100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 833 - 843 - Success

Lucien’s old habit of solving problems returned.

It was slower without Perfect Calculation, but it was still his mind.

Lucien turned sharply.

"Auren!"

The coachman looked over while helping another villager drag an injured man away from the gate.

"Get every empty cart near the northern road. Leave the heavy ones with loaded wheels where they are."

Auren stared at him for half a heartbeat.

"What are you planning?"

"A road."

That answer did not help him, but Auren had known Lucien long enough by now to recognize the tone.

He moved.

Lucien pointed toward Tavian next.

"Take six men and bring the longest timbers from the repair pile. I need them here, but do not carry them through the center. Bring them along the inside of the wall."

Tavian glanced toward the charging herd and then toward the timber stack.

Understanding did not reach his face yet, but he nodded.

Lucien turned toward the village chief.

"Can we open the eastern livestock gate?"

The older man frowned.

"The animals are already inside the shelters."

"Good. Open it."

"Why?"

Lucien pointed toward the northern entrance.

"If we keep forcing the herd against a closed wall, they will break through wherever the structure is weakest. We need to give them somewhere easier to go."

The village chief followed the direction of Lucien’s hand.

The eastern livestock gate opened toward a harvested field beyond the houses. A narrow path curved through the settlement before reaching it.

The man understood.

"You want to draw them through."

"I want the ones that enter to keep running instead of turning through the village."

The village chief hesitated only briefly.

Then he shouted the order.

Lucien looked toward the men near the broken gate.

"Stop trying to close the gap completely. Narrow it."

Several heads turned toward him.

Luke, still pale from blood loss, frowned from where he sat.

"You’re planning to let them inside?"

"Some of them are coming inside whether we agree or not."

That ended the argument.

Lucien ran toward the damaged opening.

The next boar slammed through before he reached it.

A hunter stabbed from the side. His spear entered too shallowly and tore free as the animal twisted.

Lucien did not meet the boar head-on.

This body did not have the strength for that.

He stepped away from the charge and waited until the animal committed to its direction. When it passed, Lucien drove his spear low behind the front leg.

The movement felt strange for only an instant.

Then something older than conscious thought took over.

His angle changed slightly.

His hands shifted along the shaft.

His feet found the correct position before he deliberately placed them.

The spear entered between ribs.

Lucien twisted and released the weapon rather than allowing the animal’s momentum to drag him down with it.

The boar stumbled several more steps before crashing against a fence.

Lucien stared at his hands.

That movement had not come from a Skill.

He remembered it.

More accurately, something inside his soul remembered it.

The realization could wait.

Another animal was coming.

Lucien pulled the spear free.

"Keep them moving east!"

Men began shouting the instruction down the line.

The first cart arrived.

Auren drove it at reckless speed before jumping from the seat and letting two villagers catch the reins.

Lucien pointed toward the road.

"Turn it sideways, but leave enough space for one animal to pass."

Auren’s expression changed.

Now he understood.

They dragged the cart into position several dozen meters behind the damaged gate.

A second cart followed.

Lucien positioned it farther along at the opposite angle.

Together, the carts began forming a crude corridor.

The village houses themselves created the rest.

The path did not need to be strong enough to stop the boars.

It only had to make one direction look easier than every other direction.

More animals broke through the wall.

The first charged toward the nearest house.

Men shouted.

Lucien grabbed a discarded shield and struck its edge against a fence post with everything he had.

The sharp crack drew the boar’s attention.

Auren and two others began striking metal tools against the cart behind it.

The frightened animal veered away from the noise.

The open corridor lay ahead.

It ran.

The second followed.

Lucien exhaled.

"Again!"

The defenders changed what they were doing.

Instead of surrounding every boar that entered, they used noise, spears, shields, and movement to pressure the animals toward the same route.

The strategy was dangerous.

A frightened animal could change direction without warning.

One did.

It turned toward Mirelle’s family’s storehouse.

Lucien saw it before the men nearest the building reacted.

A bow lay beside a wounded hunter.

Lucien dropped the spear and picked it up.

The weapon was larger than the bows most villagers used, with a heavier draw that the injured hunter had apparently preferred.

Lucien’s fingers settled on the string.

Another memory moved through him.

Not young Lucien’s memory.

Something much older and less distinct.

Forests unlike this one.

Hands narrower than his current hands.

A lifetime spent judging wind through leaves.

Lucien drew.

His back protested.

The body lacked the strength he remembered, forcing him to shorten the draw.

He adjusted without thinking.

The arrow flew.

It struck the boar just behind the ear.

The animal staggered.

Tavian reached it a moment later and drove his spear down with both hands.

He turned toward Lucien.

"Since when can you shoot like that?"

Lucien lowered the bow.

"Recently."

"That explains nothing."

"I know."

Another impact shook the wall before Tavian could continue.

The remaining herd had reached the defenses.

Several boars struck the ditch and piled against one another. Others forced around the bodies.

The wall creaked.

Lucien looked toward the timber Tavian’s group had brought.

"Here!"

They dragged the long beams into position.

Lucien arranged them diagonally between the wall supports and the ground, turning the existing posts into crude braced structures.

Tavian examined the first placement.

"If the wall pushes inward, the force goes through the beam."

"Exactly."

"Why didn’t we build it like this before?"

Lucien looked at him.

