Chapter 29: Traits

Although her mother opposed them taking risks, Doya still insisted on learning hunting skills alongside her father.

Under her father’s guidance, Doya became an excellent hunter at a young age. She possessed agility and combat prowess far beyond her peers—abilities honed through years of battling wild beasts.

On the day Doya came of age, her father went deep into the mountains alone to hunt, intending to bring back a coming-of-age gift for her. Unfortunately, he encountered a rampaging pack of beasts and was killed by wolves.

In the end, Doya still received her coming-of-age gift—a snow-white baby ermine, delivered by villagers who had found her father’s body.

……

……

That’s right, it’s exactly the same as I remember…

Su You read over the information on these three NPCs again and again, finally coming to this conclusion.

Since it’s just like before, Su You naturally decided to analyze and choose the first special NPC to recruit using the same approach as last time.

……

Although these three NPCs have similar names, they actually have independent backgrounds and no relation to each other. As for why their names are so alike, players used to have all sorts of theories.

Su You didn’t care much about names, but she vaguely thought of a possibility… Maybe the developers were just too lazy to come up with different names.

It sounds a bit ridiculous, but it’s not impossible.

Now, it seems this data-driven world is also “too lazy to name things,” which is why you end up with Dolin, Domi, and Doya—names that sound like they could be siblings.

Putting aside the naming issue, let’s analyze the information at hand, starting with age.

Here, age isn’t given as a number, but as categories: child, youth, and later on, middle-aged and elderly.

Different ages affect the NPCs’ daily behavior. For example, younger NPCs are more likely to be impulsive and inexperienced, unable to handle problems on their own. Middle-aged and elderly NPCs don’t have these issues.

However, older NPCs have physical limitations due to age—they tire more easily and are more susceptible to negative conditions in special circumstances.

Teenagers and young adults don’t have these problems. They’re strong, energetic, and full of vitality in everything they do.

Of course, all of this is just a generalization about age differences.

Whether it’s Sunset Continent or this data-driven world, there’s a lot of freedom, and anything can happen.

Next is loyalty.

If talent is the stat that determines how useful an NPC is, then loyalty is the stat that determines whether you can use them at all.

No matter how amazing an NPC is, no matter how multi-talented, if they aren’t loyal enough to the player, you absolutely can’t keep them around.

Keeping them would be a hidden danger.

And because they’re so capable, they’re an even greater threat.

Normally, the lowest loyalty for NPCs on the recruitment list is 60. Sixty is the passing line—if they reach this number, it means the NPC will listen to Su You’s commands, as long as her orders are reasonable.

Loyalty isn’t fixed; it can go up or down. Favorability works the same way.

Loyalty and favorability may look similar, but they’re actually quite different.

Here’s an easy-to-understand example:

Suppose you want an NPC to chop wood and gather lumber. The way you phrase your request depends on the situation.

For an NPC with high loyalty but low favorability:

Player: “We need a batch of lumber to build up the territory. With this wood, our settlement will be much improved. I believe you’re a capable person who can contribute to our cause.”

For an NPC with low loyalty but high favorability:

Player: “Hey friend, I need some wood for a project, but I’m really busy right now and can’t get away. Could you help me gather some? You will? Thank you so much!”

Loyalty refers to devotion to the territory as a whole.

Favorability refers to how much the NPC likes the player personally.

In fact, favorability isn’t just about liking—it’s also a kind of personal “loyalty” to the player.

It might seem complicated, but as long as the NPC isn’t particularly odd, and as long as the player is a normal person, both stats aren’t hard to raise. So it’s not a huge issue.

Next is talent.

Talent is just what it sounds like—the higher the talent stat, the less time the NPC needs to learn related skills, the faster their proficiency grows, and the greater their capacity for innovation. So, the higher the talent stat, the better.

Normally, talent is determined at birth and can’t be improved later.

On the NPC info screen, only talents above 50 are displayed. If it’s below 50, that’s considered average, and the NPC will never advance beyond intermediate in that skill, so there’s no need to show it.

Corresponding to talent are skills.

All three NPCs have two trainable talents. Of the skills they currently possess, only Doya has two skills, and one of them is at a bottleneck—if you invest resources in her, she can quickly break through and become a combat-type NPC with intermediate archery.

NPCs can’t see these stats, so they don’t know what their talents are and can’t learn skills based on them.

For example, Domi’s highest talent is cooking, but she only has a beginner-level sewing skill.

Su You recruits special NPCs for their skills, so the mismatch between Domi’s talent and skill is enough for Su You to rule her out.

She doesn’t have a chef on hand to teach Domi cooking, so Su You needs NPCs whose skills match their talents.

What’s more, Domi has the [Reclusive] trait…

Traits can be understood as an NPC’s personality characteristics, usually shaped by their experiences.

For example, Dolin is highly talented as a carpenter, so he’s praised by others, which has made him arrogant and given him a tendency to become a “wasted prodigy.”

Domi and Doya: one was bullied as a child and dislikes interacting with strangers, so she’s “reclusive”; the other suffered trauma from her father’s death, resulting in certain “shadows”…

All of these are closely tied to their stories.

Traits can be good or bad, but they generally come in three colors. Most NPCs have one red negative trait and one green positive trait, or just a blue neutral trait.

Diligence, inspiration, courage, agility—these are all positive traits, as you can see from the descriptions.

As for neutral traits…"