The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Butchering a nighteye caterpillar was simple, but not easy.

First, hold it in a way to avoid the soft poison spines on its back.

Krow changed to [Plague Doctor's Gauntlets] for that.

Then using a sharp knife, slice off the top of the headcase that hold the antennae, in such a way as not to damage the fangs on the upper jaw.

The body was next.

Flipping to slice open the soft undersides wasn't exactly wrong. But for greater precision and less chance of nicking the venom sacs, if you had the sort of knife that could part a falling silk handkerchief into halves with nary a whisper or hardship, you should open at the top, between the spines studded in two parallel lines down the caterpillar body.

Fortunately, Krow had such a knife.

The Uncommon quality butcher knives he acquired in Nyurajke came in sets of four. A cleaver that had the length of a machete, a meat knife, a skinning knife, a boning knife.

Of the four, the skinning knife was the only one graded C-. The rest were all rated D.

Slip the knife into the dark grey stripe that went down the center of the body, then pull along the mark, parting the soft skin. Do the same to the stripes on both sides of the body, under the spines.

Using fingers, hold the lower part of the jaw down, careful of fangs.

Pull up the upper part of the jaw, containing the fangs. When the jaws are fully separated from each other and the upper jaw is separated from the rest of the headcase, you'll see veins connecting the fangs to the caterpillar body. Holding down the lower jaw firmly with one hand, sharply tug the hand with the fangs along the caterpillar body, which will easily pull out the soft spines and the venom sacs under those spines.

The fangs and sacs can be stored in a dark place for 30 days before becoming unusable.

It's best to extract the venom immediately. In proper storage, it can last ten years before losing potency.

[You have butchered 100 Nighteye Caterpillars!]

[Your Butcher subclass has advanced to First Apprentice! You are now eligible to learn skills from the Wright ranks.]

[You have achieved Lvl 6!]

He blinked at the Lvl 6 pronouncement. 

Ah, right. All the mature caterpillars with golden antennae were over Lvl 5.

Krow ignored the other notifications.

It was sunset.

Sunset, and Krow still hadn't finished butchering all the mature caterpillars in the grove. 

He didn't want to be here at nightfall, when the scent of caterpillar carcasses would attract all manner of predators five or more levels higher than even the Lvl 12 Thunder-badgermole.

He stretched his muscles, throwing the venom sac he'd just taken into his Inventory.

He retrieved the Tradebook and opened it. 

The holo-interface appeared, hovering over the Book.

He placed all the sacs and fangs in the auction like he did the cocoons and immature caterpillars earlier, with an auction time of one hour.

He set the reserve price to 10,000 drax.

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When the auction ended and the reserve price wasn't met, all the items would automatically revert to his trade-vault.

He smiled.

This feature was only possible in the game, of course, because the Tradebook allowed the player to sell from Inventory outside the trade-terminals in Orddet's.

There was no system Inventory in Zushkenar, which meant Tradebook owners were relegated to only selling items from their trade-vault or the warehouses attached to their account.

He stored the Tradebook, satisfied.

He drank another Low Revitalit, thinking what to do next.

He had to brave the forest floor, he realized in dismay.

The whirlroot plants growing at the foot of the dandelion trees were too good materials to pass up.

It was still a full hour before true nightfall, a sliver of sun still showing over the horizon.

Krow jumped down.

Fortunately, it was easy to pull up the whirlroot plants. He kept near tree roots when he could.

Whitecloud earthworms rarely surfaced from their underground lairs, generally harmless. That is, they didn't have teeth, or claws, or poison. They weren't aggressive or violent.

But you couldn't call them safe. 

The average whitecloud earthworm was thick as a fatty thigh, and six or so meters in length. The larger ones could crush a child under their weight.

Krow saw a clearing full of whirlroots and headed there.

The whirlroot plant was prized for its single long taproot that could reach up to a half-meter in length. The seeds were a poison. But the root was used to make 'whirlroot gel' which is a D+ Uncommon material in potionmaking.

Before, he used it many times in making the curing solutions for armor-grade leather.

With no time to be unmessy, he grabbed the whirlroots by the handful, pulling them out of loose soil, and flicking them whole to his inventory.

He was so focused on the task, that when his foot shifted downward warningly, he took a moment to understand what that meant.

A full quarter of the meadow fell into a massive earthworm tunnel, a few trees tipping over, like a collection of Leaning Towers.

Krow yelped, grabbed for purchase on the grass as the ground under him gave way. 

A moment of panic, then reason overwhelmed. 

He triggered Doublejump to escape.

Once on solid ground, he scrambled backward from the lengthening scar in the green grassy clearing, slightly unnerved at the close call.

He laughed a bit, relieved.

