Chapter 40: Boar Tusks

Even though she put her heart into cooking every time, the results were always less than satisfactory...

So, to avoid wasting food, cooking duties within the caravan were completely taken away from her.

Seeing Dolly’s odd expression, Su You realized that when she said she “couldn’t” cook, it probably wasn’t as simple as just not knowing how.

“It’s fine. From now on, I’ll just prepare the food and leave it by the central fire. You can help yourself whenever you need it... Boiling water shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Su You could handle the cooking—after all, for her, cooking was just a matter of tossing ingredients onto the right workbench.

But water was another story. The daily consumption was quite high, especially with more people around.

Most importantly, water needed cups as containers, and Su You didn’t have time to make too many cups for now... at least not yet.

“No problem!” Dolly nodded quickly.

Boiling water was about as simple as it got—it didn’t even really count as cooking.

She might have the impressive ability to turn meat into charcoal, but no matter how talented she was, there was no way she could burn water into a cinder.

Su You nodded and motioned for her to go about her business. Dolly went to fetch the roast meat Su You had just prepared, and after eating, she grabbed a stone knife and headed out to collect fiber.

“The boar’s been dealt with.” As soon as Dolly left, Doya walked over.

“Thanks.” Su You looked at the pile of loot on the ground, ready to start sorting. Halfway through, she suddenly spotted something.

[Boar Tusk]

Category: Material

Quality: Blue

Attributes: Sharp (25%), Durable (50%)

Description: Sharp and sturdy boar tusks, can be used as material for crafting equipment and items. Crafted products have a chance to gain Sharp and Durable attributes.

Sharp: Increases attack power of the finished product.

Durable: Increases defense and durability of the finished product.

...

Su You’s eyes lit up. As she sorted the remaining materials into the storage box, her gaze swept over the items, searching for a second boar tusk.

“Just as I thought, there are two.” Boar tusks usually come in pairs—if you find one, there’s almost always a second.

Of course, there’s a small chance otherwise—maybe the boar only had one tusk, or perhaps the other was damaged during collection, like that tattered animal hide Su You found earlier.

But given how tough boar tusks are, the second scenario is pretty unlikely.

With these boar tusks, Su You could craft a beast tooth dagger with attack power and efficiency on par with iron tools.

But making a beast tooth dagger wasn’t easy. To craft it, she’d need an intermediate workbench, which required quite a lot of stone... about sixty pieces of rubble.

The intermediate workbench needed [Plank x5, Stone Brick x5], and each stone brick = 4 stone = 12 rubble.

According to Su You’s plan, she’d head out tomorrow to look for a stone quarry.

The local quarry was just that—a quarry. It was mostly stone, with only a slim chance of finding ore or ore scraps.

Although ore was rare, the quarry was relatively safe.

At least, safer than a mine.

Still, to be on the safe side, Su You needed to use the animal hides to craft herself a set of gear. That way, her defense would be higher, and she wouldn’t lose too much health if she got attacked by something she couldn’t dodge.

Besides that, she also needed a map.

A map would show everywhere she’d been, and display her current location.

Since her activity range was still pretty small, she could get familiar with the area just by walking around a few times, even without a map.

But if she was going to look for a quarry, that was a whole different distance.

Su You wasn’t bad with directions, but just in case, a map was still necessary.

The materials for a map were simple: [Paper x5, Charcoal x5].

Paper was made from bark—2 bark = 1 paper, so 10 bark = 5 paper. She’d already collected bark when chopping trees that morning.

As for charcoal, that was even easier—she still had over ninety pieces left from the ninety-nine dropped by the Fire Demon leader.

So besides the map and gear, Su You also needed a signpost to mark locations on the map, and some food...

...

As she finished sorting the boar loot, Su You had already mapped out her plans for tomorrow and what she needed to prepare today.

Dolly was still out gathering fiber, while Doya, with nothing else to do, had taken out the broken bow and a clean cloth and was now cleaning the bow.

After sorting the boar drops, Su You started turning all the meat into jerky or roast.

Small Jerky (uses: Small Meat x1): Hunger +20, keeps for three months.

Large Jerky (uses: Large Meat x1): Hunger +50, keeps for three months.

Berry Roast (uses: Small Meat x1, Berries x2, Leaves x3): Hunger +50, keeps for five days.

