ssmouth Moles were the size of German shepherd dogs, but heftier. Their digging ws could span from Krow''s wristbone to finger-tip. Their fur was a fine velvety texture, thick, and greyish-blue in color.


    An Umon monster, usually Lvl 15-20.


    Just as well.


    Krow had underestimated the size of the nest.


    It was just after noon, and moles still popped out of the molehills in the clearings. The teenagers around Krow were exhausted.


    He couldn''t me them. In the first hour after the first molehill appeared, the moles came for the baited lure-holes at a rate of one or two every minute..


    That was over two hours ago.


    The younger hunters were all under Lvl 20, and withmon gear. It took them more time and effort to kill one mole than Krow did. Even with the help of the traps.


    On the plus side, they were so tired theycked the energy to keep ring at him for scaring their lookouts on the mountain.


    The effects of the mushroom dissipated as time went on.


    The deluge had trickled down to one every half-hour – that was when Krow called off the hunt, to the relief of his helpers.


    They refilled the lure-holes and returned to camp with thest of the mole corpses.


    Krow''s two apprentices and the old mafmet had been taught how to empty out the salivary nds that produced the substance that would be mole quartz.


    Ameleo had been attached to their hunting party as protection for the young butcher apprentices, officially the camp manager.


    From the scenting from the cooking pots, he was also a fair cook. Chunks of mole-meat bubbled in a stew.


    "I wasn''t aware this sold," Ameleo murmured, as he stacked a cask of ssmouth mole saliva on the small mountain of simr casks collected at the edge of the meadow designated for their camp.


    "Not as it is," Krow offered the information freely. "It has to be processed first. They call it mole quartz for a reason."


    He nned on creating a production facility for Leather Armor Polish in the vige. It won''t be a secret for long anyway.


    The old mafmet''s eyes lit in recognition. "So this is where it''s from? Fascinating."


    Mole quartz wasn''t hard or tough enough to use in the mafmet crystal based engineering, but leather or metal polish was amon needed item in any kingdom.


    Krow brought out a hundred-item crate, started stacking casks inside.


    In total, they had lured out and killed 139 moles in three hours.


    Not bad. Alone, he''d probably have managed less than a hundred.


    Having helper-minions was useful.


    It was too bad the three younger hunters couldn''t supplement his XP gain.


    Only the apprentices, who were his party members, gave him XP and even then that was only for the butcher subss.


    The two of them worked slowly though. He''d walked them through skinning the moles earlier on, and they''d maybe managed forty or so between them in three hours.


    Krow tapped on his profile. He was past the halfway point to Lvl 16 already.


    His eyes went to the date.


    It was just five days before the first day of December.


    He sighed internally. So much for achieving Lvl 20 before the end of the month.


    But nope.


    No time for disappointment.


    "How long until the food''s ready?"


    "Half an hour."


    Krow nodded.


    There was still work to be done.


    His two apprentices were still hard at work on the far side of the meadow. They''d already extracted the saliva from thest of the moles and were working on skinning the monsters.


    He walked over and watched.


    They seem to have found a rhythm, their movements more confident than thest time he checked in on them. He''d started Talebrech on Knife Handling exercises, and it was evident in his more efficient use of his tools.


    "Good work, you two."


    Talebrech smiled at him, and Atimur ducked his head.


    "Finish what you have, then wash up and help Amaleo with the cooking."


    The two boys nced at each other. "Amaleo?"


    Krow blinked, pointed to the other side of the meadow. The old mafmet was taking out a tub of marinated skewers and readying to grill them over the coals.


    "Oh."


    These kids. "You two spent the whole morning with him and didn''t know his name?"


    "Everyone was just calling him ''uncle''," Atimur muttered.


    Ah, right.


    "Go on then."


    The two cleaned up, and did as they were bid.


    Krow eyed the piles of carcasses on the lush summer grass.


    "Unequip-one."


    A ssmouth mole weighed thirty to fifty kilograms. His apprentices had removed pelt, organs, and the head, leaving a carcass of about 60% the live weight of the monster.


    The mole pelts alone generally weighed over four kilograms.


    Krow changed his gloves, hung his coat up on a tree branch, took out a butcher knife, and started to work.


    With the skills of a wright-rank butcher working in tandem, he could now analyze the carcass better. At this point, he could differentiate each section with sight and smell alone, and separating sections was like ying with children''s blocks.


    His knife proved its sharpness as it cut through tendon and flesh and fat equally easily, separating bone from meat, carving delicately, slicing efficiently.


