Chapter 3 - Section 4 - Meritocracy Of Joquet
The following day morning came with a whisp of cool breath of air that calmly kissed my cheeks breaking me from the dark embrace of my dreams.
Deploying my quick change to swap out my clothes, and reequip my gear in a hurry I hurriedly made my way out of the tent, to check on how things turned out with the trio stand guard for us.
As I exited the tent the world went blank.
As I stood their staring out at the field before me, which yesterday and last night was a sweeping sea of green that swayed in the breeze.
Now instead there was only a single word for it, utter calamity.
The field was filled with monster corpses, the lush green grass was dyed a deep red as numerous pools of blood filled the area, and each breath of wind brought with it an even more unpleasant smell of death.
Looking around franticly I saw Kurama calmly sitting at his post within the cart, and my twin stone golems still in their original positions.
[Just what had happened in the night, there must be close to 200 bodies out there, at what point would they deem it necessary to have woken me?]
Walking up to Kurama, he noticed right away and gave the same simple salute the golems had before raise his right paw to me breast and patting it once.
"Busy night I see?"
'Nod'
"Don't you think you guys might've gone a bit over board?"
"pooee"
Shrugging its shoulders exaggeratedly.
"Well not that it matters, can you get Rocky, and Creed to gather all the bodies together for me? I need to take a walk myself to gather the item drops, oh but first I should analyze you three"
When they'd first been created all three were lvl 7 just like me but surely after having fought off so many their level must've increased.
Peering at their status it indeed showed their level had increased, however that was not what shocked me most, nowhere on their cards or profiles did it show an exp bar, instead when I went looking I found that my own level had likewise risen to the same as their own.
[So even though I was asleep I leeched all the exp from my summons, but if that's the case is it equally split between the four of us, or do they level when I do? Guess there's more experimentation yet to be done]
Name: Satou Ekiken
Race: Human Class: Novice
Age: 21 Level: 12/30(12)
Health: F Strength: G
Stamina: G Agility: F
Mentality: F Dexterity: F
Intelligence: F
___________________________
Taking my leisurely stroll through the now blood soaked field snatching up all the dropped loot that I could find, meanwhile my three summons worked tirelessly to create a mountain of bodies which I approached after having made my rounds.
Collected:[[43 Night Wolf Corpses, 13 Orc Corpses, 68 Goblin Corpses, 23 Kobold Corpses, 7 Stone Lizard Corpses, 74 Golden Rams, 83,000 Dokc, 12 minor heal potions, 3 minor stamina potions, 43 Night Wolf Pelts, 21 Wolf Fangs, 20KG Orc meat, 13 Orc Testes, 19 Orc fangs, 37 Goblin fangs, 68 Goblin ears, 13 Orc ears, 43 common Night Wolf Cards, 13 common Orc Cards, 68 Common goblin cards, 23 common Kobold cards, 2 uncommon Stone Lizard cards, 42 common Golden Ram cards]]
[Well that's a ton of bodies, but until I can't properly harvest all the materials from them I should hold off on just getting rid of them, at least until I can find a butcher, or learn to deal with it myself, but ugh that smell.]
Walking my way back to our camp with my escort tagging along, I glanced over my shoulder still seeking the spotted field of contrasting red, and green.
When I turned my head back I saw Raisa had just walked out of the tent and was now staring pretty wide-eyed, her mouth flapping open and closed.
"No need to worry everything is sorted"
"Are you really sure, it looks like a war took place here last night"
"Yeah no worries at all, Kurama and the Golems handled it perfectly"
At my say so Rocky, and Creed fist bumped, and Kurama took up a pose as raising a paw, to me it looked like he was going for the traditional V for victory pose, but since his paws are just that paws, it would be impossible, even so where did any of my summons learn anything like that?
"Huh!? Um well ok if you say so"
Following this, I called back Creed, and Rocky who faded into balls of light that then were absorbed by me once again, confirming their presence within the monster book. Kurama meanwhile joined us for breakfast.
Having packed up everything the three of us climbed back onto the cart and started the final leg of the journey to Bobel, Kurama once again joined Raisa in the front seat and almost immediately after setting off had curled up and gone to sleep.
