Chapter 174 Strongest Sage, Hunts Efficiently

 

"I see, so there's no limit to how many quests you can take huh. ...What's the highest ranked quest a Rank G can take?"

"It is one rank above, which means Rank F. ...If you're a newly registered adventurer, we recommend accepting simple quests first, however."

"...Gotcha. Thank you for the advices."

I turn around after saying that.
There, Alma carrying a huge amount of quest tags is standing.

"I've got the quest tags with me here! These should be all of the subjugation quests for Rank F!"

"Thanks."

I look over the quest tags.
There's around 50 of them in total.

We need to pick quests that can be cleared quickly among these.
Having to go around looking for monsters that aren't in the neighborhood will take too much time to rank up.

"This, and this..."

I probe the surrounding mana and remove quest tags with monsters that don't seem to be around.
Eventually, only 34 remain.

"We'll take these."

I collected them all, put it on the guild desk, and declared so.

"Er... Were you listening to what I said?"

"I was. That's exactly why I took out the quests that can't be cleared."

I point at the quest tags she's not processing.

"That's not the problem here... Well, I guess taking more than you can handle is also an experience in itself. The monetary penalty for failing Rank E and Rank F quests isn't that high anyway."

The receptionist stamped the quest tags as she said that.
Looks like things are going well.

◇

A dozen minutes later.
We went to a forest slightly away from the town.

"Uun. There's not a whole lot of monsters here..."

"It's just an ordinary forest after all. But we might be able to finish this by the end of the day if we split up!"

Befitting of a site where quests for the lowest Rank take place, the forest itself is peaceful.
It's true that we might not be able to finish it in one day if we go about killing the monsters with the orthodox way.

However, I never had that plan in mind to begin with.

"No, we're not splitting up."

"We're not? But the monsters here are all over the place, it'd take a loong time if we don't split up...."

Iris pointed at a monster in a distant as she said that.
She's right, the monsters here don't form herds, so most of them are scattered over a wide area.
Splitting up would have been the wise decision if we were to hunt normally.

"Even splitting up will take too much time. Gathering those monsters in one place is faster."

"Gathering monsters... How are we going to do that?"

"Like this."

I invoked 『Enforced Detection』 to our surroundings.
However, it's not the usual 『Enforced Detection』 pinpointed to one monster.
I've completely forgone the control and just spread hostility to the surrounding monsters haphazardly, it can't even be called magic anymore.

As a result...

"I can hear some really loud sounds...."

"A huge number of mana reactions are heading our way!"

All the monsters around the forest perimeter are heading straight to us.
Monsters have completely surrounded us from all sides.

"Wait wait, what're going to do about this!?"

"Of course, annihilate! Let's split up!"

I plunge into the herd of monsters, cutting them up while also shooting magic at any monster within range.
The monsters here aren't that strong, so dealing them is easy despite the number.

For now let's annihilate all these monsters regardless of types and look for the quest monsters afterward.
This is the trick behind completing a huge number of quests in one go.

"Hold on, isn't this just way too many!?"

"Making sure they don't get close is pretty hard..."

Ruli and Alma seem a bit overwhelmed with the enemy number but they're smoothly defeating these monsters.
They're lacking firepower a bit, they likely get pushed back if left alone, so I'll be covering them.

As for Iris--.
<TLN: If you're reading this novel at any other site than Sousetsuka .com you might be reading an unedited, uncorrected version of the novel.>
"Sooi!"

She's swinging her spear horizontally, mowing down any monster that dares to get close.
All monsters within Iris spear's range get blown away and land dozens of meter away, retaining none of their original shape.
...Yup. Doesn't look like I need to cover for Iris.

Thus, the battle continues.
We've been exterminating the monsters one after another, but the number of marching monsters isn't decreasing at all.
There seem to be more and more incoming monsters than in the beginning instead.

--However, the end is in sight.

Since the monsters arrive in relation to their initial distance, it may look like their number isn't decreasing, but that's just an optical illusion.
As monsters are finite in number, the end will surely come.

Around 30 minutes since the start of battle.
The monster assault suddenly halted.

Just three minutes ago, nearly 100 new monsters rushed in every minute, but now sometimes not even a monster came in a minute.

"Umm... The monsters suddenly went away, is it over?"

Ruli who seemed a bit bewildered at the sudden disappearance of monsters asked me.

"Yeah. Since the range of 『Enforced Detection』 is not unlimited, once you beat the slowest and farthest monsters, it's over."

I pointed at the herd of monsters we beat last.
Most of them are slow-moving monsters.

"It's true, the last ones were mostly slow monsters! Shooting at 'em was a piece of cake!"

Alma pointed at the last monster she killed.
The arrows Alma let loose on the monster are precisely stuck on its vital points.

Same things with other monsters.
Looks like Alma's skill with bow and arrows have gotten considerably better.

Now quests over... which would have been nice, but unfortunately, that isn't happening.

"...Now then, let's collect the subjugation proof parts. You three, split up and check if the number is enough to clear the quests. Iris, help with carrying them."

"""I understand (got it)!"""

Hearing the three girls' reply, I began to collect subjugation parts of the monsters.

Apparently, in this country, you need to bring a part of the monster to the guild as a proof of subjugation.
That part is called subjugation proof, and differs by monsters.

Since I've taken a glance at the list of subjugation proof at the guild, I rely on that memory to cut up these monsters' subjugation proofs and stow them away into Storage magic.
The gathering ended in 30 minutes.

"That's quite a lot. So, do we have enough?"

I can grasp types of monsters somehow by looking at their mana reaction, but the accuracy cannot be said to be 100% the farther they are.
With that in mind, I took only the quests whose quota we could fill, and as a result--

"Yes! ...Or rather, there's way too much of them!"

Looks like it went well.











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