"Cinder, the waste bucket is already full. If you want to dispose of this, just give it to the cleaners." Bruno rejected the sack of meat Cinder was trying to hand over.
"N-no, this is my harvest!" Cinder said, insulted. "I chose the good pieces you mentioned and cut them off the boar."
Bruno raised a skeptical eyebrow as he took another glance at the bag's contents. His arms were still crossed, showing no intentions of receiving it.
"I thought I told you to buy a good knife, not use that mace of yours."
"But I did!" Cinder protested. It might not be on Bruno's level, but it couldn't be that bad!
Bruno frowned and pursed his lips. Since Cinder had studied with such passion and intensity, Bruno had felt he might be capable of something. But he had turned a perfectly fine boar into raggedy strips and uneven bits of meat.
"Let's say I believe you, this still looks messy. What do you want me to do with it? I can't salvage this, nor teach you how to salvage it." Bruno shrugged, making it clear he wasn't taking the bag.
Cinder stared blankly at Bruno.
"I…want you to buy it?" He said questioningly.
"This?"
"Yeah. Don't you buy the meat that others come here to sell? Like the meat Kode brings you?"
"I do." Bruno nodded. "I sell it to the other villagers or the cooks. But others bring me pieces of meat that I can sell. This? I can turn it into minced meat or chop it into pieces and call it stew bits."
"B—"
"Just like I can do with the scraps and leftovers I get myself." Bruno's voice was firm.
Cinder hung his head and took back the bag with disappointment dripping from his body. Bruno rolled his eyes.
"Fine. I'll take it. One Token."
"Thre—"
"One. Take it or leave it."
Cinder sighed and handed over the bag. Bruno handed him a Token before taking the bag and dumping it on a workbench in the cold room and then handing the bag back to Cinder.
"Is this all you got?" Bruno asked when Cinder took the bag and crumpled it to put it in his backpack.
"Well…"
Seeing his expression, Bruno held up a hand. Cinder didn't need to explain. Bruno could guess from the meat he got that the rest was probably even worse, especially since most of what Cinder had brought looked like it came from the boar's upper shoulders. The rest had probably gotten contaminated by its stomach contents and the unusable organs.
"One bag like that is more than what your friend brings, just so you know." Bruno turned around and entered the cold room, essentially telling Cinder to get going.
Cinder stood still for a second before grabbing his things and heading out again. Although he needed to kill fourteen more boars to make up for his losses if it continued like this, there was still a bounce in his step.
One bag was more than what Kode brought. Kode usually got around four Tokens for the loot he sold. That meant a bag was a minimum of four Tokens if the meat was the same quality as the meat the system harvested for Kode.
Four bags could be filled by one boar. Four Tokens for each bag meant a total of sixteen Tokens.
One boar could make up for the investment of the knife and the equipment.
Two boars would more than double his return.
Three boars and he would be rich!
How could Cinder not be excited? The failure of his first attempt was only natural. Sooner or later, he would get better at it. He just had to keep trying and earnestly striving to improve.
It was another part of the reason why Naturalists stuck to digging through the grassy hills of the Mountain. They could kill boars and other monsters at the base of the Mountain for a couple of Tokens. That in itself was dangerous and risky, especially when the Tokens weren't guaranteed.
The only way to guarantee Tokens would be to do what Cinder was trying to do right now. But which member of modern society desperate enough to try Token mining had the time, dedication, or skill necessary to dismantle or learn how to harvest boars? They also had to have the stomach to stand the unnecessarily good realism.
Even if they had the stomach, it would take time to learn and be good enough at it for it to be profitable.
It was a bold choice to stick with dismantling the boars instead of going for hunting them and just taking the Tokens that appeared when they died. He would be a lot slower at first.
But Cinder was confident this was the right path for him. Besides, it was too wasteful to let an entire boar simply go to waste because he was too lazy or rushed to take care of it properly. His thrifty self wouldn't let him do it.
Cinder also liked the idea of improving in a game and learning new things.
Worst case, Token mining didn't work out, and he would need to pick up a more reliable job in the real world. But if he had experience butchering wild animals and monsters, he could apply for a job at a butchery in the real world.
Cinder was hopeful. Things would work out in the end.
This was also his last day off before he had to work for a week straight. He wouldn't get another chance to devote himself fully to cutting up the hairy pigs like this for a while. He was still planning on playing after work, but by then, Kode would be online, and they would be back on the grind.
Cinder cast aside any stray thoughts and focused on the monster behind one of the trees a stone's throw away. He frowned. He slowly unslung his backpack and put it on the ground as he grabbed his mace.
That was no boar.