*KNOCK*

*KNOCK*

Loran sputtered awake as someone knocked on the top of his shelter, causing a bit of old bark to fall on his face.

"Huh? I'm up," he said groggily.

"You asked me to wake you up for The Pit meeting," a voice said, "I think people are starting to head there now."

Loran was headfirst in his shelter and couldn't see them, but knew that the was the person from the next shelter over.

"Right, thanks," he said, crawling out.

"So what exactly happened out there?"

"Long story short, across the river is definitely the higher-level area," Loran said, needing a moment to steady himself as he stood up, shaky but actually feeling slightly rested for once. If there was one benefit to his [MODERATE BLOOD LOSS] debuff, it was that he was able to fall asleep the moment he lay down earlier.

'If only I could've slept until morning,' he thought yawning.

"That so? Can't wait to hear more," the player turned and began walking in the direction of The Pit, "See you there."

"Yeah, see you." Loran stared at the players back as they walked away.

'What was his name again?' Loran wondered, slightly irritated by his inability to remember. 'I know he told me, what the fuck was it?'

Still trying halfheartedly to remember, Loran made his way to the Kitchen for some food. By this point in the day, all that was left was the jerky being kept in storage but he wasn't feeling picky.

After filling his stomach he made his way to The Pit. Being asked questions by a few of the passersby still made Loran uncomfortable, but he was getting better at turning them away.

"What did you guys find out there?"

"I'll tell you at The Pit."

"I saw Yang limping earlier, was there really something strong enough to hurt her out there?"

"Yes, I'll talk about it later."

"Was there really anything dangerous keeping you and Yang out there?" one player asked with a suggestive grin.

"Fuck that fuck you and fuck off."

Eventually, he made it to The Pit, taking a seat near the center. Unfortunately, it seemed like his neighbor had woken him up a little early, seeing as The Pit was only about half full.

'Guess I've got some time to kill, let's check the spoils,' he decided, opening his menu.

[NAME]: Loran

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 14

[EXP]: 11465/2000

[STATUS]

[ARMOR]: 7

{HP}: 20/75

{SP}: 225/225

[END]: 15

[STR]: 10

[AGI]: 20

[DEX]: 20

[PER]: 30

[REMAINING ABILITY POINTS]: 2

[SKILLS]

[ANALYSE] Lv.10(Master)

[DANGER SENSE] Lv.10(Master)

[HUNTER] Lv.10

[PICK FIGHTER] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase attack speed with Pick weapons by 30%.

[PULL] Lv. 10(Master)

[SP BOOSTER] Lv.10

[SPRINT] Lv.10

[STALWART] Lv.10

[DEBUFFS]

[MODERATE BLOOD LOSS]

Remaining Duration: 2 Days, 17 Hours, 42 Minutes, 3 Seconds

HP Regeneration reduced by 50%

SP Regeneration reduced by 50%

Causes [DISORINTATION]

Susceptibility to [FAINTING] is increased by 75%

[DISORIENTATION]

Duration: N/A

Disables sense of balance

'Damn that's a lot of EXP!' He already had a few thousand on standby before heading out with Yang, but he was still amazed to see that his stockpile had nearly doubled after only killing the Iron Ant and a handful of Moss Wolves. 'Just how much do those ants give?!'

Taking a moment to gather himself, Loran began wondering about what to do with this windfall of resources.

'I'll need to level up again, but with this I can learn and max out Critical Strike no problem. After that I'm pretty sure I'll have learned everything I can. Although...' his eyes glided over the [PICK FIGHTER] Skill, 'I do still use my bow and knives sometimes so maybe I should.....no, I'm mostly a melee fighter these days, no point in learning those.'

The [PICK FIGHTER] Skill was, as near as the players could tell, part of a series of Skills that all shared the same effect. There was [SPEAR FIGHTER], [AX FIGHTER], [KNIFE FIGHTER], [UNARMED FIGHTER], and even one for bows that Yin had enough sense to name [ARCHER]. Interestingly, the Skills had no stat requirements but required a player level of 10. This caused the players obsessed with finding new Skills to start redoing previously failed experiments since those Skills may have been behind a level restriction.

'I haven't heard about anyone finding anything new, but maybe I missed an announcement last night.'

Loran decided that as much as he wanted to spend some of his hard earned EXP, it was better to wait until announcements were over.

'If there's nothing new then I guess I'll just learn Critical Strike and level up a bit.'

There were still a few minutes before people would start making announcements, so Loran just lay back in the grass, thinking about how to give his announcement as he waited.