    With bones and most of the fat separated, maybe half the carcass weight was meat. Unfortunately, most of the meat was marked inedible, leaving Krow with an edible weight of four to six kilos per carcass.


    A pitiful amount,pared to the ratio of edible weight to carcass weight in most monsters he''d butchered in the past.


    "Oy, food''s ready."


    Krow nced at the teenaged boy, who had his arms crossed, watching.


    He gave a wordless sound in acknowledgement.


    Talebrech handed him a bowl of stew the second he sat down. He and Atimur had already served the others, and Amaleo wasdling up a serving for himself.


    The first bite was amazing.


    The meat was tender, vorful, sweet with fat. The spices were slightly mild for draculkar but with appreciable heat. The broth was thick with mashed roots, likely foraged from nearby.


    The skewers were dusted with spice, simrly tender, but with a snap to the texture. The char at the edges gave a slight bitterness to the spicy sweetness and enhanced the smoky vor.


    Campfire cooking at its finest.


    The only thing missing was bread to dip in the stew.


    "Uncle," came an amazed sigh, "where did you learn to cook?"


    "I used to be a soldier," Amaleo stated, twisted thedle and scooped up another bowl. "A soldier must be able to cook, or its hard biscuits and stone-dry meat all the way to the end of the march."


    "Soldiers eat so well?"


    "Hah!" Amaleo chuckled. "Soldiers eat dust and drink dew. To eat like this in war, be a general."


    "Ugh, uncle, don''t get my hopes up like that."


    Krow considered the old mafmet.


    ording to his words, he was from Themlef on the western border of the Qormantine desert.


    To just cross the U Mountains on foot with ten children in tow, there was grit in the old mafmet''s bones and steel in his spine.


    There was a storyline raid quest going on in Themlef at the moment. If they''d walked through that, whew. Various guildns were fighting over the opened questlines there.


    It must be chaotic.


    Krow wanted to ask about the situation from the perspective of a non-yer but no matter how you look at it, one adult feeling the need to cart ten children of different races across a continent spoke of numerous tragedies.


    As did the fact that they epted the invitation of Cerkanst, with seemingly no attempts to seek out the families of the children.


    Dredging up whaty in those depths would be unwise.


    He still needed minions after all.


    Especially since they were proficient in their weapons.


    After eating, Krow taught his apprentices how to take apart a ssmouth mole carcass.


    "How do you know it''s not edible?" The question came from the younger mafmet.


    "Smell, mostly." He sliced of a chunk of the inedible meat and wafted it in front of her nose. "What do you smell?"


    "Blood and…something like the smell of a lightning strike." She wrinkled her nose.


    Krow nodded. Something acidic. "Usually, if things smell this bad or strange, it means it''s not alright to eat."


    After the lesson, he demonstrated several times, watched over them as they attempted it, correcting and criticizing as they went.


    The take for the day was 77 Common ssmouth Mole Pelts, 41 Umon ssmouth Mole Pelts, 162 casks of mole saliva, and 710kg of edible meat.


    There was also 379kg of bones, about 200kg of undeyer fat, maybe 1000kg of inedible meat, and 66 casks of mole brains.


    He left the others to crate all of those, and sat beside the old mafmet.


    "Shall we talk business?"


    The old mafmet nodded. This was a probation period after all.


    "The hunting tax in the kingdom is 20%," Krow started. "The vige will take that. I''ll take 25%, as the scout and senior hunter. The rest of the kill is theirs to do as they please."


    The old mafmet smiled, a brief sh of fang. "The going rate for a huntmaster is 40%."


    "I am not a huntmaster." Not yet. Seriously, who did he have to talk to so he could get a hunter subss? "And your children are barely hunters. This amount is enough."


    "Reasonable."


    "They tallied between them 56 ssmouth moles. That would be 30 Common pelts, 16 Umon pelts, 65 casks of mole saliva, and 285kg of edible meat. In addition, 150kg of bones, 80kg of fat, 400kg of inedible meat, and 26 casks of mole brains."


    "All that?"


    Krow smiled. "I''d like to make an offer."


    "Mh."


    "The Common pelts, the inedible meat, and the bones in my share, for the casks of mole saliva in yours."


    The bones and inedible meat would be sold to the vige at the rate of 1 serpens per 100kg – it was mostly for fertilizer. It didn''t have value to Krow.


    He could maybe make bone dust, but he really didn''t have the tools for that.


    The old mafmet nodded, after a moment of contemtion. "Agreed."


    They sped arms.


    Well, that was easy. Krow was satisfied.


    All they needed to do now was record the agreement in a contract.


    *


    Chapter End


    *


    Notes:


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