I meanwhile had resumed my position in the back of the cart pouring over my menu.
There are only two things left from the game that I have not done, Magic but I'm not sure how that would work since this world already has magic, would mine be different, or could I learn to perform both?
According to Raisa as I raised a question about magic she pointed out that anyone who has and rank listed in the mana section of a status appraisal is capable of learning magic but those with a low rank should only manage everyday life magic, or the weakest of attack spells.
The other thing is professions, in the game it was a way for players to harvest goods, and create their own goods that were orders of magnitude better than anything you could find in none player shops, but often paled in comparison to rare item drops from tough opponents.
In the game there were a total of 19 different professions, but players only ever focused on at most 5 of these since being a jack-of-all-trades would take an insane amount of time to become a master of them all.
So far I haven't seen the professions tab unlock in my menu, but since I haven't done anything yet that would constitute a rising of any of those skills short of collecting the items and drops themselves, which could fall under
To test this theory I pulled out my dagger and drew a long slice across my palm.
'Urrrk' blood proceeded to flow excessively from the fresh wound on my hand.
[uh ok yeah was meaning to make a cut but certainly think I went to deep on that one]
Quickly pulling out one of the shirts I had purchased back in the kingdom I tore the fabric to make a simple bandage and wrapped it tightly around the slice in my hand.
While doing this I watched my Health bar within the menu, I had lost 5 health from the initial cut, and another 1 every 10 seconds from bleeding, and this stopped as soon as the make-shift bandage was in place.
A quick flash of my menu, and a new tab appeared.
[Well that was pretty easy to unlock professions]
Navigating to the new menu tab I saw my only profession listed
Basic bandages only heal 10 health, and cloth ones 25. For now I selected to use up what remained of the shirt to create 3 simple bandages, removing my makeshift bandage I replaced it with the simple bandage, immediately my health bar returned to full, and I removed the new bandage revealing a fully healed hand with no scar on my palm.
My profession level from the crafting of bandages and the application of first aid onto myself did not increase so i can only assume that the growth ceiling is much higher than simply healing a single wound but not wanting to endless harm and heal myself i set it aside for now.
[Well good thing it's exactly like the game, though the means of acquiring professions is different, in the game you just had to find a profession trainer and pay the fee to acquire the novice level proficiency, but here I guess I'll need to actually perform the basics myself until the system recognizes it as the profession, and then level my way up from there]
In Yggdrasill Professions there were 19 total professions one could learn;
Each of these professions carried with it a level from 1-10;
Level 0-1 Novice
Level 2-4 Competent
Level 5-8 Experienced
Level 9-10 Master
The skills were leveled up through repetitive action of the profession itself crafting, or collecting as necessary, starting from 1 your proficiency would rise until you reached 100 at which point your profession would level up, then once leveled up you'd unlock the ability to work with higher level ingredients, or materials.
Level 1 cooking for example would be good enough to make, pancakes or scrambled eggs, but you'd need to be at least level 5 if you wanted to try making a Soufflé, and to make a Crème Brule you'd need to be 9-10.
From what Raisa had told me yesterday however the general knowledge of this world says being a master occurs when you're level 5 so does that mean they don't know real quality of professions or is their growth potential twice as fast as my own?
[Well let's see from what I recall of the professions from Yggdrasill my choices are going to fairly limited at first, so I should probably start with acquiring Herbalism, Alchemy, Inscription, Cooking, and Skinning these should be fairly simple to acquire once we reach town and I re-signup to the guild since all the G rank request back in the kingdom were for herb collecting, and even then if I'm in the forest some small animals or monsters should be simple enough to acquire skinning, and from there I can work on building up Inscription, Tailoring, and Leatherworking in town]
The rest of the journey proceeded normally; the handful of carts we passed on the road bore simple shocked expressions upon passing by having seen a large fox like creature comfortably napping next to Raisa.
As we came over the final crest, a new sight came into view spanning in front of me was a large walled city, the walls were grey stone at least 15ft in height encircling the city, further in a second ring wall could be seen almost twice as large as the outer wall.
The front gate in front of us had queue of carts, and people waiting their turn to enter the city.
