Heavy Metal

'That was fun, but are you sure these will sell for anything? Why would anyone want this?'

Rusty asked, his confusion apparent in his tone.

'Don't ask silly questions, Rusty,'

Aburdon replied, with a somewhat awkward tone.

"There are some things kids like you shouldn't be thinking about. Just know it was on the board and it's a component for a potion that people use... for various reasons, that you don't need to know."

Rusty glanced at the defeated Orc lying before him, its body already cut in several places. The tusks fetched a decent price, as did the ears and eyes. Aburdon had also instructed him to remove some of the inner organs, like the liver and heart. Taking the whole body would lower the value of the loot. But there was one part in particular that was the most valuable - a set of dangling orbs between the monster's legs that looked almost comical.

Rusty stared at the Orc's body, particularly at the orbs Aburdon had mentioned. A strange feeling washed over him - a mix of amusement and disgust. Some of Aburdon's and Alexander's memories still lingered in his mind, stirring up those emotions. Despite the oddity of the situation, it was valuable loot. After a brief stretch and a quick nick with his dagger, he dislodged the orbs, leaving the other protruding appendage behind.

'Are you sure this is the most valuable part? It's certainly... big, but the consistency is strange.'

'Rusty... stop playing with the Orc's 'parts' and put them away! Out of my sight, this instant!'

Aburdon's voice was sharp, clearly appalled by Rusty's casual handling of the squishy organ. To Rusty, still new to the world of monster parts, this was an unfamiliar experience. As living armor, he'd never considered examining trophies after battle. However, the loot was precious and he had defeated two orcs already but afterward, he was made aware of one problem.

'This feels... inefficient…'

Rusty muttered to himself. He wasn't particularly skilled at harvesting these parts. Back when he was in the small party of four adventurers, the thief or one of the archers always handled this task. His job was simply to watch their backs while they worked. They weren't much better at it than he was, but at least he could focus on what he was good at - killing monsters.

'How much money will I lose if I don't do this?'

'You want to leave the processing of the monster materials to the guild? If you do that, we'll lose about twenty to thirty percent of the money… I'm not sure if that's the best idea.'

If Rusty had a face he would be frowning. He didn't like the idea of losing that much money, but taking time to harvest parts also meant fewer creatures to hunt, which cost him coins too. If each unprocessed body lost him twenty or thirty percent, he'd just have to hunt more to make up for it. Another option was to harvest the parts later, once he was back at the inn. For now, he decided to stuff the other Orc's body into his storage space, along with the organs he'd already cut out.

'I'll just deal with this later…'

He thought. Then, something strange happened. His inventory system made a distinction between the unprocessed Orc corpse and the one he had cut up. It reminded him of how he could store living armor parts and exchange them for bronze ingots. Apparently, the same applied to monster bodies and parts. With just a few well-placed clicks, his inventory system could dismantle the monster bodies he had stored, separating them into valuable components.