Chapter 174

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 money 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– .

"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 .