Green and white flags hung down from the gatehouse walls fluttering in the breeze.
"Ah"
Raising her hands in a large stretch letting out a satisfying sigh
"It's been so long since I last was home, the city hasn't changed one bit"
"Oh right you mentioned you were from Bobel, how long has it been since you were last back?"
"Hmm would be right around 6 years now I believe"
"Six years…"
My voice trailed off.
[I know there are no cars, trains, or planes here but still to think she's been travelling for 6 years without ever going home]
"Oh don't make a face like that, I'm a merchant remember its customary for merchant children to go out and see the world for the first 10 years once they come of age that way we can gain experience, identify regions with goods, who needs what, and establish our own connections since the ones who work with our parents might chose to stop working with the company once a new head is decided"
"At what age are you, of age here?"
"Well for Joquet that would be 14, but our philosophy is based on achievements right so the ruling class think the start earlier on this path can produce even greater returns"
[14 huh, and she's been gone for 6 so that means she's at least 20 years old right now]
"When are you of age in your world?"
"On earth? Well that kind of depends really there are different levels I'd say, in general you're an adult at 18, but some countries won't let you gamble or drink until even later than that"
"Wha! You're not allowed to drink until your over 18!!"
"Well yeah, I mean we found that alcohol can reduce ones mental growth, and cause other harm until one if finished growing which doesn't happen till about 17-18"
"Oh I see, that's a strange custom but your world certainly is more advanced than us, from what you've told me your goods and things are on the level of the Ancient Civilization here"
"You mentioned it briefly before but what is this Ancient Civilization?"
"They were an empire that spanned the entire world, prosperity for the races and life had never been easier or at least that's what we've interpreted from the ruins, and artifacts that are found. Course the artifacts themselves are on a level we cannot hope to reproduce so copies are made of a much much lesser quality but every few years another artifact is found and new methods produced to increase the efficiency of the copies"
[Artifacts found in ruins from what she's said so far it sounds like she's talking about everyday things, like a fridge or stove rather than weapons]
"If you're interested you could scour the land for ruins, quite a few have been found in Joquet but since their of Ancient Civilization era, there are countless traps, hidden passages, hidden doors, and guardians."
"Maybe some other time haha first I need to get my bearing in Bobel, before I consider anything as grand as archeology"
She tilted her head a little in response before agreeing.
"So what do you think you'll do when we're in the city? Got a job in mind for yourself Satou?"
"Well I'm thinking at the very least I'll register with the guild here and take some odd jobs, then see about making some potions for myself…"
"Potions! You're an alchemist Satou?"
"Uh well not a full blown one but I know a thing or two, so I'll expand my knowledge as much as I can, at least in the meantime I can sell the monster materials I collected along my trip, and then there's the goods from that bandit cave I told you about as well. Oh and then there's the monsters we fought just last night though I need to find someone in the city whose tight lipped and capable of butchering them for me"
"Ah yes right, well if you're willing to continue working alongside me I'd be happy to sell the bandit goods for you, along with introduce you to my families butcher who can deal with monster's you bring and thanks to our contract with him he cannot reveal a thing about you"
"Sounds like a mighty generous offer but what's in it for you?"
"Well I don't know exactly the scale but it's plain to see you and your summons saved my life last night, so I feel I owe you, that and I'm sure you're fine with 5% of the sold value being the merchant fee that goes to me as your Middlewoman"
"Well… I mean yeah I suppose, but still only 5% seems mighty low to me, I'd feel better myself if you'd accept 15%"
"Bwahaha well I'm not one to oppose someone willing to give money away for free to me, just watch out terms like that I might try and lock in with a contract between us"
"Well that would depend I guess on the type of contract you're talking about really"
"True we can discuss it another time, but it looks like it's our turn finally"
Our cart made its way to the guard house at the gate, being stopped only for a moment by the guards who questioned us about Kurama, and myself. Raisa covered this quickly by saying I was her apprentice and Kurama a rare pet she picked up on her travels.
The only warning we were given was to get Kurama registered to her Guild plate.
After paying the gate toll we set off into the city, Raisa deftly working her way through the city streets until we came to a large warehouse, she got down telling us to wait and walked inside, shortly after the large door opened and she led the horses and cart inside, before releasing the horses and sending them off to the stable.
