"Welcome back, dear. How did your hunt go?"

As soon as I finally cleared the hard path that separated our new household from the barrier beyond which I was hunting, Eve's sweet voice welcomed me.

"Not great, not terrible. Outside of a huge amount of furs that we could use, I managed to get enough meat and precious parts of the beasts to fulfil our other objectives."

Dragging multiple carcasses of the beasts that I hunted down with the use of a gore line I made out of their innards. While for most that sight alone would be enough to feel repulsed when I was given the choice between using what I had on hand or carrying each of the hunted down beasts back home by hand, I decided that appearances amounted to nothing when it came to the pioneering kind of lifestyle that I wanted to lead.

"Isn't that good?"

Coming out from behind the house where I hoped to soon create a small vegetable farm and a flower garden for her to enjoy, Eve took down simple gloves that she made from the spare cloth that we had. With her bright smile instantly eradicating all the hints of boredom and tiredness that the long hours of hunt induced in me, I was now all back and ready for more action!

"Yeah, it is. Do you think you will be able to skin those? While I know it's not really a pleasant type of work, I don't think there would be any fur left if I attempted to do so myself…"

Lowering my head in shame, I realised that outside of Eve and Celleria, there was actually one more person present in the proximity!

"I can easily take care of this!"

Standing up from a tree's stump that served for his seat, Otto, the young patrol guard whom we met the moment we appeared in this place, approached me before taking a look at my haul.

"Oh my! Don't tell me…"

Looking at how his eyes widened in a surprise, I could tell that either the number of the beasts was enough to make him present us with this kind of stunned expression, or maybe it was that he recognised some of those beasts as something that no one in the proximity could personally deal with!

"Yeah, I hunted them all by myself. And since you offered your services, you are free to pick what part of those beasts you would like to take in exchange for your help."

For me, even if this young man were to take the most valuable part of the beasts, it wouldn't make any difference. As long as I could get the furs to furnish my house, some skins to get Eve and Celleria to make some clothes, meat to start stockpiling our kitchen and some of the valuable parts that would allow me to make some money, I didn't care what would happen to the rest of those parts!

"No… That would be too unbecoming for me. Skinning is something that you could just hire one of the village folk to do for a small price, so as long as I could ask for one horn of the gianturtle, I will be more than happy to help!"

Looking at the young man, I couldn't stop myself from smiling when seeing his elated expression. For him, this had to be a trade of the century, whilst for me, it was nothing more but a comfortable deal!

"That's okay with me. But since I still have to visit the lord and pay him the tax, as I can't be bothered to go and sell those parts before amassing more of them, would you mind prioritizing recovering something that could serve as the tax for Lord Makay? While he told us that we don't need to hurry with the payments, it would be unbecoming of us if we used his kindness to our own advantage."

Smiling to the young man, I did my very best to ignore the alarms that were going off in my head. In reality, I didn't need nor wanted to visit the lord so soon, but given how I was nearly sure that some kind of trouble was brewing for him, I knew that unless I made everyone know that someone as powerful as me was supporting him, then this potential fellow earthener and system user might find himself in great trouble!

"Sure, just give me a moment."

Smiling in response to my request as if my wish to pay the lord his due taxes didn't bother him in the slightest, the young man pulled out a knife from his belt before approaching the hill-sized monster that I hunted at the beginning of my small adventure. '

Pushing the knife deeply into its soft skin right above its neck, Otto quickly created a huge opening in its flesh, before pushing his head deeply into the beast's carcass. As gross as it looked, I keenly observed his actions, hoping to learn something about what people of this place valued in the beasts.

"Here it goes."

Suddenly pulling his hand out of the bloody flesh, Otto extracted a huge stone-like item from the beasts, still tightly covered in what looked like tendons. Yet, as if he was already used to this kind of action despite not being a hunter himself, he quickly cleaned out the surface of this strange stone from all the residual meat, before cleaning it up from the blood with his hand and throwing it in my way.

"This crystal should be enough to pay for nearly a year worth of rent for this place. Given how you are paying your taxes with it, I assume that the greatest cut will come from the hunting tax, meaning that it will only last for like six months. Still, not a bad deal, don't you think?"

Grabbing the stone from the air, the moment I touched its surface, I felt an overwhelming wave of magical energy hidden within it. In this one moment, I understood just how this kind of fragile but insanely huge body could still move with nearly no muscles at all!