I was back at home. A few days went by since I learned the Scales of the Earth Martial Art, and I was diligently training it ever since. There wasn't much to see yet, I'm afraid, but I was sure I would get to see the results sooner or later.
Also, I was happy to say the toilet was finished! Woo-hoo! I carved a seat out of wood and expanded my house to include a room for a bathroom. I spent two days digging the channel and then laying down stone pipes for the sewer, spilling the waste into a hole somewhere far away into a forest.
Don't worry, I closed it up with a stone slab just in case someone walking around there was blind enough to miss it. It felt great to finally take a dump in peace, and with a little bit of Water magic, it flushed down the toilet like a charm. So that task, consider it done.
Another thing I did was demolish the wall around my house. I was just like Yeet! and broke it down. I needed the stone for the bathroom and was too lazy to gather some more.
Also, after thinking a bit, I decided a villa was a bit too presumptuous for a lowly Outer Disciple, and if I wanted to stay out of trouble, it was better to keep a low profile. Including the house. I even placed some moss on the roof and my home nearly blended in with the cliff behind it. It was perfect!
But after all that work I was kind of hungry. The Wind Tiger meat I have shared with the guys there, so it didn't last nearly as long as I thought it would. I knew I could just go out to hunt and would probably catch some small game, but the food in those restaurants up there was just soo damn tempting! I swear they were putting some drugs or something in that meat, it was so addictive!
But yeah, I was basically almost out of money, again. Taking a long-term job was out of the question, so I had no choice but to visit the Trading Hall once again to pick another odd job. It was either that or soon I wouldn't have enough money to eat. And that was a big nope! I wasn't going to be fasting, not involuntarily at least.
If I'm going to be without food it's going to be because I decided so!
So, yeah… Back to the bulletin board to see what kind of nasty or boring work was there to do. Picking flowers? Nah. Done that.
Sweeping the streets of the Sect? Err… Seemed easy on the surface, but when I asked about it the last time I realized it was the entire trading district. No thank you. A full day of sweeping for only 2 SSS? Count me out. Even with Wind magic, it was too much.
It was a similar story for trimming the bushes and painting some public buildings over. A whole bunch of manual labor with minimal pay.
A few shops needed a part-time worker for helping stock the shelves, 1 SSS three times a week. It was only a few hours of work every day, but I didn't feel like doing it. I would also have to be there on the clock every day and do the job well to get paid. Also, a month of employment minimum.
I moved from the manual labor tasks and went to check the combat section. Bringing some pelts? Nah.
Capture a certain rare bird and bring it to an Elder, 50 SSS?! Wow, but again, no. If it was easy to do, there wouldn't be such a high reward. You might be lucky and find it on the first day, or you would go a month without even hearing it sing once. Too much luck involved, not for me.
Oh, an extermination mission? Giant Rats?! Hohoho, that brought back some memories. I read more of what they got to say. [Rats infestation on and around the farm. Hiding places in the woods surrounding the pastures. More information on the farm after accepting the mission. 1 SSS for every 5 rats killed?]
That… was pretty good! I could use some light exercise, and the pay was good too. Alright, I have decided! Rat-catcher it is!
***
The animal pastures and farms were further west, in a shallow valley between two mountain peaks and surrounded by a forest from three sides, and I just had to follow the road signs to get there. It took me a few hours to reach that place on foot, but that's just because I was taking it slow.
There I saw a fenced area and a massive barn-like structure made of massive stone blocks and thick wood. Some sort of big animals were slowly being funneled in there by Outer Disciples. I went to one of them and explained why I was there. He then told me to wait and went to get one of his superiors.
I looked around the place. The ground was mostly dirt, and any plants there had long since been eaten or trampled to death. The creatures there were very interesting though. If I had to describe it would be like a very big and hairy bison, reaching way over two meters in height with some semi-spherical bony protrusion from its forehead.
Some bony-looking plates also poked through the skin along its back, with many separate pieces covering a bump on its back. The Outer Disciples looked so small and frail in comparison, but luckily the beasts didn't seem to be aggressive and simply went where they were guided.
After a while, an Inner Disciple came out and made a beeline toward me. He was also quite a bit taller than me, but not as much as Senior Ren Kong.
"Junior." He greeted me with a nod.
[Hello, Senior Brother.] I once again explained why I was there while he nodded and gestured for me to follow. He then explained how they were having problems with the beasts sneaking in during the night and attacking the animals. They also chewed their way into the storage and made a mess there.
The problem was that the Giant Rats were easily spooked and were as such a pain in the ass to hunt. They also didn't have the time to be running after them, especially since the area they would have to patrol was massive.
"They aren't that dangerous and if you get yourself a solid weapon, they should be easy enough to kill. I would suggest a bow, but you can get whatever suits you. Just take note that they will most likely run away when they see you unless you push them into a corner. If that happens they will probably go nuts and attack, so be careful not to get bitten because they carry all kinds of diseases."
We arrived at the structure and he handed over a cloth sack. "Whatever you kill place in this sack and bring back. For every five rats, you get one Spirit Shard. Now, if you manage to find one of their nests it's probably best if you come back and report it so we can take it out. That carries an extra 25 SSS as a reward, of course."
[Thanks, Senior Brother, I'll do my best!]
"Alright Junior, take care, and don't get yourself killed. We aren't going to be responsible for it."
He went back inside to do whatever the heck he was doing, and I made my way north where the grasslands met the forest. The entire pasture was surrounded by a dense wooden fence, but I could see many holes chewed through, or dug underneath.
