10 Catching a F**king Rabbit and Meeting Villagers

During my watch other than practicing my Renewal Taekwondo as normal, I also paid attention to my heartbeat trying to keep it as slow and steady as possible.

It is a lot harder than it seems you know!? Try exercising and see what that does to your heart rate. But I did make some progress.

I was confident that tomorrow I would hunt at least 1 rabbit so god help me.

The next day after Barry woke up, I immediately headed back to the forest to catch a fucking rabbit. I was humiliated that someone like me couldn't catch even 1.

So when I saw my first rabbit I approached it carefully. When I was 10 meters away it didn't notice me like last time. As I got closer however I got excited and the rabbit heard that and dashed away.

I was so fucking close. I was only 7 meters away from killing that shit. But I calmed down, anger would only serve to make my heartbeat even more noticeable.

So I looked for another rabbit. This one escaped as well but this time only after I got 6 meters closer to it. I was improving.

But as the day went on I still hadn't caught a rabbit yet. It was around 1 am when I managed to catch my first rabbit. I was so resigned that I couldn't catch one that I wasn't excited when I got close.

So when I got close I didn't get excited. Due to that, I could get close enough to catch the rabbit. But when I tried to catch another rabbit my excitement that I could catch them caused me to constantly fail.

As so went the day, I managed to catch another one but that was mostly by chance. When it turned dark I headed back to camp.

Barry was sitting there looking at the stars. I asked him, "What, no rabbits today?"

He smiled and said, "Bullets and gunpowder are expensive, you know. Can't expect me to use one of my 4 remaining bullets to catch a rabbit."

He turned to me and seeing the 2 rabbits I held said, "Oh managed to finally catch some rabbits. It is nowhere near the 10 you promised yesterday."

I flushed in embarrassment, "It is hard OK!? Tomorrow, Tomorrow is the day I will catch 10 rabbits!"

He said, "Ok, ok, I believe you."

During the next few days, I kept trying to catch rabbits, improving both my speed, perception, and control over my emotions.

After a week I could now consistently catch 10 rabbits. Barry after seeing that said, "Oh you finally did it. 1 week after you said you could."

Despite his jest, I was beaming with joy, I had finally conquered the rabbit menace. He seemed to understand my joy and said, "While hunting 10 rabbits is great, we can't eat that much."

I nodded. It was true that at most I could eat 3 and Barry 1. So Barry continued, "What if we traded some of the meat to the villagers close to the jungle. I am sure they can pay us."

I tilted my head and asked, "What would we want from them?"

He said, "I don't know. But it is better than just wasting perfectly good food."

I agreed with him and agreed to try to sell the meat to the surrounding villages.

The next day after we woke up Barry took 6 rabbits and said, "Let's go, I want to reach a village before midday."

I quickly followed him and said, "Do you know any villages here?"

He said, "Yeah I do. As a water runner, those were my first stops when selling water. Some of my contacts are probably still kicking around there as well."

I nodded and we went off on our way to the nearest village. On our way there I thought about how I was supposed to join the CP9. I had been kind of ignoring it because I didn't know how to get them to notice me.

So I thought, the system wouldn't make joining the CP9 impossible, there should be a way to allow players to gain their attention. What did the system say, try and stand out?

That's a lot of shit. I don't think that'll help, too vague. Then I thought about what I could do to "stand out". Then I remembered Barry talking about the Shark Eaters gang.

He said that he didn't know where their guns and ammunition were coming from. Was it from a CP agent? If so, wouldn't beating the crap out of them be enough for them to notice me?

It would definitely be hard but by my estimates, in a few months, I should be good enough at Renewal Taekwondo that taking on 100 men with guns should be possible.

As I was ruminating in my thoughts about how to take down the Shark Eater's gang we finally reached a village.

At that distance, I saw a man with a crude spear yell, "Halt you are approaching Spring Village what business do you have here?"

Barry yelled back, "My name is Barry. I used to run water here a few years back. I am just back to do some trading. If a man named Warren is around you can ask him to vouch for me."

The guard seemed conflicted for a moment before saying, "Ok, wait here will I confirm with healer Warren if what you say is true."

We waited for a while before the guard came back with an old man that looked around the same age as Barry. He smiled at Berry and said, "Why if it isn't Barry, how are you still kicking around?"

Berry laughed and said, "Well it wasn't easy you know. Not all of us were blessed with learning useful skills before we got thrown in this trash heap. If I knew how to heal, life wouldn't be half as hard as it is now."

They bantered and continued trading barbs at each other and reminiscing about the good old days. My attention drifted away and I noticed the guard with the spear had gone back to his post.

After an hour Barry finally got to the point, "Oi Warren. Do you still have problems with food around here?"

Warren sighed and said, "When don't we have food problems? There is always too little food and too many mouths to feed."

Barry smiled and said, "Well I got the solution for you."

He pulled the bag off his shoulder and showed Warren the 6 rabbit corpses. Warren with surprise written all over his face asked, "How did you catch these?"

Barry pointed to me, "Got myself a helper. He may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but damn if he ain't fast and strong."

Warren who had been ignoring me the past hour finally took a good look at me. "So," he said, "This kid caught a sharp-eared rabbit. Truly impressive for his age."

Then went back to talking, this time negotiating on the price. After a while, we gave the rabbits to Warren and walked back with 2 actual mattresses to sleep on for tonight.

I hummed happily on the way back. I could finally get a good night's sleep. Granted these aren't the best mattresses in the world but they're better than the ground.

So we closed the night in good cheer and I slept that night better than any time since I had entered this world.