The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

The butcher stared at Krow.

Krow stared back.

Between them was about 4000 kg of monster meat.

And two unbutchered thunder-badgermole carcasses.

Krow smiled his best smile. "Mastercrafter, what are the requirements for being a student here?"

The butcher snorted. He eyed the meat. "The cutting technique is average. Why should I take you on?"

Average?!

His Knife Handling was 100% mastery! Which other fresh wright would have mastered such a skill so thoroughly?

"Average?" he asked mildly.

"That snakemeat, tchah. Amateur. And those windrats? Did you use a hook to butcher them? You wouldn't pass a butcher challenge with even one of my wrights."

"Are you offering a contest then?"

Tsk.

The windrats were when he was just starting out with Butcher skills, and the snakes…

There were two hundred snake carcasses in his inventory – he'd been tired, alright?!

The butcher laughed derisively. "Why not? My wrights could use some diversion. They'd been working hard."

"Since you denigrate my knife skills, shall we agree on testing that?" Krow pushed down his exasperation. "I'll demonstrate with however many wrights you have."

The butcher laughed. "You have fire, that's for sure. Alright! If you win, I'll take you on. If you lose, you won't approach any butcher in Rakaens!"

"If I win," Krow countered. "You'll sell me all the wright skills you have. If I lose, I won't approach anyone else until I win here."

"A fierce young buck, aren't you." The butcher smirked. "Agreed!"

He gestured for the apprentices watching to weigh and record the meat. 

"Get Khurilan here," he ordered another. "And you, arrange those tables for me."

The draculkar named Khurilan came in, and Krow had the distinct feeling the butcher was only looking for entertainment.

The wright was burly and muscled, he looked more like a blacksmith than a butcher. Then again, with the size of the monsters in Redlands, undoubtedly great strength was needed. 

Even the master butcher had a chiseled physique.

Compared to them, Krow looked like an untried sapling, only needing the slightest gale to break.

The whispering and schadenfreude-filled looks of the apprentices as they rushed here and there at the master butcher's direction, making his arrrangements, was only noise.

Krow knew the worth of a fully mastered skill.

A craftmaster acquaintance, who was not the old man, told him that to advance to wright-rank, a crafter only needed 75% mastery of apprentice skills. It was 100% mastery of those same apprentice skills that told master examiners that a wright was ready for master-rank.

With non-players, Krow expected the mechanics to be the same. It was just too much work for a company to overhaul a crafting system proven to be popular, plus add the battle expansion.

Basically, he was placing a bet on the practical money-grubbing of a business giant like RSI.

Apart from Knife-handling, Krow didn't have any of the other apprentice butcher skills. So he could only set up the contest like this.

The wright he was going against was undoubtedly a more well-rounded butcher. But when it came to knife skills, he was outclassed.

As long as it was just knife skills, Krow would win.

The butcher arranged two tables.

He moved toward the thunder-badgermoles and Krow had a dread supposition.

"Apprentices!" the butcher raised his voice. "This is a thunder-badgermole, if you do not recognize it. Thank our kind hunter for providing the material for his own demonstration today!"

There was a smattering of applause.

Shkav.

If the contest was dressing the carcass…he only just got the meatcarving skill.

"The same hunter has offered to match the knife skills of our own butchers! Can you believe it?"

Krow and Khurilan eyed each other in the midst of the heckling.

"Our own Khurilan will be defending the skills of the shop today. They will skin a thunder-badgermole each, and the faster will win. Of course, the quality of the skin will also be inspected."

Krow took out his skinning knife, placed it on the table.

Khurilan took a knife from his toolbelt and did the same.

Skinning an animal was not purely a contest of knifework.

More to the point, Krow had never skinned a thunder-badgermole before.

"Let us give the young hunter a hand, and say Khurilan will skin the larger one!"

The apprentices carried the larger of the thunder-badgermoles to Khurilan.

Tsk. Wasn't this guy looking down on him too much?

Krow kept his face netural as he replaced his Bonewood Gauntlets with the more flexible Plague Doctor's Gauntlets, and removed his Travelcoat.

He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

Khurilan silently took a leather apron off a hook and offered it to him.

Krow took it, nodding gratefully.

He tied the apron around himself, tugging here and there as he examined how it protected his clothing. Should he buy a couple for himself?

This seemed very useful.

"Ready?"

Krow looked up. Picked up the knife. He nodded. At the corner of his eye, he saw the opponent give the same signal.

"Begin!"

Both ignored the tables, flipping the thunder-badgermoles right there on the floor.

Krow examined the furry underside.

He'd never seen a thunder-badgermole skinned.

Khurilan was already moving.

Krow stuffed down his sudden nerves.  He'd just treat it as an oddly-shaped bear.

He started at the feet, slicing through where the fur changed color, up to the anal vent. Did the same to the other leg. Then he started on the arms, doing the same – both cuts meeting at the chest of the mole. Then he slid the knife downward, skirted the vent, let all the cuts meet.

He'd noted earlier that there were massive meathooks hanging above them.

He separated the skin of the legs from the meat, carefully cutting through the joints of the feet to include the monster's digging claws with the skin.

Tying the flayed feet together with rope from his Inventory, he tossed the whole monster upward with a burst of strength. A jump and he tipped the hook to catch the rope, hanging the carcass.

He stood on the table and with long careful strokes, parted cartilage, fat, blood vessels to detach skin from the carcass. 

The skin now hung over the thunder-badgermole's head like an improperly removed pullover.

He slid the knife close to the skull, carefully peeling, making sure the skin was as pristine as possible. Soon, he was cutting through the cartilage of the nose, and making small nicks to separate the lower jawbone from the skin. 

He paused briefly over cutting through the jawbone to retain the fangs, but decided speed was essential.

The fangs were left with the skull.

The thunder-badgermole skin fell to the floor.

[You've butchered a monster to acquire its Thunder-badgermole Pelt!]

Krow slid down from the table, grabbed the fur, and flung it wide, spreading it over the tabletop magnificently.

The room was silent.

He blinked, then realized Khurilan was only just jumping down from his table. The other flung the skin over the flat surface, just as Krow did.

They smiled, appreciating the other's skills.

The butcher walked to Krow's table, circled the hanging carcass with narrow eyes. Then he moved to the table and flipped the skin over, fleshy side up, running a hand across the underside of the pelt. 

"Good quality!" was the verdict.

The butcher then walked to Khurilan, doing the same. "Good quality!"

The apprentices started talking excitedly, filling the shop with a buzzing.

The butcher smiled. "Because Khurilan was given the bigger monster, this contest is a draw!"

Hah.

Krow didn't speak against the ruling though. The other was definitely beyond 75% mastery of knife-handling.

"Best two of three, apprentices! The fun isn't over yet! Our hunter will now face our next wright, Olanda Arellas!"