The place also carried an odd smell of rot and decay, most likely the work of Giant Rats. I did a short sprint and jumped, easily climbing over the fence even though it was taller than me.
Having the strength of a superhuman at my disposal even though I was still so young was great. Solved many annoying problems.
The wooded area behind the fence was… dense. There were some old Ironbarks there, but most of the growth there was much smaller and younger. A few centuries at most. There was also much more sunlight reaching the forest floor and as such the undergrowth was lush and plentiful. And a pain to walk through, of course.
I took out Toothpick and spun it around, cutting a path through the thorny bushes, low branches, and ferns in my way. As it turned out, defensive moves of the glaive Martial Art were also good for clearing out weeds. Who knew?
I followed the trails left by the Giant Rats, quietly making my way along the paths of trampled grass, deeper into the thicket.
I walked for half an hour at least, and it happened many times that I nearly lost the trail. A bit of solid ground and the tiny footprints would be gone. Then I had to search out radially in a spiral to find the trail again. I couldn't even be sure it was the right one either. It was quite frustrating.
But then I stumbled upon a rotting carcass, or, what was left of it anyway. Well, I smelled it before I saw it. The remains of some sort of animal, I didn't know which.
Only a pile of chewed bones remained, and a few clumps of long brown hair. There was no skull to confirm my suspicion, but my guess was that it was a calf of one of those giant bison.
The remains were still fresh, a day or two at most. Unfortunately, there was no trace of the Giant Rats, only countless trails in all directions. I mentally sighed. I was hoping it would be easier than this.
I had about ten directions I could go, but none of them seemed promising. They all looked about the same to me.
Sitting down on the floor I rubbed my face, thinking about my options. I wasn't too worried a strong beast would ambush me since the mountain range was under Myriad Beasts Sect's control, and most dangerous animals were taken care of by teams of hunters, but pests like these Giant Rats were too many and bred too quickly to be completely exterminated.
It was an annoying and dirty job, and I couldn't blame them for pushing it on the youngsters, but I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.
I begrudgingly got back up and marked the first trail. I walked along it for about a hundred meters or so and then got on all fours. I lowered my nose to the ground and sniffed.
Yes, yes, an unusual tactic, but what else could I do? Magic Eyes didn't help, there were no sounds I could pick up, and the trails in the grass all looked the same.
I detected some of that strong musk the Giant rats carried with them, but I couldn't say if it was fresh or not. I returned back to the carcass and picked another trail.
Repeating the same action over and over, I could at least rule out a few of them. Six of the ten trails had almost no smell, meaning they were either old, or only a few beasts used them recently.
It was best to focus on the highways instead of the side pathways. One of them especially stood out and I could smell it just by bending down, and I didn't even have to kneel.
That was the one if I had to make a bet. I decided to follow it and see where it lead me.
The path had many branches, but they were all converging into one. The flattened grass gave way to earth, and then to hardened clay. Many tracks overlapped and it was getting easier to follow by the minute.
Soon my nose began picking up a smell, a terrible kind of stench, and I, for the first time today, heard noises other than the distant songs of birds.
With a thought, my feet rose off the ground, and I lowered myself, Toothpick in hand, to glide just above the floor. Like a snake in the grass, I slithered forward, completely silent.
The stench was almost unbearable. Just breathing in I could taste the filth in the air. Then I saw it. A mound of dirt and bones. A disgusting, revolting dung heap that oozed disease and rot. And Giant Rats, so many of them! They were tearing apart a carcass of some animal, I couldn't tell which.
They were the size of small dogs, with long naked tails and dark brown fur covering their bodies. At least ten of those vile creatures were stuffing their heads into the gut of that dead animal at once, devouring flesh and entrails with a voracious appetite.
Apart from those, a rapid headcount gave me at least 25 individual beasts, and who knew how many more were inside the filthy nest? My breathing was shallow and rapid in preparation for a fight. I really didn't want to engage them all at once, but it didn't seem like I had a choice.
I slowly gathered my Qi and pointed a hand forward. Earth Spike, go!
[…]
Yeah, nothing happened. I forgot the mountain was under a Formation, damn it. Fire magic was out of the question. I didn't plan on starting a forest fire.
Water was too much work since I didn't have a source of it and pulling it out of the air was too time-consuming, so I guess that left Wind.
I gathered Qi again, converting it into the desired Element, and focused it on my both hands after picking the targets. Yes, targets. Ten at once.
Wind Lance!
It took barely an instant, and the rats stuffing their faces with meat were skewered by high-pressure air lances, blood spraying out of their orifices as their bodies inflated like a balloon and stretched to dangerous proportions. All of that barely lasted a second or two, and the beasts were dead. That action didn't go unnoticed though.
The rats instantly went into panic mode and dispersed in all directions, some of them hid in the nest, but most of them just ran in a straight line and disappeared into the forest. Of my ten targets, I, unfortunately, missed two. They also got spooked and disappeared with the rest.
[Damn it…] I was half expecting that, but I hoped it wouldn't be instant. How the hell was I going to find these Giant Rats again? I considered just burning the nest, or leaving it for the hunters to take care of. The stench was already terrible, and I didn't want to stay here any longer than necessary.
With the use of Telekinesis, I pulled the fresh kill towards me and stuffed them into the sack after draining them of their blood. I didn't want to be covered in the bodily fluids of these filthy beasts by the time I got back to the farm.