Chapter 59: As Weak as a Kitten

Lyle, standing to the side, had long since stopped caring about Lake’s habit of blurting things out—or perhaps, he just didn’t want to care anymore.

Still, Lake wasn’t wrong. Since the two of them had agreed to this task, there was no way they’d bail halfway and desert—unless there really was some kind of monster near the mine that was completely beyond their ability to handle.

But, taking advantage of the moment, Lyle decided to talk to Su You about something concerning the two brothers… namely, that both of them wanted to join the territory.

Su You hadn’t expected Lyle to bring this up at a time like this, and she was briefly taken aback when she heard it. But she quickly gave her answer.

“You’ve seen the current state of the territory for yourselves. I don’t think there’s much more I need to explain. If you want to join, you’re more than welcome.” Su You had already guessed that the brothers would want to join, but she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

Still, that was fine. Sooner or later, it made no real difference.

Of course, joining the territory didn’t mean they’d get food and lodging for free. Anything that should be paid for would still require payment.

After all, they weren’t working for Su You for nothing—she paid them for all their labor, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to pay them and then also provide free room and board.

The same went for Dolly.

Right now, the territory was still small, with many things incomplete and no formal rules or systems in place. But eventually, basic currency circulation and market transactions would have to be established.

“That goes without saying. We just want to join the territory, not freeload off you for the rest of our lives.”

With that, both sides quickly came to an agreement, and Su You immediately received two notifications about new applicants to the territory.

[Wanderer ‘Lyle’ has applied to join Sunset Territory. Approve?]

[Wanderer ‘Lake’ has applied to join Sunset Territory. Approve?]

[Current territory population: 2/5]

The original population cap was three, but since Residential House 2 had been completed, the cap had increased to five. Once Su You approved the brothers’ applications, the population would become ‘4/5’.

Looking back, it was lucky she’d finished building the second house last night—otherwise, only one of them would have been able to join right now.

Thinking this, Su You approved both applications and opened their profiles for a quick look.

[Lyle]

Gender: Male

Age: Young Adult

Loyalty: 75

Affection: 70

Talents: Melee (75), Carpentry (70)

Skills: Basic Melee

Traits: Keen (possesses above-average observational skills)

Description: An outstanding forest adventurer. After an incident with his former adventuring party, he began to think, “Maybe living as an ordinary person isn’t so bad.” After discussing it with Lake, the two of them left the party.

[Lake]

Gender: Male

Age: Young Adult

Loyalty: 78

Affection: 75

Talents: Melee (85)

Skills: Basic Melee (bottleneck)

Traits: Strong (possesses above-average strength), Careless (prone to irrational actions due to personality)

Description: An outstanding forest adventurer. After an incident with his former adventuring party, he left the party together with Lyle.

…

Unlike the lengthy backstories Su You had seen for other characters, Lyle and Lake’s descriptions were extremely brief—just a single sentence. This surprised Su You a little, since she’d thought they might be special NPCs like Dolly and Doya.

But her surprise only lasted a moment. After all, she’d already seen so many changes and surprises that one more didn’t really matter.

An NPC’s story usually just explains the source of their skills and traits, and sometimes offers clues for recruiting them.

The first two pieces of information were optional—she didn’t really need to know why someone had a certain skill or personality trait.

The only real use for these stories was to help with recruitment. Later on, after building a special structure, she’d be able to view all of an NPC’s information even before they joined the territory.

But Su You didn’t have that building yet, and the brothers had already joined, so it didn’t matter now.

…

After Lyle and Lake joined the territory, Su You opened and closed every information panel she could access—hoping she might find some clue about the nature of this data-driven world.

Ultimately, it was those four hundred million-plus lines of deleted “floating data” that had left her so shaken.

Even though she hadn’t known any of those people, Su You’s mood was still affected.

She wasn’t really expecting to find anything; she just wanted something to do to take her mind off things.

Unsurprisingly, she didn’t find anything special in those information panels.

“Lord Su, we’ve both rested up,” Lyle said.

Hearing this, Su You nodded, closed all the panels, and stood up.

“Alright, let’s go.”

On the way to the mine, Lyle and Lake walked ahead and behind, flanking Su You like bodyguards.

Even though they’d already checked for ghost skeletons, there was no guarantee they hadn’t missed something—after all, ghost skeletons were tricky and not easy to spot.

And even if they really had wiped them all out, there was always the chance that a few more had wandered over while they were resting. It wasn’t impossible.

Fortunately, their luck held, and neither of the two bad scenarios occurred. The three of them reached their destination without incident.

When they finally stopped at the foot of the mine, none of them could quite believe how smoothly everything had gone.

Su You walked around the mine, surveying the area, then turned to the brothers. “Could I trouble you two to scout the area? If you run into ghost skeletons or other monsters, don’t rush to fight—just focus on reconnaissance.”

Lake didn’t hesitate and nodded right away, but Lyle seemed a bit reluctant, not moving immediately.

“Lord Su, are you sure it’s safe for you to stay here alone…?” It wasn’t that Lyle looked down on Su You—it was just that she really didn’t look like someone who could fight.

And, in fact, that was true. Su You wasn’t a combatant—at least for now, she really was as weak as a kitten."

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