As Duncan walked into the bar, he could see Bolgar there by the bar, downing his beer with his plate empty and standing up ready to leave. Wazsh was behind the bar making the coins disappear from it.

“Good evening!” Duncan said to both of them.

“Oh, you are back,” Bolgar said startled, “I didn’t hear you come in.

“Welcome back,” Wazsh replied, “now stop giving my customers heart attacks and tell us how it was.”

Duncan decided while he was walking only a limited number of people should know about the boundary solution and Bolgar was not one of them for one major reason. It was not trust. It was that it would not benefit Bolgar at all if he knew.

“It was interesting. Some Shades and a Skeleton Guardian. We found a stairwell leading lower but didn’t go yet,” Duncan replied.

Bolgar nodded before saying, “I am off to bed. Tired from all the steel ingots I did today. Come by anytime and we can go pounding them into something more useful than a brick.”

“Bricks can be very useful,” Wazsh said.

The dwarf just waved his hand and left. He knew winning an argument with Wazsh was a lost cause for him.

“I have some things to talk to you about,” Duncan said as he came closer to the bar.

“No beer or dinner first?” Wazsh asked. Duncan shook his head.

Wazsh looked at him wearily, “Must be important then. I hope you don’t need the talk about the bird and the bees.”

Duncan facepalmed. He had a long day and did not appreciate the banter at all.

“Let me show you something. Come to the entrance,” he said before he came to the door and looked through the front window.

Wazsh stopped stacking the mugs and came to see what Duncan was looking out for.

“What are you looking for?” he asked wearily, trying to discern anything out of ordinary.

“You,” Duncan said and grabbed him by his hand and dragged him out of the bar.

Before Wazsh could respond they were a few meters into the Main Street.

“What the hell are you doing?” Wazsh yelled before he noticed where exactly he was.

“How?” were his next words followed by a questioning gaze.

“I will let go of your hand now for a brief moment, grab it back if you feel any pain,” Duncan said.

As he did so Wazsh was looking around the town. Seeing the sunset of the black hole going down in the distance.

“OK. Take my hand we have to go back inside before I explain,” Duncan said and after seeing Wazsh was unresponsive, he grabbed him by his hand and dragged him back.

“What part of we have to go back inside did you not understand?” he yelled at Wazsh.

“Did you kill the mayor?” Wazsh asked.

“No, I did not Fu… BLEEPing kill the mayor!” Duncan grunted.

“Me and Shaya found out by accident how to bypass her power of boundaries,” Duncan yelled.

Wazsh went wide-eyed before he inquired, “How?”

Duncan explained, “We found a long tunnel that leads under the village’s wall and Shaya collapsed as we reached where the boundary was too strong. I touched her then and she was OK. When I let go of her, she collapsed again. As long as I touched her, I could take he away from the effects of the boundary. Like I did with you right now.”

“But why would that work?” Wazsh asked.

“Don’t ask me. You have been here far longer,” Duncan said in frustration.

“You touched her?” Wazsh said with a grin.

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“I can’t believe I have to tell this to you,” Duncan facepalmed before he continued, “Wazsh grow up!”

“I touched her neck when I pulled of her helmet since she was grabbing her head. I thought she had a head injury or something,” Duncan replied.

“So, you deduced the boundaries are not absolute. That they are like borders and mine is just outside my premises?” Wazsh asked.

“Pretty much. At least I knew it won’t kill you if they weren’t. You would just get a terrible headache and I could drag you back inside if that happened,” Duncan explained and was kind of sorry it worked. Wazsh deserved a bit of pain in his opinion, for all the shit he gave him.

“Alright. I will get my sword and armor, you drag me out and I will go kill the mayor,” Wazsh declared.

“You and what army? If I can handle you, I am sure the mayor can make minced meat out of you in a second,” Duncan replied.

Wazsh looked at him dejected and spoke, “You didn’t have to put it so bluntly.”

“Would you have understood it otherwise? Now go to the kitchen, we have other things to do,” Duncan replied and hurried him along.

They were soon in the cold room where Duncan dropped the two carcasses from his inventory.

“A Midnight stag and this must be a Darkenris!” Wazsh exclaimed as he looked at the two carcasses before he confirmed it with his Identify.

“I haven’t seen a Midnight stag in forever. The Darkenris I only ever heard rumors about,” Wazsh stated.

