[NR] How Do We Get Paid? - Chapter 776 (Patreon)

Lily pops out of the guys house, having been a bit of a past line of defense. There’s a scent of fear in the air. Serves the nasty beast right for not dying yesterday!

She looks around and yep, right over there was the corpse. Satisfied, Lily hops behind the house. Underneath the burgeoning scent of death, she picked up some particularly fresh grass.

Back with the body of the monster, Jason and Rosha are debating how to handle the corpse.

Rosha pointed towards the tail stump. “With the main feature of this beast gone, we should harvest with an eye towards parting it out.”

Jason shakes his head, “I say we keep it as whole as possible. While the tail is missing, we don’t know what is important. The magic seems diffuse.”

They go over this, but within minutes, the villagers have gathered around and Old Liam joined them. “Well now. Don’t rightly remember any story where one of these critters is actually killed.”

Rosha, “Duh, didn’t all the stories involve the target being dead?”

Old Liam shrugs, “Someone dying and the beast dying don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

Rosha, “Fair enough. Now, how should we handle the body?”

Old Liam scratches the back of his head, “Hmm, I think you’d be best off keeping it whole. We’ve got some minor preservation magic boxes for shipping out any quality produce. Throw it in one of those and we can figure out from there.”

Rosha, “Why would you need those boxes? You’re just growing regular grains from the look of it.”

Old Liam shrugs, “Remember that river grass? Well, it’s not the only plant that can develop odd. In an acre of grain, you’ll have a few plants that do so. Not worth too much, but still worth separating out and using a fancy box to ship.”

Rosha, “Fair enough. Though, how do we handle getting paid for it?”

Old Liam, “Eye on the prize, eh? Well, I see this as simple enough. Least, depending on how much you’re looking to get. You can borrow the box if you’re just going for a quick turn around. Simply toss it in the box and sell it at the city. Since they buy our grain, they can bring the box back to us.

“Now, if you think this beastie is worth something much? You can buy a box from us and take it with you to a proper city. Then you can set it up for auction to see what you can get.”

Rosha, “Eugh, that sounds like effort.”

Courtney chuckles, “We do have a more hands-off option. We pay for the box, bring it with us to the nearby city. There we can ask at the adventurers guild if the monster is in the local archives.

“If it is? Then we just sell the body and the box right there. The guild will buy it around the worth. Obviously not gaining us the best price, but they’re fair. Though if it is worth a lot, we’ll still want to go auction it. Prices like that vary enough that the lower end the guild is willing to pay would practically be cheating us.”

Rosha smiles, “Well, that sounds a lot simpler!”

Jason, “And what if the monster isn’t in their local archives?”

Courtney shrugs, “Well, we could always try the auction option if we want money now. Unknown means a gamble and people will bet on the corpse being valuable.”

Jason rolls his eyes, “What’s the better proper way to handle things?”

Courtney, “Why, of course it’s to turn it over to the adventurers guild! Since if it isn’t in their records, they’ll be quite interested in fixing that. Though note, I said the local archives. I’m guessing it’s in the central archives, but we aren’t touching those.

“Anything the local guild finds will be sent to the neighboring archives and the central archive. Oh, and we get paid depending on how many other places lacked the records and how valuable the body is. This has a chance to be worth quite a lot as you get not only the material worth or but basically a finders fee.”

Old Liam, “Huh, didn’t know of that option. How do you get the gold after the finish?”

Courtney, “The guild just deposits it into our party account.”

Rosha frowns, “We have a party fund?”

Courtney sighs, “Every proper party who has been together for more than six months is allowed to keep quest rewards with the Guild in a withdraw-only account.”

Rosha shrugs, “Why would I know that? We basically never do quests, and why wouldn’t we just take the money upfront?”

Courtney, “If you want, we can go more in-depth with this sort of thing. For now? The basics are that you can turn in quests even at small Guild outposts. Places that don’t always have the cash on hand, especially since some of the higher rewards can be gotten from going quite deep into the wilderness.

“Not the Deep Wilds, mind you, just areas being held down by monsters instead of a civilization. Depending on the monsters it can be called a variety of things. Most commonly a monster nest. The kingdom your teacher comes from would likely have been called a monster hive because of the swarms.”

Rosha, “Oh. I feel Peter should have told me more about this kind of thing?”

Courtney shrugs, “He taught you to survive. Why one area is the Deep Wilds and another isn’t won’t be as important to you as being able to tell the difference.”

Old Liam interrupts at this point, “How can you tell? We’re a bit close, so knowing the difference seems like a useful tidbit.”

Rosha, “Oh, that’s a bit hard. You generally figure it out as you travel, especially since it isn’t a sharp line, but a smooth transition. You have to watch for the land squirming and the sky swirling. Also, while I can’t feel it yet, the Deep Wilds do apparently feel different? Well, I can’t feel it exactly.”

Old Liam makes a face, “Not the most helpful.”

Rosha shrugs, “Could you teach me how to farm and all the small things you need to look out for in a few words?”

Old Liam, “Ah. Yeah, fair enough.”