Akhier

It's a new month once again. I'm feeling good about this story and NeoRealm and the monthly short stories on my Patreon are fun to write. Though I did get hit a little by a bit of that good ol' existential dread a couple days ago. More about my part-time work than anything else. Writing? I'm putting out something for people to enjoy and I must admit to being an entertainer. Being a cashier, while it is an important job as people need to buy food, it drains me. That and they don't allow us chairs to sit on which is the stupidest thing ever and the only reason is because it would make us look "lazy" and "unprofessional". Nevermind the fact that the idiots who made that rule likely did it while sitting behind a desk and if they had a secretary they were likely sitting as well. Yeah, screw that noise. I've been half tempted for a long while to buy a cheap folding stool and just bringing that and using it. Whenever I get to the point of being able to quit I'll probably do it just to see if they would have actually fired me for it or not.

Anyway, the chapters over on Patreon are chugging along. Chapters 147 and 148 are available over there free so you can check it out. Besides that even a dollar will get you a couple more chapters, while the early access tiers allow you to read all the way to chapter 215. Also, the patrons seemed to really enjoy my latest short story Paradoxical Luck which any level of patron can read.

The old man laughs, “If you have someone with experience butchering things or at least has the skill for it then you don’t need me for much. From what I can remember of other times the system has used a me I tend to be unbothered once a town grows enough. There have even been times when a town has closed the butcher shop though I don’t advise it.”

“Since there is a dungeon I have two main functions. The first and biggest reason to keep me around is the fact that I can butcher any monster known to the system. Maybe you don’t need my services for years but it isn’t like it costs you anything to keep me around. But that one time one of your hunters manages to bag a unique creature that you aren’t quite sure about? Let me tell you, better safe than sorry! A good example is that there are certain monsters that store stuff inside of themselves. If you puncture the structure keeping half an ocean worth of water locked away in a space the size of a fist you are in for a bad time.”

Ace grimaces as he can definitely imagine something like that happening. “How rare is that? I know that our best hunter has a tendency to field dress his kills since he knows how.”

The old man laughs, “Oh, don’t worry about a creature like that sneaking up on you. Anything capable of storing calamitous amounts of stuff isn’t going to be handled by a single person, at least not within the next hundred or so years. The more likely outcome is finding an odd red variant of a monster and the hunter ends up burning themselves something wicked when the pressurized burning blood splashes everywhere. Just remind everyone to bring any new monsters here. I charge depending on how hard, dangerous, or valuable things will be so if I quote you only a copper coin or so then you can feel safe butchering without my help. Though I do suggest having me butcher even the common critters a few times so your people can learn the most efficient way to do so. It is a good way to quickly improve a butchering skill.”

While listening to that last part, Ace gets a glint in his eyes. “So, I understand that part of butchering isn’t going out and hunting down monsters. But if we had some farm animals would humanely dispatching them be a part of butchering? And if so, what counts as a quote unquote farm animal.”

The old man shakes his head. “Well, aren’t you clever! You must have had some experience with the butchering profession to ask that because you aren’t wrong. I can only do so much with a dead body. With a living creature, though? That is when the fun begins! Some creatures need special prep to be their best. One strange example I’ve seen of this is a species of spiked boar. Annoying beasts who likely had a dragon somewhere way back in their blood line that has scales instead of hair.”

“The catch on them is that exactly 153 of the scales are spiked and ooze out a nasty mix of poison and venom to discourage eating them. Because of their body structure you have to remove those scales in exactly the right order, which is different for each boar or else the entire beast becomes tainted with the nasty mix within seconds. Oh, and the boar has to still be alive when removing those scales because killing them with them still on automatically spreads the poison and destroys the structures that determines the order you should have removed the scales in.”

“Anyway, before you get me distracted again, I should inform you of my other function. Well, I guess there are a bunch of things I can do, but for right now all you can access is these two. So yeah, you have a dungeon. Convenient places as they can take even the most messed up of corpses and spit out a perfectly tanned hide or the perfect cut of meat. Except, of course, for the fact it only spits out one of those things and going by my shop’s structure those two will be fighting with bones to drop as well.”

Ace nods, “It is limiting though we have found that those with the right skills can manage to extract an extra piece or two depending on the skill’s level.”

The man shrugs, “True enough, skills do give you a bit of time to extract more value out of your kills. If you have the time, that is. My little shop provides a special service for that. I give out markers, they aren’t magical or anything, just something the system recognizes. Then while you’re in the dungeon, if you touch a kill with the marker the system will provide the option to have the corpse pulled out whole and delivered to me.”

Ace squints, “So what’s the catch?”

The man laughs, “Well the first catch though not much of one is that you can’t send out anything that was going to turn into loot. That process interferes with my services. Though most people don’t see this as a problem as loot is worth more than most corpses. And of course the main catch is how much the service costs. Pulling the corpse out isn’t free. You get a blue screen telling you how much it would cost to do so. For the first few floors this isn’t going to be too hard so the cost stays in the copper range. Later floors though? You’re going to want to limit it to the special beasts and bosses. Though the bosses tend to drop loot so not much to worry about there.”