One more reason whitecloud earthworm territory needed to be treated with caution. The caverns and tunnels they create under the ground surface could cave in pretty easily.

He quickly pulled up the whirlroots near the treeline, giving up on the rest in the center of the clearing. Finished, he climbed up a tree again, higher and higher until he could see the rest of the treetops.

He didn't quite know where he was, but if he faced the setting sun, the Hallagons were on the horizon to his left. To his right was just high cliffs.

The Pass was marked on his Map, as was the Maw.

He'd bought a Map Piece for the draculkar nation, but it only showed major towns and cities.

There were three major draculkar cities, aside from the capital, dotting the expanse of the massive Urla Mountain Range. All of them were north of Velkenbragg, though and no use to him.

The general shape of the map meant he needed to go northwest.

Or more simple, he just needed to get lower on the mountains, out of the highlands.

Due west.

Krow slid back to the low branches, then started jumping tree to tree. High Dexterity was incredible.

The smoke-piles were burning low already. He still doused them with water, moving fast.

Then took off, tree-hopping down the mountain.

Unfortunately, he didn't find any village to take shelter in.

It wasn't quite moonset when he decided on a small crevice on a cliff, protected by an overhang and a screen of mossy vines, to bivouac in.

*

Eli calculated how many monsters he needed to kill to earn 150 ecru a month. Or 500 drax a day.

One drax was worth 25 serpens.

Monsters gave cash in tiers. Lvl 1-9 gave one serpens. Lvl 10-19 gave two serpens, and so on.

Quest completions gave more, of course, but most monster elimination quests were for low levels.

Tsk.

It really was unfair.

Bandits Lvl 1-5 gave one serpens. Lvl 6-10 gave two serpens. Wait, that Lvl 10 bandit captain gave five serpens.

He hadn't even tossed them for loot.

Fighting players would gain him even more than fighting bandits, he knew.

Monster materials currently were cheap, most were sold at vendor trash bulk prices.

That meant Eli couldn't sell most of what he had until the craft upgrade. On the contrary, the smart thing to do was buy.

If he kept to one-serpens monsters, he needed to kill 12,500 a day to gain 500 drax.

Uh, no.

Sticking to two-serpens monsters would halve that, but still no.

Can he even fight a Lvl 19 yet?

He tentatively placed his current killing speed at 200 monsters a day. A quick calculation told him he needed to kill that many Lvl 600 monsters every day to eat.

Ahaha.

He didn't think there were even Lvl 200 monsters yet. Those were added during the update. Redlands was only up to about Lvl 560 monsters before the Quake, and those were raid monsters.

If he didn't need to butcher them, then he could kill 1000 monsters a day. That meant Lvl 120 and above monsters.

Still no.

Obviously, monster hunting won't feed him.

He already knew that and  never planned to depend solely on monster hunting. Monster hunting was primarily the means to increase his battleclass level and gather materials.

Also, it was his way of playing the game.

Now, it was looking more and more like he needed to level enchanting sooner than he thought.

Leveling his battleclass and his craftclass at the same time? Madness.

At the very least, not until he raised Sharpshooter to Lvl 20.

By then, he'd be strong enough to bring in the top quality Uncommon materials from monsters.

By then, he'd have a significant store of ingredients for grinding Enchanter.

In the meantime…

Shkav, he really needed a job.

Eli glanced through the netwide classifieds for Greatcentral City and saw a few of the part-time jobs he did before. He made a face.

He pulled the material on the tour thing again.

The manager had messaged the payscale to him while he was in Redlands.

Reluctantly, he was tempted.

Four to six hours, two days a week; 200 ecru a month.

None of the other part-time jobs, not even the better ones that he remembered from Zee's recommendations paid that much for two days of work a week. Half-days, even.

What did Rashid say to the manager?

Eli shook his head.

VR tourism in Redlands. 

Did this happen during his last life?

He was never a VRMMO enthusiast, so he didn't know.

But this was why he sent that suggestion to RSI, right? For Redlands to invite more people to make accounts?

This whole thing was probably already in production when he sent the suggestion, but still, he should be supporting this.

He couldn't do much about the Quake, but he could do this.

The possibility that it could save lives was something he could do.

He sent his official acceptance to the manager before he changed his mind.

Then he dropped his head into his hands.

Oh wait. There was that.

The bio-cradle stored video records for 60 hours before automatically purging, right?

*

A few days later, a new RedVisor account named RedlandsMonsterHunter quietly debuted with a video titled [Two and a Half Ways to Butcher a Mature Nighteye Caterpillar].

It got 3 views in the first seven days.

In the first month, just two comments.

#00001: Did you all see the piles of dead caterpillars in the background?

#00002: Idiot.

The second had more upvotes. Six compared to the one on the first comment.