Chapter 14: The Horde and The Rank

I woke up with the sound of the bell today. As usual, I endured the high sound at the restaurant, ate good food, and went to the Guild afterwards.

I wanted to look at the F-rank subjugation requests and extermination requests. Hmm? What was the difference between a subjugation request and an extermination request?

Sally-san wasn’t at the Guild today, so I asked a suitable receptionist who was nearby the Quest Boards. Well, suitable. Maybe it was rude to call her that.

「Excuse me. I need to ask you something. 」

「Yes, what is it? 」

「What is the difference between a subjugation request and an extermination request? Both are requests to defeat monsters, isn’t that right?」

How did they make a distinction? Was it the strength of a monster? However, there was no particular difference depending on the rank of the request.

「Yes, that’s right, basically you don’t have to order a subjugation request. It doesn’t matter where you defeated the monster, and it won’t matter the time you take to deliver the monster after defeating it.」

Certainly, I felt that the subjugation requests did not require an order, but that was such an exploitable quest.

「The extermination request is a request that needs to be ordered so that you can defeat the monster. It also decides where to defeat the monster. Among the monsters for which the subjugation requests have been issued, and those that require particular urgency are generally here at the Guild. Of course, the reward is higher for the extermination request than the subjugation request targeting the same monster because of the restrictions in orders.」

If there was a request for extermination, then fine. However, it seemed that if the extermination requests were not available, I would have to take a subjection request instead. Such an unavoidable situation.

「If I defeat a monster that has become the target of an extermination request without me ordering it, will I achieve that extermination request?」

In short, it would be good if I could defeat a monster that I encountered accidentally and get money for defeating it.

「No, you won’t be able to achieve it. Because there is no way to ascertain whether your action is true or not. If you receive an order, the Guild card will judge whether the request has been fulfilled or not, but if you don’t receive an order, you won’t have any mechanism to show us that could determine whether you defeated that monster or not. The Guild card is made from an ancient magical tool that records if you defeated a monster, but unfortunately, the card is not capable of record anything further than that. That’s why it is important to order a request so that the card can memorize it.」

In other words, the reason why an order was required for the extermination request was that the incomplete Guild card function could not determine whether the previously defeated monster was the target of the request.

「I understand. Okay, I will see the requests available. 」

「Yes. Please, check them out. 」

I looked at the Quest Board again. However, there was no F-rank extermination request. I wondered if the Guild could not give urgent requests to the F-rank.

Instead, there was a request to subdue the Green Wolf and the Big Mouse. I had killed a Green Wolf when I was in G-rank and got a reward, but I wondered if the rank itself was irrelevant.

I could only order requests within my rank, but there should be no problem if I did requests that did not required orders. It seemed interesting to kill the monsters listed in the C-rank subjugation request board, but I didn’t want to risk my life in vain. Even if I could rank up by such means, it did not necessarily mean a good thing.

Even if I was proud of my high specs due to the strong magical power, I had little experience as an adventurer. Some requests could require more expertize.

I decided to go slowly but steady…!

With that said, I could only take subjugation requests, so I decided to enter the forest without receiving any other type of requests.

I’ll show them the power of my magic barrage!

Well, I didn’t want to come across a scene where my barrage was very active. I didn’t want to put myself in danger because of my impulsiveness. Therefore, today, I went slowly into the depths of the forest without picking medicinal herbs. After 10 minutes of running, I finally encountered the first monster. It was a green dog.

I took all the equipment from the item box, and I deliberately threw a rock spear. I leveled up, so I wanted to check my power.

The rock spear stabbed the green dog deeper than before at such a high speed, but also broke. However, the green dog seemed to be fatally injured as he just moved his paw.

The green dog seemed to have died, so I stored it in the item box and moved on.

There seemed to be magic stones in the bodies of monsters including green dogs, but I had not seen them yet. I never took the magic stones out of green dogs since, in my case, I just threw them intact in the item box.

Magic stones were not distributed in general stores. I heard that small stones were usually used as magic tools such as batteries. Large ones were processed as they were for other necessary means. Well, I did not feel like dismantling a green dog just to see it.

Moreover, I did not have a chance to use this sword yet. I wanted to use it, but I wondered if it would be a waste somehow.

As I proceeded to the depths of the forest while thinking about it, I found 5 green dogs at once. I fired 5 rock spears and killed them instantly. My INT did not increase much in terms of proportion, but the green dogs died in an interesting way. The wand made it easier to aim. It felt convenient. Thanks to that, I didn’t had the need to use the sword just yet.

When I tried to peel them off, I noticed a lot of reaction on the left side of the advanced radar. When I turned to the left, I saw many green dogs. How many of them? Dunno. I didn’t feel like counting. How could I escape…If I tried to attack this number with fireballs, then I would be creating a wildfire in the forest…

There were a lot of them, but they were finite unless they keep duplicating themselves or something. I had to reduce their number for the time being.

Therefore, I took out the Magic Recovery Acceleration Potion from the item box, opened the seal and drank at once. I was able to open it by imagining it in my head.

