Chapter 6 : I swung a sword, and a rat died

Even without active skills, even a tutorial trash monster like Rats can be easily dealt with, even if it evolved into Big Rats.

With an attack power of +5 wooden sword and strength S, it is much easier to kill than the regular tutorial monsters, and all that remains are armor pieces with nothing left.

Thanks to strength S, even if I get bitten by Big Rats, I won’t die in one hit.

So, even if I’m surrounded by five Rats, knocked down, and incapacitated, as long as I don’t get bitten, it’s enough.

Chichichichi-

I charge toward the most annoying Big Rats at the front, stepping on its head and swinging my wooden sword at it.

It slashes through the boundary between the head and the body.

The wooden sword, although a little thick, slices through the neck effortlessly, almost mocking the doubt I had earlier.

“Wow.”

The thick neck of the Big Rats falls straight to the ground.

I was planning to just inflict a fatal wound and quickly retreat, but I had to change my plans.

“This is it.”

A master of close combat weapons.

It might seem obvious, but this is an incredibly broken skill.

I felt it while swinging the sword.

I had a hunch when I was cutting weeds, but after actually hunting, I was sure of it.

Even though it’s my sword that I’m wielding, something indescribable seems to be adjusting and enhancing my movements.

Having chosen swordsmanship as my main ability for a long time across various maps, I’m confident in my ability to fight with a sword.

Of course, I’m not as skilled as a swordsmanship master, but still, with this level of confidence, I can hold my own in the farming world if I wield a sword.

But this was different.

When I jabbed the sword at the weak spot, my body automatically moved along the most natural and efficient path.

I can see it.

“Wow…”

Confidence surges through me instantly.

[Big Rats Eliminated!]

[10 Experience Points Gained]

The tension melts away.

But just in case… since this might be a secret map I don’t know about…

Once I let go of that thought, the Big Rats in front of me just seemed like quest monsters, giving me meat and farm resources.

Four of them charge at me at once.

I thrust my sword into the open mouth of a Big Rats, piercing its skull.

Blood splatters, and the body gets soaked, but I pull the sword out and jump back behind the corpse.

Whoosh-

Killing the remaining three was a one-shot, one-kill.

The hunting was so easy it left a faint aftertaste.

I look down at the sword and handle, covered in Big Rats’ blood.

Having spent ten years in the farming world, I’ve realized that things in the realm of swordsmanship or other “skills” don’t necessarily get better with time.

It’s all about learning the most efficient way to avoid, attack, and conserve energy through many examples and battle experience.

But this… this felt different.

It was like I had crossed a barrier.

Simply through a passive skill.

If I continue to use and master this, could I use it in real life?

I wonder.

If my body can remember this feeling.

“That sounds like some ridiculous nonsense.”

Even if I somehow had some genius-level talent that allows me to remember this sensation, it doesn’t matter much.

After all, I’m not even a hunter, so what’s the point if I have swordsmanship at an SSS+ level?

[Quest Complete!]

The tutorial quest 2 was completed with the corpses of 5 Big Rats.

Riding this momentum, I thought about checking if there was a Boss Big Rats in the sewers, but I gave up quickly.

“First, let’s finish the tutorial…”

Finding the sewers was a task in itself.

In a map with an SS size, the sewer could be within a 5km radius of the house, so wandering around would take forever, but in an immeasurable map, I can’t even guess how far it could be.

If I wander through land covered in thick weeds at midnight, I might lose my way back to the house, let alone find the sewers.

[100 Farm Gained!]

[Farming Ability 1 Gained!]

I dragged the Big Rats’ corpses to the front yard and laid them side by side.

[Tutorial Quest 3]

[Monster corpses are a reliable food source. Let’s try butchering various resources and monsters.]

[Ability (Butchery F) Activated!]

[Clear Condition: Monster Butchery (0 / 1)]

[Reward: 100 Farm, Farming Ability 1]

Butchery? That’s nothing.

I’ve done it hundreds of thousands of times, so even without the ability, I can handle it on my own.

Skillfully separating the corpses into leather and meat, the innards and blood, the useless parts, evaporate away.

