Abel was currently making his way through the Verdant Forest. He had logged out 20 minutes ago and quickly left the house after washing up and changing his clothes.
He brought along some dried jerky to act as incentive for the boar in case the trap caught something. If it hadn't then he'd use it as bait for the new trap in a different section of the woods.
It wasn't long before Abel found himself back in his old hunting grounds, with a small boar caught by the thick rope he had set up.
'I knew it! Offal always works. Alright, let's finish this quick…'
Abel thought happily, though he wasn't really looking forward to all the work.
He approached the boar from the back and placed his knee on its stomach to bring it down to the ground. After struggling for a while, he undid the noose at its feet with a single hand and quickly looped it around it's chin, then it's neck.
He had done such a thing for 2 reasons.
First, to ensure the boar didn't choke as he dragged it back and second, to prevent its tusks from tearing off his hand if it chose to bite at him. Once he secured the knot, he got up and jumped back but held the rope tautly.
The wild boar tried madly rushing around but Abel slowly tired it out over the next 20 minutes. This was the greatest and most time-consuming task after catching a boar but prior to actually butchering it. If he didn't have sufficient stamina or strength then the boar would have tired him out instead.
*pant* *pant*
"Alright, come on now… I'll give you a painless death I promise"
After catching his breath from the tiring struggle, he started swinging around the dried jerky before the pigs' nose. He was trying to urge it into moving more slowly with less force, which it eventually did.
Thankfully, it didn't give him much trouble and followed him back home, most likely it was following its instincts due to the scent of dried meat. It might have been caught early on during the night and was starting to get hungry.
By the time he got home, it was close to 8 am. Frankie and Melly were upstairs getting ready for work so he didn't bump into them.
He led the boar to the back and tied it around an old drain pipe. After washing up, he went to have some breakfast before he got to butchering his latest catch.
The intermixing of the boars' grunting, squealing and growling seemed to have informed the couple of Abel's arrival as they came down a few minutes later.
"If you hadn't caught something today, I would have bought some bacon and pork when we go shopping after work. By the way, do you need anything?"
Frankie asked as he leaned in from outside the door, while Melissa stood behind him.
"Nah I'm good bro. Just don't forget to get some grains and veggies for the animals."
"Yeah don't worry about it, we should head out but we'll see you later?"
He asked questioningly towards the end, not sure if Abel would be there for dinner.
"I'm not sure to be honest, I'll see how it goes. If I'm not around then just leave some food in the warmer stove and I'll grab it later"
Frankie nodded and made his way out with his girlfriend. The couple would shop at Epicurean World Market, considering they could use a 5% employee discount.
Unfortunately, it only applied on some goods such as toothpaste, toilet paper and other such products while meats, fruits and vegetables would be priced the same as normal customers.
But this little discount could still help over time, saving a lot of money for the three young adults over the years.
After Abel gobbled up his breakfast, he quickly washed the dishes and made his way to the back.
He carefully approached the boar and after a short 3-minute struggle, he subdued it on the ground.
He slowly dragged it towards the gutter drain and reached out for his sharpened butchering knife, slicing at the boars' throat in a quick a practiced motion, severing its carotid artery.
It would take a few minutes for it to bleed out fully, so Abel tied it up to prevent it from twitching intensely in bodily reflex and made his way to the storage room.
He got the old rabbit pelts out of the salt vat for the next step in tanning them.
The rabbit pelts were completely dried out and he had to rehydrate it before placing it into the tanning solution. After patting off all the iodized salt, he placed it in lukewarm water and started boiling some water at the side to mix into the alum solution.
It would have to get mixed at boiling temperatures and left to cool down, so it should be ready after the pelts got rehydrated.
After he was done, he made his way back outside and saw the boar had been completely bled dry so he got down to skinning it. It was quite tough to skin a wild boar as they could reach upwards of 100 kilograms!
This one seemed to be a teenager in boar years so it wasn't too heavy just yet, he was able to lift it up onto his make-shift butchering table and got down to work right away.
'If only butchering in real life was as easy as skinning in-game'
Abel thought in amusement as he got down to work.
After skinning it and eviscerating it, he started chopping it up into different cuts with his handy cleaver. He had purchased it quite a number of years ago after his first sale of rabbit pelts to those fishermen.
Fortunately, the boar was barely mid-sized so the total process only took him an hour and a half. He would place most of the chopped pieces in the large freezer in the storage straight away, alongside the edible internal organs.
He placed some cuts in the fridge to make bacon and planned to get rid of all the other offal as he couldn't be bothered cleaning out the intestines. He had no plans of making sausages anyway, he simply lacked the time to take care of this time consuming and laborious task.
