As the group was on their way out of camp, they were stopped by a group of five young-looking people. “You’re The Rumors, right?” One of them, a girl who couldn’t have been older than Tess, asked, stepping forward.

“We are.” Jin said guardedly. “What’s your business with us?”

“We saw you at the gathering, and..” she trailed off, glancing at Tess, Ellie, and Maven, “and..well, we were wondering if you were offering your services as protectors.”

“We can definitely pay more than those three!” One of the others added. “We’ve been saving up for a long time.”

Alice chuckled. “You’re not from the city, are you?” She asked their leader.

“Huh?” The leader replied. “How’d you know?”

“You didn’t recognize these three.” Alice replied, patting Tess’s head affectionately. “Of course, you could have just not been paying attention to recent events, but it seemed more likely that you just weren’t from the region. Anyway, to answer your question, no, we’re not offering to protect people during the expedition, sorry.”

She paused, glancing up at the boy who had spoken up. “And I don’t think you’re aware of just how much money requesting a party of our caliber costs. Unless you’re heirs to a fortune, I don’t think you’ll have enough money for us.”

“Try us.” The boy said. “You’d be surprised.”

“I-I don’t think we should push them on this.” Another boy said. “They said no, I’m sure they’ve got a good reason for being with those girls.”

“You’re the one who looks up to them the most, Alex!” The first boy protested. “We can’t just leave!”

“Um..” one of the others, a girl, began, “Aisha and I think we remember seeing those girls on like..a tabloid or something. We..think they’re important?”

“They’re the Guildmaster’s grandchildren, plus a close friend.” Alice said. “The Guildmaster personally asked us to take care of them, and he would have our heads if we let them get injured, so we can’t afford any other distractions.”

“See?” Alex said. “They have a good reason. Now let’s leave them alone.”

The first boy sighed. “Fine. Sorry to have bothered you.”

The group of kids left, and Alice sighed. “Let’s hurry out of here before anyone else asks.” She said.

“Does this sort of thing happen often?” Tess asked.

“Somewhat.” Ker replied. “We’re pretty well-known for a rank nine party, so we get escort requests like this from time to time. We like to do them when it’s reasonable, but if we take every request sent our way, then more people will ask, and we’ll be flooded with ones that really aren’t worth our time.”

“That’s something to keep in mind when you three inevitably get famous.” Jin said. “Just because a request asks for you in particular, does not mean you should do it. Rejecting a request is not frowned upon, so long as you don’t do it rudely. Often, people with more money than sense will ask for you to do things that could reasonably be handled by someone much less qualified.

“You should take note of what kind of rewards are generally offered for requests around your level, and, regardless of how difficult the request given to you is, charge around one and a quarter to one and a half times more than those rates.”

“Unless it’s a request that needs you specifically, and isn’t just someone asking for a party they’ve heard the name of or someone wanting something done fast.” Ker added. “You can be much more lenient on your pricing then. The real point of charging more is so people don’t call for you willy-nilly when anyone else could do. If they want you specifically, then they’re paying extra for the generally quicker response times that come with personal requests, or for having it done by a “name brand” party, so to speak.”

“It’s just how the industry is.” Jin said. “People should be expecting this if they request you directly. But Alice is right, we need to get going, we can talk more later, when we’re not at risk of being interrupted.”

They made slower progress than Tess had expected. They moved at the same pace they would use in a dungeon, being slow and methodical about it. While they didn’t have to search for traps, the time that would have been spent doing that was filled with making a map. Fortunately, they didn’t have to use paper, or even manually make one; Alice had handed Tess an orb that she said was compiling a map from their surroundings, but it required them to go fairly slowly for it to work.

After about half an hour, Tess stopped the group. “There’s a monster in the bushes to our left.” She whispered. “It’s close to the edge of my tremorsense, so..four hundred feet or so?”

Jin nodded. “What can you tell us about it?” He asked.

“Quadrupedal, with..I’m pretty sure that’s fur? It’s kind of hard to tell through tremorsense, but it’s definitely not scales or feathers. And, um..it’s the size of a big dog, has some long claws and is vaguely cat-shaped? That’s all I really have, though, sorry.”