[Successful Skilled Butchery!]

This must be the charm of the game.

Since it takes care of both ‘realism’ and ‘gameplay,’ new players don’t need to feel a wall with such a difficult system.

As long as you have the ‘knife’ and ‘butchery’ skills, your body will automatically move and do the butchery.

If you become more skilled and make good use of the game’s ‘realism,’ it will reward you with bigger rewards.

13 pieces of Big Rats meat and 6 pieces of Big Rats leather dropped.

“Already finished with bread on the first day.”

Unlike Rat meat, Big Rats meat, when cooked, provides enough to eat for at least the entire day.

As night fell, I was too tired to continue after being stuck in this map without sleep, and I desperately wanted to sleep and try again tomorrow, but still, leaving a Big Rats carcass out in the front yard means other monsters might come by in the early morning and eat it, so I spent about an hour finishing it.

“Sigh.”

[2:15 AM]

It’s already late to be sleeping.

In Farming World, unlike typical farming genre games, the ‘sleep time’ is fixed to early morning, and the required sleep amount is set for the day.

If you don’t sleep for at least 6 hours, your stats will decrease, and various debuffs will occur, so you need to sleep, even if it’s in split naps.

But still, I need to do what needs to be done.

“At least the welfare is good.”

Even this harsh game provides some comfort like bathrooms and washing.

You don’t have to worry about excretion, and there’s a cleanliness system for things like washing.

In the hut, hot water is always available, so you can wash yourself in warmth.

“Ugh. Feels good.”

The first hut doesn’t have a boiler, so this moment is the only way to warm up my body.

I wash off the blood and fatigue from the Big Rats while cleaning my clothes and body.

Even though the only wash item is soap, this is heaven.

“Ahhh.”

I lie down on the bed in clean clothes, with a fresh towel and spare ragged clothes, and my eyes slowly closed.

[Day 2]

The first day passed in a hasty secret farming map.

[9:00 AM]

Ding ding ding – Ding ding ding –

The alarm I set through the system rang in the hut.

Since I lay down around 3 AM after a quick wash, I woke up after exactly 6 hours, the bare minimum.

“I’m tired.”

In the stolen map, after automating some things, I kept my sleep time above 8 hours to get the refreshing buff, but in the early stages of the map, time is money, so I couldn’t afford those buffs.

More importantly, I’ve already been logged into the game for almost two days.

No matter how much of a gaming enthusiast I am, I try not to exceed 48 hours of capsule connection time.

“I need to finish today.”

The tutorial wouldn’t take long.

If I follow the basic tutorial, it will involve farming-related tutorials and some basic skills, and once those are done, the basic tutorial quests will be completed.

As a human, they would likely have made sure to log out by that point…

[Tutorial Quest 4]

[To progress in Farming World, you need to create various items for the base.]

[Let’s make a crafting station.]

[Reward: 100 Farm, Farming stat 1]

Let’s proceed quickly.

“Quick Crafting.”

Saying the command [Quick Crafting], the [Crafting Station] appears, and I create it.

The required materials are 30 pieces of F-grade wood, 15 stones, and 30 weeds.

This kind game focuses on ‘convenience’ rather than ‘realism’ for crafting, so anything in the chest within the [Hut] can be used for crafting or quick crafting.

A [Crafting Station] appears before me.

It is displayed as a 3D hologram, and I go outside to install it in front of the hut.

As expected, it’s easiest and most convenient to install it on the most used path near the door.

[Quest Complete!]

Tutorials in Farming World are usually content that gets skipped.

Once you’ve done the map once, you don’t need to do it twice because it’s easy to follow, and it gets annoying.

But now, since I’m being forced to go through it, the early rewards from tutorial quests are quite helpful for progress.

So, even seasoned players don’t just rush through the map, but usually do the tutorial quests one by one when playing again.

• Farm owned: 400
• Farming stat: 3

Already, I’ve accumulated 3 farming stats and 400 farm.

Before the next tutorial quest pops up, I take out the hoe and head to the cleared land to start plowing.