By the time he was done, he was absolutely exhausted but he still had to take care of the fleshing process for the boar pelt and then place it in the salt vat.
He quickly took care of this chore over the next hour with his soft brush. After he removed all the little pieces of meat stuck to the leather, he placed it into the iodized salt to cure.
"Finally…"
Abel let out a sigh in relief when he was finally done. He went to take a hot shower before crawling into bed.
He slept all the way till 5 pm before he got up. His arms and legs still felt a little sore from all the work he'd done earlier but this only reaffirmed the fact that he couldn't stay in the pod all day long.
'I wouldn't have gotten so tired in the past, I really have to get started on my martial arts practice. But the quest is also important…'
He made the decision to cut back on his hunts in the real world. He was making more than enough money for the time being. He could relegate hunting to an enjoyable hobby in his free time instead of a means to save money.
After washing up and brushing his teeth, he made quick work of the left overs from the day before and took out the soaking rabbit pelts. He placed them into the now cooled alum solution and then sent Frankie a message telling him not to wait on him for dinner.
Whoooosh
The cascading colors streamed by as he connected back to Faeron.
He found himself back in the old study at old man Rye's place. Just as he was about to dive back into the ocean of text, he heard the door open up.
"You're back?"
"Uh.. Yeah, I tried calling out to inform you of my departure... but it seemed you weren't at home?"
Abel awkwardly replied, not sure if the old man had come to check on the study earlier on but he didn't explain himself fully.
"Mm... I had to pay a visit to the palace grounds, the old king seems to not have much longer to live."
The information old man Rye casually revealed was eye-opening to say the least.
There was no way the average player could hear of such information from the NPC's. Even the players that chose to work as kingdom soldiers and guards wouldn't be able to hear of such news.
Abel seemed unsure why the old man mentioned such a thing, so he tried to ask in a round-about manner.
"Umm will there be any problems after his royal highness passes?"
He wasn't well-versed in how monarchs should be addressed, calling the king something that would be addressed to a prince instead.
"Hahahahaha, you travelers are definitely different. You call a king by his majesty, a prince is addressed as his highness"
The old man genially explained after having a good laugh at Abel's expense and then carried on,
"You shouldn't let others hear such a thing, lest they mistake it as a form of disrespect to the king. As to your earlier question… no there shouldn't be any issues. The King had long chosen his heir from among the princes. Besides, if someone foolish enough dares to plot something then these old bones of mine can finally have a chance to get some exercise."
The murderous gleam towards the end of his words sent a chill down Abel's spine.
Even when the old man causally mentioned his intent to kill, it caused the surroundings to drop by a chilling degree.
Abel gulped as he reminded himself that the man before him was a Legend, at least level 300 and not some gentle old grandpa that's waiting for death to come.
He swiftly nodded his head in understanding and told him he still needed to go through a lot more text. If he couldn't find the answer, or all of the answer here then he'd have to check the records in the Royal Library.
The old man nodded and simply told him to call out if he needed anything before walking away.
Abel had been thinking about the passage the Fatescribe left behind all day long. He then recalled the old man's words about Branthor's forge at the back and remembered the lines that didn't make complete sense;
"Through echoes of hammers and anvils loud, To the forge of kin, where secrets shroud".
It was probably not talking about the secrets of old man Rye but of the Battlesmith Branthor. He might have left a secret in his forge, or at least a clue.
The following lines of "A guardian awaits with a gaze of steel, Seek the entrance with a craftsman's feel." was what came next and if the guardian mentioned was indeed old man Rye then it reinforced this thought.
He might need to have some level of favorability with the old guardian and have some blacksmithing skill to find the clue he needed.
Without the old guardian's favorability, he wouldn't be able to get access to the forge. Without decent blacksmithing skills, he wouldn't have the "craftsman's feel" needed to find the clue.
His confusion stemmed from these lines as he wasn't sure if the guardian mentioned was old man Rye. The place Branthor went to might have a guardian preventing others from entering, they might need a "craftsman's feel" to pass its test.
He was going to test out all of his assumptions, just in case and he planned to keep going through the rest of the records, of course.
It was a little past 8 pm in Veridia right now and he had to go clear out the dungeon later on.
Since he figured he'd need around 3 and a half hours to clear it and skin all monsters, he planned to keep reading for another 4 hours before trying out his theory at the forge.
He'd test out smithing a few iron nails as a starter, though he doubted he'd be able to "seek the entrance with a craftsman's feel" by forging a system built-in blueprint.
If it didn't react then he could test out forging a small dagger after buying the design blueprint from the blacksmiths guild.
But that would have to wait till the next day. Having made his plans, Abel didn't waste any more time and dove right back into his reading.