive of this decision. His years of hunting great boars had left him with a greater sense of familiarity with the Trials of the Gods. “If that’s what you choose, then so be it. The gods do not give us beyond what we can handle, but if you ever want a helping hand, your mother and I will always be there for you.”
“Thank you, father.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No, sir. I haven’t even told Krena.”
“Mm, you should probably keep it that way. The God of Creation is an absolute existence. There might be people who wouldn’t believe you and accuse you of taking Lord Elmea’s name in vain.”
Makes sense. I only told them because they’re my parents. Anyone else would ask me for solid proof, and I don’t have it. Both letters disappeared right after I read them—not that anyone can see my grimoire in the first place.
“Yes, father.”
“However...”
“Hm?”
“Can I brag about this to Gerda?”
“...”
“Is that a no?”
“I mean...I don’t mind.”
“Ha ha ha! That damn Gerda, always going on and on about Krena being a Sword Lord. I’ve gotta make him understand how incredible Allen is too!”
Apparently Rodin had been at least slightly jealous of what a high achiever his best friend’s daughter was. Allen could not help but chuckle a little at this human side of his own father.
Chapter 9: Dogora, Son of the Weapons Merchant
Snow fell gently from the sky. It was now December. There were no more albaherons flying in the sky, as they had all finished migrating. Before then, however, Allen had managed to hunt six more of them for a total of sixteen. He had then finished butchering them all, and the tax collector had come the other day to collect their feathers and magic stones together with sixty percent of the family’s potato harvest.
The village chief did not have to collect taxes in person, so it was another villager who had showed up with the cart. Although he had heard the rumors of Allen capturing albaherons, he was surprised to find out just how many there actually were.
There were now 150 kilograms of meat hanging out in the garden to dry. The first ten kilograms were already fully preserved.
“You ready, Allen?”
“Yes, Mr. Gerda.”
Today, the two of them were going to the residential area to buy firewood and salt.
Firewood was an absolute necessity for getting through the cold winter. Normally, Rodin would, after every hunt, immediately trade in a portion of great boar meat he received for some firewood. That way, there would always be a certain amount within the house. This year, however, because Rodin got hurt, the family had not purchased any new firewood within the past two months.
Similarly, their salt reserves were also scraping bottom. Firewood was quite readily available, as it was sourced from the surrounding forest by the village’s woodcutters who chopped down trees in the surrounding forest. Salt, however, had to be brought to the village from faraway sources by traveling merchants. During years when few traveling merchants came and supplies dwindled, the price of salt would rise. As such, it was common sense for families to stock up whenever possible.
Today was the day when Gerda would teach Allen how to purchase goods. Because they did not have carts, the two had to attach everything onto racks that they would then shoulder. The one currently on Allen’s back was loaded with ten blocks of albaheron—one kilogram each—all of which he planned on bartering for firewood and salt.
Theresia waved her hand as she saw her son off, Rodin standing next to her. He had gotten much better in the month and a half since the incident. Although he could stand and walk without much issue now, going to the village center required two whole hours of walking, plus the return journey would require lugging home a heavy load. He was not quite well enough to do this just yet, so Allen offered to go instead. By now Rodin knew better than to say no and simply asked Gerda to accompany him.
Gerda had likely heard about what Allen had revealed to his parents, but the way he treated the boy remained largely the same. He already had an inkling that the boy was someone special, so he took the revelation in stride.
“Are the commoners still in the hunting party, Mr. Gerda?”
Allen had started speaking to Gerda more respectfully because of how much the man had taught him about farming and how much he had taken care of Allen’s family in general. In fact, he spoke to Gerda even more courteously than he did his own parents.
“Mm? Why the question all of a sudden?”
“Nothing much. I was just curious.”
Because it would take a whole hour to reach the village center, Allen tried striking up a conversation. Gerda had an easygoing and straightforward personality and would generally answer whatever Allen asked.
“Nah, they never came again after that one time, and Deboji hasn’t said anything either. Which means it’s probably only us serfs for the rest of the year.”
“I see.”
“Mm.”
A part of Allen wondered if this was because the commoners had been scared away by the experience. However, he put the thought out of mind, as this question was only the conversational starter. He promptly moved on to the real topic.
“By the way, what’s the difference between being a commoner and a serf?”
“What’s this out of the blue? Go ask Rodin.”
“Can you imagine how awkward that would be?”
It would be akin to Allen telling his parents that he did not want to be a serf anymore, although that was the truth. Even though the reason for the question was his desire to help raise his whole family out of serfdom, his parents would still be shocked, to put it mildly. He had no one else to ask aside from Gerda.
Gerda vigorously scratched his head and sighed heavily, but still proceeded to answer Allen’s question. To sum up his explanation, the biggest difference between serfs and commoners was how they were taxed. Serfs were taxed sixty percent of everything they produced, be it through hunting, farming, or any other means. Commoners, on the other hand, were taxed per head. Each adult was taxed three gold coins, and each child was taxed one gold coin. This tax was collected on an annual basis.
