"Are you serious? That's the only other source of milk in the entire area?!", Jordie complained to the System, "A herd of fire-breathing demon cows?!"
[It is not the System's fault that the nature of the world intended for the only sources of viable food for your partner to be so dangerous], the System retorted, [It is up to the host to make the smartest decision.]
"Smartest decision...oh!' Jordie exclaimed as a clever idea popped into his head. Using the same methods to check his own status, Jordie proceeded to check the status on Minos. Only for nothing to happen.
"Huh? What gives?"
[System was aware that the host would try to loophole his way into completing the quest. The System has locked Minos' status until after the host has completed the emergency quest.]
"Why you little-"
"Mooowaaah!"
Before Jordie could argue with the System further, Minos started crying again, causing Jordie to go into nurturing mode again.
"Shhh, it's okay, it's okay, Papa's here...", he said in a soothing voice.
[Minos is getting hungrier by the minute], the System reminded, [Growing children require good nutrients for proper development.]
"...fine, you stupid magic science voice, but this ain't over", Jordie angrily grumbled.
Jordie made sure to pacify Minos a bit before placing him back into his pack.
Slapping his cheeks a few times to get himself motivated, Jordie prepared to sneak over to the Khalkotauroi.
"Just a little longer little guy. Papa's gonna get you your milk ASAP!"
_________________________________________________
As Jordie got closer and closer to the herd of monster cows, the grass surrounding him got taller and taller. Which was a very good thing, because the Khalkotauroi were much larger than Jordie had anticipated.
He had assumed the bronze-hoofed, bronze-horned monstrosities were going to be as big as cows from a distance, but as he got closer and closer, he realized that even the smallest khalkotauroi was about as large as fully-grown elephants.
While the size alone was enough to make Jordie nervous, the way the khalkotauroi ate their food made him absolutely terrified.
The giant cow monsters grazed like most other cows would,but they would also occasionally spit out small jets of flame upon their food. Some of them only spat out a few small jets of flame until the grass was slightly toasted and took on a deeper color, while others kept going until it was burnt to a pitch black color.
"Thank the heavens that these things are herbivores", Jordie thought to himself, "actually wait...these things are technically prey animals, what the hell kinda twisted monstrosities hunt these things?!"
Jordie took a deep breath and smacked himself again in order to stop thinking about what kind of jumbo sized uber dangerous monsters would regularly hunt something as dangerous bronze-hoofed fire cows. It didn't really work.
Jordie poked his out of the grass to observe the khalkotauroi behavior, to see if there was an opening for him to try and milk one of them.
From what he could see, not quite yet.
The khalkotauroi, from what he could see, organized themselves like water buffalo herds.
The herd took on a large semi-circular formation, with larger defensive sentry bulls, who had massive bronze horns the size of great swords, on the outside while the cows and calves grazed safely in the middle of the herd. Jordie noted that the cows also had horns, but they were only about as big as long swords...which did nothing to assuage his fears about these things.
"Hold up...if they work like water buffalo", Jordie thought to himself, "Wouldn't that mean the sick and injured members of the herd would be hanging around the periphery?"
Jordie proceeded to look around the perimeter of the herd to confirm his theory.
"Ah-ha! There they are, let's see if there's one that I can milk...", Jordie mumbled to himself as he prepared to use his [Analyze] skill, "Well, treat the injuries of, then milk I guess?"
Jordie still had a backpack dimension full of medicinal herbs and such, and he was pretty sure that an injured bronze murder cow would be much easier to treat than a high leveled Tempest Minotaur. At least he hoped that was the case.
"Let's see...too old...I don't want to find out if 'Wasting Gut' is contagious... I'm ninety percent sure something called 'Ogre Pox' is definitely contagious...huh?"
Among all the sick and injured khalkotauroi Jordie had seen, he spotted one that seemed unusually healthy. From his [Analyze] skill he could see that while the khalkotauroi cow had a leg injury that had recently recovered, something like that shouldn't cause the cow to be left alone on the periphery like this.
"Wonder if there's something more to that story
...either way, it appears to be milkable, so let's have at it", Jordie mumbled. Being as sneaky as possible Jordie made his way over to the lone khalkotauroi cow.
Being extra careful, Jordie made sure to take a wide path away from the majority of the herd as to not alert any of the sentries or spook any of the calves. The last thing he needed was being on the receiving end of a stampede or be impaled on those horns. It took a bit of time, but Jordie eventually for near his target.
The lone cow was just idly munching on some freshly burnt grass, blissfully unaware of Jordie's intention. At least he hoped she was unaware. He had a spent a lot of time watching animal attack videos on the internet when he was bored back on Earth, and he could already imagine what it would feel like to be kicked in the torso by a bronze hoof as big as his torso.
"Let's not approach her from behind...", he mentally noted as he crab walked around the cow until he was at her flank.
Once her was in position, Jordie pulled an empty drinking gourd he had picked up on his way here from the confines of his inventory space. It was surprisingly a bit larger than what his backpack should realistically store.
"Bigger on the inside...", Jordie mildly mused, "Now for the hard part."