Once she returned, she led me over to an empty side of the warehouse.
"Alright this should be more than enough room, bring out all the goods the bandit's had, and I'll sort them for you then sell them for a good price"
Following her request I released the entire folder.
<
"You took all of this from those bandits?! The kingdom truly is a terrible place if a band of bandits like that was able to pillage so much without anyone stopping them"
[Yeah that's only partially true, sure the bandit's stuff is mixed in but all the furs, and other goods i picked up from my drops along the journey i also threw in since it would be an easier way of explaining where i got them from]
"For all I know they had even more this was just what I found from where they held me to where I escaped, I had summons who went and attacked another cavern they were sleeping in so the cave itself may have had multiple store rooms and I only retrieve the base goods that didn't warrant being stored further in"
"Well this is certainly going to take a while to dig through, so I think I should introduce you to the butcher first so we can get everything started for you"
Leaving the small mountain of goods I called back Kurama, and followed behind Raisa led me into another wing of the Warehouse, the air was thick with the scent of iron, having walked through the final set of doors, we were in another sizable room but unlike the others there was no orderly stacked boxes lining the walls, instead numerous beasts hung from hooks their blood spilling out into troughs below.
"Viktor!"
"Ah Lady Raisa welcome back I was starting to think you'd gone and abandoned the family business getting swept off your feet by some cute boy"
'Whack'
'Gah!'
Delivering a strong sweeping kick to his gut Raisa's form was that like a martial arts master, doubled over in pain from receiving the blow.
"You should know better than to make jokes like that to me Viktor"
'Cough'
"Ugh quite right milady, just couldn't help it, I mean after all you did bring a boy home with you after being away for so long?"
Her face reddened at his remark.
"Satou here just happens to be a customer Viktor don't go getting any funny idea's in that empty head of yours"
Getting to his feet Viktor made his way over to me still stand at the entrance to the slaughterhouse.
"You must be the client then, Satou was it?"
"Uh yes sir, pleased to meet you"
Bowing my head and body slightly forward.
"Oh hoh, she got herself a noble from another land did she?"
To the side Raisa's face once again reddened but her fists meanwhile were tightening into fists, Viktor who didn't miss this flinched, stepping backwards a few steps.
"Who me? No sir, while it's true I hail from a land other than Joquet I hold no noble title, i'm just your everyday freeman"
"Ho Ho a not a commoner but a freeman, really now with speak and moves like that you're cut out to be one of them nobles in no time that's for sure, but if you ain't one of them then you can cut that fancy talk round me"
"Are freemen and commoners different here?"
"Uh well yes... I mean commoners are just the regular run of the mill people like myself, but freemen are closer to the nobility at the rank to be of service to them like attendants, or even knights"
"I see well where I'm from i guess it'll be better to say I'm just a commoner here then, but I'll try my best to climb the ranks if I can, but my speech and mannerisms are just how I am now"
"Well hope you don't mind if I do then, now the young miss said you had work for me is that right?"
"Uh yes that is correct, though it's quite a lot and I'm not really sure what's actually worth being butchered."
"Hahaha a greenhorn hunter then, alright well I can work with that if you're interested I could even show you the basics if you think you're man enough bwahahaha, just bring your kills to this warehouse so long as the Lady give her permission and I'll do the work."
"Oh well actually my 'kills' are already here, see I have an itembox… do you mind if I start unloading them?"
"Oh hoh hoh sure thing kiddo bring em on"
Making my way to a clear spot on the floor I accessed my menu and started pulling corpse after corpse out, making piles of each monster type.
A huge pile of night wolves, next I placed another pile of goblin corpses, next to that a small pile of kobolds, and the seven stone lizards.
I was about to continue but glancing around I noticed I'd run out of floor space to place any further bodies.
Behind me I could just barely make out a hushed conversation.
"Hero... could be"
"No"
"But… the size"
"I know"
"Then how…"
Turning around to face them their conversation ended in ernest.
"Well that's all I have that'll fit I still have some Orcs, and Rams though so I can always take them out later right?"
