According to Kode, Travelers could learn skills from the 'NPCs' in the village that, among other things, would improve the quality of their loot or the accuracy of their arrows. They did a few things or got on the villagers' good side before listening to them a little. Just like that, they had acquired a simple skill to improve their daily life.
Naturalists couldn't just listen to a single lecture before acquiring the skill. Acquiring a skill for a Naturalist meant actually learning how to do it. It was so accurate that learning something in the game carried over to the real world just like how real-life skills were applicable to the game.
The second part was true for Travelers to a certain degree as well. The lower degree of realism and synchronization rate for Travelers reduced the effectivity of a few things that relied on a person's movements or reactions.
It was one of the differences between Travelers and Naturalists that made people favor the former. Playing as a Naturalist was just needlessly difficult.
Actually learning how to do something could take days, weeks, months, or even years if they wanted to be good at it. A Traveler had to listen to or watch a lecture to get the skill. Then, they could just use the skill a lot to increase their proficiency and strengthen it.
It was bullshit.
All Naturalists got were pain, suffering, realistic deaths, a little extra money, and a good view.
If it hadn't been for that extra money, which was Cinder's purpose in playing Sisyphus Online, he would have regretted his decision.
Now, the only thing he regretted was having worked in construction instead of apprenticing at a butcher. If he had, he wouldn't have had to learn how to dismantle a boar from the village's butcher.
Cinder stepped into the butcher shop, the familiar smell of meat and blood assaulting his nose. Strangely enough, the smell from the butcher shop felt cleaner than the one directly from the boar he killed.
"Hello!" He greeted the gruff man behind the counter with an enthusiastic smile. He was used to applying for jobs. This was similar.
"I'm here because I want to learn how to dismantle a boar," he continued before the butcher could answer.
Cinder flinched as the butcher set the cleaver in his hand into the cutting board with a wham, splitting a bone in half.
"Uh-huh." The butcher looked up and wiped his hands on his apron while walking around the counter to stand in front of Cinder.
"Your name?" He asked.
"Cinder. Nice to meet you." Cinder reached out with his hand.
The butcher raised an eyebrow at that. Most people usually refrained from shaking his hands right after he stood behind the counter working the meat. He couldn't blame them. There were better and cleaner hands to shake.
"Bruno." Bruno grabbed Cinder's hand and gave it a firm shake.
Cinder, used to the cinder blocks parading as hands that his coworkers at the construction site had, squeezed Bruno's hand. He barely realized he was doing it. It was just something he did whenever he came in contact with hands that felt like they could squeeze watermelons.
It was fine until Bruno squeezed.
"A-ah!" Cinder squealed and yanked back his hand, frantically waving it like he burned himself.
"Hmph." Bruno snorted, an amused smile on his face. Cinder shot him a glare but didn't say anything. He had lost fair and square.
"You said you wanted to learn how to dismantle a boar?"
"Yes."
"Does it have anything to do with that guy who's been bringing in a bunch to sell lately?"
"If you're talking about Kode, then yes. But he's not here right now, and, well, I can't haul entire boars by myself."
Bruno's head rose and he sucked in some hair through his nose.
"I see. That guy's one of those Travelers. You're not."
"Exactly." Cinder nodded.
"So, you're going to learn how to dismantle a boar on your own?" Bruno raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Cinder wasn't the first Naturalist coming in for that. He probably wouldn't be the last to turn around at the entrance to the cold room.
"Yes." Cinder nodded determinedly. Learning how to dismantle boars would be an essential piece of his money-making puzzle. From what he had seen, Kode didn't get much meat from each boar. He got one or two portions and some hide. Sometimes a tusk or two. That was it. The rest of the boar just vanished.
There was so much of each boar that just went to waste. All of that could be turned into money.
Bruno shrugged and turned around. Cinder clearly wasn't going to let a few words stop him, so Bruno figured he might as well show him the reality of dismantling animals.
Cinder's face paled a little as Bruno opened the padded door to the room behind the counter and revealed a handful of skinless, headless, animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling. It looked like a scene out of a horror movie. Or a butcher shop.
Surprisingly enough, the smell was better in the cold room. Most likely because it was cold.
Cinder glanced around. How did a medieval-like village have a freezer room?
Bruno glanced at Cinder. It was a better reaction than he had expected, but this was just the beginning.
"Now, since you're going to be doing this in the wild, I assume, it won't be as easy or as clean as this, and they certainly won't be hanging from the ceiling." Bruno walked up and patted the pink flesh of one of the pigs. Or maybe deer. Cinder couldn't tell just by looking at its skinless, headless corpse.
Cinder's eyes rose as Bruno, seemingly with ease, picked up the animal and plucked it off the hook before placing it on the floor near a drain.
"You watching?"
"Yes."
"Focused?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'm only showing you once."
Cinder nodded. He had to learn as much as possible.
"Now, on this one, I've already skinned it and removed the head, so I can't show you those steps, but you won't be doing that a lot in the wild if you only want the meat. Boar hide…It's pretty good. I'll show you how to harvest that some other time if you want.
"For now…Do you see this joint here? It's connected to its shoulder. So if you…" Bruno grabbed a long dagger from beneath his apron and stabbed it into the flesh at the top of the headless body. He made a diagonal incision along the creature's armpit.
"Follow the way it points like this…" Bruno grabbed the creature's front leg and cracked it over to the other side.
"You can open it up kind of like a treasure chest."