"Hmm, hmm hmm~"
Viria hummed and pushed his hand into the gaping wound he created and was widening so meticulously, grabbing around and feeling up the various intestines of the creature.
"...hmm..!"
After a few moments, he actually found what he was hoping to discover – the monster core.
It seemed slightly bigger than the ones he had the opportunity to feel up, but it could have been his imagination.
Viria certainly didn't want others to know about the core – and the term others certainly encompassed the three young kids behind him.
"M...mister...? Are you alright...? Was... was the monster pregnant or something and you got bitten by the baby...?"
"...the hell...?"
The fearful one of the trio stepped up and asked while trembling, causing Viria to let out a disturbed voice.
"Kid. Monsters in the dungeon don't breed – they spawn, and unless they are a certain type of bug monster, they cannot spawn more of themselves."
Viria reached out for the book knowledge from the hours of studying back in his room in his parents' villa back in the Seventeenth city of Tetradon magistrate and explained with a sigh.
"What I was doing is searching for the monster core – but unfortunately, none had manifested in this one here."
The young man tore off the lump of fleshy film protecting the core and then the core itself before pulling his arm out and throwing just the fleshy film on the ground under his feet – getting the kids to focus on it while he hid the actual core within his clothes.
"Anyway. You want to work with me again or not really?"
Relieved that his little distraction worked, Viria breathed out and nodded up at the kids, and asked.
"..."
All three of them looked at each other, before glancing at the giant pile of monsters that was definitely bigger than the previous one...
"And... you will pay us like before...?"
Kirri gulped down her saliva and asked in a hesitant but otherwise brave attempt.
"Probably even better."
"DEAL!"
Viria shrugged his shoulders eying out the mountain of corpses – to which the resolute girl clenched her fists and stepped forward with an excited look on her face.
"Tir! Laor! Don't stand around like that!"
Kirri waved at the other two and almost skipped on her way to the mole-rabbit corpse mound.
Both girls dressing up as boys looked hesitantly and slightly fearfully at the young man who turned back and grabbed some bones from the little stack put neatly by the wall.
"Repair."
With broken bones in one hand and the remains of his soul artifact in the other, the young man spoke the command and a faint light engulfed both...
...actually, the light engulfed one of his pockets too – the same one where he still had some leftover mole-rabbit core trash.
[Prison shiv (mole-rabbit bone) – low grade soul artifact – it sometimes breaks but can be remade from any kind of trash in your possession.
Abilities – Bone weapon (The higher the mastery level, the higher the damage dealt by the weapon) - - Rabbit strike (Adds the speed of a mole-rabbit's jump to the attack) Rabbit aspect (Imbues the user with the speed of the mole-rabbit)
Mastery – level 7/10
Durability 12/12 –repair– -remake-
???]
"Good to know."
Viria nodded to himself.
He already know that as long as his soul artifact didn't break, it could be repaired just by using the base trash – no augmentation trash required.
But it looked like to get his soul artifact to the same state that it was before losing all durability and breaking, it was required to have both the base trash and the augmentation trash in his possession.
It wasn't gravely important at the moment, but could definitely be important in the future, so the young man took a mental note of the discovery.
With the weapon in perfect condition, Viria moved to the rare spawn and cut it open.
He was interested in its bones as he kind of expected them to be better than the ones from the common ones.
Also, it felt as if that specimen's skin was tougher than that of its common brethren, so maybe using it as wrapping for his fist would not be a bad idea either.
"...it would probably work better if it was processed..."
The young man muttered to himself, looking at the torn bloody wrappings around his left hand – just as he thought, his pinky and ring fingers were broken and started swelling making his whole arm numb from pain all the way to the elbow.
It was definitely time to see a healer.
Without further complications, Viria excavated the bones from the monster's hind legs and wrapped them in the pieces of skin from the common mole-rabbits.
He dropped the plan to use the creature's skin for the wrapping the moment he saw that cutting through it would decrease the durability of his weapon at the frightening speed.
...not to mention the looks of shock and horror on the faces of the three kids helping out with transporting the monster corpses, that Viria noticed when he attempted to make said wrappings...
"I'm off, sell everything and then find me either at the clinic or my shack in the, umm... block E-11 I guess."
"We will!"
The young man threw the bloody package he made with the bones and skin of mole-rabbits over his shoulder and called out at the kids while leaving the first barrier, and got a cheerful response from the resolute girl.
As he walked towards the second barrier, he was passed by a few other prisoners who certainly didn't seem too friendly and did not react to his greetings whatsoever.
That made Viria feel slightly worried...
"Excuse me..."
"What is it, inmate?"
"..."
Therefore once he passed the second barrier where the two guards he saw the day before had already taken their posts, he approached them calling out in a friendly manner.
...that didn't really get him the warmest of reactions...
"I would have a favor to ask... just like yesterday, the three kids from block A-9 will be transporting a lot of mole-rabbit parts to the trading post for me... I would be very grateful if you watch over them as you did before."
Viria lowered his head slightly while taking two green bills from his pocket and reaching them out toward the guards, one for each of them.