It took a stupidly long time for Calain to accept all of this. Even though his brain had already finished calculating the situation, his heart refused to accept it.
'The first penalty of the Predation ability. The "strong against the weak, weak against the strong" trait.'
You can kill a Hunter weaker than you and swallow all their EXP.
But against a Hunter stronger than you, you can't even land a single scratch.
Belsus obligingly opened his left hand right in front of Calain. The hand that had grabbed the blade aimed at my neck earlier was completely spotless, without a single scratch. Calain wavered at the sight of that slowly uncurling palm.
I carefully sealed away the chuckle threatening to escape my lips, laughing only on the inside.
'You just wasted your time completely.'
No matter how much lingering regret he had, he couldn't drag this out any longer. Calain himself knew that best.
'He's only here because he defied his return orders. In the game, he would have had to return to the royal palace by now, right?'
Calain's time here was up.
The arrogant knight's face distorted rapidly. And then—
"Aaaaaaargh—!"
A roar of uncontrollable rage tore through the air, aimed at the sky.
Losing his composure, the knight kicked the wall with his combat boot. Bang! The wall caved in, sending stone dust flying everywhere.
After throwing a fit for a few seconds, the knight suddenly stopped screaming.
Reverting to the terrifying, silent, cold-blooded knight, he glared at Belsus as if he wanted to kill him. Then, without breaking eye contact, he leaped upwards.
Calain had left.
'It... worked.'
Soon, only Belsus and I were left.
All the passersby had already fled the moment the commotion started, nowhere to be seen. A suffocating silence fell over us.
"...Should we head back?"
I was about to open the door to my subspace, pretending nothing had happened, but I stopped because Belsus was standing there stiff as a rock, his feet planted firmly together.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
Belsus took a step closer to me.
For a moment, my vision was overwhelmed, as if a massive mountain was standing in front of me. After carefully inspecting the back of my neck and the rest of my body, Belsus slowly lowered his hands.
"...I didn't know my place and dared to stand against you."
Sure enough, Belsus had reverted to his usual pushover self, walking on eggshells around me.
It was pretty chilling earlier. But now that his momentarily boiling emotions had cooled, his heart must have sunk, realizing what he'd done.
I thought I was the one who had messed up and should be walking on eggshells, but it was the other way around. Belsus was bowing his head and cowering like a sinner, acting as if I had already kicked him out.
"Let's just go back and eat first."
"I'm sorry. I don't deserve to go back."
Before I could even stop him, Belsus dropped to his knees.
Ah, seriously. How am I supposed to comfort him now?
Watching this man, who was technically former royalty, drop to his knees so easily created a severe cognitive dissonance when paired with the terrifying demon who had been roaring just moments ago.
I recalled that low, eerie voice from earlier.
"When you got mad... it was kind of, uh... thrilling."
Belsus stared at me blankly.
He was so taken aback that his jaw dropped, turning him into a statue. This expression... it was the exact same look the Archer gave me. A look that said, 'Is this guy crazy?'
"Ah, sorry. I wasn't trying to make fun of you. It's just that since you usually aren't like that, seeing you get angry made me think, 'Oh, he actually knows how to get mad?' and..."
The atmosphere turned incredibly awkward because he was so flustered. I hastily tried to salvage the situation by adding to my explanation.
"It felt good."
Nope, unsalvageable.
I gave up trying to coax normal words out of my mouth. Whatever. It'll be fine. Belsus is a pushover. He wouldn't abandon me just because his landlord seemed a bit weird.
---
—You didn't tell Calain that you had the same ability as him, right?
—Do I look like an idiot? Of course I hid it.
When the Archer first made contact with Calain, he didn't tell him they shared the same ability.
'You should know that's what saved your life.'
Calain would be incredibly anxious if he found out someone else had the exact same ability as him. He'd want to monopolize it. After all, it's a highly aggressive ability.
He would have just killed the weaker Archer right then and there, swallowing all his abilities and EXP.
Because he hid it, Calain didn't have much interest in the Archer.
'That's why you survived today.'
Even though the Archer was chased around for the crime of offending Calain, it wasn't a sin worth hunting him to the ends of hell for.
In other words, Calain was just looking for the Archer while he was already wandering around searching for Belsus. Belsus was the main target; the Archer was just a bonus.
