“Some of the most expensive things in the world were also the ugliest.” - Old merchant saying.

Sure enough, some of the merchants left their wagons with gleaming eyes as they eyed the carcasses being dragged along by the guards. More of the passengers had shown their faces – they had hid within the wagons when the fighting started, as if it would have done them any good if the guards lost – as well and watched the proceedings.

A few of the guards – those who had worked together with the lost ones – gave a moment of silent prayer for their lost compatriots. The unfortunate ones who had been dragged off into the tall grass at the start were simply gone, and nobody was willing to charge into the tall grass to look for their remains. It was a brief display of grief, but one that the hired guards moved on from quickly.

Loss of life was just another accepted risk of their lucrative occupation after all, especially on a route like this.

Thanks to Aideen and Celia’s intervention, the hired guards took no more casualties other than the first few. All the other injured, Aideen had taken care of by the time they returned to the wagons. Even so, a half dozen of their number was still lost to the vicious beasts, with little to no hope of survival. There was a reason caravans stuck to the beaten path.

Perhaps to take their minds off the grieving, some of the guards started to dismantle the carcasses they brought with them. Aideen noticed how they took special care to collect the upper shell carapace that covered the beasts’ backs, and even collected the shards of the broken ones in bags. The shells were scraped and washed clean before they were set aside to dry.

“Do those shells have any value?” asked Aideen to the merchant whose wagon had hosted her and Celia over the trip so far. The portly man had not joined in on the dismantling, but had sent some of his subordinates to help out. Even from an amateurish standpoint, the way they set the cleaned shells aside and even collected the shards told Aideen that those shells were in demand for some unknown reason.

“Yes, the elves of Alfheim particularly cherish the carapace of the Stone-shells,” replied the portly merchant as he turned to face her. “They like to make shields with the intact carapaces, and even the broken ones could be used to make some kind of scale armor after some proper crafting. The shells are as hard as stones but far lighter in comparison.”

“I see That sort of quality would make for some good armor all right,” she replied with a nod. “What are they doing with the rest, though?”

“The tips of the legs, pincers, and scythe-arms can be used to make spearheads or blades of decent quality as well. Some nobles even loved to collect them due to the unique sheen,” helpfully supplied the merchant. “As for the rest, they don’t really have much value as commodities, but the flesh is good for eating. Spoils very fast, though, so we'll be having them for dinner tonight.”

“I see, interesting,” she answered. She had not quite expected people this far inland to have the habit of consuming crustaceans – something she mostly saw in people who live closer to the shorelines – but considering the ever-prevalent presence of monsters in the plains the locals must have gotten used to making use of them as best they could.

And turning the creatures you took down into food was one of the staple ways to do that.

Less than an hour later, several large cauldrons were filled with chopped up parts of the monsters, covered in enough water to boil them and then some. The meat and goopy innards of the creatures had been extracted from their shells, and roiled around the water along with spices and chunks of vegetables and tubers.

The grayish, unappetizing looking meat turned into a plump reddish white color as it boiled, and the water started to give off a pleasantly savory aroma as well. Aideen saw how one of the cooks mixed some cornstarch with a bit of the soup to form a thickener which they then mixed back with the rest of the cauldron of soup. After another half hour of cooking, the caravan gathered around to have a particularly luxurious dinner for once.

Bowls of the thick soup, full of strand-like bits of the monster’s flesh and tinted a slight golden hue from the beast’s innards, were served, a savory scent wafting from it. Despite how the monsters were land-dwelling creatures, the scent still reminded Aideen more of seafood than anything, and the resemblance of their cooked flesh to crabmeat had not escaped her either.

It was a rich soup, full of meat and vegetables cooked to a soft consistency. The cooks served it with a loaf of stale bread for each person – about the norm for long journeys, as only the very rich had storage artifacts enchanted with stasis to keep food fresh over long periods of time – which they then dipped into the thick soup to soften up.

Once it soaked up the soup, the bread became far more palatable, bursting apart on the tongue as the soup it absorbed flowed out into one’s mouth. The soup itself was as rich as it smelled, with a pleasant briny yet sweet flavor from the beast’s meat, and a more complex richness tinged with a slight bitterness from its organs.

It was a meal that just about everyone in the caravan enjoyed, and by the time it ended, all that remained of the monsters that endangered their lives just hours ago were cleaned shells that were packed to be traded in the city. It was simply how life went in the plains. When one failed to prey on others, they simply turned into prey themselves instead.

The merchants and the guards who regularly traversed the route knew all about it, and knew the risks they took. Every year a few caravans simply vanished into the tall grass of the plains, but profits always drove more to take the risk and ply the lucrative trade with the elves. People happily risked their lives for coins, just as how their ancestors used to risk their lives to hunt for food.

It was simply how life went around these parts.