The first mission

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Dale swung his massive spear with difficulty, its weight made it that much harder to hit the annoying flying spiders.

Bue eventually, one of his attacks barely grazed one of the flying spiders, making it fall to the ground.

However, it soon got up and disappeared into the grass.

"?!"

/Splat!/

[0.1%*2 = 0.2% XP gained]

Dale raised his foot and stomped, squashing that very same spider he had previously knocked down.

The pesky creature had just tried to ambush his feet with its finger-sized fangs, splattering blueish blood all around the grass.

"EWW! It's freaking nasty... I hate these things already!" He exclaimed as he continued to awkwardly move his 'spear'

And if you know how annoying it is to deal with mosquitos, then you know how these creatures felt for Dale right now.

And even though he could easily see their flight trajectory due to his high stats, the enormous weight of the spear in his hands limited his actions to intercept them.

But surprisingly enough...

"?... What? It ended?" Dale asked as he looked around, the sound of buzzing had suddenly disappeared

Without him knowing, all of the annoying pests retreated back into the grass or were killed, leaving them in peace once more.

"Did you see this properly Dale? These creatures are one of the reasons why we can't set up big farms." Misgurd said as he shook his sword, cleaning the blue blood from it

"What are these hellish creations?"

'I did see their names but...'

Testros looked around before sheathing his sword and saying:

"Bone Mices."

"Bone… Mices?" Asked Dale in confusion

"The name Bone Mice was given to them because these creatures were usually found near dead Mice, where 90% of the time, they would be all bones." Said Misgurd

"They are a rather peculiar species as the females eat flesh for sustenance, and they can also fly, while the males eat, you guessed it, fruits and sometimes plants… Like our crops."

"We need to keep an eye out 100% of the time because a single one of these creatures, especially a female carrying eggs could mean the end of our cattle or a section of our farm."

"The only reason why we can even farm is that they don't move at night, so we wake up very early and remain on the farms until deep in the night, to make sure these fuckers remain very far away from our life force, the farms and cattle."

"Wow… This is really hardcore

…" Dale said as he scratched his head

'They have to work on the farms for at least 12H per day, not because they want to, but because they have to.'

'And if they need to sleep 8 hours per day, that gives them 4 hours to go back home and relax, but that is almost no time at all…'

'It may even be less since the sun stays up for 12 hours, but that doesn't mean those creatures wake up at those exact time frames.'

"What a terrible creature… Does it have no predators?"

Testros nodded and replied:

"Yes it has, first, its life cycle is pretty fast, at most a week of life, and they grow into adults within 5-6 days, so what you saw here were adults that were about to die."

"And that is another reason why we can't allow a single one of these into our farms, because if we see one, there is a high chance it has already mated and is now searching for a place to lay its eggs."

"The second thing is a type of frog with hard skin so they can hunt these spiders without problems but…"

"Due to the hot climate, most of the frogs migrated deeper into the forest, and also because many of the rivers around here have already dried up, forcing them to migrate."

"There are also other creatures that hunt them, but guess where they are now?"

"..."

'If this is one of the lowest creatures in the food chain, I can only cry at what is at the top…'

Dale remained silent for the rest of the journey, and within a minute, they arrived at the crop fields.

The first glaring detail of the crop fields was the surrounding stone wall, not very tall, at most a meter tall, encircling the entire place.

Dale estimated that the total size of all of the crop fields was at most a Hectare but that would be a stretch in itself… Barely enough to cope with the needs of 100 people.

Remember, the techniques used here are not even comparable to the ones used in modern times, the yield of crops here is considerably less…

There were about 5 fields, 3 growing some sort of plant similar in appearance to wheat, and the other two were each growing something else that Dale couldn't really explain.

A green plant with thick leaves with the overall shape of an umbrella.

And a brown plant that was shaped like a cone…

"Everyone seems calm, it seems there are no problems." Misgurd mentioned as he looked around

"So..."

But Dale was cut by a loud voice:

"Hey!"

"?"

The trio turned to the side to see a tall man making his way towards them.

It was Edimund, the head of the village.

