Chapter 21: Money Is Hard to Earn
Chapter 21: Money’s Really Not Easy to Earn
Startled, Saul stepped back, his boots echoing heavily against the stone floor.
Suddenly, the corpse tied to the conveyor belt opened its eyes. Its head didn't move, but its pupils darted desperately to the left.
When it saw Saul and Katz, its pupils dilated and trembled slightly, as if it had spotted something exciting.
“He’s still alive?” Saul couldn’t help but ask.
“Of course not,” Katz replied calmly, stepping forward and lifting the black leather sheet covering the corpse.
Underneath was a split-open chest, ribs splayed like wings, the inside of the cavity completely hollow.
Further down, the legs had been sliced into thin strips, tangled with dirt and stone.
Whoever did it — they cut clean.
Yet, the apprentice’s eyeballs still twitched, following Katz’s movements upward. His lips cracked open slightly, revealing pristine white teeth.
Saul felt his stomach churn.
Ever since arriving in this world, he’d already seen more than his share of blood and horror within the sorcerer’s tower. That was the only reason he hadn’t thrown up right there and then.
Now, his trial had begun.
He forced himself not to look away.
The nausea, the dizziness — they remained. But Saul kept reminding himself: It’s just a corpse. It can’t move. It won’t suddenly lunge forward and bite half my face off.
The fear gradually receded.
“His brain’s long been dead,” Katz said. “What remains here is not his original soul. And under normal circumstances, it’s not aggressive.” He closed the black leather sheet and turned to Saul. “Scared?”
Saul took a deep breath of the rancid, metallic air.
“Yes.”
“Oh?” Katz raised an eyebrow.
“But I can do it.”
“Hmph.” Katz snorted. “It’s not about whether you want to do the job. This particular corpse has already gone through two rounds of processing. These mutated corpses need to be destroyed properly, or they’ll break loose and turn the tower into a haunted realm. But before destruction, we can still harvest useful materials. Your job is the final step — sorting and cleanup.”
Katz slapped the black sheet with a dry palm. Splat.
“You’ll need to use either your knowledge or intuition to find the parts that have magical properties due to the mutation — but which haven’t been tainted by spirits. Cut those out and place them into the appropriate boxes on the table. Seal them. Anything else goes into the large box under the table. After you leave at night, someone else will collect and replace the containers.”
“I’ll grade you based on the materials you extract. If you submit five usable parts each month, that’s a passing score. Ten or more, and you earn an extra merit credit.”
He tilted his chin toward the twitching corpse. “Now, tell me — what part do you think is usable?”
Saul stepped forward, bracing himself, and pointed at the trembling eyeball.
“Is this useful?”
“No,” Katz replied flatly.
So — what looked "alive" wasn’t necessarily valuable.
Perhaps those parts had already been corrupted by something eerie and were no longer usable.
This job really isn’t easy money, Saul thought.
Are dark-type wizards all about dealing with corpses and spirits?
He took another deep breath.
By now, he was getting used to the stench. It was still disgusting, but not enough to make him gag.
He threw back the leather cover and forced himself to stare directly at the remains.
Maybe it was the development of his spiritual power since becoming an apprentice, but while Saul still felt sick, he could at least look at the corpse without fainting.
To his naked eye, nothing seemed special about the mangled body. Saul couldn’t easily judge what parts might be valuable to a sorcerer.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Katz’s left hand tapping repeatedly on his right arm — a sign that his patience was wearing thin.
“Use my knowledge or my intuition… but my current knowledge isn’t enough to identify materials. That means I have to rely on instinct. But what is instinct? A hunch? Or spiritual perception?”
He glanced subtly at his left shoulder.
But the hardback book resting there — his lifesaving companion — wasn’t helping today. It lay there quietly like a salted fish that had given up on life.
That left him with one option.
Standing in front of the corpse, Saul began to visualize the Human-Monster Walking Diagram.
Without a crystal ball, it was hard to achieve full immersion. But after last night’s lab experience, he had managed to train himself to enter a light meditative state even without assistance.
In that state, he could see elemental particles and other things invisible to the naked eye.
Now, what he saw surprised him.
The twitching eyeball looked like a snail’s antenna, waving around curiously.
And the corpse’s lips were covered in hard, black bristles.
Beneath the lips, the teeth shimmered faintly.
Saul locked his gaze on that flickering glint — it felt strangely familiar.
Like the glowing signal that appears when loot drops in a game.
A loot drop. A pickup prompt.
“You still haven’t found anything?” Katz said impatiently. “Let me give you a hint. This corpse has at least two usable materials. If you find even one, you pass.”
His voice snapped Saul out of his trance.
No time to second guess if the glowing teeth were real. Saul pointed at the mouth.
Katz frowned. “You mean the mouth?”
“No — the teeth.”
Katz looked surprised.
He stepped forward, grabbed a thin black stick from the table, and used it to lift the corpse’s lip.
He turned back, coughing awkwardly. “You’re right. That counts.”
Success!
Saul suppressed his excitement and resumed scanning the corpse with his partial meditative state.
Then—
He spotted two more glowing spots.
Saul pretended to hesitate and pointed to one of them.
Katz nodded. “Any others?”
Saul looked again, skipped the third glimmering point, straightened up, and said, “I didn’t find any more.”
“Not bad.” Katz casually pointed out the one Saul hadn’t mentioned. “There’s another here.”
He then verbally guided Saul through using the lab tools to cut and collect the materials. They went into three separate small boxes, which Saul sealed with clasps.
The rest of the corpse was bundled in the black leather and dumped into the large box beneath the table — which was carved with spell runes to suppress spirits.
All that remained on the conveyor was a large smear of blood.
Katz nodded and gestured for Saul to pull the lever again.
With a mechanical hum, the conveyor moved, dragging the bloodstained platform downward. Another corpse emerged from behind the black curtain.
Saul squinted at the head sticking out of the leather — his eyes narrowed.
He knew this one too.
This was the curvy maid who’d delivered his textbooks on day one… the same one who had shown up in his nightmare that night.
That voluptuous maid?!
Why was she dead?
Accident? Or murder?
“You know her?” Katz asked with a flat tone, observing Saul’s expression.
“Yeah. She delivered my books once.”
“In the wizard’s tower, death is common.”
“If people keep dying like this… what happens when there’s no one left?”
“We go recruit from nearby towns. They’re always eager to send people.”
The brief conversation ended.
Katz gestured at the maid’s corpse. “There’s at least one usable part. If you can find it, the job’s yours.”
Saul shook off his grief and lifted the black leather sheet.
The maid’s body was naked, a long gash down her chest showed she’d been dissected too. But she was just a regular person not a wizard so there weren’t many anomalous remnants on her.
Unlike the apprentice earlier by the time that one was dumped into the big box, there was barely anything left.
(End of Chapter)
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