Leopin, Popular With Everyone

When the wooden sword I had made split a rock in two, Tomoe was so shocked she stood there frozen in a daze.

Before long, she gazed at the blade of the wooden sword with eyes full of admiration.

“I-I cannot believe it…! That a wooden sword could even cut rock…! ‘Rock-Cutting’ is said to be one of the ultimate goals of a warrior…! And yet you accomplished it so effortlessly…!”

“Not bad, right?”

When I spoke to her, Tomoe shook her head hard, as if she had just had cold water splashed on her face.

She immediately leveled the tip of the wooden sword straight at me.

“Y-You… just what are you trying to do!? To show mercy to an enemy like me—such an insult!”

“I never thought of you as an enemy.”

“Silence! If I so wished, I could split your skull clean in two with this ‘Rock-Cutting Sword,’ you know!”

“Giving it a name already means you really like it.”

At that, Tomoe’s face flushed red like the evening sun.

“T-That is not…!”

“Well, whatever. Let me borrow it for a second.”

I took the wooden sword back from Tomoe and lightly carved an engraved signature into it with the knife I had on hand.

“Here, take it back.”

Seeing the engraved wooden sword, Tomoe melted all over again.

“I-It looks so cool…!”

She looked just like a young swordsman holding a blade for the first time.

“Take good care of it. See you.”

I turned my back to leave, but Tomoe stubbornly pressed on, shouting, “Wait!”

“What, do you still need something?”

“I do! I still have not heard the answer to my question!”

“What question was that again?”

“Why did you give me such a named… stick!? Answer me!”

“What, you were still worrying about that? It’s because you’re trying to protect Kotone.”

“What?”

“There are a lot of bad influences around Kotone, right? I figured a low-quality wooden sword wouldn’t be enough to protect her.”

“You are the worst offender of them all!”

“Maybe so. But right now, whether I’m a bad influence or not doesn’t matter. I just sympathized with your desire to protect Kotone. So I made that for you.”

With her face still tinged red, Tomoe clenched her back teeth, muttering, “Grrr…!”

She thrust her hand deep into the fold of her hakama and pulled out a booklet of Slave Tickets.

Tearing one off roughly, she slammed it against my chest.

“Take it.”

“That wasn’t my intention—”

“Take it! I refuse to owe you anything!”

Tomoe grabbed my hand, forced the ticket into it, and quickly turned away.

She looked back only once as she left.

“Do not get too close to Lady Kotone.”

Having said only that, she stomped away.

I watched her broad shoulders as she departed, holding a ticket with the face value “100,000” and a sharp-featured portrait of Tomoe printed on it.

“So it went from ‘never come near her again’ to ‘don’t get too close,’ huh…

I guess she acknowledged me a little.”

As I muttered to myself, my body was wrapped in that familiar light.

“Oh, a new job is Tamer, huh. That’s a completely unknown field for me.”

As I headed back to my home in the forest, I immediately tried changing jobs.

“Come to think of it, the forest is full of animals. Maybe I’ll try taming one right away. If I remember correctly, training is easier on animals with lower intelligence.”

I looked around the house and spotted a rabbit in the distance, twitching its nose.

I tried to approach quietly, but the moment a leaf rustled, it bolted away like a startled hare.

Without giving up, I tried getting close to birds, squirrels, deer, and the like, but no luck.

Since hunting is actively done in this forest—including by me—the animals here are extremely wary, making it hard to even approach them.

“I guess trying this all of a sudden won’t work… Now that I think about it, Tamers usually capture animals with traps, put them in cages, and slowly tame them over time.”

I changed jobs to Trapper.

Using tree branches, I quickly made a simple net cage.

Then, by propping it up with a branch wrapped in Daija Vine Thread…

I set the finished trap on a flat patch of ground near the house.

I scattered nuts beneath the net cage and set up the prop stick.

Holding the string attached to the prop stick, I hid in the grass.

After a while, a Meanbird glided down.

It pecked at the scattered bait, and when it stepped under the trap…

“Now!”

I yanked the string.

The net cage snapped shut, trapping the Meanbird inside.

I leapt out of the grass and slid in, pressing down on the cage from above.

Then I activated the Animal Training skill, shouting,

“Calm down!”

But no matter how much I tried, the Meanbird thrashed violently.

In the end, I gave up and let the Meanbird go.

With a laugh-like cry, it circled above my head.

“So training really is hard… What am I doing wrong? My stats should be more than enough…”

Only after muttering that did I finally realize it.

“That’s it! I don’t have enough Charisma! The success rate of training-type skills depends on Charisma!”

I immediately activated the Jack-of-All-Trades skill, Dexterous Body.

I dumped 3,000 points straight into Charisma.

Almost immediately after that—

…RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE…!

The ground around me began to quake.

An earthquake!? I thought, but I quickly understood the cause.

From all directions, every kind of forest animal imaginable came charging straight at me, eyes turned into hearts…!

“Oh no! I raised my Charisma way too high! The passive skill Animal Charm got way too strong! I-I need to change it back, fast…!”

But in the very next moment, I was completely buried under a pile of fluffy animals.