What was the merit in doing his best anyway?
He said that he would rest easy?
He said that he would do the very minimum to accomplish his missions?
Were those all lies?
Well, Aectaeon was a full-fledged liar. There's nothing strange about that.
Be that as it may, by being competitive, he would be throwing away a life of laziness while drowning in luxury.
His desire to do better than the priest might just be out of impulse. However, when did he not act out of impulse? He's very inconsistent with his feelings, always taking a detour when he has a desire for it.
If there's anything he should be competitive about, it's regarding his missions. As of the moment, he had three missions in progress. Every single one of them required him interacting with the named characters.
They're not that difficult because of what was required of him to do. The missions were difficult because of the time constraints.