“Hey leader is the task list the same as usual?” A boy asked with bright smiling face.
“It is Tobin, just the usual: gathering, cleaning, and dismantling” replied Lunia
“Please tell me you have reserved a spot for me on dismantling task.” Answered Tobin with near crying face.
“I don’t know what’s between you and the dismantling task, but yes I have reserved a spot for you.”
“Thank you! I knew you were the best” answered Tobin while hugging her with his small frame.
Lunia is the one who runs this orphanage. She is a nice lady, compared to other villagers as she shares her food with starving orphans. Like other villagers she has a huge frame looking intimidating, but her face always carries a gentle smiling face. The task the orphan must fulfill regularly is separated in three basic categories: gathering, cleaning, and dismantling.
The gathering task is when a kid is given some certain items they must gather from outside the village wall. This includes, fruits, water, vines, branches, etc. The vines are usually left to dry a bit and made into straw blankets, pillows etc. or they can also be used by hunter to make a spear which is quite popular. The branches are usually gathered to have a bonfire for the dinner. The dismantling task is when kids are asked to help dismantle the beast brought in by the hunters weekly. This includes drying the meat, distributing the meat, tanning the leather as such the task is open throughout the week. The cleaning task is kids cleaning the waste from the village and washing it off from the small river to the village side. The cleaning items includes, human waste, outdated items, dead small animals like mouse. This is the most tasking of them all but cleaning task pays out the most food compared to other task so there is no lack of volunteer.
These three tasks are how orphans earn their food without anyone to depend onto. The cleaning task pays the most and gathering the least. There is also quota for each of the three tasks, so kids must come report to the leader(Lunia) for which task they want to do at beginning of the week, it is first come first serve although there is exception to some well-behaved kids like seen with Tobin.
Walking away while still carrying the smiling face, Tobin heads to certain part of the village. All there is left to do is finish the tanning and pickle the rest of the dry meat. The idea of pickling was introduced by Tobin, by simply hinting the technique to some smart villagers. The village already had pickling technique with using this world exotic fruit that contain the properties between lemon and vinegar and used it to pickle important vegetable items like bamboo roots. Through Tobin method they could now store meat instead of finishing all the meat but obviously Tobin was not given the credit as those smart thought this was their own idea. It is quite concerning how villagers could pickle vegetables but not meat. Looking at the ceiling with gems stuck in them giving off light Tobin thought, it’s almost like someone hypnotized them and limited their thinking. Tobin thought worryingly while still carrying his smiling face and heading toward his workplace. Although I haven’t felt anything influencing my thought, it is still concerning how everyone seem to be limited in their thinking.
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Reaching the house for dismantling purpose he made his way toward his workbench. The reason Tobin picked the dismantling task is to observe the difference between the beast of this world and animals of his previous worlds. This world beast has better skin defense and muscle were more compact. The forearm and leg muscle of the beast could twist so much which most likely was to generate explosive power. The beasts were clearly made for killing, with its sharp claws and canine teeth. The herbivorous creature was brought in the minority, but they had more dense skin and muscle focused in their legs for faster escaping. The organs were also like the animals from the earth, but another interesting thing he found was an organ near the heart which was not present in the animals from the earth. Tobin couldn’t figure out the usages for this organ but looking at the position it seems it is quite important as even the heart of the beast seems to be protecting it. The villagers treated this as something to crunch on as the outer layer were made of cartilage, but it also seems that the hardness of this organ to be different than other beast as some were as soft as leaf while other were as hard as bone. Tobin out of curiosity kept the one he thought was the hardest of them all and kept it with him all the time.
After finishing the work, he made his way outside the village and sneakily made his way toward the cave. The guard did see him but didn’t pay any attention because the kids were often in gathering task and were required to relieve themselves in down river. While walking sneakily he observed his surroundings. He couldn’t see any shadow of even a medium size beast, which were most likely cleared out by the hunting group. The fruit had strange pattern to them and gave off the smell of acidity of the lemon and tasted quite sour. Of course, Tobin didn’t try them himself but gave them to kids and observed their reaction. The flowers seem to be quite normal, but it might also be hiding somethings like the glowing blue flower in the cave. Overall, the feeling of the woods was quite similar like with earth but at the same time different.
After making his way toward the opening of the cave he looked at the surrounding to observe if anyone has been here during his leave. He did leave few indicators like fragile vines that would break off at contact with small amount of human force. Some dry leaf and wet soil. The good thing of this new home is that there is barely any wind flow as it is covered by a dome, and air circuits between the tree and the creature. After confirming that there was no break on his alarm system he made his way to inside the cave through the dense vines.
He laid his things near the water pond, mainly his upper leather cloth, his few emergency sharp rock and the strange beast organ on top of his pile. After stretching for a bit, he made his way toward a wall section of the cave. There was few spread out crack on the wall clear to see that it was meant as training for Tobin. After readying his stance, he throughs his strongest punch in his usual spot, middle of the crack.
Bam!
Along with the sound came couple of decent size stones flying off from cave wall. One large piece flew toward his pile of stuff, and hit the strange organ knocking it toward the pond water.
Plop!
Real Name: Tobin
Code Name: Undecided
Looks: Blue buzzcut hair, Purple (almost red) eyes
Age: 7 years old
Occupation: Orphan (public); Assassin (secret)
Last location: Cave near village of Wood-Walkers
Track record: None