“Which of the complete carcasses do you still have?” Duncan asked.

“All of the ones you left last time. My inventory is quite big since I put most of my stats into Intelligence so I have no problems storing them and keeping them fresh,” Wazsh replied.

“I want to butcher the Midnight deer before I go to sleep,” Duncan declared.

“Why the sudden rush?” Wazsh inquired.

“I noticed my stats are lacking for anything other than killing Shades and Guardian skeletons. When we came out into the wild, I could hardly see these two animals move. I would be dead now if I was there alone,” Duncan replied.

“So, Shaya killed them?” Wazsh asked.

“They fought and Shaya shot arrows at them. I could hardly see the cat move. It was just a black blur,” Duncan explained.

Wazsh nodded before he brought out a bunch of buckets. “Separate meat, blood and organs into each bucket and roll up the skin when you are done,” he instructed.

He dropped a Midnight deer on the ground and said, “Go ahead. Call me when you are done with this one.”

Duncan used his Butchering skill and after what seemed to him to take 10 minutes the meat, blood skin and organs were ready for storage.

His Butchering went to level 5 during the process and he called for Wazsh who delivered another carcass and examined Duncan’s work. He nodded and left again.

Duncan repeated the process but gained no level this time. Wazsh came back just as he finished and dropped him off another Midnight deer.

He repeated the process and had to call for Wazsh as he finished from the kitchen. He was at level 6 in Butchering now. He looked over the spoils and dropped another one.

“How many bloody Midnight deer do you have in there?” Duncan asked.

“This is the last one. You got three from Fenris and two from Shaya. I butchered one to teach you and four were left,” Wazsh replied in satisfaction.

“You didn’t butcher any after all this time?” Duncan asked.

Wazsh looked at him and grinned before he retorted, “I am not inclined to do work I don’t have to.”

“So, you want to say you were too lazy to do it,” Duncan stated while rolling his eyes.

“You can say lazy, I would say practical with my time,” Wazsh replied with a grin, before he once again left.

Duncan finished the last Midnight deer but his Butchering level stayed the same. He called for Wazsh and he gingerly came and looked over the spoils, before he put out more buckets.

“Try the stag now. Use these buckets for it,” he said and waited to see how well Duncan was doing.

Duncan tried his Butchering skill on the stag and it worked. The skin and joints were quite a bit harder to cut through due to the stag’s higher level but he managed it without too many problems. He raised his skill to level 8 with the stag.

“I could have done the stag before and saved myself all this time I spent butchering the deer,” Duncan complained.

“Maybe,” Wazsh replied with a grin, “but I doubt you could have done such a good job at level 4 as you did now.”

“I still don’t understand how the skills even work. I got a Swordsman skill but all I know are some moves from kendo. I thought there would be more. I don’t know; special attacks or something,” Duncan replied with frustration.

“Skills only give you talent in the field, then you have techniques like kendo for instance and within the techniques you have moves.”

“You only learned a couple of moves from kendo, I guess. I don’t know what you expected. The higher your skill the easier it will be for you to learn the techniques and their moves.”

“Let us take Butchering as an example. You learned to butcher rats at first. They are quadruped animals so you gained basic knowledge and ability how to butcher the deer effectively. As you butchered them your experience leveled up your skill and you can now butcher higher level quadruped animals faster and more effectively.”

“That knowledge translates somewhat to birds but you won’t be nearly as effective at them as quadrupeds,” Wazsh explained in length this time.

Duncan listened and nodded occasionally.

“So, basically getting a skill to a higher level just means I will have an easier time getting and understand knowledge from that branch?” Duncan asked at the end.

“Yes. You could put it that way but for you and your cheat-like class it also means stat points,” Wazsh said and shook his head before he continued, “for instance your first deer took you an hour and half to do. The last one you did in an hour. It would probably take you even less if we were not draining the blood.”

“Let’s go to bed now, I will show you how to do a bird tomorrow,” Wazsh said with a yawn and picked up the buckets into his inventory.

Duncan rubbed his forehead and nodded. The left the kitchen and Duncan went to clean himself up. His hands and even his face, were bloody and he had blisters on them. Using a low-quality healing potion on them they quickly disappeared. He quickly took a bath and washed his teeth.

Looking at his bloody clothes he murmured, “Clara is going to charge me triple for this.”

He left them in the bathroom and went to bed.