That day, Turan caught a total of seven masu while patrolling around the city.
Each time he absorbed mana from a dead masu's corpse, he felt he could become addicted to the eerily pleasant sensation.
It was almost regrettable that once he reached his limit for absorbing mana, he would no longer feel this pleasure.
Of course, this visceral pleasure wasn't all he gained from consuming masu.
By the time he absorbed the fifth masu's power, Turan's mana had grown about 1.5 times stronger than before meeting Keorn.
At this rate, theoretically he could become dozens of times stronger in just a few months of hunting, but...
'It won't be that easy.'
Mana growth through absorption decreased with each repetition, and it was difficult to grow stronger using weak masu's mana.
Moreover, staying in one place hunting would naturally deplete the masu population.
That's why strong nobles would go on pilgrimages to find masu worthy of their level?
Therefore, Turan captured alive two of the weakest he found, not even worth absorbing.
A squirrel whose tail was five times thicker than its kin and used as a weapon, and a badger that was somewhat large and could change its fur color to match its surroundings.
When he brought them tied up with rope to city hall, the official in charge widened his eyes.
"Two of them?"
"Yes. They're perfectly fine except for one stone hit to the head. Together that's 25 rum bounty, correct?"
"Well, about that..."
The official trailed off as if trying to pull something, but when Turan glared at him with wide eyes, he quickly handed over the money.
"Here you are."
Learning the joy of earning money like this was another thing he had discovered since coming down from the hill.
When he returned to the inn with 25 silver coins in his pocket, the serving girl greeted him with a smile.
"Young brother! You came back alive? Having dinner here too? Bread and soup again?"
Turan was about to order the cheapest menu like this morning but changed his mind.
Since he could earn money whenever he wanted anyway, he wanted to find out why expensive food was expensive.
"Give me the most expensive one, please."
The serving girl's eyes widened at Turan's words.
"Wow, looks like you earned some money! I'll tell the chef!"
Though he hadn't known, it took a full hour just to prepare the inn's most luxurious menu.
But seeing the food placed on the table made the wait worthwhile.
Fresh soft and fragrant wheat bread with tart fruit jam, roasted whole chicken with seasonings, pork ribs topped with sizzling cheese...
For a shepherd who had lived his whole life on the barren hill eating smelly mutton and grain porridge, it was an astounding array.
Before he knew it, while frantically chewing and tearing into everything, all the food on the table had vanished without a trace.
"...No one stole any of this, right?"
"Of course not. But brother, you sure eat well for being so thin!"
"Glad to see someone enjoying a fancy meal for once!"
Even the chef, who usually seemed to rest in the back of the kitchen, came out to make such a comment—suggesting this menu didn't sell well normally.
In any case, he had discovered the pleasure of fine dining.
==
By the time three days had passed this way, Turan had succeeded in catching over thirty masu.
Though he only collected proper bounties for five of them, even that earned him over a hundred silver coins, some of which he exchanged for gold coins for convenient storage.
His improved proficiency with tracking magic contributed to these excellent results.
After several experiments, he discovered that when a target wasn't within range, he could track it by finding traces it had left behind.
Taking the Blade Crow he first caught as an example, he would target 'droppings of a crow larger than a child' and move in the direction where the droppings continued to find the masu.
While Turan was flourishing like this, Midan's group seemed to have little success, grumbling with dark faces about how they might not even be able to pay their room fees at this rate.
One day, two of Midan's sworn brothers followed Turan as he went up to his room to rest, raising their fists threateningly.
"Hey, skinny!"
"Heard you've been earning good money lately? Share some with your fellow hunters."
Naturally, in less than a minute they were thoroughly beaten by Turan and rolled down the stairs.
After a brief commotion, Midan, having heard everything, bowed to Turan on their behalf.
"I sincerely apologize. I'll strictly discipline those two. This will never happen again..."
"Are things very difficult?"
At Turan's question, Midan hesitated before answering honestly.
"Money is a bit tight."
Midan and his sworn brothers were originally gangsters from a large city of over hundred thousand people, but two years ago, after meeting someone who had become a wizard by hunting masu, they quit their gangster life and switched to masu hunting.
But not only was it difficult for ordinary people to catch masu together, the reality was that unless it was strong enough to be identified as a masu just from the corpse, bounties weren't paid for corpses.
Therefore, they were barely surviving by doing odd jobs while hunting masu as they traveled between cities.
'To think it took them two years to catch three.'
Well, how much could they accomplish when they weren't even professional hunters, let alone wizards, but former gangsters?
Plus, if they needed side jobs to make a living, they couldn't spend all day hunting either.
Hearing this, he could understand why the official treated masu hunters like vagrants.
How could they look kindly on those who lived chasing a single possibility that might not even work out while others worked diligently?
"Honestly, in about three days we'll probably have trouble paying for rooms. This city is too small, not many odd jobs we can do. But I don't want to beg from a young fellow like you. After causing this trouble too, asking for money would be shameless..."
"Here."
Turan dug into his clothes and handed him ten silver coins.
Enough money for four people to stay at the inn for about three days with some bargaining.
Midan looked at him with an expression of disbelief.
"No, why?"
"You tried to include me because you were worried about me traveling alone, even though you were struggling. This is repayment for that."
The moral code Turan learned from his mother was simple.
Treat others as you wish to be treated, and repay both kindness and enmity in kind.
From that perspective, the kindness Midan had shown was certainly worth a few silver coins.
The misdeeds of his subordinates had already been repaid with fists.
"Still, it feels wrong to just take this..."
"If you feel uncomfortable taking it freely, how about giving me some information? Something like stories about the cities you've traveled to while hunting would be fine."