Alice gave Tess an affectionate pat on the head. “That’s plenty.” She said, turning towards the left. “Point at it, would you?”

Tess obliged, and Alice squinted across the distance. “Yeah, can’t see anything, too far away.” She said, planting her shield firmly in front of her. “Jin, care to smoke it out for us?”

“On it.” Jin said, beginning to cast a spell. A few moments later, a wave of magic pulsed out from Jin, smoothing down the grass as it flew towards the bushes. As it hit the bushes, a tan creature was hurled out, yowling fiercely. It recovered from the magic admirably, somehow managing to twist in the air and land on its feet.

The moment it landed, it shot towards the party, hissing angrily. It was faster than most monsters Tess had seen, but Alice was faster still, throwing her sword and hitting the creature firmly in its side before calling the sword back. That stopped the monster dead in its tracks, and it eyed the party before beginning to limp away.

But it appeared Alice wasn’t going to let that fly; she reeled back, carefully taking aim before once again hurling her sword. Once again, it hit the creature squarely in the side, but this time there was a flash of light, a scream, and then the creature was dead.

“Tess, do you sense anything else nearby?” Ker asked.

Tess frowned, closing her eyes and focusing on her tremorsense. “I don’t..think so.” She said. “Or..at least, everything else are..like rats and stuff. I think. I mean..those could be monsters, but everything like that that I’ve seen so far has avoided us.”

“Good.” Ker said. “Let us know if you see anything as we get closer and dissect the body. Ellie, Maven, we’ll teach you two how to dissect a monster for materials, so pay attention, alright?”

“Tess, we’ll teach you later, when we’re somewhere safer.” Jin said. “I’m sure the Guildmaster will be able to get us some corpses for you to work on, the guild tends to dissect a lot of corpses on expeditions, and I doubt this one will be different.”

Tess nodded. “Got it.”

Fortunately, it didn’t appear there were any other monsters in the area, and they were able to safely approach the corpse. As they did, Ker reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of thick gloves, which he put on. “Always wear gloves, even if you have armor on over your hands already.” He said. “These ones are, again, specially made for dissecting. The insides of monsters can be caustic or poisonous or otherwise damaging, and it pays to have special gloves made to withstand those sorts of things.”

Ker reached into his bag and pulled out a wicked-looking knife before kneeling down over the corpse. “The next thing to keep in mind when dissecting a monster is what you’re going to do with the pelt. You see, the issue with monsters is that their pelts are simultaneously valuable and incredibly annoying to work with.” Ker continued, kneeling down over the monster. “They’re annoying to work with because they’re a lot harder than animal pelts. And they’re valuable for..well, the same reason, really. Materials from high level monsters are used in the creation of high level armor and weapons, so you can’t just hack into them willy-nilly.”

Ker took his knife and carefully maneuvered it to one of the cuts Alice’s sword had made. “In general, I like to start from wounds that are already on the monster. You’ve already got an incision, so you don’t have to fight through the hide as much.” He held up the knife so Ellie and Maven could see it, then began cutting into the creature. “I have this special knife I ordered for the purpose of dissecting monsters, but even then, it’s not as effective at piercing the hide as an actual weapon. If the monster has been somehow killed without clear wounds, using magic or poison or something, then you sort of have to..find a place and go with it.

“Those pelts are worth more, but I wouldn’t purposefully try to take monsters down without damaging the pelt unless you specifically need the pelt in good condition or are overwhelmingly stronger than the monster. Your life isn’t worth making a little bit of extra money.”

He began to methodically cut with the knife, carefully guiding it so as not to damage the pelt further. “Every monster is a little different in how you need to go about skinning it.” He said. “So there’s no catch-all trick to dissection, but there are some things that apply to almost every monster. You want the hide, you want whatever they use as weapons, and you want any special features the monster might have, such as toxin glands or magical organs. And, of course, you want their core.

