The sack hit the table with a hollow clatter, loose beast bones, mech scraps and Vincintine fragments spilling out across the rough work table.
Harlon exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck, sleeves damp with sweat and soot from working the tower's engines. His brown hair stuck to his forehead and his coat smelled faintly of the aether filters used at the Beastcorp base tower.
"Some Riftwalkers cleared a Gold Rank Rift, and we were also running a full sweep of the tower's main engine. Had to change many parts," he explained to David who stood by the table, staring at the sack and its spilled content. "I managed to grab some Darcbeast parts from the clearing. The ones left behind by the troopers of course. Some of my mates were pissed that I was greedy with how much I took. But hey, my son's going to the Academy soon. I've got my work cut out for me here."
David's eyes gleamed. The sack held a fortune in scraps if you knew how to look, and since Jethro had been an expert in determining scraps that could fetch some credits, it wasn't difficult either for David.
There were charred scale sheaths with flecks of shimmer still embedded, a scorched claw with its edge chipped though seemed sharp enough, a piece of bone with a glowing green liquid seeping out.
"Darcbeasts are not much different from mechbeasts are they?" David said, holding up a partial talon glowing faintly along its cracked edge. He passed it to his father.
Harlon nodded. "Not really. They're both still beasts, except Darcbeasts have corrupted skin. But they're cleansing methods that people use to purify it. Someone'll definitely want it."
David smiled. "Thanks, Dad."
"Come on," Harlon said. "Help me sort."
He pulled out a cracked visor and an eye lens the size of his palm. David joined in and the two of them moved like gear in sync, sorting, weighing and evaluating. Harlon handled the heavy stuff, while David decided which were valuable. In an hour, they'd picked out the keepers and packed the rest for melt-sale.
This was how most of their days were.
Harlon left in the morning for the base tower, working in the mechmachinery and at times, his services would be required at the mechveterinary if the workload was too much. Then, he would return by the evening with scraps and beast body parts he had scavenged from work.
Later that evening, he and David would work together in sorting them, deciding which could be sold and which wasn't worth anything. They had small playful fights over this sometimes, with Harlon insisting that a particular scrap he had picked would fetch a good price, but David certain that it wouldn't.
Most of this ended with David having the final say while Harlon would laugh it off with a "you're the boss." Sometimes, feeling guilty, David would cave in and agree to put the scrap up for sale, and at very few times did he end up actually finding a buyer for it.
They would laugh over it at dinner while their mechbeasts either stared and chased each other around the table.
Selling the scraps and beast parts was David's job, which was mostly why the decision of what would be sold rested on his shoulders. Some buyers liked to be clever, and if they saw him selling scraps that weren't worth anything at all, they would see him as desperate, offering low prices for items.
His time in the pet store had taught him a thing or two about buying and selling.
On a day, Harlon had gone to work, Darren sat under the stall's tarp, crates stacked in front of him, beast parts and mech scraps gleaming dully under the dying afternoon light as the thick breeze carrying the smell of the scrap dump filled the atmosphere.
Lizard was on top of his head, joining him to read a glyph, tail flicking and head bobbing.
A woman approached, leading a Barbarian Boar which stomped behind her. She fingered a pair of linked fang bracelets, her black lips stretched to a smile that appeared too practiced.
"You got any use for these, handsome?" she pointed at the talons Harlon had brought yesterday. "Looks like it's from a Nightmare Hawk. Feeding this to my Boar under the perfect weather would certainly get me closer to a new level."
David looked away from the glyph and at the woman. "Well, then you wouldn't mind paying 45 credits for it."
"Oh… That seems high," she purred. "Maybe if I smiled real nice, you'd drop the price."
David shrugged. "Lady, that smile will get you everywhere except a lower price on this beast part. Nice try though." He grinned, and extended a waiting palm. "But I got school supplements that I need to buy."
She stared at him.
"Come on, now," David curled his fingers repeatedly. "Cough up the credits."
The woman continued to stare at him, surprised. Then, she smiled and sighed, flustered. "You're a talker. How about you add those rusted plugs and I'll make it 50 credits."
David grinned. "You've got yourself a deal."
She laughed and paid, leaving with her Boar. A moment later, a gaunt man in mechanic robes sneered at the set of visors.
"They're slightly cracked, can't you see? How can it be 20 credits?"