Ace sighs and stands there for a moment before turning to the people who had followed him into the shop. “I have some questions for him that need privacy. I don’t want anyone within a hundred paces of the buildings within the next three minutes.”

The man raises an eyebrow at this but stays silent while they wait. It doesn’t quite take three minutes but the wait for the all clear seems to drag on much longer. Ace turns back to the man, “You don’t just butcher monsters, and that ability doesn’t just work on dungeon creatures. If we brought in a human body, you would process it without blinking an eye and we could send out our fallen with your marker. And this isn’t a system thing, you’re a sick person.”

The man’s smile turns crooked, and he laughs, “Well aren’t you the noisy neighbor!”

Ace shakes his head, “People don’t find themselves in the system's service for nothing. I’m sure there are plenty of normal people taking up any number of jobs. We rolled the dice and got you.”

The man shakes his head, “Have you noticed that you haven’t even thought of asking me my name yet? Don’t worry, that’s normal. You see my name is ▓▓▓▓▓▓! The very concept of it has been erased by the person who threw me to the system. You couldn’t have asked about my name even if you had someone constantly reminding you to ask.”

Ace nods, “The system is your punishment.”

The man laughs, “Oh, you sweet summer child! I’m not being punished for most of what I’ve done. Most couldn’t stop me and those who could I avoided. If it wasn’t for that damn kid refusing to admit to who his father was, I wouldn’t be here. I was so close to godhood as well! People feared my name and now all records of my existence are gone. Though if you ever manage to kill a god, please, hand the corpse over to me. I doubt anyone else in this universe has the skill level to truly extract everything from them.”

Ace rubs the bridge of his nose, “Well first off, you aren’t allowed to tell anyone besides me about your past. God, I need to go back and talk to that Jinn some more. Anyway, you also may not provide butchering services for sapients”

The man licks his lips, “But don’t you know? Dungeon bosses are sapient! Would you really want to lose the chance to lose out on the materials?”

Ace looks up with a glare, “In fact, you know what? I also don’t want you to butcher humanoids. Don’t provide tips, don’t even hint at the knowledge. As the person in control of this town I have a lot of leeway in dealing with system shops and I’m not going to let you spread your nonsense.”

The man laughs at this, “But you can’t prevent the knowledge from being known! Just leveling up the butchering skill will provide it! I was almost the god of butchering and oh the secrets I knew!”

Ace shakes his head, “Don’t try and trick me. If the system provided all the knowledge it had at certain skill levels, there wouldn’t be so many differences and variants out there. If someone isn’t searching for that knowledge, they aren’t going to suddenly learn it. And even if they do learn it, I can work with them from there. The secrets you hold are worth the levels because I can feel the corruptive influence you have.”

The man leans forward onto his counter, “Knowledge isn’t good or bad! What corruption? I’m just not following your moral code.”

Ace fixes the man with a look of pity, “You can’t even see it. While I am willing to agree that knowledge itself isn’t good or bad, corruption is very much a thing. It is the intent behind the knowledge that matters. We had a guy pre-system who wrote stories about god-like beings who didn’t even notice humanity and their very presence warped things. One of the biggest things in those mythos stories was the idea that just knowing about some of the entities could ruin a person’s mind. The scary part of that is I believe those stories aren’t completely false.”

The man sighs, “You have those stories here? I guess I won’t be restricted too long. Either this place won’t exist soon enough or your silly morals will fade fast enough.”

Ace laughs, “Like I said, knowledge doesn’t corrupt you, it is the intent behind it. A handwritten manuscript by a cultist might be capable of driving the reader insane but isn’t the actual words doing it. Rather, the cultist had the intent to corrupt and you better believe that I will root out any such influences as soon as possible. If those beings were all powerful, they would have already taken over here. Those stories are popular and I’m sure more than a few people will have attempted one of the described rituals by now.”

“We might not be able to win but that is because we aren’t the ones playing the game. I’ll leave that to others. What I can do is make sure my world doesn’t fall to corruption. So no, you aren’t allowed to influence others to follow your path. You’re a small player with the taint of the grave on you. I might not be worth much now but I don’t plan to limit myself or my world to being pawns. If life is chess, even if I can’t be a player I want to be more. So yeah, keep your tainted intent out of your teachings, don’t butcher sapients and humanoids, and if anyone asks you don’t have a past. Beyond that? I’m sure with rules like that you could find a loophole or two so as a final bit of screw you, the system knows me and so you are restricted from doing things that I wouldn’t approve of.”

The man recoils, “No! No! You can’t do that to Me! That isn’t how the game is played. State out the rules! Give me clear instructions!”

Ace lets out a sad laugh, “Like I said, I’m not going to be just another pawn so why expect me to make the same moves as one?” Then he walks out of the store to check on the other places.

Akhier

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