To my surprise, even without the [Butchering] skill and without any quest assigned, Gopuro jumped in to help anyway.
He pulled out a knife of his own—one he'd apparently been secretly carrying all this time. Unfortunately, it was utter garbage. The blade was so dull it couldn't even pierce the wolf's thick hide properly. Watching him struggle was painful, so I quickly bought a decent replacement from the Item Shop, handed it over, and slapped a matching quest on him for good measure.
After all, as a responsible boss, I couldn't just stand by while my employee slaved away for free!
It turned out to be the right call.
The wolf was enormous—easily the size of a bull—so the sheer volume of work quickly became apparent. Processing it would take far longer and require far more effort than I'd initially expected. There was a real risk that Gopuro, lacking the [Butchering] skill, might damage valuable parts. But with Gopuran quietly guiding him… he managed surprisingly well.
That got me thinking…
(How exactly do skills function in this world?)
Clearly, simply equipping the [Stone Knife] had given Gopuran an instinctive understanding of basic butchering techniques. It was almost like downloaded knowledge. The moment the knife was in her hand, she moved with effortless confidence, like someone who had been butchering wolves her entire life.
But what would happen if she unequipped it? Would that knowledge disappear instantly, leaving her as clueless as before? Or… would the skill leave something behind—some kind of permanent foundation she could continue to build upon?
If skills were purely temporary and tied only to equipment, vanishing the moment the tool was removed, then that honestly made little sense to me.
After all, if someone performs the same task a hundred times, or even a thousand times, do they really gain nothing from the experience?
Surely some of that knowledge had to remain.
On the other hand, if the knowledge became fully permanent after just one use, then the mechanic would be ridiculously broken.
I could simply stockpile equipment loaded with every possible skill, then cycle my citizens through them one by one.
Equip.
Unequip.
Repeat.
In no time, every goblin in my little kingdom would become a jack-of-all-trades, proficient in everything from butchering and cooking to blacksmithing and construction.
I highly doubted the System would allow something that overpowered.
****
As I continued watching the two work on the wolf, the truth slowly revealed itself.
(Aha… I see!)
It was actually a mix of the two. A hybrid effect—neither fully temporary nor permanently imprinted from the start!
At first, the difference between Gopuro and Gopuran was stark. Gopuran, with the [Butchering] skill, worked swiftly and cleanly, while Gopuro fumbled, struggled a little bit.
Then Gopuran paused to rest and clean her hands, handing the knife to Gopuro for a moment. Instantly, his movements improved. He became sharper, more confident, more efficient. But when she took the knife back, he reverted almost completely to his earlier clumsiness.
The conclusion was clear: the skill and knowledge granted by the weapon were not permanent. They faded when unequipped.
Yet they weren't entirely lost.
Even without the good knife, Gopuro got noticeably better than he'd been at the start just by using the knife for a brief amount of time.
In other words, using the tool had accelerated real learning. The equipment acted as a powerful catalyst, fast-tracking the acquisition of the skill through guided practice!
(Oh my… this opens up so many possibilities!)
(Though, I will need to perform more experiment with various other equipment to confirm this!)
And then, after four long hours of sweaty, bloody labor, something extraordinary happened.
Gopuro froze mid-cut. His body shimmered with a faint glow; his eyes widened as though seeing something only he could perceive.
And from that moment on, even without the good knife, his performance leaped forward. He worked just as well as Gopuran had with the tool.
Suspicious, I pulled up his status screen.
And there it was!
[Butchering Lv. 1]
My hypothesis had just been reinforced.
Not fully confirmed yet, of course. But this was strong evidence that repeated use of skill-granting equipment could eventually lead to the user permanently learning the skill.
****
In the end, it took the two of them a full five hours to completely process the wolf carcass. They worked deep into the night, but neither complained nor showed any sign of wanting to stop.
The total yield was staggering:
- 412 Wolf Meat (1 kg per unit)
- 125 Bones (1 kg per unit)
- 70 Fat (1 kg per unit)
- 2 Wolf Fangs
- 20 Wolf Claws
- 1 Gray Horned Wolf Pelt
- 2 Gray Horned Wolf Horn
- 1 Gray Horned Wolf Heart
- 10 Fur (1 kg per unit)
- 5 Powerstones (F)
(Damnnn…)
(To think the System was only offering 250 points for the unprocessed corpse!)
(What a rip-off!!!)
At first, I'd thought 250 points was already a generous payout for one wolf. But after seeing the sheer volume and quality of materials we'd extracted, it was obvious—the System was being absurdly greedy!
Even if I sold back just the Meat, Bones, and Fat at the System's buy rates:
- 2 Meat → 1 point
- 1 Bone → 1 point
- 2 Fat → 1 point
That alone would net me 366 points already!
And that didn't even account for the fangs, claws, pelt, horn, or those precious Powerstones! Those materials could be sold for a fortune no less.
- Wolf Fangs → 10 points each
- Wolf Claws → 5 points each
- Gray Horned Wolf Pelt → 130 points
- Gray Horned Wolf Horn → 45 points each
- Gray Horned Wolf Heart → 100 points
- Fur → 10 points each
With this, my networth hit a ridiculous number, ~1100 points!
(Guys! This is incredible! Thank you for the hard work!)
I marveled at the bountiful harvest as I admired my newly stacked inventory.
Naturally, I decided they deserved a proper bonus.
(Obviously, one Powerstone for this task is way too cheap! Alright—each of you gets two extra stones!)
The moment they received the extra rewards, the two goblins lit up with pure joy, jumping and chattering excitedly.
As usual, they immediately popped the Powerstones into their mouths.
Their bodies glowed, brighter this time than before.
[Ding! Gopuro has leveled up! Level 10 → Level 11]
[Ding! Gopuran has leveled up! Level 10 → Level 11]