Deluxe Roast (uses: Large Meat x1, Berries x3, Leaves x5): Hunger +100, keeps for five days.

These four recipes were the most common, practical, and easiest to gather ingredients for in the early stages. Su You divided everything up accordingly, and set up a separate campfire for cooking.

With two cooking workbenches, food production efficiency shot up.

While waiting for the food to cook, Su You opened the territory information panel... Come to think of it, it had been almost a day since she established her territory, and she hadn’t even checked her territory info yet.

[Unnamed Territory]

Lord: Su You

Territory Level: Small Camp (Can be upgraded to Intermediate Camp when population reaches 5 and Prosperity reaches 20)

Territory Prosperity: 1 (A value representing the prosperity of the territory, mainly affected by population, resident status, building level and quantity, etc.)

Territory Reputation: 0 (Represents the territory’s fame on the continent; the higher the reputation, the more people will be drawn to it)

Territory Population: 1/1 (Current population/maximum capacity; capacity can be increased by building more housing)

Territory Aura: Initial Protection

Territory Events:

I: [A dark force seems to be quietly approaching...]

II: [Some wanderers are searching for a suitable place to settle...]

...

The territory info panel was large and detailed, but basically the same as before. Even if there were differences, they were for features not yet unlocked."

"41. Fate Events

Since this section was still locked, Su You couldn’t see it, so she didn’t plan to explore it in advance.

This information panel, from top to bottom, starts with the name... After creating her territory earlier, Su You had gotten distracted by the building cards and completely forgot about this.

But it didn’t really matter—naming the territory wasn’t that important. Whether you had a name or not was up to personal preference.

Su You herself didn’t care much about territory names, so she simply reused the name from her previous territory—Sunset.

That’s right, her previous territory was also called Sunset Territory.

There wasn’t any special reason for the name; she was just too lazy to come up with something new, so she used the name of the Sunset Continent and changed her territory’s name to Sunset as well.

[Confirm changing territory name to ‘Sunset Territory’?]

[Kind Reminder: The territory name can only be changed once. Please choose carefully.]

After checking that the name was correct, Su You confirmed the change.

[Territory name has been changed. Relevant information has been updated.]

Just like when she upgraded her backpack, the backpack interface closed during the upgrade. After changing the territory name, the territory interface also closed.

When Su You opened it again, the panel now displayed [Sunset Territory].

As for the other information, aside from the territory reputation increasing from ‘0’ to ‘1’, nothing else had changed.

“You actually get a bit of reputation just for changing the name?” Su You hadn’t noticed this before, because she never realized you could name your territory. By the time she discovered the renaming feature, her territory had already been upgraded to a ‘Large Village’.

At that point, her territory reputation was already in the hundreds, so such a minor change was impossible to notice unless she was specifically looking for it.

Next was the territory level.

There are six levels of territory: Camp, Village, Town, Township, City, and Capital.

Each level is divided into several stages. For example, Camp is split into Small Camp, Medium Camp, and Large Camp. Once you reach Large Camp, you can upgrade to Village, and so on.

Her previous main account had successfully upgraded the territory all the way to ‘Capital’.

She’d even heard rumors that there was a level above Capital, but she never saw the seventh level before the game company shut down.

Su You didn’t know if this data-driven world had designed that final level... but that was something to worry about later, not now.

Aside from these, the other information on this interface was also quite important.

For example, Territory Prosperity and Territory Reputation—one is a key value for upgrading the territory, the other represents the territory’s fame on the continent and affects the quality of NPCs.

The higher your reputation, the more powerful NPCs will be attracted to your territory on their own, without needing to be recruited...

Territory population is self-explanatory—right now, it’s just Su You herself.

Then there’s the Territory Aura and Territory Events. The former displays the ‘Initial Protection’ aura Su You mentioned earlier, which lasts for three days. During these three days, the territory is invincible.

Finally, there are Territory Events, also called ‘Fate Events’. These refresh from time to time to inform the player about possible upcoming events.

For example, the first one:

I: [A dark force seems to be quietly approaching...]—this refers to the dark creatures’ attack on day ten.

The second one:

II: [Some wanderers are searching for a place to settle down...]—this is a random event that appears after building the bulletin board. When this event is present, it means wandering NPCs will soon arrive at the territory.

