Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: GaeaTiamat
The forest was indeed very different from before the little animals joined.
All kinds of birds jumped back and forth between the branches of the trees. Crisp chirps came out from their throats, and mixed into a perfect sonata. Along with the players who entered the forest, the mood was a few points better.
The originally intact and fluffy bushes showed signs of being trampled and broken open, so they imagined that there were small animals burrowing around here before, curiously poking their heads out to survey the players passing by.
If one was more observant, one could always catch a few small figures as they jumped and darted as they watched from a distance; the timid animals that heard movement and were hiding from human eyes. But there were also silly ones, who stood loudly in the middle of the road, and tilted their heads to carefully observe the face of each player, as if wondering why their faces weren’t covered with fur.
Was it a disease? That’s really sad.
The woodpecker stopped on the trunk of the tree, smashed its long, sharp beak into the bark, and picked up a fat, tender worm with precision.
Bai Li’s group entered the forest with such a background sound and easy steps.
Skilled Target walked in the middle of the group. She looked around all the time and was constantly sharing her observations with Bai Li.
“Li Bai, this is where we met the rabbit this morning, when it hit my leg and quickly disappeared into the bushes. I have searched around, five minutes further ahead there is a large tree with a big rabbit hole underneath it, that rabbit probably lives in that hole. When we are almost there, we won’t approach. We’ll get out our tools, get ready, and then go in together. If you’re inexperienced, just follow our actions and maybe we can succeed in one go.”
Bai Li then realized that Skilled Target did not come to catch rabbits in a moment of fever, but had made her own plans beforehand, and knew that she had to prepare the capture tools. He just didn’t know what kind of tools Skilled Target was talking about. He nodded and said he could help when making the tools later.
“Hey, ah…No, no. March learned the woodworking skill, and there will be a certain bonus if you use the skill to make tools. We tried it before. March made a small wooden bow, which can increase the shooting rate by 20%.”
Saying that, Skilled Target took out the wooden bow from her backpack. It was a rather rudimentary style, but according to Bai Li’s observation, this wooden bow could indeed be used to shoot arrows, it was only that the arrows weren’t available for sale, which again required the player to do the crafting themselves.
March posed as a craftsman, pursed her lips and smiled. “This wooden bow is my first attempt. If it’s not good enough, I’ll make a few more later and the quality should be better.”
“Yes, you can. You can make a few more later and we will be responsible for cutting some branches for the bows and arrows.” Bulging Belly said. “In addition to the bow and arrow, March can also make slingshots and traps.”
“I’ll do it, too. I can make traps.” Shaded Nettle took a job for himself. “My other life skill is also woodworking. I made traps a few years ago in real life, and the craft should not be lost.”
The few people had a brief conversation as they assigned each other tasks. Bai Li, Skilled Target and Bulging Belly went to collect branches. After they collected the branches and sharpened one of them with a well-honed knife, a simple bow and arrow was ready. The three were relatively handy, and in a short time they were surrounded by a lot of finished bows and arrows.
Seeing that March and Shaded Nettle were still working, Bai Li discussed it with the two of them and decided to find some suitable locations nearby to dig some traps and see if any small animals would accidentally step in them.
“Haha! This digging trap reminds me of that group of players who entered the game at the beginning and the weeding task. They didn’t know anything, and thought that weeds should be completely uprooted, and didn’t even leave the soil! They had a busy night, and dug a huge hole. Fortunately, the maker of the game came out to wipe their asses, and avoided the end of a large group of them living in the pit.” Bulging Belly smiled with an impish face. “I just saw the whole thing in the forum. I only looked up Carefree Farmstead offhandedly, and the more I knew, the more I wanted to play. I was fortunate enough to grab a game quota with my fast hand and good luck. Now my friends can envy me.”
“Hahaha, I’m almost the same. I know about this incident. Digging a hole or something, if it is that group of old players, they should be more skilled at digging, right?” Skilled Target also laughed at the side. Her hand movements while wielding the shovel were fast and not long after digging, there was a shallow hole.
Bai Li pretended not to hear the words ‘wipe their asses,’ nodded and said, “I didn’t expect everyone’s understanding would be so deviant, Demon Xing and I were the first to enter the game. In the game, we removed the grass, and put our houses there, but missed such a scene. However, even if the misunderstanding does not matter, there is always a way to remedy the situation,”
Meanwhile, he took over the remaining branches from the bows and arrows, cut a few of them shorter and inserted them into the pit, the tips facing up, flush with a row. He was permeated with an air of uncertainty.
Bulging Belly and Skilled Target saw and understood his meaning. They gave Bai Li a thumbs up, and followed his actions. In a short while, the three of them worked together to dig out a few pits filled with sharp sticks, so that if a small animal accidentally fell in, it would be more difficult for it to get out.
Skilled Target looked at the traps that had been topped with weeds and dry leaves as well as a shallow layer of soil, and shook her head with regret. “These animals that fell into the traps are not likely to be raised.”
They would be lucky not to die on the spot… As she said that, her face didn’t show sadness. She even thought that she had patted her belly while no one else was looking at her, but some saw and quickly looked away.
After another ten minutes, March and Shaded Nettle made a total of two wooden bows and arrows, two sets of slingshots, and five traps. Bai Li chose the slingshot as a tool. The five of them discussed it and the traps were placed in an inconspicuous corner. It was hard to place the traps around, and a little more than half an hour passed.
Skilled Target and the others went to the huge tree. A dozen meters away from the tree, they stopped. She pointed to the pit under the tree, and told them that was the rabbit hole.