By this point in the evening, the sun was completely hidden by the western mountains but wasn't fully past the horizon, creating a strange effect where the valley was cast in darkness while the sky was still lit up with orange light. Above the eastern mountains, a patch of the starry night could be seen. Loran let his mind wander as he watched the clouds, feeling the warmth of the large campfire in the center of The Pit.

As time passed the night sky continued to spread, looking to Loran like an ocean pushing against a sea of fire. When the sky was half sunset and half night, a voice called for everyone's attention.

"Since it seems like everyone is here, I think now is a good time for us to start."

As usual, the leaders of the hunting parties were the first ones up. The results were fairly standard, with each party having taken down two or three large animals and a dozen or so small critters.

'It seems less like a competition and more like data entry,' Loran couldn't help but think.

Due to the recent rumors of overhunting they had lost a lot of their aggression, but that wasn't going to stop them from keeping track of their kills like a scoreboard. Unfortunately, since the party leaders weren't all that fired up, neither was anyone else, and it resulted in The Pit feeling like a lecture hall, where anyone could tell that everyone else wanted to be anywhere else but here.

"That's nothing!" someone said boastfully.

Turning his head, Loran saw Bates walking into The Pit, a smug grin plastered on his face.

"Today, my party split up and bagged eighteen Moss Wolves, seven Hell Pigs, four Spined Deer, and I solo hunted three Spined Deer for a total of seven!" he proclaimed loudly upon reaching the center of The Pit.

This was, to be perfectly honest, an absurdly big haul. Bates' party had fifteen players in it including himself, but even they would never have been able to take so many kills back to the village. The creation of the leather sleds changed that, but since overhunting might be happening the others either didn't use them or just used them to make travel easier.

Bates, being the one who had the idea that made the sleds possible, apparently wanted to show just how well they could work and decided to go all out today.

There were a few players in The Pit that started clapping, but for the most part, the crowd was silent. As impressive as it was, the thing on everyone's mind was finding out about the new monster that Loran and Yang had found. Additionally, if there was any truth to the overhunting rumors, then Bates' ambition was just making the problem worse.

"That certainly is remarkable, but if you are all done we have more pressing things to talk about," another player said, approaching the center.

Loran recognized the player from the Kitchen, and although he didn't know what her name was he knew that she seemed to keep track of how much meat was being brought in and used. She was holding a piece of Birchbark that was rolled up like a scroll. As she took her place in the center, Bates and the other hunters returned to their seats.

"For those who don't know, my name is Liza, I keep stock over our food supply, and ever since the rumors about overhunting started I've been asking hunters for reports about how their hunts went. It has been ten days since I started and I can say that there is at least an eighty percent chance that we are over hunting the Moss Wolves, Hell Pigs, and Spined Deer."

The Pit was quickly filled with whispers and mutterings as she finished.

"According to what exactly?" someone shouted from the back.

"For starters, although it's difficult to tell time precisely since we don't have clocks here, I've confirmed that hunting trips are taking longer since there are fewer large beasts around the village. Additionally, with the exception of Bates' most recent hunt, the total number of large beasts that have been sighted has experienced a downward trend." She then unraveled the Birch scroll to read something off of it. "Over the last ten days, the drop has been almost ten percent, and while I don't have any details recorded from before that, it seems like the trend began before that."

'...I feel like she's being a little too precise with numbers like those, but if she's even vaguely right about this that means that the village is definitely overhunting.'

As Loran thought about the situation, others were speaking up around him.

"So does that mean we're driving them extinct or something?"

"If this keeps up, won't we like run out of things to hunt?"

"It's not like we can just stop hunting though, right?"

"Everyone? Attention please," Liza said, sounding like an annoyed school teacher. "There is some positive information revealed by my report. While large animals have been experiencing a decrease in their numbers, the smaller Green Rabbits and White Squrills have not. This is just a theory on my part, but since we've yet to find any major predators for these small animals aside from the Moss Wolves, it seems like we have effectively taken their place in the local ecosystem."

"Meaning?" someone shouted.

"Meaning that it's possible that these small animals reproduce too fast for us to over hunt, and will be a constant food source no matter what we do."

The players began whispering amongst themselves again, but the atmosphere was much more hopeful this time.

"With that said we should still be careful," Liza continued. "Our overhunting could still have other consequences and shouldn't be ignored. If nothing else, driving out the Moss Wolves completely will mean losing our access to more Wolf's Boon. With that in mind, I would recommend that those wishing to hunt large animals restrict themselves to the eastern side of the river until the animal populations replenish themselves."

'Oh fuck,' Loran thought. 'Well, I guess I need to speak before someone gets themselves killed.'