Jamming her dagger underneath the Boars armoured plate, Belladonna let out a few irritated grunts of exertion as she wiggled the dagger back and forth.

After they had made camp, a few others had gotten to work butchering their kills. Some of them were like her, having learned the trade just for this purpose, whilst one of the richer merchants had even brought along a professional butcher to carve and dress all of the beasts that they killed.

That merchant was a common traveller on these roads, and specialised in armours and beast byproducts, so it made sense that he had a professional on hand.

All of these more experienced individuals working around her did give Belladonna some pointers, and she even got a brief conversation with the professional butcher, who had learned the trade in honour of his mother. It was that conversation that helped her understand the best way to butcher these Boars.

Not just to get the meat, but to preserve the armoured plates as well.

The first step, was actually removing the plates. That was also the step that she was struggling with.

The multiple armoured plates were semi-flexible, and attached along the different points of the body by a mixture of small strands of tough skin and a natural adhesive that the beast excreted. The best comparison for humans would be fingernails.

To remove them, she had to get her knife underneath and cut the skin apart. A description that sent shivers down her spine when she imagined it with the human example, which she immediately regretted doing.

Prying would damage both skin and scales, and she couldn’t cut too deep either otherwise she might rip the skin apart. Worst of all, the skin itself was rather tough and rubbery, and when she did cut her knife would often get stuck up in the natural adhesive gunk. Hence what should have been a simple job had resulted in her hacking away with her dagger.

Yanking her dagger out, Belladonna let out a deep sigh as she glanced at the singular plate she had managed to remove, as it was drowning in a barrel filled with an orange liquid.

It was a curing solution that she had purchased from the butcher at a reasonable price, which would harden the semi-flexible plates and turn them harder than steel.

"This is taking forever... I need a better knife than this." She muttered to herself as she scratched her arm, before letting her eyes drift down to her fingers.

Belladonna immediately smirked, lifting her hand and activating her [Shade Claw] skill, just on her pointer finger.

The long, pitch black claw grew from her fingertip, and with a bit of concentration Belladonna morphed its shape. Flattening it out, so that it was as thin as a sheet of paper, and then widening it so it would resemble a proper carving knife.

She slipped the [Shade Claw] under the plating, and then pulled her hand to the side. The claw cleanly and easily glided through the skin, facing little to no resistance as it carved through the connecting tissue.

Belladonna laughed softly to herself, and set to work. Her gruelling pace quickly picked up steam, and soon enough her second plate was dunked into the curing solution and her third quickly followed.

Gone were the struggles of her dagger, as she let her claw do all of the work. Cleanly slicing through the skin and not getting caught up in the gunk, which slid off of the claw like the blood did. Although it did require an extra level of precision and care, as her claw would cut through the skin underneath, possibly ruining the pelt, even easier.

When the final plate was dumped into the curing solution, and Belladonna was in the process of nailing the lid down, a notification appeared before her eyes.

[Your skill Adept Butchery has increased to Advanced Butchery]

That was a wonderful treat, and although it didn’t come with any actual reward, it was hard to deny the sense of personal satisfaction fluttering throughout her body at the sight of that notification. This was one of the first skills that she had learned, and to see it progressing even now, was an amazing feeling.

If her teacher could see her now, perhaps she would be proud.

With those pleasant thoughts in mind, Belladonna moved onto the rest of the butchery. With the plates removed, she could take off the hide before hanging it up to be tanned. That tanning process not only toughened the hide, but squeezed all of that natural glue out of the pores, which could be collected and sold separately.

Tusks were removed, as were organs and any sources - that one was absent in Belladonna’s case, before finally the meat was stripped from the bones, which were also useful.

In the end, every single part of the beasts were useful and were harvested. Even the blood, which wasn’t just used for vampiric purposes.

It was also used for things like flavouring in a broth, or by mages as a component of their spells.

Honestly, seeing something be reduced down to a few droplets of blood in the grass and a dozen different containers filled with all of its different, useful bits was a bit refreshing to Belladonna. She was too used to countless pieces of plastic waste, most of which weren’t needed or helpful to the package in any way. Or simply having their animals sanitised down until only the parts that they used remained, which was how the ’Cruelty Free’ meat came about.

When you lived in a world of litter filling the streets and homeless people raiding trash for the entire meals that people tossed out because they didn’t like how it tasted, waste was something you just got used to. So it was strange seeing none of it here.

Strange, but peaceful.

"I’m going to log out for the night, how about you?" Midas asked with a yawn

"Nah, I’ll sleep in game tonight. For some reason I get the feeling like one of these guys might get a few ideas.

If I have any issues or need any bio breaks, it will alert me. But I think it’s best I keep watch. You know?" Belladonna answered as she finished off the meal of boar meat beef curry that she had made, using a few of Midas’ goods that he had happily shared with her... at a price. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Midas nodded softly, before walking over to the cart and crawling underneath it, where he was hidden by a blanket draped over the sides, before logging off. His body went limp as he seemed to fall into a deep sleep.

Belladonna glanced around the camp, noticing a few of the other guards doing the same as her, keeping watch and sending suspicious glares towards the others as they were illuminated by the embers of the communal campfire.

Leaning back, she rested against the wheel of the cart with her feet kicked up. After another hour of watching and waiting in the darkness, her eyelids felt heavy. Bobbing up and down as she fought against sleep, before finally succumbing and losing the battle.

But her mind must have been more active than she thought, as she immediately returned to a familiar dream.