Bulging Belly put his slingshot on his waist, with a burlap pocket full of rocks attached to the other side of his belt, rubbed his hands excitedly and was about to go forward when he was stopped by Bai Li.
“Wait, don’t go there yet. I remember an idiom of the Ancient Blue Star, called ‘three caves of a cunning rabbit.’ It means that a cunning rabbit will have several nests to hide in. These nests are connected under the ground, so that the rabbits can escape in time when they encounter danger. If this idiom is correct, there can’t be only one such rabbit nest around here. Why don’t we look around first and see if there are other rabbit holes?”
It was hard to make the tools and find the place, so the four naturally didn’t want their efforts to fall short. Although this was the first time they had heard about it, they were willing to believe Bai Li’s words, so without much hesitation they decided to search around carefully again.
The search was really exciting, and they actually found three other rabbit holes. One was under another tree nearby where the roots of the tree were covered by a thick circle of weeds. If March hadn’t used a long wooden stick to poke, they wouldn’t have known that the grass was actually empty under the leaves. One was in a gap in a pile of rocks, where if they hadn’t looked carefully, they wouldn’t have known that there was actually a cave inside. As for the last place, it was on the edge of a nearby stream, between the normal mud and the moist soil, and they almost didn’t find that place. They only saw it because they just happened to see half a rabbit leg exposed outside.
Bulging Belly and the others, “…” What a cunning rabbit!
“Li Bai, you’re amazing! How do you know all this?” Skilled Target looked at Bai Li adoringly. In her eyes, the big brother filter on Bai Li was several centimeters thick.
“It’s probably because I prefer to read history related to the ancient Blue Star on Starnet.” Bai Li explained. “Not only the history, but I also like to read the various stories and science knowledge of the Ancient Blue Star period. I read a lot and go for mixed content, and so I naturally know more things.”
When they heard Bai Li’s words, all four of them lowered their heads in embarrassment. They weren’t very fond of reading, and it was hard for them to imagine what Bai Li said. They didn’t know what to think. Therefore, they set a small goal in their hearts. When they had the opportunity, they would go to Starnet to look for some Ancient Blue Star related content.
Maybe they could find a new way to play the game from it!
When a seed was quietly planted, it would grow into a big tree in the future.
Bai Li’s casual reminder made those people unconsciously start to follow his lead. After that, they also chose to heed Bai Li’s advice, and looked for something to plug up the other few rabbit holes, then returned to the first rabbit hole. They collected a small pile of dry grass, put it at the side of the rabbit hole, then used a torch to ignite it, and finally used a large leaf to fan the rising smoke into the rabbit hole.
At first, there was no movement inside the cave. They weren’t discouraged, and continued to move their hands to fan the smoke into the cave. After about five minutes, at the nearest rabbit hole, Skilled Target’s eyes suddenly brightened. She quickly said, “There was a sound in the cave! The sound is getting louder! Belly, Nettle, quickly get ready. When the rabbits run out, catch them!”
Just as her words fell, a snow-white figure rushed out of the cave. It probably wasn’t expecting the cave entrance to have so many people squatting around it, so it didn’t pay attention. It actually ran straight into the arms of Bulging Belly, and made close contact, “ding!”, which knocked it unconscious.
Bulging Belly was dumbfounded as he held the unconscious rabbit. It had yet to wake up. He had not completely reacted, “This…This is caught?”
How could he be so naive? The rabbit was too easy to catch…They had made so many tools, but none as effective as a bunch of smoke.
Skilled Target and the others were dumbfounded. They gulped and were about to make a statement, when more movement came from the cave.
With the experience of the previous time, they didn’t need the reminder from Skilled Target. Shaded Nettle squeezed in next to Bulging Belly and stood at the entrance of the cave. Sure enough, in just a few blinks of an eye, a gray rabbit crashed into Shaded Nettle.
This wasn’t even the end. Perhaps it was because they had found a huge rabbit nest, they ended up with seven or eight rabbits. They could not bear to continue to fan the smoke inside, and slowly stopped. After they waited for five minutes to see if more rabbits would come out, it was officially the end of their first rabbit hunting operation.
“Hahaha! A big harvest! Ten rabbits! We can each share two!” March said happily. Bulging Belly and Shaded Nettle hurriedly took the caught rabbits out of their backpacks.
The two did as they were told, and the ten fainted rabbits were neatly arranged in two rows.
These rabbits were of all colors, white, black, gray, yellow, and a flowery, mixed color.
“Ah, this is the rabbit that hit me in the morning!” Skilled Target pointed to one of the snow-white rabbits and said, “I want this one. I don’t want the second one. The extra one you can share.”
The point she considered was that she had caught a rabbit to go back to raise. From the beginning to the end, just one was enough. Now that they had caught so many rabbits, so that each could have two, would one be for raising, the other for eating? She was also worried that this distribution would simply scare the hard to catch bunnies out of sight.
When they saw that she was insistent, the others could not say anything else, and finally the remaining rabbit was given to Shaded Nettle.
Three rabbits at once. Shaded Nettle gave them his naive assurance. “You don’t worry, I won’t waste them, and when I get back I will figure out how to make the rabbit meat more delicious. If I succeed, I will invite you to eat together!”
The group readily agreed.
The rabbit was successfully caught, but the tools weren’t used. March looked at the bow and arrows in her hand and asked, “What about these tools? We did not use them. It’s too wasteful, right?”
Just as she said this, a large colorful pheasant leapt out of a nearby bush, and the eyes of the crowd lit up. Instantly, they knew where to use these tools!
This forest not only had rabbits but this kind of small animal too.
