Golden Experience

After taking care of some chores, she logged back in.

She opened her character’s eyes and saw the exact same scene before her that she had seen when she had logged out. She had been logged off for about an hour. The queen was still covered in ice; the surface of her body looked very slightly wet, but that was probably due to condensation rather than from the ice starting to melt. The queen’s status was currently listed as [Frozen].

“You’re already up, Boss. You all right with that short a nap?”

“Hello, Kerry. Yes, I do not need all that much sleep. But sometimes I do sleep for much longer.”

There might be times where she has something suddenly come up and cannot log in. She couldn’t think of anything specific that might come up at the moment, though. Rare asked if anything had happened while she was asleep. Apparently, Remy had gone back to check on Hakuma and the rest of the wolves. She was on her way back here now. The wolves were just resting back in the cave.

In other words, in the last hour, her followers still had new experiences, and not only that, while their master was logged out, they could still act freely according to their own judgment. Thinking about it, while the player was logged out, their character was left behind sleeping. It wouldn’t really make sense for the followers to disappear. Followers were also living residents of this world.

In which case, while the player was logged out, maybe it was possible for the followers to go grinding for XP. Inconceivable—was this a way to officially bot? If it was, it would probably get patched immediately. She’d just have to try it out. She didn’t particularly want to exploit the game or anything. If there were legitimate means to accomplish that within the game, though, then it was simply another way to enjoy the game. She had no malicious intentions.

“Kerry, sorry to ask so suddenly, but please go out to the forest and find… anything really, a small animal, and hunt it for me. I’m going to doze again for a little bit. I’ll try to wake up after about the same amount of time, so just stand by after that in the cave until I do.”

“Sure thing, Boss. Is it all right if I bring the others with me?”

“Yes, of course. I don’t mind if you ask Hakuma and the other wolves to accompany you either. You can hunt whatever you like, but… if you’re going with Hakuma, then you can aim for bigger prey. Just don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“In that case, if Hakuma can come, maybe we’ll go for something around the same size as that boar we killed.”

“I’ll leave it to you. Oh, one moment. I want to speak to Remy.”

“What is it, Boss?”

“Ahh, Remy. I have another job I’d like you to do.”

Rare brought up Remy’s skill screen and had her learn [Leathercraft]’s [Tanning] skill. She then took out the boar hide from her inventory and laid it out before Remy.

“I think you understand already, but you’ve learned the [Leathercraft] skill, Remy. You should now know how best to treat this hide, yes?”

“Aah… Yes, Boss. I got it. I have to…”

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“Good. Do you need any tools?”

“It’d be nice if I had some… but I can do it without any, probably.”

She could even tan it without any special tools; how conveniently magical these skills were.

“Well then, while I’m sleeping, please go ahead and take care of that. It’s fine if you’re not done by the time I wake up, it’s more important to do it correctly. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Well then, I shall once again go to sleep, for about the same amount of time as before. All right then, Kerry, Remy, I’ll leave it to you.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, I got it, Boss.”

＊

An hour later, Rare logged in again.

“Welcome back, Boss.”

It was Remy. There was a beautiful boar rug laid out on the ground.

“Hello, Remy. I take it that you finished tanning the hide?”

“Yes, Boss. It took a lot less time than I thought it would, so I was watching Boss sleep.”

“Oh, how embarrassing… Did I do anything strange?”

“You breathe real quiet. Oh, and your eyelashes are really long.”

It really seemed like Remy just watched her sleep. However, if an NPC had been staring at her and didn’t notice anything off, then it really was true that the player’s character just slept the entire time. This was an unexpected finding.

“Kerry’s group is still out?”

“Yeah. Should I go check?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m sure they’re on their way back. In the meantime…”

It was about time she gave the queen a name. Along with that, Rare would teach Remy [Fire Magic] so that the queen could be melted. It seemed the person herself—the ant herself was just patiently waiting as she melted, but while Rare did start to feel bad about her frozen state, in truth she was just getting sick of how cold the room was.

“Queen, your name is [Sugaru].”

The queen couldn’t move, but Rare could tell that she had accepted the name. A “sugaru” is not an ant or a hornet, but the Japanese word for the red-banded sand wasp, which also goes by the name “jigabachi.” However, “jigabachi” was also an old term for women with attractively thin waists. It seemed like a fitting moniker for a queen. Rare herself used to affectionately be called “wasp girl” by her grandparents; she wasn’t sure how old they had to have been to use that term. You really shouldn’t give children pet names based on trivia that’s so far removed from current modern sensibilities.

Next, she acquired [Fire Magic] for Remy.

“Remy, this is your reward for your leatherwork.”

“This is… magic? I get to use it too…”

“You did a wonderful job, Remy. Now, there’s no need to wait, why don’t you try it out right away?”

Rare took hold of Remy’s hand and brought her before Sugaru.

“Here, if you use [Heat], you can melt Sugaru from her Frozen state. Be gentle with it at first.”