Information must be bought with money—that was common sense Turan had learned since coming down from the hill.
Through Keorn's teachings he roughly knew how the world was shaped and where the great houses were located, but he didn't know the detailed circumstances of each region.
Midan's face brightened at this proposal.
"That's no problem at all!"
Having wandered various cities looking for masu for two whole years, Midan knew quite a lot.
Not only did he draw simple maps showing the way to other nearby cities, but he even recommended masu to catch there—though Midan meant it as warnings to avoid them.
With masu becoming scarce around Murei city, such information was quite valuable.
It was enough to travel once with vague directions like "there's a city that way."
Other stories were also very useful, like which city had ruins left by the ancient empire, or which wizard houses didn't allow wanderers to pass through their territory without permission.
What particularly caught Turan's interest was the existence of a library in a relatively nearby major city.
"You're saying there are thousands of books?"
"That's what I heard. Though I haven't been inside myself."
Though Turan had learned reading and writing from his mother, he had never read a book.
Naturally, Hisaril Hill and the surrounding villages were too poor to have books.
Sometimes Turan's mother would lament:
That there were books she wanted to read to him, but she could no longer remember their contents.
Because of this, books had become idealized in Turan's mind as something mysterious containing all the world's wisdom.
But according to Midan, the library in Orem, a city relatively close to the northeast, had over a thousand such books?
And the entrance requirement was merely—
"Being a wizard allows entry..."
"Well, we'll be able to go in someday when we become wizards too!"
Turan awakened to a new desire he hadn't known he had, beyond monetary and culinary desires.
It was the desire for knowledge.
Living his whole life on the hill, he hadn't known...
He wanted to learn more about what kind of place this world was.
"Is this worth enough?"
"More than enough."
He had been thinking of hunting just one more day before leaving this city, and now he knew where to go next.
==
In stark contrast to that pleasant ending, the next afternoon when Turan went out for his final hunt, he encountered one of Midan's subordinates with his belly split open, coughing up blood.
His half-glazed eyes made it clear at a glance that he couldn't survive.
"What happened?"
"Rabbit, masu... monster..."
"Where's Midan?"
"Over there..."
Where he pointed lay a familiar shaggy head rolling on the ground.
As if filled with indignation, Midan lay dead with his strangely clear eyes wide open.
Behind him were two more corpses with dismembered bodies.
Finally, a cat-sized rabbit with red eyes glared at Turan while gnawing on something.
With front teeth long enough to touch the ground and grotesquely thick hind legs, it saw Turan and immediately charged at arrow-like speed.
"Ugh!"
Hastily throwing himself aside to dodge, Turan passed by as the rabbit couldn't control its speed, and amazingly, the tree it had struck simply collapsed with a cracking sound.
More precisely, the part caught by its front teeth had been cleanly cut off.
'What in the...'
Since it looked too dangerous to test various things against, Turan immediately brought out his trump card.
Stone slinging using his ever-present sheepskin sling.
The stone, accelerated beyond the speed of sound with magical power, flew at the rabbit, but amazingly it deflected it by swinging its long front teeth.
One shot, two shots, and three shots.
Turan clicked his tongue at the opponent's ridiculous reflexes.
It seemed he had encountered an enemy immune to physical projectiles, as Keorn had warned about, sooner than expected.
[Keeek!]
As if mocking that this was all he had, the rabbit made a grotesque sound and prepared to leap again, putting strength in its hind legs.
At that moment,
[Keek?]
The rabbit masu had to stop in its tracks because Turan suddenly vanished.
A phenomenon where a being right before its eyes instantly disappeared?
Though the rabbit had become smarter after gaining mana, such a situation was hard to comprehend.
Had he run away? How? Where was he now? There wasn't even a scent to follow...
Thanks to it standing still pondering such questions, Turan could approach the rabbit while concealed and stab a dagger under its chin.
[KEEEEEEEEK!!]
Turan quickly twisted the dagger stuck under its chin once before releasing the handle and throwing himself backward.
If he hadn't, he would have been dismembered by the front teeth of the enraged rabbit.
The rabbit desperately jumped around swinging its front teeth trying to attack its invisible enemy, but its opponent had already flown into the sky while staying concealed.
After about a minute of cutting down surrounding trees this way, the rabbit finally couldn't find its enemy and collapsed from exhaustion.
Only then did Turan release his concealment and descend to the ground with a sigh.
"Whew..."
Just when he thought he had dealt with all the strong masu around here, to unexpectedly meet such a powerful enemy.
Though its small size meant somewhat lower defense, its speed, attack power, and reflexes were more threatening than the leopard masu he first encountered.
The Turan before meeting Keorn, who only had stone slinging as a proper attack technique, might have been defeated.
Actually absorbing its mana, he received far more than when he caught the leopard.
'Such terrible luck.'
Since there wasn't such a creature among the registered masu at city hall, it had probably mutated recently.
Midan's group had been carelessly rushed in thinking it would be easy to catch because of its rabbit form and small size, leading to their annihilation.
What would they have felt if they knew this rabbit's true identity was something that could instantly kill even a decent noble who let their guard down?
After assessing the situation, Turan approached the hunter with the torn belly.
He was still conscious, and having seen Turan fight, wore an astonished expression.
"You, no, you're... a wizard..."
"Yes."
"Why..."
Since explaining why he hid his identity would be long-winded and meaningless, Turan shook his head and asked instead:
"Does anyone among the four have family to leave belongings to?"
"No..."
Shortly after, Turan buried the dead masu hunters in a sunny spot near the forest.
Four earthen graves were the final portion given to those who had wanted to become wizards.