The ‘Wanderers’ event appears randomly and lasts for an uncertain amount of time. Once all the NPCs triggered by this event have arrived (regardless of whether they join), the event disappears.

After it disappears, it will reappear again after a while.

Seeing that Event II hadn’t disappeared yet, Su You knew that at least one more NPC would arrive today or tomorrow... This was just based on experience—there was no fixed pattern.

...

After checking the territory information, Su You opened the building list. She casually flipped through it, marked a few buildings, and began preparing materials for one of them.

The three buildings she needed most right now were: Basic Farmland, Quest Hall, and Warehouse.

[Basic Farmland]

Cost: Wooden Fence*10, Fence Gate*2, Ash*20

Required Tool: Shovel

Construction Time: 120 minutes

Building Condition: Must be built on loose soil

Description: A plot of land for growing plants. Due to limited conditions, only low-level crops can be planted.

[Quest Hall]

Cost: Wooden Plank*10, Marble Brick*5, Stone Brick*5

Required Tool: None

Construction Time: 300 minutes

Building Condition: Must first build a Bounty Board

Description: A place to accept or post quests. After merging with the Bounty Board, you can activate Regional Bounties (meaning all factions within a certain range can see your posted bounties—the higher your reputation, the wider the range and the higher the response rate).

...

These two buildings are essential in the early stages because they are key to a territory’s development and prosperity.

Take farmland, for example.

Farmland is one of the few buildings that can continuously generate prosperity.

Other buildings increase prosperity by a fixed amount when constructed, but farmland’s prosperity is calculated based on its output.

In other words, as long as you can keep planting and harvesting, prosperity will steadily rise with each harvest.

Although the increase isn’t huge, it’s the most stable way to boost prosperity.

If you want to increase prosperity through buildings and population, it takes a lot of materials and time, since no building is free.

Gathering materials takes time, and construction takes time. Compared to that, farmland is much more stable and effortless.

After all, once you’ve planted your crops, you don’t need to do much—just water and weed occasionally... That’s much easier than collecting building materials.

Then there’s the Quest Hall. Its main function isn’t to accept or post quests, but to enable Regional Bounties.

If you only need the first two functions, the Bounty Board is enough—you don’t need to spend extra materials to build a Quest Hall.

Regional Bounties basically mean you can use the Quest Hall as a kind of ‘networked’ platform."

"42. New Labor

When Su You posted a bounty, it wasn’t just visible to people in her own territory—anyone from other territories or factions could see it too, as long as they had a Construction Task Hall. In the absence of a post station, the Task Hall served as a sort of substitute. The downside, however, was that with low reputation early on, even if you posted a bounty, no one would see it.

Or, even if someone did see it, your reputation was so low that people wouldn’t trust you. They’d worry that they wouldn’t get what was promised, so they wouldn’t bother coming.

Still, despite its flaws, the Task Hall was a necessary building. After all, Su You remembered she still had an unclaimed reward waiting for her there.

As for the third building, the warehouse, there was no need to explain. With Duoya’s latest haul of game and the sudden appearance of wild boars, the space in Su You’s two wooden crates was almost gone. Building a warehouse had become a necessity.

Although Su You didn’t have enough materials to build the Task Hall or warehouse just yet, she had no problem setting up a few fields.

According to her plan, she intended to build four fields for now. All four would be located a short distance from the territory’s entrance, near a small stream, making watering much more convenient.

Building four fields would use up 40 wooden fences, 8 fence gates, and 80 units of ash. Aside from the ash, all the other materials needed to be crafted. Fortunately, Su You had enough raw materials, so all she needed to do was make another basic workbench to split up the workload and speed up efficiency.

Fields were considered semi-manual construction, so while the materials were being prepared, Su You grabbed a shovel and headed to the designated area to start turning the soil.

She had to dig up the entire area from end to end, as only then would it meet the standards for building farmland.

She thought it would take her the whole afternoon, but to her surprise, the labor force she’d been hoping for arrived much sooner than expected.

……

……

“Hello, the two of us are forest explorers. We ran into some trouble during our expedition… We were hoping we could stay here for a while. Here’s our lodging fee.” The disheveled young man pulled a coin pouch from his belongings and handed it to Su You.

She glanced inside—fifteen copper coins in total.

