4 In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle...

After the initial shock of being denied entry into what they viewed to be the starter village, the beta testers, rather than expressing views of public outrage, were quite rather exhilarated.

Such an attitude from the village guard just served to heighten/emphasize the degree of realism of the game.

In reality, if you wanted to enter a particular area without any clear purpose, of course, you would be questioned. Not to mention how the land in this territory would technically fall under the jurisdiction of the lord, essentially making a semi-version of private property.

Of course, one wouldn't be granted access to someone else's private property in real life, unless under specific circumstances.

The issue was quite apparent, how exactly were they supposed to get into the village then? Perhaps they were to bribe the brutish guard. However, if so, they had just started and they had no items whatsoever to bribe the guards with.

Some of the more foolish ones among the group attempted to forcefully smash their way past the gate.

Seeing this attempt, the guard gazed down upon them in contempt, viewing their pitiful strikes to be comparable to an insect buzzing in one's ear. Annoying yes, but of no real harm/concern.

Seeing this, Rowan decided to make his way from the group and head out into the woods.

Several other people had gathered in groups also, guilds/organizations from reality that had managed to get some players into the beta to establish their foundation. These groups quickly gathered together and went ahead into the woods, opening to secure early advantages in terms of levels and such.

Others prepared their live streams via the interface and began interacting with the audience as they showed them around.

After walking for approximately 6 minutes into the woods, he finally stumbled upon something of notice, a snarling kobold.

Displayed above the kobold's head was its level, it of course being level 1.

Seeing Rowan, the kobold recklessly charged at him, swinging its arms in wild motions. Its eyes were bloodshot, a wild look spanning across its face.

In a fit of panic, Rowan raised his arms to hopefully block the attack, the kobold's arm raking his arms.

An intense flash of pain sears through Rowan's mind, causing him to cry out.

Flailing around, his legs strike outwards, lashing at the kobold and kicking it away from him.

Recentering his focus on the rapid risk of death getting back to its feet, he lashes out again, kicking it once more right in its kneecaps.

With a sharp cry, the kobold falls back down, its knees shining an angry red from the kick.

Rowan then proceeds to kick the kobold while it's still on the ground, while not the most dignified of actions, it most certainly accomplishes the job.

With each kick, another sharp ding rings from the interface notifying him that his skill in Basic Kicking had increased.

Eventually, after 7 or so forceful kicks, the kobold finally succumbs to the blunt force trauma, and its chest caves in, a bloody corpse left on the ground.

A notification then pops up with a bright *ding*, "You have killed an infant kobold! You have been awarded 5 exp points! 5/500."

Goddamn blackhearted interface, if had to really go through this experience 100 more times just to level up, he would really die. Even in the best games, one cannot escape from the arduous task of laborious grinding.

Now usually in most games, this would be the period of time in which the slain monster would provide some sort of drop from a set loot table. However, nothing whatsoever dropped from the monster and the corpse just lay there, dead and becoming cold.

Confused by this, Rowan checks the in-game forums to see if there's any sort of information in regards to this issue that can help him out.

Searching in the keywords, "monster" and "loot" several search results pop up, one of which grabs his attention.

It reads the following, "So I've observed that when killing a monster it wouldn't provide any form of drops. We can presume that the game developers are trying to mimic reality as much as possible. Remember that the devs have previously stated that they wanted the game to be as much like reality as possible, of course disregarding the fantasy elements."

"Following this line of logic, we can assume that we would need to harvest drops from the monster ourselves. This sort of logic of course wouldn't apply to just only mob drops but also precious herbs and ores as well."

"Of course this system is quite beneficial and detrimental to our player base as a whole. The most obvious issue would be that not many of us, if any, know how to harvest these particular organisms. However, we no longer need to be concerned with RNG in obtaining particular drops, as long as one is skilled enough in harvesting and the monster/plant has not been brutalized then most things would be able to be obtained."

"TLDR: We need to manually harvest ingredients and drops like how one would butcher a cow in real life."

Leaving an upvote on the post for how helpful it was, Rowan inwardly cringes and mentally apologizes for what he is about to do to the corpse.

"I'm sorry buddy, but it was either you or me, and I got things to do" Rowan mentally apologizes.

Luckily, having played numerous dungeon and fantasy games in the past, he didn't have to necessarily brutalize any corpses just yet.

Thankfully his background knowledge in terms of this particular mob told him that no of the kobolds parts necessarily serve a purpose, rather the only drops they could have would be their armor, weapons, and other accessories.

Seeing this, he proceeds to search the body, not managing to find any sort of weapons or armor, only managing to find a tooth necklace around the neck.

After using the interface to observe the necklace, the following information is presented to him:

Sharp Tooth Necklace: A necklace roughly crafted from the unartistic hands of a kobold, such craftmanship ruined the ingredient of the tooth, thus causing degradation of the end product.

ATK - 1 -> 2