As Manco touched the panther, a transparent screen appeared next to it.

〔Harvest "Weak Gray Panther" corpse?〕

〔Estimated time: 00 m 00 s 〕

〔Available tools: 〕

▢ Iron Skinning knife

▢ Iron Cleaver

▢ Iron Pliers

〔►Yes 〕〔No 〕

Before leaving the village, Manco had stopped by the trapper and bought some supplies: rope, wooden stakes and butchering tools.

He ticked all the boxes next to the three available tools. Each of them helped him harvest a different part of the animal: the skinning knife for the skin, the cleaver for the meat, and the pliers to yank out teeth.

Different creatures required different tools to properly harvest all the parts, which could be directly consumed, sold or used for crafting items. With better tools and better harvesting skills, players could get higher quality materials in shorter amounts of time.

After he selected all the tools, the harvesting time was increased to 3 minutes and 15 seconds.

He selected "Yes" and a progress bar with a countdown appeared.

3:15… 3:14… 3:13

While the harvesting was in progress, he could not move away from the creature, or the process would have to be restarted. With nothing else to do, he took a rest and planned his next move.

The harvesting finished without incident. The loot screen was replaced by a notification.

〔Harvesting complete. Items added to inventory〕

〔Tattered panther pelt x 1〕

〔Panther meat x 5〕

〔Panther teeth x 9〕

As his level of Carcass Processing was low, the panther pelt was of low quality ("tattered"), he only got several pieces of meat, and broke most of the teeth. He would gain more by asking someone more skilled doing the butchering, or dragging the corpse back to the village. However, darkness was approaching and he did not want to spend any more time outside the village's safety.

Manco climbed up from the pit and made his way back to the village, stopping every now and then to pick up some herbs, wild fruits, and mushrooms.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

〘 Mistwood village 〙

When Manco reached the tavern, it is already dark. Two moons were clearly visible on the sky, a red one at the north and a blue one at the east.

Upon opening the door, he was assaulted by a barrage of noises and smells. People speaking, shouting, and laughing over each other. The clattering of cups and mugs and plates. Someone yelling orders and other replies. The scent of cooked food mixed with the sweaty and muddy body odors created a rather unpleasant smell.

Manco made his way to the bar.

"What do you have to…?" he asked.

"TWO ORDERS FOR TABLE FIVE!" The woman behind the bar shouted into the kitchen.

"Hi, I'd like to order…"

"WATCH IT YOU NUMBNUTS! IF YOU BREAK THAT CHAIR, I'LL BREAK YOUR LEG!" She yelled again. Following her glare, Manco saw a drunk man balancing himself precariously on a chair's two legs, giggling like an idiot. At her command, he sat back properly, but was still chortling.

"What can I get for you?" Someone asked him. Turning back he found that it was the same woman. Unlike the lion's roar just now, her normal voice was clear and pleasant, if a little hoarse from all the yelling. He noticed that she was quite pretty, with tanned skin, a round face, and long brown hair tied neatly into a bun. The lack of makeup and the simple dress did little to undermine her beauty.

"Uh… Something to eat. What do you have?"

"Bread and stew," she replied.

"I'll have that."

"You need a drink?"

"Uhm… Got something better than that black ale?"

"Ha! Pegg gave you that? He always do that to newcomers!" She laughed, showing pearl white teeth. "Don't worry, our regular ale is quite decent!"

"Okay, I'll have a mug of ale then."

"Sit at your table. Someone'll come over." She said.

Turning away from the bar, Manco spotted an empty table near the middle of the room. He made his way there, weaving between farmers rowdily singing a random song and a mercenary waving his arms animatedly as he recounted an exciting adventure.

The tavern was quite spacious, housing no less than forty people with rooms to spare. There were twelve round tables. At the moment, eleven tables were occupied, including his. The bar was at a far wall and the kitchen was behind it. The stairs leading to second floor was next to the bar.

Mahn Li noticed that the patrons all seem to be NPCs. Apparently no other players had arrived at this village yet.

After all, there were hundreds of thousands of starting locations scattered over the six kingdoms (Lorgistere, Lian, Haufaria and North Tynilia did not have starting villages.). The starting conditions of Mistwood were among the harshest: quests were few, creatures were tough, few trainers. Therefore, very few players would dare to begin their adventure here.

Closing his eyes, Manco tuned into the conversations and tried to pick up interesting or important information.

"… you hear, Colin caught a big fish today. It's as big as my forearm!"

"… I heard he's sleeping with… "

"… a swarm of spiders, each as big as me head. Ran right away, the lot of us. Pickaxes, carts, we threw all of 'em behind. No use keeping those if you're dead!"

"… When's the next caravan coming?"

"… I heard there's a new girl down at Pinky's. They said she knows some real sick tricks. I'm going there tonight!"

Scowling, he filtered through the useless chatters and noted down important tidbits.

"Here's your dinner!" A barmaid placed a steaming bowl of stew, a plate with two loaves of bread, and a wooden mug in front of him.

"Thanks!" he nodded and she rushed to another table.

Ignoring the fragrant stew, he concentrated on the conversations around him until…

"… Gwyndham …"

His ears perked up at the name.

Surreptitiously, he located the person uttering that name. It was a young man, impeccably dressed, talking to a woman. The two of them were seated at a table a few meters away from him.

He focused on them and identified the man as Anthony and the woman as Brennda.

"… I offered him a hundred ducats. A hundred! And he just turned me away! Doesn't even bother to stand up! Who does he think he is?!" Anthony whined.

"Sure you don't wanna shout a little bit louder?" Brennda hissed through gritted teeth "I think the group of thugs in that corner doesn't know you're a walking sack of ducats just yet!"

That shut the man up. He furrowed his brows, clenched his fists and silently seethed.

"Master Gwyndham has no relatives. He doesn't buy luxuries, doesn't drink, and doesn't whore around. Why would he need your money?" The woman spoke politely but sternly. "You don't know anything about him, do you? I told you to wait for me to ask around first, but you insisted on going ahead and meeting him yourself!"

"So what's his deal?" After calming down, he asked.

"Each person said a different thing. Some say he's waiting for a lover to return. Others say he's a criminal just wanting to be left alone. Or a sole survivor of a massacre that killed all his comrades…"

"Alright! Alright already!" Anthony impatiently interrupted her, and Manco had the urge to come over and punch the brat in the face. "I'm asking for facts, not rumors."

"I don't know for sure." The woman admitted. Anthony threw up his arms and spoke in an exasperated tone.

"Great! Just great! Brilliant! How about you keep asking around? Don't bother me until you've got something concrete!"

With that, he abruptly stood up, knocking the chair over. Slapping a gold coin onto the table, he stomped out of the tavern.

"That guy sure gets the 'Arrogant young master' persona down to a T," Manco though as he broke the bread and dipped it in the bowl. The stew had cooled somewhat and the bread was a little hard, but he was ravenous and the food tasted much better than the hardtack he had for lunch.

When he finished his meal, Brennda was sitting at the table staring at the uneaten food. Manco could tell she was angry.

Then her head whipped up and turned to him. Their eyes met. She had piercing green eyes, thin lips and an oval face. Her skin was a healthy tan, with some freckles over the bridge of her nose. She wore her bright red hair in a pixie cut.

Flustered at being caught staring, he awkwardly nodded a greeting.

Without returning the nod, she stood up from her table and walked toward him. She was wearing brown leather armor over a green cloth tunic. A sword was strapped to her back and a scabbard on her thigh housed several throwing knives.

"Mind if I join you?" She asked, gesturing at the chair opposite him.