For efficiency, he also took meat from the big one, a monster called Hoovensore. It was much larger and had an interestingly different meat composition from the brindlejaw.
If he were to describe the appearance of meat, the brindlejaw’s was more light pink, had finer muscles, and had whiter fat, while the hoovensore had dark burgundy meat with creamier fat. It was coarser and had a more defined grain.
He hadn’t tasted it yet, but just in terms of appearance, the brindlejaw might be closer to pork while the hoovensore was more like beef.
He was already excited to see the differences in taste.
"What would you like to do with the rest of the carcasses?"
He looked at the remaining dozen or so monsters in the area alone, including those outside the barrier. He also twitched when he saw there were a few new monsters now, too. Fortunately, not too many.
That said, as for the rest of the meat, they’d likely just rot. The animals were big, and the handful was already more than enough to feed their group for days, if not weeks, even if he experimented and wasted a few kilograms.
"Is there a way to cleanly get rid of them?" he asked. He’d rather not let them rot and smell.
The elf nodded and, without another word, waved her palm over the monsters. Finn watched in awe as each one instantaneously froze.
This included the few monsters that had been attracted by the carcasses. They were only a handful, but each one would’ve easily bitten Finn in a second.
Everything happened quickly. Finn watched as the elf waved the same hand again, suddenly closing it into a fist. As if on cue, the corpses shattered as if they were the most brittle glass , except the byproduct was practically dust or ash, completely broken down and not visible to the naked eye anymore.
He did not know how this worked, but his heart was palpitating in awe.
"This..." he blinked and looked at Syl. "This is amazing!"
Syl blinked and nodded, slightly turning away, while Finn shifted his attention to the area. At first, the compiled dust looked like snow, but they were light and easily carried away by the wind. The particles were so tiny that they disappeared as soon as a small gust passed by, taking the traces of what had been there.
Amazingly, most of the trees were left untouched, as well as some shrubs. The control was impressive. Were people in this world all like this?
"She’s amazing, la," Pang mumbled, looking at the lady standing gracefully and still at the side. Either she didn’t notice their blatant stares, or she was too used to it.
Adorably, Syl seemed to be affected by their stares and cleared her throat. "There should be a few cores left behind..." she said, making Finn flinch, and he rushed to check what he could.
In the end, after rummaging the area, he found 3 awakened cores, one of which was outside the barrier. He handed them to Syl, who refused, saying it didn’t do anything for her anymore.
"You can keep it," she said, and Finn, a bit shameless, did not refuse her kindness.
What is "shame", can you eat that?
"Thank you..." he said, giving her a bright grin that made her stare for a bit longer than usual. "You’re definitely a forever-VIP guest of our Inn!"
Syl didn’t know what that meant, but she couldn’t help but smile a bit in the end.
...
They put the meat on the table and he looked at Syl. "As a customer, please make yourself comfortable," he said, very hospitable. He pointed at the bathroom door.
"The bathroom is there, you can get yourself cleaned up while I prepare our dinner. Thanks to you, we have water now," he said, opening the kitchen faucet just in case. "I do not have extra clothing, however."
"It is fine, I have a few in my space," she said, taking out a pair from her space, and headed in to wash up.
When she entered the bathroom, Finn looked at Pang. "Her space seems bigger. Is there a way to increase my space size, too?" he asked. It seemed like time was slower in space, and looking at all the meat he just gathered, a bigger space would be really useful.
"I dunno. In the previous Innkeeper’s worlds, only he had space like the system’s, but it remained fixed in size and function.
"The other people had similar tools, of course. The martial artist’s world had space bags, while the mecha fighter had space buttons. They were all extremely expensive, though, so only the top of the top had it. Perhaps it is the same here."
At this, he couldn’t help but look at the door of the closed bathroom. "I’m feeling even more pressured to do well now," he said. Before, he just thought that providing a roof over customers’ heads was enough, but how could he be okay with just that for their sponsor-slash-lifesaver?
She gave them lifesaving gold, so many cores, and even gave him a weapon. She might disagree, but he really thought he was receiving too much.
He never lived in excess, even as a kid. He grew up poor and, even when he developed a bit of a money-grubber tendency, he didn’t really spend it recklessly.
His comfort zone was to save money because he always felt things could get taken away. It made him protective of his wealth and had a tendency to hoard it.
This was why being on a consistent receiving end made him a bit uncomfortable. "I wish we could at least wash her clothes or something," he said. "But it seems too high-end. Maybe washing the whole day wouldn’t do anything to it."
He couldn’t even pull out a thread with a knife. He worried washing it by hand would wound him instead.
"You can buy a Utility Room, la," Pang told him. "It can wash any type of clothing for you."