Chapter 49: Seven Times Half-Elf

A long persuasion process and the fact that all four volunteers wanting hunting experience had no family issues made things easier.

Rabbu-i didn’t reveal her age and gave Thadric a murderous look when he asked, but she lived alone.

Thadric was in his 30s and young by elven standards but had been living alone since childhood with no family ties. Thanks to his ranching work, he’d actually dealt with all kinds of animals and prey from time to time.

The twins – despite being fraternal twins and a somewhat quiet pair – were 19 years old. They’d been spoiled by the village’s temporary hunter Henner, Emily’s stepfather and then by Emily herself as the new hunter. On top of that, they actually had combat-capable classes.

Eren also learned that these twins were the last children born in the village after Emily. That was probably why everyone still treated them like kids.

“Birth rates are way too low even for elves. Something is off…”

Eren couldn’t wrap his head around how an elf village in the middle of a forest was failing to grow. They weren’t just stagnant – they were actually losing people to creatures. But he set that topic aside for now.

Emily realized she couldn’t spend any more time with this group and rushed off to her hunting duties in the forest. Before leaving, she pulled Eren by the neck and they kissed in a way that included tongues and made everyone look away in embarrassment.

She had decided not to hold back from showing that this human was her mate. Especially when there were overly eager thieves around.

“Why did you suddenly start looking like us, Eren?”

“Looking good – looking good!”

“Can I touch your biceps?”

Completely ignoring the last question, the group entered the slime-filled part of the forest while Eren chatted with everyone. He asked them to show their abilities and learned that everyone in the group was around level 13-14.

“Let’s start with the most suspicious one.” Three pairs of eyes turned to the middle-aged half-naked woman at Eren’s words but his gaze had actually drifted to Nimbo, the skinnier and weaker-looking one of the twins.

“Your class, your skills and your weight?” Because his face showed genuine sincerity that he was truly curious about the weight and not mocking, nobody said anything weird. He was trying to get to know the young man, not make fun of him.

“My class is Resolute Fighter. I’m one of the only two people in the village besides Emily who has a direct combat class. My main active skill is Parry. I also have passive skills, Combat Mastery and Regeneration. But the thing is…”

Eren had already sensed there was a problem of course. If Emily hadn’t taken someone with such broken skills under her wing to teach hunting over the years, there had to be a reason.

“I can’t take lives. At least not until I complete certain prerequisites my class requires. If I kill something, my level instantly drops to zero.”

It was an even worse handicap than Eren could have guessed. And from the boy’s sad expression and the certainty in his voice when he said the “level drops to zero part”, it was clear they’d already done plenty of experiments.

“Can’t you change your class then?” The strange looks from all four elves told him the answer before anyone spoke.

“There’s no such thing as a class change. Temporary hunter Henner could only do it because the village totem granted him a temporary hunter class. But technically it wasn’t a real class change.” Thadric scratched his head as he explained while Eren noticed the others were already getting tired.

“Let’s sit under that tree for a minute. But if you guys want to hunt and level up, you need to solve the stamina issue. Don’t forget to put your stat points into that.”

What was supposed to be a one-minute break turned into a ten-minute forest picnic. When both Mel and Rabbu-i shared what they’d brought, the group sat and had snacks.

During the chat, Eren wandered off for a bathroom break and thought about both these elves’ everyday problems and once again realized what a strange place he was in.

While peeing, he started mumbling to himself and as he listened to the forest sounds, he noticed colors he had never seen before.

The forest hit him in the face with information. It was kind of funny actually.

Every tree, rock, animal or plant had a different vibe. The moisture in the soil for example – it was supposed to be the most boring part of the forest. But he found it mesmerizing with his new senses.

Or the direction of the wind. It was like magical colors demanding his attention.

“Am I kind of…high?”

Perception 36 at full capacity turned the world from a rough sketch into an oil painting with every brushstroke visible.

His body had literally gone through an evolution and until he got used to it, he would probably keep discovering different things constantly.

For example, he could feel certain looks from small insects and animals or sense very interesting sounds from random plants.

Although hearing strange sounds from spots where nothing was there was a bit creepy, overall the Evon system had made him far more compatible with this world. And being able to smile just by listening to the forest in an environment where he’d never have thought he could be happy in his old life was a very sweet bonus.

He kept feeling sudden and strange little things that made him either giggle or nearly cry from joy.

While peeing, these feelings suddenly spread through his chest and his eyes watered.

“So this is what being an elf feels like…” He also understood why elves wanted to wear little or even no clothing at all. Even as a half-elf, he was already starting to want to take off his shirt and shorts and walk around more exposed. He realized he had judged elven psychology way too early. How could he have known that the feeling of freedom and open air would make clothes feel so suffocating?

But the most important thing he understood that day was something a bit simpler. Just how pathetically limited “humans” were as a species.

There was enough around him to make Eren think that humans were blind, deaf and unable to smell. Whether it was the effect of his stats or whether elves simply possessed extra sensory organs that put them way higher on the evolutionary chart compared to humans.

On his way back, when he saw the obsessive stares from Rabbu-i, he remembered Emily’s warnings. He tried to turn off the effects of his Charisma stat and all the passive skills from his class. If he was sensing it correctly, he managed to bring everything down to below 10% but couldn’t fully shut them off. This was the best he could do for now.

Eren grinned at the group.

He couldn’t wait to figure out what this group could do, leave them with the slimes and finally test himself.

Time to find out what seven times the human average stats actually mean…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep