Chapter 90: Value

‘Well! What’s going on?’ Alanah asked, excited.

‘Well… Stella’s just… staring at the Void Beast. Give her a minute. Let her get her bearings back. Like I said, this Void Beast is interesting.’ Derek replied.

Derek watched as Stella took a deep breath, calming herself down. “May I?” She pulled her knife back out of her storage device and approached the giant of a Void Beast.

“Of course. That’s why I’m here.” Derek had to stand to keep the three meter tall beast from dragging the ground. Other than its massive size, the differences from the normal Void Beasts were abundant. Longer, sharper claws, crazy muscle definition, extra teeth, all sharper than regular Void Beasts. And those were only the visual differences. Derek was still unsure if he was going to tell them about it being sentient and talking.

‘She came to. She’s beginning her examination now.’ Derek kept Alanah informed of what was happening.

Like with the first Void Beast he brought in, Stella placed her knife on its sternum to make an incision. Derek assumed that she was not worried about perfectly dressing the small beast, which was why she only cut into its arm, but with a beast that would provide more than just food parts, she would dress it neatly.

Stella applied pressure to the knife. Then she applied more pressure, then more. Her brows furrowed and she frowned. “How?” She whispered to herself. Soon, her knife vanished, and another one replaced it in her hand. This knife was much more interesting. To Derek, it looked more like a surgeon's scalpel than a butcher’s knife.

Derek had to hold the corpse tight and steady to keep it from being pushed back from the pressure she applied with her new knife. “Here.” Derek said, placing the Void Beast on the floor. It was a tight fit, but he was able to slide Stella’s desk a bit to give her enough room to work.

“Thanks.” Stella lightly answered and kneeled on the ground. This time, she was able to apply the pressure she needed, and the scalpel sliced through the hide. She made an incision from the top of the sternum down past its abdomen. Then she moved to the top of its sternum and cut outward.

It was unsettling to Derek. She was a doctor performing an autopsy on a dead patient, and that was what her cuts looked like.

“You’re oddly good at that.” Derek mused out loud.

Stella nodded while concentrating. “It’s how I started out. Dressing game, cutting meats, that’s what I did when Alanah took me in. I got really good at it and leveled my skills fast. Then, I changed my class to make use of all the skills I picked up. From a common Hunter when Alanah found me to a rare Gourmet Butcher. And now my current class, which… I won’t elaborate on… You understand.” She said as she pulled back some of the hide from the beast.

“Gotcha. I just didn’t expect it. I thought you would have some managerial type of class.” Derek said.

Stella turned to him and her lips formed into a bright smile. “Who says that I don’t?” She turned and went back to cutting.

To Derek, it was beautiful, in a sense. He injected the crystal with some of his mana and explained what was happening to Alanah.

‘Ah, yes. She is something of an artist. It pained me when she left the Capital. The quality of the cuts took quite a hit. Hopefully she’ll get tired of Torith soon and come back.’ Alanah said.

‘Wait, so she isn’t the actual manager of this restaurant?’ Derek asked.

‘Oh goodness, no. She is way too qualified for that. It only takes her a few minutes to break out of the trance when I talk through a regular communication crystal. After being around me for a couple hours, she is able to be around me for the rest of the day without being passively influenced. Do you know how hard it is to find someone like that?

‘Stella is the manager of the restaurant here in the Capital. She went all the way to Torith a year ago on… vacation.’ Alana said, with regret in her voice. ‘Really, she just needed to get away from me for a time. She lasted much longer than most, but being around my passive influence is tiring. It wears people down.’ Alanah went silent for a moment. ‘But still…’ she said. ‘I don’t blame her one bit. She needed a break from me. She’s able to be around me with pure willpower, too. It would be counterproductive to invest in Wisdom for her…’ she trailed off.

‘I’m sorry.’ Derek said, and he really was. It had to be hard to deal with, driving everyone away without doing anything wrong. ‘Is there no way to dampen your skill?’ He asked.

‘No, not that I have found. Trust me, I’ve looked.’ Her sigh came through the crystal. ‘There was a time when I tried hiring Wisdom focused people, but the sheer volume of points needed in the Wisdom stat takes so long to get. It doesn’t even begin making a dent in my passive skill until it hits 500. A normal person would have to ignore everything else for 100 levels or so and go heavily into Wisdom just to have an equal conversation with me. And that is if their class isn’t automatically investing their points into other stats, which most do.’

‘I see…’ Derek said. ‘Have you not tried creating a class specifically for your needs? You need Wisdom based cooks, butchers, and managers, correct? Stella said you took her in, and she seems very grateful, so I assume you are a decent person. Why don’t you help others? You could have dozens of employees with high rarity class in a decade or so.’

‘What? How would I do that?’ Alanah spoke fast, almost panting.

‘Oh… uh…’ Derek had forgotten how Walter had reacted when he told him about experimenting with classes. I guess everyone tries to get to level 10 as fast as possible… Now, the problem was whether he wanted to tell Alanah of the methods or not. She seemed fine, and he actually trusted Stella after their meetings.

‘I see… I’m sorry.’ The voice chimed in his head, this time sounding deflated.

At that time, Stella stood, finished examining the creature. She turned and nodded to Derek.

‘Stella’s finished. We can talk about classes later. I’ve told others, but it’s not really something that I want to spread to a lot of people quickly. Whatever the case, don’t let the fact that I have something you want sway the way our next business is conducted.’ Derek said.

Alanah chuckled, back to her previous demeanor. ‘Of course I won’t, but you should use something like that to negotiate business. I wouldn’t take offense to it.’

‘I figured, but I’m not trying to amass a fortune. Friends and allies are much better assets. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with the previous offer for the Void Beast, much less what you’re going to offer for this one.’

‘That confident?’ Alanah asked.

‘If the different faces I saw Stella make while examining the thing are any indication… Yes, very confident.’ Derek chuckled. ‘I’ll let her know that you’re ready.’

“Alanah is ready for your assessment whenever you are.” Derek said to Stella.

Stella smiled and took the blue crystal before looking back at Derek. “I am happy that you two can talk like that.” She nodded to the red crystal. “A bit jealous, too.” She muttered and released her mana into the crystal.

Derek watched and waited for a while. Finally, after some time, Alanah’s voice rang in his head again.

‘Oh my. You did bring us something interesting. According to Stella, its hide was so hard to cut, even for her, that she had to use her other blade. That blade was made by a level 220 Blacksmith, just so you know. She’s excited because it’s the first time she’s ever had to use it. Do you know how tough the defense had to have been when it was alive to make her have to use the blade after it died?’

‘Yes.’ Derek said. ‘I’m the one that fought it, remember.’

Alanah laughed. ‘Oh, I know that. But, there weren’t any injuries to its skin, so I don’t think you really know. Apparently, you somehow nearly destroyed its heart, and its brain is mush. I think I may be more interested in how you fight than the incredible Void Beast that you have brought us. How did you do it?’

‘Secret.’ He replied.

‘Of course, of course.’ She replied. ‘Well, we’ve only ever had one beast come anywhere close to this one. Tell me, was it able to speak? If so, how well?’

That was surprising. Derek was speechless for a moment. ‘Uh… yes. It was. And it spoke very well. As intelligent as any human.’

‘Very interesting. The one we had before was able to speak, but it was very… ignorant. Short phrases like, ‘I eat’ or ‘I kill.’ We were able to stretch the stat gain of that one by… a lot. Off of that one Void Beast, I could run the restaurants for free, giving away food every day, for over five years. Of course, I didn’t do that, we are not a charity. What we do with Void Beasts is auction off meals to the highest bidder.

‘We sign a contract with estimated growth per meal, then start the bidding. Only members can join the auction, but there are some that use it as a chance to snag a meal, then gift it to someone to curry favor. It’s frowned upon, but we allow it… once. If it doesn’t go to you or your close family more than once, you are stripped of your membership and will not be reassessed for two decades.

‘Stella told me that she explained the stat increases from Void Beasts to you. Going by the one she was talking about, the current one should give four times or even more stats than the first one.’ Alanah explained.

‘So, you would offer me four times the amount?’ Derek asked.

‘Of course not. That would be ripping you off, dear. We sell only one meal per customer. This Void Beast will make, according to Stella, at least seven meals with quality stats. She explained how your body has to rest after each meal to get the total benefit. Well, your previous beast would make four or so meals. So, you could take the max stats she gave you and divide by the number of meals. That would be the stats you would get per meal.’ She answered.

It was starting to make a lot more sense to Derek now. Of course, one meal with four times the stat increase would be much more valuable than the other. It would not be four times more valuable, but much, much more.

‘So, a meal would give 6 Strength, 3 Endurance, and 2 Intelligence with the other beast, but this one will give 24 Strength, 14, Endurance, and 10 Intelligence, and the amount of dishes that could be created is increased. So the price would go from tens of thousands of gold per meal to hundreds of thousands if not more?’ He asked.

‘Exactly. That, or something of equal or better value in trade.’ She explained.

‘Okay, let’s talk price.’