"Yes, I can see they're slightly cracked, but yours don't work anymore, mister. This is as cheap as you can get a quick replacement, but if you keep nagging, my benevolence will run out and I'll charge double."
"No! Not double. Here, I'll pay right away!"
By the third day, Harlon was out more often. A lot of Rift outbreaks were happening so there was work overload in basically every base tower in the world. That left David in charge of the garage— and the mechveterinary it had always doubled as.
One of the first beasts he had worked on was a Wartback Razorhog. It was limping and twitching along its rear joints. The boy who brought it in looked panicked. David calmed the beast by petting it gently while Lizard watched silently from atop a shelf.
Taking care of animals wasn't new to David, being a junior vet in his former world. However, mechbeasts weren't ordinary animals. They had magic, and a special science to them. Which was why David had spent a lot of time reading glyphs on Mechbeast Anatomy and Health, finding crossroads between them and the animals he was more used to treating.
Surprisingly, there were many. Though the cases of mechbeasts were slightly complicated, it was still a similar problem. In this case:
"Look, the legs are not the problem here," David muttered. "You didn't follow its nutrient flow circuit, did you? Your beast's diet should consist of grasses, roots, bulbs, and fallen fruits mainly. Maybe insects now and then, and meat at even rarer times. But you've been feeding it too much meat, hoping that it would become stronger— fiercer that way?"
The boy lowered his head in guilt.
"Look kid, all beasts have their diets and they're essential for their nutrient flow circuit. Nutrients strengthen the beast almost as much as aether, so it's important that you follow it responsibly to ensure that your beast doesn't get deficient."
He turned to the Razorhog. "Alright, big guy. Just enough strong roots and fresh greens under a rainy forest and you'll be back on all four legs."
The boy took the mechbeast home after promising to follow the nutrient flow circuit. After him, David helped a Hornless Gore and a Spectrum Prowler who both had injuries. He was not flawless, but he followed instinct, drawing on the logic of biology, memory, and the new glyphs he'd bought.
Most of the credits he earned went to those. The round metallic plates, light as breath, containing ancient diagrams and texts of accumulated knowledge on screenpages. And he spent most of his time reading them, fascinated by the mechanics of the world he'd transmigrated into.
Outside, on the seventh night, Harlon leaned against a rusted crate with a drink in hand, talking to Thom from three lots over.
"Craziest thing happened today, Harl," Thom was saying. "My son told me he came over here to find out what's wrong with his Stoneback Tortoise, it had been stuck in the same level for months and was as weak as a twig. He comes back home, tells me that he's been using the wrong cultivation module all this while, and would have to start over. The cultivation path was completely ruined but was fixed now."
He took a long swig from his drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I say great. Harlon did a fine job then, I'll go thank him later. He says no, it wasn't Harlon. It was his son, Jethro! And I'm shocked, like Jethro? I didn't know your son was also a mechvet, never knew he was interested in that stuff!"
Harlon smiled, taking a sip of his drink. "I know. He's been an excellent son of late. Because of him, the last seven days have been the best of my recent life."
Back in his room, David sat cross-legged on his bed, a glyph opened before him, a screenpage on mechbeast cultivation paths displayed on the hologram.
His lizard sat beside him. David withdrew an aether chip from his pocket and placed it inside the harnessing slot below its chest.
"Just five units," he murmured. The lizard harnessed the aether slowly, also ingesting the chip which was made with edible material.
Once that was done, David returned to the glyph, once again, relishing in the fantasies of this world's knowledge.
But, just like every other time David read, it felt what was in these glyphs were only knowledge that had been gathered so far. In a word this vast filled with magic that has existed for thousands of years, surely there was something deeper.
He turned to his lizard and asked, "What do you think, huh? Is there more to this world than what's recorded in these glyphs?"
The lizard blinked its eyes at him and nodded.
"You see," David mumbled. "You agree with me. Even though nodding is basically all you can do, I'm sure you really meant it this time."
He checked the clock on his wall and sighed, "Better get some night rest then. We're going Rift Clearing tomorrow. And then... Beastcorp."
He stood, stretched, picked up the Red Lizard and placed it on the makeshift nest of clothes. After closing the glyph, he turned off the lights and went to bed.
Tomorrow, he was required to report to an assigned Rift. David didn't know where it was yet, or when he would receive the notice, but he couldn't help but feel excited, even though his hopes of being a Riftwalker was basically dead.
"Croaakkk!"
He buried his face in the pillow. "Go to bed, Lizard."