A Bit of Good Luck for You

Carving the pile of Shakalaka corpses took Gordon a long time.

Under Amos's instruction, Hayata ran over to help, but judging by her hesitant demeanor, she clearly had not yet grown accustomed to such a bloody harvesting task.

Fortunately, carving Shakalakas was relatively simple and consisted mainly of checking their bags rather than skinning and boning them; otherwise, the young girl, who had only just grown a little used to gory sights, might have vomited on the spot.

Gordon's luck remained despairingly bad. After searching a dozen Shakalaka corpses, the "most valuable" item he found was a half-eaten dried specialty mushroom.

Gordon rolled his eyes, tossed this pile of trash aside, and only kept the shards of the Shakalaka masks as proof of completing the slaying quest.

If it were merely this, Gordon would not have felt quite so depressed; after all, the fact that "Shakalakas only carry trash" was common knowledge to him.

Yet Hayata, carving monster gathering materials for the very first time, showed him through her actions that he was the only one with bad luck.

Hayata processed a total of only two Shakalaka corpses, yet these mere two corpses brought her an enviable treasure.

She found a metal pendant around a Shakalaka's neck, and after wiping away the grime, she discovered it was a foreign gold coin in fairly good condition.

According to Amos, although the primary material of this so-called "gold coin" was brass, it was also a genuine antique. Sold to a merchant with tastes in that direction, it should have been worth around a thousand zenny.

Just as Gordon stared at the foreign gold coin in the girl's hand with envy and jealousy, Hayata pulled a small crystal raw stone about the size of a finger from the second Shakalaka's pouch.

Even Amos couldn't help glancing over at this.

He took the raw crystal stone from Hayata's hand, looked at the vein structure inside the crystal against the sun, and then drew the White Ape Cleaver, scraping the blade against the crystal surface a few times to test its hardness.

Finally, with a subtle expression, he handed the small piece of raw crystal back into Hayata's hand and said in a slightly peculiar tone: "This is a brilliant crystal, well, or you could say it's an even higher-grade pure crystal.

The only pity is that it's too small to be used as equipment material, but even as jewelry, its value isn't low. You can keep it yourself to make an ornament, or have your uncle find a jewelry artisan to refine and process it and sell it to those noble ladies in the city; it can be worth a lot of money."

Gordon: "."

So after the fellow looted two corpses, her harvest was already several times greater than the total reward of his current quest?

Grievances aside, Gordon had no intention of keeping these two good items for himself.

He hadn't hunted the Shakalakas entirely on his own; if Amos hadn't anticipated the potential appearance of the King Shakalaka and deliberately joined the quest to help, he might have lost his life in the mountains this time.

As for begging for treasures and the like, he didn't have that thick of a face.

But damn it, he was still so annoyed!

"Damn it, is this a beginner's overpowered luck! Yet back when I was a rookie, I never turned up anything good?" Squatting silently beside the pile of trash he had discarded, Gordon muttered with full grievance and resentment.

"Luck is something destined by the heavens, meow! Regret is useless, meow!"

Porkchop's low-emotional intelligence comfort had no effect at all, so Gordon grabbed him and gave him a chaotic rub.

"Pfft~"

Noticing the silly, bickering interaction between Gordon and Porkchop, Hayata, who was admiring the charming luster of the pure crystal, couldn't help laughing out loud.

She whispered a few words to Amos, and seeing the latter nod indifferently, she trotted over to Gordon, who was holding Porkchop and looking as dejected as a giant mushroom.

"Senior Gordon~, this is for you."

Hayata smiled and shoved the foreign gold coin into Gordon's hand. "Sharing is caring, you know. I've had really good luck since I was a kid, so I'll share a bit with you~."

Looking at the ancient coin with its restrained luster in the palm of his hand, Gordon first froze, then hurriedly stood up, preparing to decline.

Unexpectedly, Amos spoke up first. "Accept it. Splitting the spoils according to contribution after a team hunt is the rule. Most of these Shakalakas were slain by you, so you ought to be taking the lion's share anyway."

"But the King Shakalaka was you."

"The appearance of the King Shakalaka was an accident and unrelated to the quest itself. The value of that pure crystal is far above that of a foreign coin, so you can rest assured and accept it."

Amos smiled, interrupting Gordon once more, and steered the conversation in another direction. "The subjugation count of twenty Shakalakas should be enough, right?"

Gordon still felt a bit embarrassed, but he also knew it wasn't appropriate to continue refusing. He gave an awkward, stuttering smile to Hayata and ultimately put the coin away.

Then, as if to cover up the surprise and shame in his heart, Gordon answered with a deadpan earnestness: "Enough. There are fifteen Shakalaka corpses here, plus the previous nine, which is more than enough."

"Good. Prepare for the return journey."

The subjugation quest, with a one-week time limit, was completed without a hitch on the very first day, and Gordon inevitably felt a sense of anticlimax.

They spent over an hour returning to the camp, rested for a night, and left the hunting ground the next day, catching a ride on a passing merchant caravan to embark on the journey back to Minegarde.

In fact, given Gordon's usual habits, if a quest was completed early and his own condition was very good, he would choose to linger in the hunting ground for a while longer to gather some materials like minerals and herbs, as well as settlement items like specialty mushrooms, maximizing his profits.

However, he could also understand Amos's decision to return immediately; after all, the King Shakalaka still lived within this mountain forest.

Until the Shakalaka Festival ended and the King Shakalaka retreated deep into the mountains, this place was no longer suitable for activities by a two-star hunter like himself and a beginner like Hayata.

Yet he still couldn't quite figure it out.

Why did Senior Amos let that King Shakalaka go under conditions of absolute superiority?

On the wagon returning to Minegarde City, Gordon asked the question buried in his heart.

"I knew you'd come ask this question."

Amos's expression grew serious. He even deliberately called Hayata down from the top of the cargo pile where she was teasing Porkchop, and after the two youths sat obediently before him, he continued:

"What do you think a hunter's duty is, and what should the relationship between humanity and nature be?"

Hayata and Gordon looked at each other in dismay upon hearing this.

Was this supposed to be a theoretical class? A philosophy class? Or a moral education class?

"A hunter's duty should be to clear away dangerous monsters. As for the relationship between humanity and nature, it should be competition."

Gordon's answer was conventional. Amos nodded and looked at Hayata instead.

Hayata pondered for a while longer and said, "A hunter's duty is to escort and safeguard human survival and development. As for the relationship between humanity and nature, the competition Senior Gordon mentioned is one aspect, but there's also coexistence, right?"

A trace of a smile appeared in Amos's eyes.

Clearly, Hayata's answer suited his wishes better, but Gordon's slightly radical philosophy was not wrong either.

At least in this present era where the human activity zone occupied less than ten percent of the entire world, Gordon's philosophy was the absolute mainstream.