Next after we finished with hauling and tossing the goblins, we started to work on the rest lining up the wolves, I focused intently to watch Viktor.
First he strung up corpse after corpse from the hooks hanging from the ceiling, once twenty were setup, he plunged his knife into the underbelly of the first wolf drawing his blade down from its throat all the way to its tail, a torrent of blood, and offal poured out, next with a thinner blade almost like a filleting kitchen knife he slide the knife along the fresh incision separating the pelt from the flesh beneath, slowly work his way around the entire wolf.
[Urf.. ugh this is so gross, I knew what this would entail but I can't grow numb to this fast enough, I mean he's peeling a dog! I want this to stop]
Finally after watching the master at work his skinning efforts stopped with the entire grey/black pelt from the legs up to the neck removed and draped over his arm, moving away from the now furless body he quickly applied something to it, before rolling it up and leaning it against a wall with a drain beneath it, later he explained this is a process to preserve the pelt and remove moisture from it.
"One down, now your gonna join me and we'll work side by side on the next ones, we'll see if you've got any aptitude for skinning"
Drawing my daggers from their sheathes I slowly followed mimicking Viktor's actions, 20 minutes of hell followed, covered in blood the pelt I was working on ripped and torn all over.
After setting the two new pelts to the wall, Viktor clapped a hand on my shoulder.
"Gotta say I figured you'd bow out before we actually finished one, you're tougher than you look kid though your technique clearly demonstrates you're an amateur but only one thing for it is to practice good thing you've got more than enough bodies to accomplish that, let's get to work."
Carrying on moving to the next handing corpse I resumed my gruesome work, while mentally opening up the professions window of my menu.
[Huh so just skinning a single wolf netted me the skill that's pretty good for me, though as I get higher that rate of level gain should drop unless I'm working on harder/higher level foes if it's like the game, since you'd not gain experience skinning low level monsters after reaching the cap]
Hours passed pelt after pelt was removed salted and rolled, until finally all the skins had been removed, after that we hauled the bodies to the pit and tossed them in.
Next we strung up the Kobolds and continued our work; luckily the process was the same for the kobolds as it was for the wolves.
[It's a good think I tucked Kurama away in my book by dismissing him, pretty sure he'd get really depressed watching us chop up his kin right in front of his eyes]
Another couple hours passed by before we finished off all the Kobolds, this time though a handful of the kobold pelts I "peeled" were fully intact without any nicks, the praise I received from Viktor was nothing short of impressive, going as far as to declare me a prodigy after having only peeled so many monsters to have already started to master the art of skinning.
Wiping the blood off my blade and washing my hands, my profession screen pulled up once again.
[Huh well I guess I must be almost close to leveling up which would make me competent and only failing once in a while rather than pretty much every time like it was in the beginning]
"Now I know you've got more to go here kid, but it's pretty late you should head out and find an inn for yourself, we can work on the others another day, sides I'm gonna be working on these lizards alone there a might bit tricky so I wouldn't want to torture you as a newbie."
"But what about the pelts, I motioned my hand to the wall"
"Oh no need to worry about those, they'll stay there for at least 12 hours before we brush em off, and salt them again, then comes stage two, if you're planning on selling them after that point will be a good stopping point but if you want to use them yourself all said and done you're looking at close to 5 days before I can give them back to you ready to be used, unless of course you're planning on selling them to the lady at which point I can right up the report and send it over to her for approval, and carrying on with the tanning of the hides myself."
"Ah ok I see so that's how the skinning process works, then well when they reach the point that they can be sold please provide them to Raisa she offered to sell my goods for me."
"You got it!"
Waving my hand off at him I headed off through the side door which exited right into the street, the calm night air blowing the star filled sky a deep blue turning to black, all around me yellowish flickering lights illuminated the street.
[Street lights, but those don't look like their powered by electricity]
Staring at the light it looked like a pulsing orb of light.
[Must be some everyday life magic, but before I go anywhere…]
Looking down at myself my face screwed up and mentally I threw up all over my brain, this was the first time in 9 hours I had looked at myself, sure I had to watch my hands when working so they were caked in blood, but my clothes were just as bad looking like I'd jumped in a lake of blood.
Quickly opening my menu I swapped out my bloodied clothes for the remaining pair of fresh one, in a flash the weight on me was released.
Dragging the bloodied clothes through my inventory I dropped them into the exchange box, and out popped 1 crystal they appeared and disappeared almost immediately on the menu that showed the Currency I've already entered in for purchases in the store now showed my total number of crystals.
In Yggdrasill crystals dropped from monsters, or could be gained from exchanging equipment in the grinder [Exchange box] once converted there was no going back, but the number of crystals you got was in relation to the worth of the goods to destroyed, crystals would be used in conjunction to professions, like runecraft, enchanting and synthweaving (magecraft).
Now cleared of my soiled clothes I headed off down the streets of this foreign city in pursuit of an inn where I can rest my head.
As the thoughts of a nice warm bed raced through my mind my feet came to a halt.
[Oh crap… I forgot to get Raisa's address from Viktor, and now I don't know how to get back to the Warehouse either, why did I just wander off… my only saving grace is that I know the general area, thanks to my revealed portion of the minimap but even still it's gonna be tricky, perhaps Kurama can help hunt down what I'm looking for]
Resigning my problems to my future self I carried on, before finding a hanging inn sign off the beaten track, from the outside it didn't look like much but for a night it should be fine.
Walking up and entering in through the door, I was greeted by a large woman sweeping the entryway.
"Welcome weary traveller to The Last Resort, looking for a room? Or just heading to the bar?"
"Oh uh a room please, for 1 night"
[The Last Resort, that makes this place super sketchy sounding]
"That'll be 1 silver coin dearie, meals are extra if you'd like"
Handing over the one silver immediately.
"Oh no need for that I ate earlier with my friends"
The lady smiled and handed me a pair of keys.
"Your room is on the 3rd floor please enjoy your stay"
"Uh excuse me, why are there two keys?"
"Well one is for your room of course, and the other is for your storage locker"
"Oh I see, thank you for explaining"
Heading off up the stairs I made my way to the 3rd floor, mine was the only room on this floor which made it the penthouse but after unlocking the door and walking in it was anything but.
Sure compared to other inn's I'd stayed at the room was far larger with a single bed, sofa, and coffee table in the past the rooms were like a prison cell with enough room to get changed and place a single bed.
Too tired to think about anything I closed the door, and locked it behind me before belly flopping on the bed and passing out right away.
The last thought to run through my head made me give a quick chortle.
[Please gods of this world, don't make me dream of that slaughter, I'd like to be able to eat meat again in this lifetime]