4 Bandits 2

The two argued for awhile, almost coming to blows with one another. However, they quickly realised the girl had run away and returned to their senses.

"Twisted, shut up for a second. Should we chase after her?"

"And do what? I can't touch her even if we capture her! Ahh what a cruel game!" He cried in distress.

Twisted raised his hands and made a groping gesture in the air. Then with a long and forlorn sigh, he muttered softly "so soft and juicy".

"Idiot! Loot, were killing it for loot. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Disgust was written all over his face as he stared incredulously at his friend. Even if it's only a game he shouldn't behave in such a way. What would the other guild members think if they saw that their guild leader was such an idiot. Forgetting his responsibilities at the sight of a npc girl.

Refusing to look at the disgrace beside him, he changed the topic. "Let's go see if the guys have finished."

Hurriedly they moved towards the farm house and surveyed the fields just before entering.

Twisted happened to notice Ferris who'd been silently watching the drama from afar.

"Hey, there's a horse over there."

Both players looked at Ferris with great interest.

"Do you think we can ride it?"

"Dunno."

"Haven't seen anyone with mounts yet. Maybe we can be first." Twisted said with excitement, but was quickly dissuaded by his companion.

"We'll come back."

Twisted reluctantly agreed and approached the farm house. Just as they reached the doorstep another player walked out.

"Hey Bossman!"

"How'd it go Gween?"

"All done!" He said happily. The blood that had splattered across his face and body was like an abstract artwork.

"Already? They didn't fight back at all? Haha, how weak. What's the loot like, we got anything good?"

"Not yet. Few copper coins and kitchen utensils. There's also candles that might be worth something..." the one called Gween was no longer smiling. They'd killed quite a few children and while they are only NPCs it still made him a bit uncomfortable.

When mentioning profits any compassion was quickly taken over by greed and desire to become stronger. However, so far nothing of value had been found, instead they'd massacred a bunch of helpless NPCs which hadn't fought back at all.

He couldn't tell if he was feeling guilty for needlessly killing families, or wanting to slaughter them all again to protest the games lack of rewards.

Irrelevant thoughts aside, Gween quickly took out the most valuable items from his inventory and handed them over to Twisted to inspect.

"That's it?"

"Yeah they're a piss poor bunch of beggars. Scoundrel and Fingers have gone out the back to search the barns, but it's not looking good."

"Have you checked the walls and floorboards?"

Gween shook his head. "Not yet, Milk's just gone up into the roof, don't want to cause too much damage till she's out. There were marks showing that they accessed the ceiling quite a lot, so were hoping that's where they're hiding the good stuff."

He lead them through the house, stepping over bloody and mangled bodies. The game system did not immediately remove the dead, instead you could learn various skills to harvest what you want. For example learning <basic skinning> will let you take the hide from most animals, while <harvest organs> will get you various things required in alchemy and potion making.

Attempting without having learnt the skill will most likely damage the product and might even make it unusable. The exception is if the player can carryout the correct technique.

In real life some people such as surgeons, butchers and recreational hunters would generally have the ability to manually slice up a corpse into loot. However this would be very time consuming so after succeeding three times the skill would be rewarded along with some exp.

After that simply touching the corpse with a blade would instantly result in the bones, meat, organs, hide claws and teeth to all be cleanly separated as long as you had the skills.

Some monsters require a skill specifically for them and usually have additional stat requirements to be successful. These can only be learnt from special NPCs and can be quite rare.

Skills for harvesting human corpses are in this special category and while not exactly rare, it is greatly frowned upon by law abiding citizens. Therefore, NPCs with such hobbies tend to be very secretive and extremely dangerous. None of the guild members had encountered these skills and were unable to harvest the bodies for loot. In an hour they would dissolve into yellow light particles and float away naturally in the wind.

Or at least that's what was written on the official website. What exactly happens inside a house without wind has not yet been confirmed.

Currently the the only loot they could get would be the deceased's belongings. Specifically the guild was hoping for gold, weapons and armour. But so far they had been greatly disappointed.

Gween led them to a small and tidy bedroom, untouched by the violence everywhere else. Three beds lined the walls, colourful sheets and handmade dolls indicated it had belonged to children.

"Over here." Gween pointed at a few scratch marks on the floor. "We didn't think much of it at first but there's really nothing in this house, so it all has to be hidden somewhere. Fingers noticed the scratches and if you look up there, you can see how those boards have been rubbed smooth. He says it only happens if someone frequently touched it over many years. So Milks gone to take a look."

Indeed some boards that looked a little loose, were also unnaturally smooth compared to the ruff unfinished surfaces of the rest of the house, where every surface there was a serious fear of splinters. Only the doors and floor had been worn smooth with constant use.

The smooth ceiling was definitely suspicious.