Kapitel 3: Killing and teaching

Finally, the first adventurers enter the room and look around. The adventurers and goblins spot each other at the same time. The goblins instantly charge over while the adventurers raise their wooden bucklers and assume a defensive stance. So far only five of them have entered the room. The first five all wear leather armor and bucklers with short swords, presumably a low-level defender class specializing in raising their constitution.

"Crap, there's a horde! Brace for impact, pikemen, and archers support the shield-bearers. Healers, get ready to heal the shield-bearers!"

An old man with a longsword starts yelling commands. Three men carrying pikes run in and stand behind ones with bucklers ready to stab the incoming goblins. Then two archers enter the room with drawn bows and lastly, two priestesses enter.

The goblins are about to reach the shield wall so I start chucking my stones. My aim isn't particularly good but the stones thrown by me and the two other goblins manage to distract one of the guys with a buckler. He raises his buckler above his head right when the goblins reach them.

Without his shield to absorb most of the impact that the shield-bearer is pushed back and allows two goblins to get behind the shield line. I drop my remaining stones and sprint along the ledge until I'm right above the group.

The old guy moves forward and slashes at the goblins that passed the shield wall. Meanwhile, the healers have crouched down and are muttering some incantation. A perfect target!

I jump off the ledge and onto one of the healers using her to break my fall. However, at the moment I land on her and see her horrified face I hesitate. Am I really about to kill a human being?

Second-guessing myself while in battle is a stupid thing to do. But I can't stop myself. The healer's expression turns from horror to confusion when the expected attack doesn't come.

What am I even doing?

My sense of danger kicks in and I roll off the healer just in time to evade the archer's dagger. The dagger flashes past me and digs into the healer's shoulder. She screams in pain but the archer savagely pulls back the dagger and stumbles towards me.

I can tell with one glance that the boy is scared and has zero experience with that dagger. And in his eyes is a deep animosity towards me. That's when I realize, I am no longer human, these people see me as an enemy and will kill me no matter what.

The archer brings down the dagger again. His swing is fast but without any control. As a senior carrier, I had a few encounters with monsters in dungeons. Compared to the amateur before me, I have ample combat experience.

I dodge past the descending dagger and punch the archer straight into the face. My punch lacks the strength to do real damage but still makes the archer drop his dagger while stumbling backward.

I jump at the opportunity to get a weapon and hurry to pick up the dagger. With an iron weapon in hand, my confidence increases to unknown heights only to once again plummet when the old man turns around.

The old dude is definitely not as inexperienced as the others and I won't stand a chance if he reaches me. To make things worse he is close enough that I will only get one chance to act before he reaches me.

I didn't need to hear that twice. Holding the dagger in a reverse grip I stab straight at the healer's throat. The young lady is paralyzed by her fear and my dagger effortlessly pierces through the soft flesh severing her windpipe.

Blood spurts forth wildly as the healer desperately tries to gulp down air like a fish on land. She has no chance of survival unless a high-level healer appears out of nowhere. I can already see her eyes glaze over.

To bad that my time here is over. The old guy has arrived before me and I'm not even capable of seeing his slash. The pain as I'm basically cut in half is excruciating but quickly fades. I lose all feeling in my body and it seems to me like I begin to float upwards.

<Congratulations! You have just killed a healer. You have received a staggering amount of EXP and leveled up two times in succession. You are now on level 3 and all your stats have increased.>

I feel a strong pull and then I wake up, back on the bed where I lay down before. Valeria isn't here so I'm unsure of what to do next.

<Not to worry, I will always be here to guide you. You're actually quite lucky, you know. Despite only having one skill that you can teach you already have a student."

I have what? I am still trying to process what just happened in that dungeon and now I'm supposed to teach someone. I just killed someone!

You make a fair point there. So all I have to do is teach my student about dismantling?

I follow Navi's directions to a room labeled staff only. Inside are a dozen capsules used to enter virtual reality. I enter one of them and find myself in a white room with a teenager. I'm hired as an instructor so I have to do my best. I show him the most professional smile I can muster and walk towards him.

"Hi there, I'm Guy, your instructor for dismantling."

I stretch out my hand to shake his but he doesn't seem to notice. I thought I was nervous but this guy could barely keep eye-contact with me.

"I'm Sean. Nice to meet you."

He speaks very softly and I can barely make out what he is saying.

"If you don't mind the question, why do you want to learn dismantling?"

At first, he doesn't answer and hesitates for quite a while. Just when I begin to think he won't answer me he speaks in a soft voice.

"I want to become a carrier who enters dungeons and harvests monsters."

Can I teach him in whatever way I want?

Then I want a wide, open cave with two orc and two goblin corpses. If possible I want the corpses to be without wounds so I won't have to worry about them bleeding all over the place. Then I want a standard dismantling knife for each of us.

As soon as I think about my wishes for material and venue the white room morphs to become just that. All the things I thought about are present.

"Okay, Sean, we'll start with the basics of dismantling. Since you want to become a carrier I have decided to choose a somewhat unorthodox way to teach you. As a carrier, you will seldomly work under ideal circumstances and the things you dismantle won't be simple animals.

"From my experience, it's best to start with an orc since its size makes it easier to make the cuts. After that, you can try a goblin since they are what you will probably need to dismantle in your first few dungeons. Is that alright with you?"

"If I have to dismantle goblins anyway why start with an orc?"

"Dismantling a goblin is despite its weakness quite challenging. They have spindly and small bodies and only very little of their meat is palatable. Beginning with them usually serves as a bad experience that makes half the future carriers quit during training."

"Then I'll start on the orc."

"Wonderful! Now, orcs in comparison to goblins have many useful parts when dismantling. Their meat tastes like high-quality pig meat, their tusks are used as trophies or ingredients for magical medicines, and their hides can be turned into leather. Some groups will also ask you to collect the orcs' blood as a potioneering ingredient.

"Therefore you should first drain the blood and collect it if necessary. If not begin with removing the orcs hide by inserting your knife here, at the beginning of the neck and cutting downward."

While I'm explaining I simultaneously do so on one of the orcs to make sure Sean can also see what he has to do. I deliberately slow down my movements to allow Sean to get a better look. It also enables me to hide how much effort it takes me to make the incision.

My strength still hasn't recovered to normal human standards yet so I'm having trouble generating the necessary force to cut through an orc's hide.

"Once you reach the abdominal area you will encounter the orc's genitals. I personally suggest to just cut them off and be done with it. Then comes the most difficult part when dismantling an orc. Cleanly removing the hide takes meticulous practice and distinguishes newer carriers from senior carriers."

Flaying thankfully takes less strength than cutting through the hide. I am mainly cutting through the flesh directly below the hide moving the blade in slow circular motions to avoid damaging the hide.

"While doing this you have to find a balance between speed and precision. If you go too fast the hide gets damaged and will lose worth but if you take too long your inefficiency will get you fired."

Soon after, I finish removing the hide and the meat below is revealed. Contrary to what one might think, the meat below the green and grey hide is of nice pink color.

"When cutting the meat make sure remove all bones to minimize excess weight. There is no rule on how to cut the meat among carriers but the basic rule of thumb is that they should be as big as possible. As for the tusks you simply make two small incisions here and there and then you force them out or ask an adventurer to do it. Now you try."

I step back from the dismantled orc that has now been separated into the desirable parts and the bones, inedible meat, sinew, and organs.

Sean looks at the clean pile of harvested materials with awe and steps forward to his orc and begins.