Boss Rat

"Wait a minute I'm lost again," The orange clothed Elf became confused again hearing the new term. "What's a boss?"

'I guess the language syncing system is not any better than this,' Elior thought before answering the elf. "Father and mother rat."

"So how strong will the mommy rat and daddy rat be?" Shin asked.

"Not more than me," Elior snickered. As far as he remembered, those two rats are above level 15, but had not crossed the level 20 mark when those fiends experience a qualitative evolution.

Lyra clicked her tongue. "How are you so sure there are two so-called 'bosses' here?"

"How do you think there are so many rats here? Do the math, they are all their offspring," Elior said causally. He was examining the path to see any sign of the boss monster to be found.

"So what's the plan?" Lyra asked further, nodding.

"Plan?" Elior laughed. "Do we need a plan to finish up two low-rank fiends?"

"It's better safe than to be sorry."

"How about this, I'll deal with the daddy rat while you two work on the mommy," Elior said, barely giving a thought.

"That's not a plan." Lyra almost yelled out.

"It's the best I got," Elior suddenly stopped in his walk. "Moreover, it appears we don't have much time to plan. They were coming. Shin, stay with Lyra on the left while I deal with the daddy first."

Elior did not look back, bared the spear in front of him as he infused it with a considerable amount of mana. The spearhead lit up a little in the dim light. Elior grounded his legs firm in the ground as he gazed at the approaching fiend. The daddy rat was big, almost seven-eight feet with a similar fat body, and as for the awful reek, it was similarly terrible as its offspring. Maybe even more.

Elior's eyes shone as he shoved the spear into the mouth of the Rat and back-flipped with his full strength. He used the rat's own strength against it, he had no strength to flip this ugly rat. With a squeaking sound, the humongous rat hit the ground as Elior stood on top of it.

The Rat tried to spray poisonous saliva on him, but he dodged, stepping sideways. Even though he had taken the detoxifying grass, he did not want to bathe in the awful reeking mucus of an ugly rat.

The mana infused spear thrust into the mouth of the rat, as Elior reached out for his strength. With all his effort, he pierced the head of the father rat through the mouth.

He pulled out the spear as it was bathing in purple-grey blood as the rat squeaked for the last.

[Congratulations, you have killed the Father at Level 18. You have gained 298 karma points.]

[Congratulations. You have reached level 9.]

[You have gained one free point to distribute among the attributes.]

Meanwhile, Lyra and Shin are faring well too. Even though The Father and mother rat were both the boss monster in the dungeon and of similar level. The mother rat was way weaker than the father, as its main task was to birth offspring.

Lyra almost immobilised the fat mother rat with her string binding all over its body. Even with her strength, she was finding it quite difficult to hold the rat. "Finish it quickly," she said to Shin.

Shin nodded as he lunged at the immobilised rat baring the sword. Even though he could not use mana yet, he did not find it difficult to pierce the rat as he found the weak spot in the neck. The mother rat was not finished in one thrust, but its strength was almost diminished. Shin had to waste a few more thrusts to finish it up.

He sighed in relief, and so did the elf. Shin was looking for Elior to notice he was standing carefreely on top of the father rat.

"Looks like our task is done here," Elior said. "Let's look for the tokens or anything else we find here."

Just as Elior finished, a window opened in front of everyone, giving the good news that they had finished the task.

[Congratulations to the three participants on the quest: Cleanse of the RAt's den.]

[As a result of the quest, you three will gain karma to reach the next two levels.]

[In addition to the outstanding performance, you gained minor recovery portions (3x).]

"Not too shabby," Elior said as they found three vials of potion barely a few feet away from the dead rat, and besides that, there were many parchment papers there. That's all the tokens they gained in the dungeon.

"Cool," Shin jumped towards the reward. He first checked up the minor recovery portion before opening his lips. "We each get one, right?"

Lyra said nothing and looked at Elior, who nodded, smiling.

"Let's move from here. I can not handle this awful reek here," he said.

Shin nodded as he collected all the tokens.

. . .

"There are two hundred fifty-six tokens here," Shin said, counting the number of tokens he gained from the rats. "How do we divide it?"

Elior said nothing. After coming off the cave, he can now breathe freely. Moreover, he always felt it was a bother to divide things.

"How about we divided them equally?" he said.

"No," Lyra said, without even thinking. "That's not fair to you. You made the most contribution. In addition, you are the one that found the dungeon in the first place, so you should get the larger portion."

"Yes, Brother Elior, Sister Elf is right," Shin added. "I almost did nothing, yet I gained 6 levels there, in addition to the minor healing potion. I'm alright with this much gain."

"Wait a second, who said you did nothing," Elior raised his brows at Shin. "You baited the rats, which helped us finish the rats in less than three hours. You may not value time now, but time is most precious to me."

Shin laughed warily.

"How about this, I and this idiot would take fifty each while you keep the rest," Lyra added as she felt she had not done much in the dungeon.

Elior was about to argue, but remembered his wager with Yemrmix, so he took the tokens. He would need about a thousand more to come first in the trial.

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