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Volume 2 Chapter 5-1: Party

 

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It was dawn of the day after we returned from the Fire Fox Village. I found myself alone in the forest.

At this point the Fire Foxes had subsisted for three days on the leftover food and potatoes that the Elves didn’t eat. However, that method was at it’s limit. I had to find new prey.

Furthermore there was an event scheduled for noon today and I had to get meat for that as well.

Our village had proper meat and emergency stores but if I embezzled those the Elves’ attitudes would take a steep dive. They’d surely think that their own share of food had decreased because of the Fire Foxes.

I’m sure their reason would tell them that everyone was troubled in this regard and they certainly felt sympathy and understanding of the Fire Foxes’ position…but the negative feelings wouldn’t disappear just because they understood.

If I wasn’t careful about small things like this, then their small dissatisfaction would slowly pile up until it created a huge crack in the community.

There was an easy way to counter this. I just had to catch more food. With that they should no longer feel such displeasure.

I sharpened my senses.

「【Perception Expansion】」

I activated my specialty spell and allowed my senses to spread through the area. It was limited to the areas where the wind reached but it allowed my perception to expand by 300 meters.

It was an extremely useful magic but it was difficult to use. In the first place if your affinity with the wind wasn’t as good as an Elf’s then you wouldn’t be able to learn it. Furthermore, even if you did have the right affinity you would have to train hard to learn it. Without talent you can’t learn this skill.

Lucy had learned it. She had enough talent and sense for the skill. However, as of now her limit was 100 meters. Recently she’s been getting the hang of it so it should start improving.

「I’d better hurry up and find some prey.」

I maintained my spell as I strengthened my body as I leapt amongst the trees. As I did so I confirmed whether or not there were any animals nearby through 【Perception Expansion】.

Thanks to my incredible sensing range and high speed movement, my hunting efficiency was much higher than the other elves.

When the other elves hunted most of the time would be spent searching for some prey.

「Found it.」

I found a big fat boar around 250 meters away hiding in the brush.

It would’ve been easy to miss it as it hid in the bushes, but no matter where it hid I would be able to find it if there was wind there.

I took my distance as I moved to an appropriate point.

It’d be troublesome if it spotted me.

「This should be alright.」

I found myself an appropriate sniping point.

The distance was around 200 meters, the boar was low to the ground with a low line of sight, and the route to hit the boar was only around the size of a baseball.

I had confidence the boar would be completely unable to spot me.

Most hunters would be unable to take this kind of shot.

However, I was anything but ordinary.

「【Program】」

If 【Perception Expansion】 was my specialty spell that utilized wind mana itself, then 【Program】 was my specialty spell that used my internal magic power.

It took in all the information gathered by my five senses and my spell and calculated the proper motions and trajectory I needed to fire.

Furthermore…..
「【Wind Ward】」

I granted my arrow the blessing of the wind. This would nullify all effects of wind on my arrow.

I set the arrow on my crossbow and with my strengthened body I could easily pull back the string using my arms.

I had wanted to teach Lucy my body strengthening magic, but it was also prohibitively difficult to learn and carried the risk of bodily injury.

If you made a mistake and ignorantly strengthened your body, it could cause your body to break down. Furthermore if you didn’t use the proper channels to strengthen your body it could twist it into something strange and horrible.

Even when the 500 imperial soldiers attacked I strengthened my body by less than 10%.

「Go!」

I pulled the trigger.

The arrow flew through the air exactly as 【Program】 had calculated and passed through the baseball sized route perfectly.

The super high speed 360km/h arrow was still within an elf’s visual ability to see.

The arrow flew straight and true into the boar’s eye and penetrated deep into its brain.

Even with a single arrow you could take down a huge prey as long as you shot it in a vital spot.

The boar I had aimed at hadn’t had a chance to react before losing its life.

「Alright! Two more should be enough.」

Since we had the upcoming event I had to hunt more quickly than I usually would.

With this time limit I would probably only be able to catch two more.

I gutted and drained the boar and hung it before leaving to find some more prey.

It’d require too much effort to carry a 100 kg boar back to the village so I had planned to use my 【Item Box】 with 【Samsara Recursion】. However, without an elf’s ability to sense the wind my hunting efficiency would take a steep dive. For that reason I needed to complete the hunting in my normal elven body.

If I used 【Samsara Recursion】 and turned into Deet I would have to wait 12 hours before doing so once more or I risked damaging my soul. If I did it again anyways the recoil would be so strong that I wouldn’t be able to continue hunting anyways.

For that reason I would hunt all my prey before using 【Samsara Recursion】 to store them away.

Though 【Samsara Recursion】 had great utility it also had quite a few restrictions.

For example if the Empire invaded and I had to use 【Samsara Recursion】 I would still only be able to remain in the form of Deet for an hour.

If I didn’t clinch victory within that hour it would be a disaster. Once 【Samsara Recursion】 finished I would be hit with recoil and weaken. It would make my ability to fight normally become weaker than usual. No, if I used it to the limit then even standing would be difficult and it would be hard for me to command Lucy and the rest.

I could imagine a situation where I used 【Samsara Recursion】 to decimate the first wave of enemies and a second wave appeared afterwards while I was unable to take command. It would result in a miserable loss and the possible destruction of Erucy.

That’s why I would not use 【Samsara Recursion】 for defense. I would only use it when attacking the enemy’s base or something similar. That would allow me to deal great damage while still being able to retreat.

During defensive situations I would only keep it as insurance. Thanks to the low amount of population, Erucy couldn’t obtain reinforcements. However, thanks to 【Samsara Recursion】 I could act as our own reinforcements and decimate a much larger enemy. Because of that we could be a little unreasonable.

If I were to use 【Samsara Recursion】 for defense then it would be when we had been cornered to the limit.

「Alright that’s the third one!」

I had kept moving my body as I thought. I had finished my huntin task by obtaining 2 boars and one deer.

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