Chapter 31: Chapter 31 – Day with Lancel
The next day, Kyle followed Lancel around.
For the first two weeks, he was supposed to look at what everyone was doing to get a grasp of their duties.
'Seems like everyone has a territory,' Kyle thought as he followed the silent Lancel.
Lancel didn't speak a lot, and he basically just did his job.
Lancel was the bowman and trapper of the group.
Both of these jobs were important for a local Hunter Hall.
There were many kinds of Hunter Halls all over the Skysand Kingdom.
Most of them were run by a small group of hunters that dealt with the local wildlife.
Their job was to keep the ecosystem in balance, deal with potential threats from wildlife, and, obviously, make money.
There were also big Hunter Halls, which were called Hunter Guilds.
'Hunter Guilds are like McDonalds. They have their franchises everywhere,' Kyle thought.
Hunter Guilds all had different rules and regulations that seemed to work out for them.
After all, if the regulations didn't work, the Hunter Guilds wouldn't be so big.
Smaller towns like the one Kyle was in didn't have Hunter Guilds since there were already established Hunter Halls here.
Beating the competition out of the town wouldn't be worth the investment.
Generally, Hunter Guilds only operated in big towns or cities.
Just like Earth, towns and cities grew bigger and more popular based on commerce.
But unlike Earth, the commerce didn't come from big companies but from the surrounding wildlife.
Stronger beasts had more Ether, which increased the density of Ether in the surroundings.
The denser Ether increased the likelihood of expensive and Ether-rich plants appearing, which attracted more powerful beasts, which increased the density of Ether, and so on.
Theodor's Rest, the town Kyle was in, was in the vicinity of a bigger city.
Because of that, the surroundings of Theodor's Rest were filled with a low to medium amount of Ether.
There were vast stretches of land where there were barely any beasts since there wasn't much Ether.
'Hah, vast stretches of land,' Kyle thought. 'This entire world is the size of fucking North America, and that includes that huge ocean in the middle.'
'Fucking tiny ass fantasy land.'
'I mean, North America is big, but come on. This is an entire fantasy world! You would expect it to be bigger.'
Anyway, Hunter Guilds also had different jobs, which included bowmen and trappers.
What a bowman did was obvious and didn't need explanation.
Meanwhile, a trapper was responsible for carrying all the gadgets and dealing with the wildlife without killing them.
Living beasts were worth far more than dead beasts.
At worst, they could be selectively and carefully dissected to get the highest grade materials, and at best, a beast would catch the eye of a Beast Tamer.
If a living beast was bought by a Beast Tamer, it would mean big money.
Sadly, Beast Tamers only wanted the rarest and most powerful beasts, which were difficult to find and capture.
'As far as I've heard, not even the Great Anaconda would be interesting to a Beast Tamer. It's not its power that's the problem, but its sheer size and the amount of food it eats.'
Kyle tried to think of a beast that a Beast Tamer would be interested in.
'Probably that one scary beast I saw. I think it was called the Cleaner? It didn't seem very big, and it was quite scary.'
Kyle didn't have much to do during his excursion with Lancel since he barely spoke and barely explained anything.
He just said "watch" from time to time before doing something, and that was it.
The only interesting thing that happened during this day was when Lancel captured some kind of huge boar.
Kyle's eyes had opened widely when he saw Lancel essentially dancing around the boar with a long chain in his hand.
While wrapping the boar in a chain, he kept shooting weak arrows at the boar that barely pierced its hide.
Yet, the purpose of these arrows was not to hurt the boar but to tranquilize it with poison.
"How much is the beast worth?" Kyle asked with correct grammar for once.
"About 70 gold," Lancel answered as he started pulling the huge boar behind him. "We're done for today. Do you know where the town is?"
'Already done?' Kyle thought. 'We've been here for just three hours!'
However, Kyle didn't question why Lancel ended his workday early.
"I know," Kyle said.
"Then go back. I will pull this thing back to town."
"Oh... okay," Kyle answered.
He nervously looked around.
'Going back alone?' Kyle thought. 'I mean, I know where we are, but this feels a bit dangerous.'
"You can also follow me if you want," Lancel said. "I'll leave the choice up to you."
Lancel was a bit more like Nervon and believed that it would help Kyle to get some solo experience in the wild, but when he remembered Samson's tirade, he decided to give Kyle the option to follow him.
Kyle wasn't sure if he should go through the wilderness alone.
It felt extremely dangerous.
But then, he remembered Nervon's words.
'Do I really just want to live off handouts for my entire life, or do I actually want to make something of myself?'
Kyle took a deep breath.
"What to be careful of?" he asked.
"Spitters, mostly," Lancel answered.
'The fire wolves. Makes sense.'
"The trees in this forest are much denser than normal trees, and since you have hands, you can climb them. As long as you stay in the trees, most big beasts can't do much to you."
"If you see a big raven, just don't anger it. You're not strong enough to pique its interest."
'Oh, that must be the Cleaner! So, it's a big raven, huh?' Kyle thought.
"Don't go near the Great Anaconda. Don't step into big gatherings of leaves. As long as you do that, it should be fine," Lancel explained.
"One more thing. Don't kill anything that you don't know unless it is an immediate threat to your life, and you can't run away."
Kyle took a deep breath.
"Okay, I will go."
Lancel nodded, and Kyle started to walk back to Theodor's Rest.
'I just hope nothing bad happens.'