“That means you have to be extra careful when cutting around those regions so as not to damage the parts. You are, unfortunately, going to do so in your first few dissections, but don’t get discouraged; with enough practice, you’ll get to the point where you can pretty cleanly do it without much issue.”

“Where is the core?” Ellie asked.

“It varies from monster to monster, but it’s generally near the brain or near the heart. If the monster doesn’t have those, it’s generally near some other vital organ. If the monster doesn’t really have vital organs, like slimes, then..well, you have to look for it, the core is the vital organ.”

He continued to answer questions and give more tips until he had, eventually, managed to take the pelt off of the monster. “Now comes the question of the meat.” He began. “Generally speaking, the meat isn’t worth much. Some delicacies use monster meat, but often the meat just doesn’t taste very good. It’s usually most useful when you’re out on an extended trip and want to make your supplies last a little longer, but that’s really only an issue if you find you’re going to be out longer than you expected.

“Most people just leave the meat where it is for scavengers to eat. We won’t be doing that here, since we’re bringing the materials back for the guild to examine, but in general I would recommend leaving it behind. If you need the bones, then strip the meat off if you want, but your bags are the nice kind, so you can just stick the meat in with any bones and it won’t cause issues.” He began to carefully feel around the body, first near the head, then near the heart.

“Here we are.” He said, grabbing a circular object before bringing his knife around and cutting away the flesh near it. After a moment, he pulled his hand out to reveal the core, which was covered in bits of meat and gore. “Tess, catch.” He said, tossing it over to her.

Tess started in surprise, but was able to catch the core regardless. “You want me to absorb this?” She asked. “Isn’t it a bit high level for a core given as a gift?”

Ker shook his head. “Normally we’d want you to stay away from high level cores you didn’t earn, but this is a special situation. For one, it’s not likely to contain anything really useful to you, since you’ve already absorbed an Emperor Lion’s core. But, even if it did, we’d rather you absorb it anyway; you are uniquely able to tell us exactly what these monsters are capable of, and that’s something we can’t afford to ignore. Knowing what these things can do is directly tied to keeping ourselves safe.”

Tess nodded, and absorbed the core. Like any other core, it burst into mist and dissolved into her, but unlike other cores she had absorbed, it had stuff attached; the bits of gore that were on it no longer had anything to hold on to, so they just sort of..fell into Tess’s hand. She grimaced, dropping the rest of the flesh to the ground before briefly activating Phoenix Fire to clean the rest of it off of her.

You have absorbed a Hill Panther Core!

Slots filled: 21/29

You have gained 750 EXP in Monster Breeder!

Congratulations, Monster Breeder has leveled up!

New core absorbed! Scanning for abilities..

No new Skills or abilities detected!

Displaying core information:

Hill Panther Core:

Level 48

Estimated Power: 1,000

Estimated Maximum Power if Enhanced: 2,000

Stats:

HP: 3,000

MP: 2,000

Stamina: 3,000

Power: 400

Defense: 300

Magic: 200

Magic Defense: 200

Agility: 400

Luck: 250

Current Skills:

None

Current Attributes:

Darkvision (Major)

Enhanced Hearing (Major)

Extendable Claws

Fur (Fundamental)

Keen Nose

Kemonomimi (Panther) (Fundamental)

Sharp Claws (Major)

Sharp Fangs (Major)

Quadrupedal Adaption (Fundamental)

“Nothing special.” Tess confirmed. “It’s basically just a big cat, no Skills or anything, just a lot of passive stuff.”

“What level?” Ker asked.

“Forty-eight. Stats are nothing to write home about either, so it’s probably not a big threat. I’m pretty sure Ellie, Maven, and I would be able to take one down ourselves without much issue. Um..I did level up Monster Breeder, though, and it finally hit level thirty, so I get some pretty big upgrades from this. Can someone else keep watch while I look through that?”

“I got it.” Alice volunteered, standing up. “Take your time.”

Tess gave her a thankful smile. “Thanks.” She said. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

Fighterman481

Anyway, that's all I have to say, next time we'll be looking at some actually exciting features of the area, so look forward to it!

And, as always, thanks for reading!