“We’ve lost most of our possessions. This is all we have left… If needed, we’re willing to work in exchange for a place to stay,” the other young man explained a bit awkwardly.

They knew what they were offering was far too little, but it was all they had. If they weren’t truly desperate, they wouldn’t have come to this.

Their biggest worry was that Su You would turn them away. After all, as forest explorers, they knew better than anyone how dangerous the forest could be at night.

Fortunately, Su You’s attitude wasn’t as harsh as they’d feared—there was room for negotiation.

“You can see for yourselves, conditions here are limited. If you want to stay, I can only guarantee your safety.” In other words, they could stay, but they’d have to figure out their own food and lodging.

Her answer was already better than the two had expected.

Out here in the wilderness, just having a place to rest was already a blessing. They weren’t expecting good food or comfortable beds… They just wanted to survive, not live in luxury.

So, as if afraid Su You would change her mind, both nodded eagerly.

“Thank you, thank you… You must be the lord here, right? If there’s anything you need help with, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Su You could tell from their behavior that they weren’t faking it, and she was fairly satisfied, though she didn’t show it.

“I’ll take your money. You can stay here for two days. After that, it’s ten copper coins per day.” At these words, the two men’s faces showed obvious distress.

They’d already said this was all they had. If she wanted more money, they really didn’t have any.

But Su You’s next words put them at ease.

After noting their expressions, Su You pointed to the bounty board and added, “I know you don’t have any money right now, but as long as you’re willing to work, you can earn money by completing tasks.”

At a rate of ten copper coins per person per day, the two of them would need twenty copper coins a day—forty for two days. The fifteen coins they’d given wouldn’t even cover a single day.

Still, whether it was to build goodwill or to avoid pushing them too hard, Su You gave them two days’ grace.

After all, she didn’t just want them to stay temporarily—she hoped they’d join the territory for good.

She could afford to be a little lenient, but only a little. She couldn’t support two people for free, so payment was still required. If they didn’t have money, labor would do. They’d already said they were willing to work.

Two days should be enough for them to earn their keep, as long as they weren’t lazy.

And these two days weren’t just for them to earn money—they were also Su You’s chance to observe them.

She didn’t know them well yet and couldn’t decide whether to keep them on. Plus, the territory’s population cap was limited, so she could wait until after two days to make a decision.

“As for food, if you really can’t find any, you can buy it from me.”

With the wild boar and the pile of game Duoya had brought in, plus the fields Su You was preparing, the territory had plenty of food—certainly enough for two more people.

“Thank you, thank you, my lord… Oh, right, we forgot to introduce ourselves. I’m Lyle, and this is my brother Lake. If there’s nothing else, we’ll go take a look around.”

Su You nodded slightly to show she understood. Before the brothers reached the bounty board, she posted several tasks:

[Build Farmland]

Posted by: Lord

Task: Use a shovel to turn the soil within the designated area (0/4)

Reward: 10 copper coins

[Collect Stones] (Repeatable)

Posted by: Lord

Task: Submit stones (0/1)

Reward: 1 copper coin

[Collect Branches] (Repeatable)

Posted by: Lord

Task: Submit branches (0/20)

Reward: 1 copper coin"

"43. Nature’s Gift

[Collect Wood] (Repeatable)

Posted by: Lord

Quest Objective: Submit wood (0/5)

Quest Reward: Copper Coin x1

……

Aside from the very first quest, which can only be accepted once, all the other quests are repeatable. As long as you have the required items, you can keep turning them in.

Unless Su You manually withdraws a quest, or the rewards she’s stored for it on the bounty board run out, the quest will disappear automatically.

Even though Su You wasn’t standing by the bounty board, she still received notifications when the brothers Lyle and Lake accepted quests.

[Notification: Wanderer Lyle has accepted the quest ‘Build Farmland’.]

[Notification: Wanderer Lake has accepted the quest ‘Collect Wood’.]

[Please place the corresponding tools in the linked storage building and wait for the quest taker to pick them up.]

Since the two wooden chests she had weren’t enough, Su You used some wood to craft another one, placing it next to the bounty board. Inside, she put not only the tools needed for the quests, but also the quest rewards.

Within the territory, NPCs can only use buildings if Su You grants them permission—whether it’s using the hearth to cook, opening the fence gate, entering the tavern, or opening a chest.

So she didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing or causing trouble.