"Satou"
"Hmm"
Turning to look at Raisa her fists still clenched tight
"Are these all the monsters that attacked us last night?"
"Uh yes that's right, we we're quite unlucky, but since we survived I suppose you could say we were also very lucky"
"Is… that… so"
A silence loomed between for a minute until Viktor finally broke the calm.
"Well you sure surprised this old man, now not too much we can harvest from the Gob's, Bold's or Wolves, these stone lizards on the other hand their meat, and skin will be a good harvest, and you said you've got Orcs, and some kinda Ram as well?"
"That's right I've got 13 Orc's, and 74 Ram I'm not strictly speaking aware of their species but I'd call them golden from their coloring"
Raisa's face once again riddled with shock, Viktor meanwhile cracked an even bigger smile.
"Well boyo best we get started then, Miss you'd best return else the smell will stay with you."
"Err right well I do have work to do in the other wing so I'll head there, if you're still working away by the time I'm done I'll head to the market and start selling, if that happens. Satou stop by my place tomorrow and we can settle up ok? Viktor can give you directions on how to find the house"
"Sure that works for me, try not to work yourself to hard."
"Ha ha gotta do my best to earn that 15%"
Waving goodbye as she retreated through the heavy wooden door.
"Now let's get started you lending a hand?"
"Yes Sir!"
Our work started with those we needn't do much work on, removing usable fangs from the goblins before tossing the rest of the bodies into a metal shaft.
When I inquired Viktor stated that all unusable parts are sent below where they are processed into feed for monsters used in the cities arena's or turned into compost for the fields.
Collected:[[29 Goblin Fangs]]
Next after we finished with hauling and tossing the goblins, we started to work on the rest lining up the wolves, I focused intently to watch Viktor.
First he strung up corpse after corpse from the hooks hanging from the ceiling, once twenty were setup, he plunged his knife into the underbelly of the first wolf drawing his blade down from its throat all the way to its tail, a torrent of blood, and offal poured out, next with a thinner blade almost like a filleting kitchen knife he slide the knife along the fresh incision separating the pelt from the flesh beneath, slowly work his way around the entire wolf.
[Urf.. ugh this is so gross, I knew what this would entail but I can't grow numb to this fast enough, I mean he's peeling a dog! I want this to stop]
Finally after watching the master at work his skinning efforts stopped with the entire grey/black pelt from the legs up to the neck removed and draped over his arm, moving away from the now furless body he quickly applied something to it, before rolling it up and leaning it against a wall with a drain beneath it, later he explained this is a process to preserve the pelt and remove moisture from it.
"One down, now your gonna join me and we'll work side by side on the next ones, we'll see if you've got any aptitude for skinning"
Drawing my daggers from their sheathes I slowly followed mimicking Viktor's actions, 20 minutes of hell followed, covered in blood the pelt I was working on ripped and torn all over. After setting the two new pelts to the wall, Viktor clapped a hand on my shoulder.
"Gotta say I figured you'd bow out before we actually finished one, you're tougher than you look kid though your technique clearly demonstrates you're an amateur but only one thing for it is to practice good thing you've got more than enough bodies to accomplish that, let's get to work."
Carrying on moving to the next handing corpse I resumed my gruesome work, while mentally opening up the professions window of my menu.
[Huh so just skinning a single wolf netted me the skill that's pretty good for me, though as I get higher that rate of level gain should drop unless I'm working on harder/higher level foes if it's like the game, since you'd not gain experience skinning low level monsters after reaching the cap]
Hours passed pelt after pelt was removed salted and rolled, until finally all the skins had been removed, after that we hauled the bodies to the pit and tossed them in.
Next we strung up the Kobolds and continued our work; luckily the process was the same for the kobolds as it was for the wolves.
[It's a good think I tucked Kurama away in my book by dismissing him, pretty sure he'd get really depressed watching us chop up his kin right in front of his eyes]
Another couple hours passed by before we finished off all the Kobolds, this time though a handful of the kobold pelts I "peeled" were fully intact without any nicks, the praise I received from Viktor was nothing short of impressive, going as far as to declare me a prodigy after having only peeled so many monsters to have already started to master the art of skinning.