Since she also gave Remy [Magical Affinity: Fire] at the same time, Remy probably wouldn’t mess up, but Rare still cautioned her to be careful. Remy timidly began to cast [Heat] on Sugaru. If everything went well, all the other ants in the room could be freed in order as well. Even if they had to wait for Remy’s MP to regenerate, it would be faster than letting them melt naturally.

“Ah, Boss. Looks like Kerry and the others are back.”

Even while casting [Heat], Remy was still able to make use of her exceptional hearing. Since it was probably way too far away to hear normal sounds at the cave entrance from here, Kerry had probably shouted that she was back or something.

“Please continue to take care of Sugaru like that, Remy. I will go greet the others.”

Rare made her way out to the main cave by crawling on her hands and knees through the tight tunnels. There, Kerry and the other girls were butchering their catch. It looked like some kind of tanuki. Probably.

“This thing… sure is large.”

The tanuki was about the same size as that boar from before. Considering how dense the trees grew in this forest, she wondered how all these giant beasts lived here. This was a very large forest, though, so maybe in the deeper parts, the trees weren’t as close together and huge animals could live comfortably. Perhaps only the outer edges of the forest were dense. Although you’d normally think it’d be the opposite.

“We’re back, Boss. Whaddaya think? Big, right?”

“Yes, it’s amazing. Where did you find it? Somewhere far?”

Rare wanted to estimate the rough distance from the response. It probably wasn’t too far away.

“Nah, we brought it down pretty close to here, actually. We couldn’t really find anything good to hunt. When we finally found something, I guess we ended up chasing it all the way here. We just finished it off a bit ago… We took too long, didn’t we…” Kerry finished apologetically.

Rare lifted a hand and waved it in a “don’t worry about it!” kind of way as she pulled up everyone’s skill windows. The reason she guessed that they must’ve killed it near here was because of this screen. When she had logged back in, it was very clear that nothing was earned from tanning the boar hide since she had the same amount of XP as when she had logged out. However, when she opened the skill window to teach Remy [Fire Magic], she had suddenly gained more XP. That was probably the moment that Kerry’s group had killed the tanuki.

This incident had established that when a player logged out, their followers could act independently afterward, and they could receive and follow orders beforehand. While they could accomplish tasks during this time, no XP would be earned for it. In all likelihood, as soon as they became followers, they lost the ability to earn XP for themselves. Instead, they receive XP from their leader, and their feats become the leader’s feats. As a result, when the leader, the XP receptacle, is logged out, no one can earn XP during that time. Her dreams of officially sanctioned botting had been splendidly crushed. Well, not that she was expecting it to work in the first place.

However, as far as farming money goes, that should still work. In fact, both Remy and Kerry’s group had produced something of monetary value. Not only that, if she gave them tasks that would require time to complete while logged out, then later logged in with the right timing, it was even possible to level up while sleeping. Not that levels existed. However, to actually make such a system effective, she would need to do a lot of testing regarding exactly what kind of orders she gave and how long they’d take to complete. And while doing all that, it would be best to determine the most efficient ways to earn money and XP. Now that she had so many followers, Rare needed to earn huge amounts of XP. It wasn’t something that absolutely needed to be done at any cost, but she did want to be as efficient as possible.

“Kerry, the feat of hunting this tanuki deserves a reward. I saw the hide that Remy tanned earlier, and it was wonderfully done. So, Remy has already been rewarded, but now all of you will also be granted the gift of magic.”

Rare had Kerry learn the [Lightning Magic], [Magical Affinity: Lightning], and [Thunderbolt] skills, then she had Riley learn the [Water Magic], [Magical Affinity: Water], [Wash], and [Water Shot] skills.

“Ooh… It’s finally my turn to get magic…”

“B-Boss, you gave me three spells, are you sure about that?!”

“Ah, well, one of them was [Wash] after all… I didn’t want you to think to yourself ‘That’s it?’ Here, Marion, you as well.”

She next had Marion learn [Ice Bullet]. Now she just had to find a reason to have Remy learn [Flare Arrow], and all of them would have some kind of offensive magic spell at their disposal.

“Thank you, Boss! With this, next time I fight the ant queen, I can beat her by myself… maybe?”

Sugaru was still quite a bit stronger than Marion, but if she got a preemptive attack off, she might have a chance. Right now, Sugaru didn’t have any long-range attacks. When she had Remy learn [Flare Arrow], Sugaru should also be given something too. However, Sugaru’s build made her pretty unsuited for melee combat. Her style was more to send out her ants. In that case, maybe giving her a skill to buff her own subordinates would be more effective.

In any case, Rare had need of a lot of XP. After the ants had all thawed out, she would consult with Sugaru and formulate a plan for this area. The cave needed to be modified so that it was a little more comfortable for humans and ice wolves, and she wanted to teach the catkin girls more about etiquette.

There were just so many things to do.