Plus, this third chest was now linked to the bounty board, so the tools and rewards inside would automatically unlock for whoever accepted or completed the quest.

On top of that, when NPCs finished collecting resources and turned them in, the system would automatically store their submissions in this chest, greatly reducing Su You’s workload.

……

Lyle, who had accepted the farmland-building quest, was now heading to the spot where Su You had previously been turning the soil, shovel in hand, ready to take over. Maybe because he was an adventurer, he worked quickly and efficiently—what took Su You ten minutes, he could finish in about half the time.

Lake, after accepting the wood-collecting quest and picking up an axe, chatted briefly with Lyle before leaving the territory with the tool.

But perhaps out of concern for wild beasts, he didn’t go too far. Even though Su You couldn’t see him, she could still hear the sound of his axe striking trees.

To prevent the axe from breaking and disappearing due to durability loss while the NPCs used it, Su You had also stocked the chest with plenty of whetstones.

With these, whenever a tool’s durability dropped to its last point, it would automatically consume a whetstone from the chest to repair itself.

With everything prepared and the two working diligently, Su You suddenly found herself with much less to do.

With no more physical labor required, Lord Su glanced at the growing pile of fiber scraps in the chest, momentarily surprised, then took them all out.

First, she crafted some rope, then combined it with animal hides to make leather jackets and pants.

While she was working, Dolly returned with another batch of fiber scraps.

“All right, this is enough fiber. You can take a break now.” Now that Dolly was back, Su You handed over the rope-making and leatherworking tasks to her, while she herself picked up a stone knife and started making wooden cups.

She made seven in a row, and with the three she’d made earlier, she now had ten and stopped.

“I’m heading out for a bit. Keep an eye on them for me, will you?” By “them,” Su You naturally meant Lyle and Lake.

Although she didn’t fully trust Dolly either, since she hadn’t officially joined the territory, Su You still trusted her more than the two brothers.

Hearing this, Dolly looked a little worried and seemed like she wanted to say something, but in the end, she just nodded.

“Okay, my lord. Be careful.”

“Oh, and take these.” Su You handed Dolly the wooden cups she’d just made. “Boil some water and keep it ready. Don’t drink unboiled water—it’s not safe.”

“I’ll get right on it.” Dolly nodded and took the cups to the stream.

Watching her fetch water, Su You took out a pile of roasted berries she’d prepared earlier from the chest, along with several large portions of berry-roasted meat.

If Doya were here, she’d notice that the amount of meat Su You was taking was nearly two-thirds of what that wild boar had yielded.

It was only because this was a digital world and Su You had an inventory system that she could carry a hundred or two hundred pounds of meat by herself. Otherwise, it would have been impossible.

Even if she could carry it, it wouldn’t be safe.

But with an inventory, she didn’t have to worry.

Su You packed all the food into her bag, grabbed her pickaxe and stone knife, and left the base.

……

……

“Looks like this is the ‘crime scene’ where the wild boar died.” Su You once again arrived at the stone monster spawn point.

In just half a day, the place had become a mess. The surrounding trees bore clear marks of a wild animal crashing through, and there were even bloodstains at the spot where she’d previously mined sandstone.

Based on her earlier suspicions, the wooden cup was the one she’d filled with berry juice and left for the mysterious creature that traded food for stones with her. Ruling out a series of highly unlikely coincidences, Su You had every reason to believe this was the same cup.

If that was the case, then the wild boar was probably killed by that mysterious creature too.

It killed the boar and delivered it to her territory... She wasn’t sure if it was just passing by by chance, or if it had been secretly following her, spying on her and discovering the location of her territory in the process.

Either way, when it came to “gifts from nature,” Su You always made a point to reciprocate—which was why she’d brought so much food here.

Never mind giving away two-thirds of the meat—even if she gave it all, she wouldn’t be at a loss, since it was a windfall anyway. Besides, the most valuable part of the boar was actually its tusks.

Not to mention, such a large wild boar had also provided Su You with a good amount of leather.

Since she didn’t know where the mysterious creature lived, Su You came to this old spot. Now that she’d found traces of the boar’s death here, she had every reason to believe this was a place the creature frequented.

So, Su You took out all the roasted meat and berries she’d brought and laid them out at the usual spot."

"Here is a fluent, natural English translation of your text:

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