The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 1 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

I’m Gonna Hunt Field Mice!

CHECKING MY TRAPS, I found…two field mice! Add those to the ones I’d caught earlier, and that made five mice in a day.

I heard that tusked hogs could be hunted near this village, too. They were more profitable, so people didn’t bother with field mice so much. The thing was, tusked hogs scared off field mice when they went wild. Once you knew where the mice would run, all you had to do was set traps. My initial plan was to place enough traps to get two to three mice per day, but I was more successful than I’d ever expected. In just three days, I’d caught thirty-four. This was great!

After finishing field dressing the meat, I wrapped it neatly in bana leaves. My past self insisted that appearances were important. Was that true? I couldn’t say.

I went into the village and checked to see if people were acting normal. This was actually important—when villagers got frantic, I could guess something happened in the village or even that they had big monster problems on their hands. When they were weirdly suspicious of their surroundings, that usually meant there was a wanted criminal on the loose. Today, the villagers looked livelier than usual. What did that mean? Warily, I headed toward the butcher shop from before.

“Heya. More field mice for me today?” the store owner asked.

“Yes, sir. Is something going on here?”

“Oh, don’t you worry. Harvest time is over, so the traveling merchants all head out at once. The demand for dried meat goes way up, but the villagers…”

“Hm?”

“Someone said the tusked hog population is booming, so everyone went a little nuts and ran off to hunt ’em.”

I get it. I was only able to hunt so much because nobody else was out doing it, right?

“And I hear they found a big herd of hogs out in the woods,” he added. “Guess they’re putting together a hunting party now.” That explained the liveliness from before. If the hogs had formed a herd, that might make the forest dangerous. I’d have to choose tonight’s “bed” carefully. “Anyway, here’s your money. Threw in a bit extra, since you’re my only supplier. Five hundred fifty dal, all yours.”

“Thank you very much.”

After all was said and done, I’d made a total of 2,550 dal. It was about time to move on to the next village. I glanced over to the dried meat on display, though, and saw that the prices were higher than before. Made sense—demand was higher now—but I wished I’d bought some before it got more expensive.

“Hm?” the owner grunted. “What, do you want some dried meat?”

“Yeah. I was about to head on to the next village, so…”

“Huh. Well, I ought to thank you for your help. Wait there a sec.” The store owner brought something out from the back. “Here’s a cut of dried meat. You can have it for just 100 dal.”

I took it from him. It was just dried meat, but there was a lot of it. Ten days of food, even. “Thank you so much!”

I handed over the hundred dal, bowed again, and left. After some thought, I approached the crowd of people. It would be good to have information on where the tusked hogs were so I’d know which way was safest in the forest.