It actually doesn't take too long for Zoro and Torao to leave that town. A year after that talk, they leave that town and go to a bigger town. They join a caravan after paying with the money they've collected for more than 3 years.
But life in that bigger town is not as good as they thought. There are just too many problems in that town. They soon know that the town's mayor is exploiting almost everything here and no one can do anything because he has the support of the Lightning Daimyo as he is the daimyo's relative.
Don't want to get involved in messed up problems, Zoro and Torao leave the town after just staying there for a few days. They decide to go to a farming village quite far from the towns instead of going to another town.
Their experience in that big town made them realize they prefer a peaceful place. So a farming village should be a better place for them now. Staying in a peaceful place like a village will allow them to do a lot of things without much worries.
The village they choose as their new home is close to a mountain. There's a big river near the village and a big forest on the other side of the river that spans to the top of the mountain. That means they can use their hunting skills to secure food and make money.
Unsurprisingly, the village doesn't have many people. A lot of people from this village left to find jobs and live in big towns or even cities. The ones left here are mostly old people. There aren't a lot of young families here, so there are only some children too.
The villagers are welcoming Zoro and Torao, although they are quite sceptical about letting a young child and a cat live alone. Rather than worrying that they might have bad reasons, the villagers are more worried whether both of them can even do things by themselves.
"Please don't worry about us. We have hunting experience because we often hunted with my father before he passed away."
Both of them have prepared a backstory about why they live by themselves. The backstory is Zoro being a hunter's son, but his father died some weeks ago. His mother has died years ago and now he only has Torao.
Living in a town by himself is difficult because a lot of things are expensive there, especially the apartment rent. So he decided to go to a village with his cat to live there where the housing is cheaper and he can get food from the wild.
"Um, is there any small house or even just a room for me to rent? If not then I can make a camp."
"What are you saying?! A camp? Do you want to live in the open?"
"W-well, we often made camps when it was too late to go back to town. So we will be fine."
"No! That's not okay. Even if there is no empty house, we won't let a child like you live in a tent here."
"A-alright, thank you, sir."
"Sigh, there are some empty houses in this village actually. Their owners have passed away and their children who were supposed to inherit the houses have gone to the cities. But are you sure you want to live alone?"
"I won't be alone. Torao will live with me. Besides, we are used to doing daily chores ourselves, so we will be fine."
"Haha, you're right, you have your cat friend with you. Well, there's a small house that you can use. Its previous owner was also a hunter that still hunted even when he got old. He passed away 4 years ago and told us we can use anything he had as we please because he didn't have children or relatives. We have taken a number of things we needed, but there are still a lot of things there, especially hunting equipment. You can just use that house and everything there, no need to pay rent. I'm sure he would be happy if his tools were used to hunt instead of being left to gain rust in that house."
"Are you sure I don't need to pay?"
"Yeah, but that house is at the outskirts of the village, quite far from other houses because of his job as a hunter, so he preferred being close to the forest. How about we check it first before you decide?"
"Yes, please."
They go to the house and it's really a rather small wooden house. Well, the previous owner lived alone here, so he didn't need a big house.
"It's dirty here because no one lived here for 4 years, so you will need to do some cleaning."
"No problem. Cleaning is not a difficult job for me because I used to do it."
"How about doing it tomorrow? I can ask the villagers to help you clean this place. You can stay in my house for tonight."
"It's alright. I have been resting in the carriage for hours, so I want to move my body. I'll at least clean the bedroom today and will continue tomorrow if I'm not done cleaning the whole house today."
Well, turns out cleaning this house isn't as easy as Zoro thought. There is a lot of dirt and trash in every room. Some unwanted creatures like rats and roaches even live here, so there are a lot of their excrement everywhere, making the smell quite unbearable.
They don't want to live with rats, so Torao is doing a very important task, hunting rats. Torao hunts the rats in the whole house while Zoro is cleaning the bedroom. They can't do much about the roaches for now, so they just focus on the rats and cleaning.
One day is not enough to clean this whole house even if it's small. Zoro has cleaned the bedroom, but he still doesn't want to sleep inside with the other rooms still dirty. So he builds a tent outside the house using the secondhand small tent they bought.
They continue cleaning the next day and the villagers actually come to help. The village chief really asked them to help clean the house. With their help, the house gets cleaned very fast and they even give Zoro some items like futon, tableware, kitchen tools, and even warm food.
He thanks them and promises to give them meat after he hunts. The villagers are very kind to him that it makes Zoro feel strange about it because he almost never receives such kindness. That's why now he is wary of the villagers, worried that they have ulterior motives.
It can't be helped that he is being vigilant because he has lived a very rough life. Also, there's no way he can trust people he has just seen immediately. Torao also feels the same. The villagers being very kind makes them even more wary, so they will be careful.
Thankfully, the villagers are truly just being kind to them. Their life in the village is very peaceful and they can train without any disturbance. They can also eat better things here than in their previous place because the villagers often share the harvest with each other.
Anyway, now Zoro can train without any problem and he can actually sleep in a warm place now. There is still no one to fight here so he can't improve his skills. But he has started using his swordsmanship on living beings.
He now uses his swords to kill the animals they hunt. They still use traps for both big and small animals. But they also directly hunt them now to make sure they can get prey every day because sometimes they couldn't catch anything with their traps.
Their direct hunting method is by searching their prey. Then Torao will scare their prey and lead the prey towards Zoro who hides somewhere. After that, Zoro will appear right in front of the prey and slash it.
They started using this method since Zoro can slash dummies easily with his swords a few months ago. Then he tried using it on the animals caught by their traps. It was easy with small animals like chickens and rabbits, but he struggled to cut the bones of big animals like deer.
So this is not just hunting but also training for Zoro's swordsmanship. That's why they are targeting big animals like deer, goat, or boar. Boar is especially more difficult because it doesn't have a long neck like deer and goat, so he can only slash its head.
His katanas already have quite a lot of chippings on their edges. Zoro always does maintenance on them to keep them sharp. But there are some big chippings that he can't remove no matter how much he grinds them with whetstones.
Well, Torao said these katanas are not high-qualities, so it's normal for them to get quite a lot of chippings. But if Zoro's skills get better, then his katanas won't get damaged too much. So he needs to keep improving his skills.
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