Conclusion: when Calain gave up on Belsus and retreated for now, he naturally gave up on the Archer as well.
The Archer was finally able to leave the slums.
"Isn't your ability way too overpowered? Just feeding him one sandwich made that Calain... If people keep eating your food, do they keep getting weaker? Is that why you're weak, too?"
The Archer chattered incessantly as we walked side by side out of the slums.
I decided it was time to tell him the truth.
"It was a lie. The whole 'weakening people with food' thing."
In reality, the sandwich I gave Calain was just a completely normal sandwich.
I didn't have any skills to apply debuffs through food.
The Archer stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me in absolute shock. I shrugged.
"I'm a Farmer."
"Yeah, right. You're a Farmer!"
"A Farmer, not a Chef."
If I already had my farming abilities and food debuffs on top of that, it really would be broken. Belsus became stronger than Calain simply by eating well, sleeping well, and training on his own.
The only reason I lied was to give the Archer the courage to shoot Calain...
"T-Then, even if I had shot the arrow, it wouldn't have worked on Calain anyway! Since I'm weaker!"
I nodded emphatically. Vigorously up and down, nod.
"I was testing your courage."
"Does that even make sense?!"
Things worked out well, but instead of being grateful that I saved him, this punk kept whining.
That's right. I was testing the Archer.
If he had shot Calain, the arrow would have just bounced off the back of his neck because the sandwich didn't actually have a debuff, meaning Calain was still stronger than the Archer.
Then Calain would have been absolutely furious.
Once Calain earnestly marked the Archer as his prey, the terrified Archer would have had no choice but to rely on me. It would have been a great opportunity to make the Archer my slave.
'It's a shame he didn't shoot.'
Well, given his personality, I knew he wouldn't be able to shoot anyway.
I arrived at a village near the slums with the Archer.
Until the crops on my farm grew and we could be completely self-sufficient, I was maintaining a route to buy groceries from the outside. While I was helping the Archer in the slums, this village had served as a somewhat reliable source of food ingredients.
"This place is..."
The Archer spun around, taking in his surroundings after reading the village's name.
He recognized it correctly. This was a village that appeared in Belsus's route.
After defeating Calain, Belsus would drag his exhausted body out of the slums and rest here.
Although we couldn't properly explore it since we just bought a little food and scurried away, the village's atmosphere wasn't bad. However, beggars flocked here and raided it frequently. So, they needed defenses.
The Archer was stupid, but he wasn't completely incompetent. Even without me telling him, he casually went to meet the village chief and came back after having a chat.
—This is a place where beggars constantly swarm in and cause trouble... I was hoping you could help defend the village.
This was the proposal offered to Belsus in his route. The model answer is to decline it.
'Obviously. He'd be guilty of murdering Calain; working in a nearby village is basically screaming, "Come arrest me!"'
However, it was fine for the Archer to accept this quest.
I had bought him some neat clothes to replace his rags, and when he showed off his bow and arrows while claiming to be a hunter, the village chief was completely fooled.
Above all, the Archer's pale skin and sparkling blond hair oozed nobility, making him look quite extraordinary in a rural village like this. The chief thought the Archer was an expert and entrusted him with the village's security.
'Now he doesn't have to worry about making a living.'
Since he had secured a place to sleep and food, the Archer just needed to complete the quests available to combat classes and steadily level up.
Even though the situation had improved, the Archer still looked miserable, sighing heavily.
"Am I doomed...?"
It made sense that he felt bad about wasting his first week. He probably felt like he was falling far behind. And since he was separated from Calain, he must think everything was ruined.
'Well, I don't think so...'
Because the Predation ability was a terrifying, top-tier skill that could turn the tables at any given moment.
Therefore, even though the Archer was desperately giving me a look that said he wanted to stay with me, I didn't want to oblige.
The Archer knew it, too. That we were competitors. That only one of us could win and remain in this world.
And honestly... that he could easily overtake someone like me in no time.
I turned away, leaving the Archer behind to survive alone without a partner.
"Have a good life."
I was just going to my subspace, of course, and I wasn't actually leaving the area right away.
Naturally, a moment later, I regretted joking like I was never going to see him again.
"...Shit, are you really abandoning me...?"
Because when I looked back, the Archer was bawling his eyes out, completely ruining the view.
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