"Because nobody expected thirty terrified boars to attack together."

Tavian accepted that answer.

They reinforced three of the weakest sections before the next impacts arrived.

The difference was immediate.

The walls still shook, but the force traveled downward instead of bending the posts freely.

One support cracked.

The beam beside it held long enough for men to add another.

Lucien moved constantly.

He no longer tried to fight every animal himself.

That would have been stupid.

He watched where people were needed.

Two men were sent to reinforce a failing fence before boars could enter the residential lane. Archers moved onto roofs where they could shoot downward without risking the people below. Men with heavier spears were positioned at corners rather than in the open road, allowing them to attack an animal’s side after it passed instead of trying to stop its charge directly.

When one boar became trapped between two carts, Lucien ordered everyone away from its head.

"Do not crowd it! Let it turn!"

The animal thrashed until it found the open path and charged east.

Auren looked at Lucien.

"You are very calm for someone who spent most of his life staring at trees."

Lucien almost answered.

A scream interrupted him.

A boar had broken through the side wall.

It knocked one man aside and headed directly toward a group carrying an injured villager.

Lucien ran.

The bow would not stop it quickly enough.

He grabbed the first heavy weapon within reach.

A smithing hammer.

It belonged to Tavian.

The weight should have felt awkward.

Instead, the moment Lucien wrapped both hands around the handle, another buried familiarity rose through his soul.

This memory was heavier.

Hands large enough to close around a hammer’s grip as though it were a child’s tool.

A body built to meet force with greater force.

Lucien did not have that body.

He knew the technique.

That was enough.

He moved to the side rather than standing in front of the boar.

The animal lowered its head.

Lucien waited until it entered range.

Then he swung at the front knee.

The hammer struck bone.

Pain traveled through Lucien’s arms hard enough to numb his fingers.

The boar collapsed forward.

Lucien barely escaped the falling body.

Tavian arrived and finished it with a spear.

Both of them stood breathing heavily.

Tavian looked at the hammer, then at Lucien.

"That is mine."

"I noticed."

"You used it correctly."

Lucien handed it back.

"Apparently."

Tavian stared at him.

Lucien ran before he could be questioned further.

The battle dragged on.

Adrenaline carried him long after his muscles began protesting.

His breathing became painful.

His palms tore open where the spear shaft rubbed against skin that had never formed the calluses his old body possessed.

His shoulder ached from the bow.

His arms shook after using the hammer.

Still, he moved.

The training they had begun weeks earlier suddenly mattered.

Auren could run from one section of the wall to another without collapsing for breath.

Tavian’s stance remained stable even after repeated impacts.

Several villagers who had joined the morning exercises recovered faster between bursts of effort and followed instructions without wasting strength.

The village adapted.

That was what finally changed the battle.

The boars had numbers and momentum, but they had no plan.

The villagers did.

The eastern livestock gate stood wide.

More and more animals that entered the settlement were guided through the improvised corridor and driven back into open land.

Others died against the reinforced walls or fell into the ditch.

The herd gradually thinned.

Lucien lost track of time.

At some point, the noise became less continuous.

The impacts against the wall grew farther apart.

The screaming animals became individual sounds rather than one overwhelming mass.

Then Lucien realized he could hear his own breathing.

He stood in the middle of the northern road with a spear in one hand and blood running down his forearm.

A final boar limped through the broken gate.

It had an arrow buried in one flank.

The animal looked exhausted.

So did everyone facing it.

Lucien lowered his spear slightly.

The boar looked toward the open eastern route.

Nobody moved.

Then Auren struck his shield once against the side of a cart.

The animal startled and ran.

It followed the corridor.

No one chased it.

The village became strangely quiet.

Lucien waited.

Another boar did not appear.

The forest still moved in the distance, but the ground no longer trembled.

Finally, someone on the wall shouted.

"The herd’s gone!"

Nobody celebrated immediately.

They were too tired.

Then one man laughed.

Another dropped his spear and sat directly on the ground.

Auren leaned against the nearest cart and slowly slid down its wheel.

Tavian bent over with his hands on his knees.

Lucien took one step.

His legs nearly gave way.

He caught himself on the spear.

They had survived.

The village still stood.

Several sections of wall were broken and the northern gate was barely recognizable, but the houses remained intact. The grain stores were untouched. The fields had suffered little beyond trampling near the perimeter.

Most importantly, the underground shelters had never been reached.

Lucien looked toward the gate.

The cost became harder to ignore once the danger stopped moving.

The hunter who had been struck earlier was dead.

Another man had died near the western section after being crushed against the wall.

Several others had broken bones, deep cuts, or wounds from tusks.

Luke was alive.

Lucien saw him sitting against a post with fresh bandages around his torso while Cienna knelt beside him.

Cienna looked toward Lucien.

Relief crossed her face.

Then anger followed it.

Lucien knew that expression.

He decided to deal with it later.

For now, he lowered himself onto the ground.

His entire body hurt.

He had forgotten what true exhaustion felt like.

Lucien almost smiled at the absurdity.

It was then that the forest roared.

The sound struck the village like a physical force.

Every conversation stopped.

Lucien’s smile disappeared.

The spear slipped slightly in his hand.

He knew that sound.

He had heard countless variations of it across his old life.

The villagers slowly turned toward the forest.

Lucien did the same.

Something moved between the trees.

Something enormous.