He was wearing the typical clothes you would expect a farmer to be using, a straw hat and a hoe in his hand…

Although…

"..."

'Do farmers in this would go around with war axes on their backs?...'

No one seemed to mind the massive double-edged war ax on his back as if that was the most common thing in the world.

This guy was definitely not a farmer...

"I've been waiting for you all." Edmund said with a smile

"Hum? How did you know?... Ah… That old crook…" Misgurd said as he shook his head

"Don't call her that, for your own safety… In any case, a nice morning to you all..." Edmund said with a smile

He greeted Testros and eventually looked at Dale, who was focused on keeping the spear off the ground with all of his might.

"I expected this to happen eventually ever since you recovered the holy Icon, but it happened faster than I thought…"

"..."

Dale seemed a bit apologetic, but Edimund said:

"Oh no, don't think I am reprimanding you, on the contrary, I believe that hard-working and curious people like you wouldn't be able to resist not exploring beyond the village's walls."

"Young people tend to dream about adventuring, and I was no different..."

"Seeing that you three made your way here… Are you all here to see if we're having any trouble lately?"

Testros nodded.

"Well, being honest, we do have a lot of work to offer, but speaking here about those problems would take forever, and I have some other places to be you see…"

He turned to Misgurd and said:

"So I propose that once I'm done here, I'll compile all of the problems into requests and send them to the Guild, how about that?"

"Good enough for me, although I am not a fan of more paperwork…" Misgurd said as he scratched his bald head

"Aside from this, how about I assign you all a job?" Edimund asked

"Us? No. We won't be doing anything, just him." Testros said as he pointed at Dale

"..."

"In that case, I know the perfect thing…" Edmund said with a smile as he led the trio somewhere near the walls

He stopped close to the walls and pointed at the ground where a small dug path could be seen.

It seemed as if something rather big had slithered through the ground...

"See this?" Edmund asked

The moment he asked, Misgurd smiled slightly while Testros went into deep thought.

"I think it's perfect. What do you think?" Misgurd asked as he looked at Testros

"We have an alchemist now, so it shouldn't be a problem if something bad does happen…"

"..."

'I have no idea what they are talking about…'

"So Dale… Here is your first mission." Testros said as he pointed at the ground

"Track down this creature and slay it."

"..."

'You're kidding me right?'

Dale was left speechless, but he maintained his cool and asked:

"Can I at least know what it is?"

"Of course." Replied Edimund

"It's a Burrowing Anaconda, not commonly seen around these parts, but can be a pain to deal with."

"I am ashamed to say this, but because we were filled with work to do, I didn't send anyone to deal with it, not to say the dangers that come with it..."

"They come from the forest, and normally, they don't come to these parts due to the lack of food as they are quite glutenous, they can hunt those spiders for food, but they are too slow for that."

"This one must've tracked our cattle and is now prowling around it, waiting for a chance to strike."

"Considering its size, it is incapable of taking down our larger cattle, but I can't say the same about our poor chickens..."

"Not only that, this one is rather strange as for the past 4 days, it has a weird habit of coming into our walls during the night and leaving before the sun rises…"

"Their main problem is their venom as previously, we had no way of making an antidote…"

"And I also heard that you talked with that girl and had her change for the better, I didn't have a chance previously but, on behalf of the village, thank you."

[Resko's Reputation +5]

[Quest activated, Strange Snake]

"I didn't do much, in fact, I barely even talked…" Dale said humbly

"You may have talked little, but it was enough, and in the first place, she wouldn't have agreed with us if it wasn't for the materials you brought." Misgurd said with a smile

"We only need to wait for her now, the same can't be said about this snake." Said Testros as he tried to stir the conversation back onto the topic at hand

"Dale, get ready, this is your first mission as a Soldier of the Southern Corps, and our duty is to make sure the people are safe, so get to it!"

"..."

Dale looked at the old man trio with a frown as sweat fell from his forehead.

The snake's traces were obvious, he just needed to follow it.

'So my first task is to hunt a snake? Alright.'

'Time to work.'

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Notes