Infinite Realm

In a forest within a cavern, two characters -a young man and a feline- were traversing the area with cautious footsteps. Once in a while, the duo would pause in their footsteps as the the feline would sniff the air and narrow its eyes as it glances around, seemingly in search of something or on the lookout. 

Eventually, the duo cane to a stop with the young man sitting underneath a huge tree while the feline kept a lookout for him.

The duo were precisely Sato and Milo, who had left Cecilia in the cave with the excuse of scavenging for food. In actuality though, Sato left because he wanted to go through his gains from the journey. Apart from the profits from his hunt at the riverside, Sato had also looted the corpses of the guards as well as the monster. That's right, he did exactly that.

In Infinite Realm, monsters weren't the only corpses that could be looted. Truthfully, no one knew this and Sato had only decided to give it a try, never expecting to succeed.

While corpses of humans could be looted, the procedure was different. Usually, when a player looted the corpse of a monster, they didn't really need to do much except to approach the corpse and click on the [Loot] icon that would appear above the corpse. But the same didn't hold true here. 

As previously mentioned, there were two ways to loot a corpse. One was the automatic function, which relied on the system's aid and was much faster than the rest. The other was by taking things into one's hands; in other words, doing it yourself. For looting corpses of NPCs, particularly of the human and other intelligent races, this method had to be employed. Players would have to search the corpse for what they can extract so their gains would depend on how much effort they put into searching.

Right after Sato had fed Cecilia with the HP potion, he had taken a walk around the scene. In actuality though, Sato went around looting the corpses for any potential gains. One couldn't blame him. The guards were all at least level 30 so whatever was with them would surely be attractive to someone of his level. As for morals such as respecting the dead and not pillaging corpses, this was a game; if he wanted to rise to the top then certain unacceptable actions had to be considered.

As for why Sato didn't do this at the cave, he obviously didn't want Cecilia to recognise any of the items and take him as robber or someone untrustworthy as that would ruin the mission at hand. So the only option left was to go through them outside of the cave. While he could have done so back when he went searching for herbs, because it was an emergency, Sato didn't falter in his footsteps and only set his focus on finding the herbs. Now that he had free time, it was only right of him to check his gains.

While the prospect of manual looting made it look like one could get their hands on anything, the system obviously wouldn't allow it. Logically speaking, by relying on manual looting, one could empty the pockets of corpse, taking not just its items but even clothing. While this sounded strange, the armour of level 30+ guards of a noble household would surely be at least level 30+ Mid-Tier Rare-Steel rank, if not Upper-tier. If a player could really loot a corpse dry, they would make it in the game without stress so the system had to balance things out.

Indeed, one could take off the armour as well as some other items off a corpse, but they wouldn't be able to take it away with them. It would either disintegrate into stardust once they did or they wouldn't even be able to put it in their storage bag nor depart with it. This was to prevent players from making it big with one loot and disrupting the balance of the game. If such measures hadn't been applied, Sato would have gained a lot today. It should be known that there were at least 10 corpses at the scene and each of them were equipped with high-quality armour and weapons. Even if Sato couldn't use them, selling them would net him at least 300 gold coins. That was an amount of wealth that no guild, much less player, could realise on their own.

Thanks to the measures in place by the system, Sato had to inspect each item to know which one he could depart with. In this regard, the system was helpful as the [Appraise] skill could help players identify which item they could take with them. 

In the end, Sato had only managed to depart with the money the corpses held safe and a few other items with them. By conservative estimates alone, Sato had gathered at least 75 gold coins from the corpses and this was with the system preventing him from taking anymore. Apart from that, the value of the items he had collected wasn't any less than the cash he gained so it was not an understatement to call Sato the richest player in Infinite Realm currently.

'I could use all this wealth to improve the team's gear. Maybe even get us a place to use as our base.' Sato felt pleased with the profits as it would help the team to gain an advantage in the long run.

'Time felt the main event.' 

Since he had to hurry and return back to the cave, Sato didn't spend much time on classifying the items and simply estimated their value and arranged them based on appearances. Further appraisal would be done once he returned to the city.

As for the main event, that was simply the loot from the monster's corpse. If Sato had dared to loot the guards' corpses, why wouldn't be do the same to the monster? And indeed, he did so.

However, thanks to a hidden rule in IR that reduced the loot a player would gain from a monster they didn't kill or participated in killing, Sato didn't gain much from the monster; only 3 items. But each of those items had a value that would cause a large commotion not only amongst players but even a few NPC stores.

One of them was a claw from the monster but due to Sato's low level of experience, he didn't know the true value of the item but he estimated it to be not less than 3 gold coins. Of course, this was a basic estimate with his poor knowledge. In truth, the value of the claw would rise once it was used to produce a weapon and that was why Sato was pleased with it.

The second item was actually blood. That's right, the blood of the monster. Sato was quite surprised that the [Appraise] skill identified the creature's blood as one of the treasures he could take. Apparently, it was very valuable to Scribes as it could be used as an ink for inscribing runes. Hence, Sato was unabashed as he collected tons of the creature's blood. Due to his poor knowledge of runes and their materials, Sato couldn't estimate the value of the blood but for it to be used in rune-smithing, there was no doubt that it was highly valuable.

The final item was a strange one but was the most precious of the three. Sato didn't even dare bring it out as he was scared that other monsters would be able to sense it despite the remote location Sato was currently hiding in.

After Sato went through the profits from that 'adventure', he stood up and dusted himself before returning to the cave. As for scavenging for food? Sato had prepared a lot of dry meat and water; more than enough for the two of them. All that stuff about searching for food was but an excuse to leave the cave. Now that he had achieved his goal, it was about time for him to return.

'Once I'm done with this mission, it will need time to clear that dungeon.' Sato smiled.

Sato was currently on a good mood not only because of his gains but also the improvement in strength. He felt that the others should have also improved by now so there was no reason to keep dwelling on the issue of the dungeon. It was time they cleared it and gained the title of first place.

. . .

. . .

. . .

While Sato was with Cecilia and the rest of the team raiding the dungeon, the other teams around the world were not slacking behind with many already close to completing a dungeon. As for the favourites, they remained the super guilds. 

By now, ever his had suffered a team wipe at least once, with guilds lower than 1st tier already getting wiped out at least 4 times. Only super guilds as well as peak 1st tier guilds had only suffered such losses twice but it was not without gain. Currently now, quite a few super guilds and peak 1st tier guilds had already encountered the final BOSS of their corresponding dungeons and it was the only obstruction between them and first place.

With first place in sight, one could imagine the morale and enthusiasm around these teams as they were all eager to fight and gave the battle their all.. As such, it was but a matter of time before first place would be born amongst them.