Chapter 865 (2/2)

Inwardly, Randidly whistled. Not just the local butcher, an advanced butcher Class huh? And from the scars and calluses on the man’s hands, he didn’t earn those 42 Levels by slicing meat. It was much more likely that he had served on Donnyton’s Squads for a significant period of time to reach that Level.

Or he was around at the founding of Donnyton and had to go through that meat grinder. No pun intended.

Seeing that Randidly’s expression was friendly, Jameson continued. “Saw smoke from your fire a few days back, made a note to check it out. As a butcher, I’m always looking for new sources of meat. And if a man has enough balls to set up a homestead so far from Donnyton proper… Well, people like you are often the best sources for meat.”

Randidly’s eyebrows rose. “You are here to… buy monster bodies that I’ve killed?”

“That’s basically it. So, Mr. Erickson, anything I’d be interested in? I generally buy things above Level 20, but as a show of good faith-”

“That’s no problem,” Randidly said as he thought of what was sitting in his interspatial ring. The money sent to him from Erickson Steel had, in fact, been running low recently as he continued to experiment with materials to improve the regeneration rate of the Skills Engraved into the items. Making a little extra money from these bodies couldn’t hurt.

One of the few paths that Randidly had never really taken the time to understand well enough to gain a Skill was butchering and extracting materials from monsters. Mostly, he had left it to Sam. There were some exceptions, but that was only when there was something obviously valuable from a corpse that Randidly had ripped off of it with brute force. It barely qualified as dressing a corpse.

Humming to himself, Randidly produced a half dozen of the intact Raptor bodies he had encountered while searching for Naffur. At the time he thought their scales might be useful, but he had completely forgotten about the bodies after that. For good measure, Randidly brought out two Level 71 Shadow Reapers, basically giant hyenas, that he had encountered when he went to observe how the ogres were settling into their new habitat.

The bodies tumbled to the ground like rag dolls, the ring having prevented rigor mortis from setting in.

Jameson blinked in surprise. “Well, well! Looks like coming up here wasn’t a waste. Let me just slice off a piece so I can get a sense of a fair price for the body… wow, these scales…”

In an expert manner, Jameson produced a knife and crouched down next to one of the raptors. His knife blurred as he casually cut at the chest of the raptor. The was a soft hiss as the blade was drawn across the scales, but nothing happened. Randidly looked up toward the sky.

Awkwardly coughing, the butcher glanced up at Randidly then down at the corpse. After a hesitation, he simply reached into the wound Randidly had made in the raptor's side with Acri and cut off a sliver of meat. He examined the meat critically, then popped it right into his mouth.

Instantly his eyes brightened. “Good! Damn good. A little musky and sour, but tender as hell. Where did you get this?”

“Up north,” Randidly said shortly, watching the butcher with a bit of sadness in his eyes. But if the other man wasn’t going to ask.

“I’m not sure about the poundage…” Jameson picked up a raptor experimentally and winced. They were likely almost 300 lbs, although most of that probably wasn’t meat. “But I’ll give you… twenty coins a head? And these two bigguns… they are even a higher Level, aren’t they?”

As Jameson examined the Shadow Reapers critically, Randidly nodded his head in assent.

“Fifty each? Which brings the total to… 220 coins?”

“That seems fine,” Randidly said after a short period of consideration. He wasn’t sure of the value of the bodies, but he had practically forgotten about them so he didn’t mind losing some value. In addition, 220 Donnyton coins was about half the amount that he had gotten from Erickson Steel.

When a few coins could buy several high-quality pieces of metal and processed wood, it certainly seemed fair to give away these high-Level corpses for ten times that.

“So what Level are they, anyway?” Jameson asked casually.

Randidly sighed. No helping it now. “...Level 62.”

“Kkkkgh!” Jameson steadied himself on the imposing raptor corpse, then abruptly stood and idly rubbed his bloody hand against his apron. “And then… these are higher…?”

“Level 71, if I recall correctly.”

Jameson choked on his quickly gathering saliva.

“...Perhaps I should split their hide before you take them?” Randidly offered. Although talented and an impressive Level for a civilian, it was clear this man didn’t have the ability to handle the meat on his own.

With dull eyes, Jameson nodded. Randidly produced Acri and got quickly to work, splitting them down the stomach so they would be easier to work with.

Then, as he finished, a thought occurred to Randidly. He turned to Jameson. “Any chance you would be in the market for engraved shields as well?”