Yes, bring me the loo-
Dismantling…
Failed to acquire any resources.
+9 butchering exp!
ooooot… whhuafwh-duh-huhbuhdubuhd-the fu-hell ya mean “Failed to acquire any resources” game??? Am I just that trash?
And-how did I get nothing???
The body vanishes shortly after “dismantling it”, leaving nothing but… well. Nothing. So, I just have to wonder, HOW did I get NOTHING??? I literally evaporated the thing into nothingness. I mean, good, I’d much rather nothing than a bloody mess, but I just have to wonder here… how does this like, LOOK, for every NPC and monster and what not? Did I just, put my hand to a monster and it vanished, and is that normal for all my gangalang in the vicinity?
Wait, wait, thought occurs. I haven’t really… checked the settings of this game, like, ever. Is there just an anti-gore that’s on by default? Lemme…
Damage. On/Off
No that’s vital information, next.
Experience notifications. On/Off
What did I just say? Next.
Arachnophobia mode. On/Off
Uh huh, I don’t have that, I’m good. The next setting is… that font is really small, it’s right under arachnophobia…
Arachnophilia mode. On/Off
PFfhgh-Arachno WHAT now? Hold on, turn that-turn that on.
Spiders. Everything, is spiders. Every dead rat in the vicinity just turns into the model of a goddamn spider. Curled up on its back and lifeless. Each and every one of them to the scale of the ‘rats’ that had been in place of them before. This, is the best joke, I have ever seen in any game, ever. You win Omniscient, you get infinite points. I love all of you, you are jokers after my own heart.
What happens if I turn arachnophobia mode on while arachnophilia mode is, also on?
Aaaaand everything is just a giant bar of text saying ‘spider’. This is peak fiction right here, never to be topped.
Anyways, turn that off, turn that off… maybe consider that for a challenge run in the future, or something… but, onto the probably more reasonable settings!
Gore. On/Off
Huh, sure enough. There is indeed a gore setting. Which is off by default.
So like, if I turn this on…
Oh, yep, there’s the dead body, mutilated too. Did I do thaaaaaat? I dunno, probably, the other rats are just… mildly bloodied, this one is torn apart. Oh, uh, my five minutes are ticking down and I’ve spent like thirty seconds here just struggling to suppress the laugh of a madman over something as stupid as “arachnophilia mode”. Ah who am I kidding, that's not stupid that’s comedy gold.
Anyways, hup to it! Next rat!
Hand to it, I get the option to dismantle and-yes!
And… disturbingly out of my own accord, I somehow produce a pocket knife from my side and bring it to the dead rat before me. None of which, as noted prior, is done of my own accord, my body moves on its own. I try to move, jerk my arm away, stand up, and…
Cancelled!
I can. And the pocket knife is gone. This whole thing didn’t happen the last time I dismantled… was that… was that because gore was toggled off?
Lemme just…
Off
And, dismantle!
Yup, my body isn’t moving now. Or at least, it’s probably not moving from my point of view. A moment later and-
Failed to acquire any resources.
+10 butchering exp!
So like, am I really trying to ‘butcher’ this rat or am I just taking a knife to it and cutting it up cause that takes like, five or six seconds at best.
Gore on!
Dismantle!
Once again, I draw the previously non-existent knife out of thin air and bring it forth. A moment later, my hand comes to the surface of the rat and jabs straight into it, proceeds to take a moment hacking and slashing into the thing, without… any real attempt to actually skin it… and…
Failed to acquire any resources!
+9 butchering exp!
…Bruh moment. Can I like, do it myself? Even without any proper training aside from doing similar in a few video games I’m pretty sure I could do better myself here.
Dismantle another one! I’ve got plenty to chew through!
Immediately after activating the option to do so, I begin to reach for the knife, but this time, of my own volition. And unlike when I simply turned away and stood up, it doesn’t go ahead and say “cancelled!”. And now… I’m not even being forced to do anything.
But… I still have the knife at my side now.
Well, I can’t say I’m a squeamish person… but digging around in a rats corpse doesn’t seem like the best use of my time. But at the same time, what better use of my time is there other than leveling up what could very well be a pointless stat? None? That’s right, nothing. Nothing right now is better than following this whim, so brutalize this body I shall!
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The knife pierces through the ‘hide’ of the monster with surprising ease. I guess I expected… some form of resistance from it? But no, the surface just broke immediately. Blood doesn’t squirt out so that’s a positive, and I’m now going to do my very best to tune out such mental images, and simply take to it like painting a picture.
I draw a line around the rat, tracing an edge with entirely unpracticed ease as I continue to carve away at its pelt. This takes much, much longer than the automatic version, but at the same time, I get the feeling I’ll get more than ten experience for it. And maybe even an item of some kind!
But, really, what good is a single literal rat pelt going to do for m-
…Shit. I got distracted and finished the cut early. Mmmm, whatever, that’s still half of the already very small pelt.
So… how do I end this? Just, put the knife in my hand back at my side, or…?
Acquired 1x low quality scourge pelt. (Common)
Acquired 1x low quality fetid scourge flesh. (Common)
+35 butchering exp!
Oooo very nice that’s more than I expected-fetid??? Is this thing poisonous? I got nicked a fair few times, what the hell’s my HP at?
45/140
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHM?
44/140
…
“Hey, Screech?”
“Ooooo was I counting too slow are the five minutes u-”
“D’ja mind doing some healing, real quick?”
“Sure! But are you sure the five minutes aren’t up-”
“Two minutes and forty s-eight seconds have passed. I have been keeping track.”
That’s totally bullshit by the way, not the part about how much time has passed, but that I’ve been keeping track.
“Are you sure you’ve been keeping track? Cause I’ve been doing that and right now I count two minutes and thirty f-six seconds. Seven seconds.”
…
“Eight seconds. Nine seconds… Forty se-”
“I get, I get it, I’m a little off my bad. But uh, I’m kind of slowly dying because of poison?”
“I thought you couldn’t die?”
“I can ‘die’, just not permanently. It’s still not uh, pleasant, either way. So, can you uh… heal me?”
“Well sure but it costs me a lot of stamina and MP-”
“New skill. I can recover all your stamina.”
“Oh right that’s great!”
[Summon]! …Right onto my shoulder.
“Well, go ahead and get right to it.”
I, in the meanwhile, will be farming my butchering skill on these dozens and dozens of unwilling accomplices.
—
Alright, that is a staggering level FOUR in butchering! And also a bunch of-
Low quality scourge pelt X5 (Common)
Scourge pelt X3 (Common)
Decent scourge pelt X6 (Common)
Low quality fetid scourge flesh X5 (Common)
Fetid scourge flesh X9 (Common)
A bunch of all that. It’s also definitely been more than five minutes, and I definitely don’t feel Screech’s eyes burrowing into my neck right now… but just ONE last thing.
“Hey Jerry, I know you don’t like to talk much, but I can practically feel your mouth watering right now. As much as I’d love to let you have at it now that I’m done with this group, these are definitely poisonous.”
“...That’s… not an issue.”
“...Really now?”
“Really.”
Ho ho, little bit more outspoken when it comes to food are we? Well, that’s good. I’d rather he acts out than remain silent.
“...Okay! Then, have at it your majesty. A veritable feast awaits.”
At worst he actually does get poisoned like I did, and then I just [Recall] him. DoT damage doesn’t count for [Recall] prevention so that’ll just outheal the poison damage. It’s not like it lasts forever, given it stopped ticking my health down about a minute ago… so he should be perfectly fine!
And therefore, eat away little buddy. To your heart's content.
[Summon]!