Wiping the blood off my blade and washing my hands, my profession screen pulled up once again.
[Huh well I guess I must be almost close to leveling up which would make me competent and only failing once in a while rather than pretty much every time like it was in the beginning]
"Now I know you've got more to go here kid, but it's pretty late you should head out and find an inn for yourself, we can work on the others another day, sides I'm gonna be working on these lizards alone there a might bit tricky so I wouldn't want to torture you as a newbie."
"But what about the pelts, I motioned my hand to the wall"
"Oh no need to worry about those, they'll stay there for at least 12 hours before we brush em off, and salt them again, then comes stage two, if you're planning on selling them after that point will be a good stopping point but if you want to use them yourself all said and done you're looking at close to 5 days before I can give them back to you ready to be used, unless of course you're planning on selling them to the lady at which point I can right up the report and send it over to her for approval, and carrying on with the tanning of the hides myself."
"Ah ok I see so that's how the skinning process works, then well when they reach the point that they can be sold please provide them to Raisa she offered to sell my goods for me."
"You got it!"
Waving my hand off at him I headed off through the side door which exited right into the street, the calm night air blowing the star filled sky a deep blue turning to black, all around me yellowish flickering lights illuminated the street.
[Street lights, but those don't look like their powered by electricity]
Staring at the light it looked like a pulsing orb of light.
[Must be some everyday life magic, but before I go anywhere…]
Looking down at myself my face screwed up and mentally I threw up all over my brain, this was the first time in 9 hours I had looked at myself, sure I had to watch my hands when working so they were caked in blood, but my clothes were just as bad looking like I'd jumped in a lake of blood.
Quickly opening my menu I swapped out my bloodied clothes for the remaining pair of fresh one, in a flash the weight on me was released.
Dragging the bloodied clothes through my inventory I dropped them into the exchange box, and out popped 1 crystal they appeared and disappeared almost immediately on the menu that showed the Currency I've already entered in for purchases in the store now showed my total number of crystals.
In Yggdrasill crystals dropped from monsters, or could be gained from exchanging equipment in the grinder [Exchange box] once converted there was no going back, but the number of crystals you got was in relation to the worth of the goods to destroyed, crystals would be used in conjunction to professions, like runecraft, enchanting and synthweaving (magecraft).
Now cleared of my soiled clothes I headed off down the streets of this foreign city in pursuit of an inn where I can rest my head. As the thoughts of a nice warm bed raced through my mind my feet came to a halt.
[Oh crap… I forgot to get Raisa's address from Viktor, and now I don't know how to get back to the Warehouse either, why did I just wander off… my only saving grace is that I know the general area, thanks to my revealed portion of the minimap but even still it's gonna be tricky, perhaps Kurama can help hunt down what I'm looking for]
Resigning my problems to my future self I carried on, before finding a hanging inn sign off the beaten track, from the outside it didn't look like much but for a night it should be fine.
Walking up and entering in through the door, I was greeted by a large woman sweeping the entryway.
"Welcome weary traveller to The Last Resort, looking for a room? Or just heading to the bar?"
"Oh uh a room please, for 1 night"
[The Last Resort, that makes this place super sketchy sounding]
"That'll be 1 silver coin dearie, meals are extra if you'd like"
Handing over the one silver immediately.
"Oh no need for that I ate earlier with my friends"
The lady smiled and handed me a pair of keys.
"Your room is on the 3rd floor please enjoy your stay"
"Uh excuse me, why are there two keys?"
"Well one is for your room of course, and the other is for your storage locker"
"Oh I see, thank you for explaining"
Heading off up the stairs I made my way to the 3rd floor, mine was the only room on this floor which made it the penthouse but after unlocking the door and walking in it was anything but.
Sure compared to other inn's I'd stayed at the room was far larger with a single bed, sofa, and coffee table in the past the rooms were like a prison cell with enough room to get changed and place a single bed.
Too tired to think about anything I closed the door, and locked it behind me before belly flopping on the bed and passing out right away.
The last thought to run through my head made me give a quick chortle.
[Please gods of this world, don't make me dream of that slaughter, I'd like to be able to eat meat again in this lifetime]