Then, I invoked several rock spears using my magical power to the fullest. The horde of green dogs collapsed immediately, but some of them overcame my attack and approached me from all sides.

*victory sound* *victory sound* *victory sound*, the level-up sound echoed in my head continuously.

While attacking them earnestly, I made the best use of my advanced radar in order to find obstacles and retreat. However, their number was too big, and their offensive attacks were horrifying. A few green dogs that escaped the rock spears appeared right in front of me. The distance between these green dogs and me decreased while I tried to kill them. I kept repeating this process, and our distance decreased further.

Nonetheless, I felt that the density of green dogs decreased, but their number was still high. The distance was about 2m. At first, there was five times more than this distance.

Suddenly, one of the green dogs popped right in front of my face. I stabbed the green dog with the sword immediately.

The sword pierced the neck of the green dog. It was my first time using the sword, but for some reason, the sword stabbed more easily than I expected. I moved the sword straight on without hesitation and held it with vigor. I still released the rock spears with all my might. My momentum did not seem to decline.

…I realized that the BGM* played by the continuous level up and the barking of the green dogs slowed down a little.

I stopped retreating and stayed in the same spot. Then, I stopped using rock spears for a moment to defeat the oncoming enemies, and tried to reduce their number by striking at them directly.

I cut down two more green dogs that were approaching me together. The power of the rock spear as well has its penetrating power increased with the level up, and now the rock spear was enough to kill two green dogs together with a single blow.

Similarly, my handling of the sword felt different now than it was at the beginning of the battle. I used the sword constantly now, and I felt that my skill, strength, and quickness increased as well. I had not lost my momentum for even one bit. Due to the powerful and relentless firing of rock spears and my sword movements, I felt that I had the upper hand on the battle with the green dogs, which looked hopeless at first.

The corpses kept piling up and I used the pile to attack them easily from above. I cut the green dogs intently while they retreated little by little. I hit the green dogs from the left with the shield, and shook the sword to the left to stab those that came to attack me. Then, I shook the sword to the right to kill the other two green dogs that came together to bite me. The attacks stopped.

I looked attentively at the side where the horde was coming, but I just saw corpses of the green dogs. There was no reaction of living things left on the advanced radar other than myself.

I won the battle against a horde of green dogs.

Well, it was time to clean up after the battle. I had to collect them all. I knew that I didn’t have to touch them with my hands, so I lightly stepped on the corpses of the green dogs and stored them in the item box. I looked at my status while storing them. I didn’t remember the number of victory sounds while I was fighting them, but I did remember that I heard the BGM sound for a long time before it faded away.

—

Name: Suzumiya Kaede

Age / Race / Gender: 21 / Human / Male

Level: 17

HP: 631/631

MP: 755/9112

STR: 90

INT: 148

AGI: 112

DEX: 124

Skills: Information Manipulation Analysis (concealment), Complete Mastery of Different World Languages (concealment), Magic Qualities (concealment), Martial Arts Qualities (concealment), Otherworlder (concealment), All-Attribute Affinity (concealment), Fire Magic 3, Earth Magic 3, Water Magic 3, Pressure Magic 1, Perceptual Magic 4, Recovery Magic 2, Swordsmanship 2

—

I felt that my skills increased as I fought. It was because the status increased significantly as the level increased.

My MP consumption significantly decreased, but despite of that the battle was actually rather dangerous and it seemed to be eternal, but in reality it only lasted about 3 minutes. It might have been too dangerous if my MP had run out without me noticing it.

However, it was a fruitful three minutes.

The gathering of corpses was over. It seemed that there were 513 green dogs in my inventory.

Considering that the battle time was about 3 minutes long, it meant that less than 200 animals were killed per minute, and about 3.5 animals per second. Moreover, the number of rock spears released per second was about 14. Perhaps, I wasted a rock spear on an animal that was already dead. Still, it didn’t pose an issue.

I decided to go back without going further because my fatigue was terrible as expected.

I looked at my hands and noticed something. Blood. No matter how difficult it was to get your clothes dirty in this world, it was natural that I would get blood in my clothes because of this arduous battle. I could not go home looking like this. I decided to look for a river and bathe with my clothes. Then, I realized after thinking deeply about it. I just had to use water magic.

For the time being, I lightly washed the equipment with water and stored it in the item box. As for the equipment current state, I felt that it was better to leave it to an expert rather than having an amateur like me care for it poorly. I did not think the wand needed any special care, so I left it as it was.

Then, I used water magic like a hose up from my head. It felt like a shower coming out 30 cm from my head. The water poured into my body. For some reason, clothes in this world could be washed cleanly with just this simple method. Moreover, they dried quickly.

I finished taking a shower. My clothes were still wet but they would dry on the way home.

I ran on the way back to the town, and I noticed that my running speed had increased considerably. Obviously, the scenery was flying back at a faster speed than before.

I arrived at the gate in about 10 minutes. The gatekeeper checked my Guild card quickly since I did not look like a stranger now.

Ain! I came back!

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*BGM is an acronym that means “background music”. It’s used in social media, gaming, and texting.

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