"Can you help me finish my mission?" he asked. "I can give you good discounts in my inn~"

Although they had a lot of questions, they had tacitly agreed to check Finn's inn and possibly stay there. After all, they were already friends who had eaten together.

"What mission?"

"To be honest, my master informed me that Brootrats had been multiplying too much.

"You mentioned your employer doing something to the portals, so I suppose it was due to that."

"Your Master reacted very quickly," Durgan couldn't help but point out. After all, it literally happened a day or two ago. Still, what's up with sending an awakened out, alone?

Finn smiled, unaffected by his stare. "Well, he has his channels."

For now, he just made the system sound like a mysterious master, like those absentee-but-powerful masters in those martial arts stories.

"I need to finish off around 500 more of those things," he said. "I'd also like to have the cores we can find from them."

"500?"

"That's not a few," Durgan said. "And in a day?"

"Hmm, I was planning on just doing what I have been doing but…"

At this, the four remembered the reason why he stopped. It was only because of them, so it was only right that they helped out.

"Fortunately, our camp isn't bad," Finn said, looking at the mouth of the cave, which would definitely welcome quite a few rats soon. Fortunately, his companions gained a bit of strength, and the level differences should be sufficient.

Although the wind at this height could be a bit erratic, he still made a few essence food. They were bound to attract a few beasts.

However, their position was highly defensible. If they played it right, they could clear this mission without any additional injuries, even if he didn't use his repellents.

"This place is meant for farming, no?"

…

As expected, the rats soon swarmed in by droves. They looked down on the dense cluster of them trying to climb up. Just their appearance was very disgusting.

For the first hour and a half or so, they maximized the remaining effectiveness of the Beast Repellent. The four went around the mobs, forcing them to cluster together and form a meat lump that also injured itself as time went by.

Seeing such a dense cluster made Finn really want to have a high-damage area-of-effect skill like those mages from before. Imagine just dropping a large fireball down, and these would all be killed.

Ah, well. He'd just have to settle for the closest thing.

He used animal lard from the meat gathered and spread it onto the mob. He could only gather so much lard, of course, and the mob was too large, so he poured it strategically so that it would make them panic and cause more chaos amongst themselves.

He just had to drag one rat carcass to the campfire and then throw it back to the cluster, and the fire spread relatively quickly. It wasn't as fast as he would've wanted—awakened monsters naturally had some defense against 'normal' fire—but it was enough.

It hurt the rats and it made them manic, and all five of them had to do was to attack and stab down whenever they climbed high enough. The others would only damage the rats if it was near Finn, letting him have the final shot.

[Killed! Brootrat (Awakened)]

[Killed! Brootrat (Awakened)]

[...]

Finn raised his weapon and started swiping and stabbing. He made sure to kill the ones on fire last, letting it spread more. It would also lessen the effort of getting the cores later.

Stab! Slice! Squelch!

They'd kill a batch at a time, and then they'd throw down the carcasses to give space. The priority was for Finn to get as many kills as he could, and their task was to control the number of enemies coming in.

They were also assigned for clean up—that was, throwing unneeded coreless carcasses back down, ideally on fire.

Finn used his skills to check which ones had cores, and they left those behind to butcher later.

A few hours passed like this, and he was making very, very good progress considering everything. By the time the effects of the beast repellent expired, he was already almost done.

[Active Mission (Flexible): Kill Brootrat mobs]

Information: A large mob of Brootrat mobs had escaped from an Eastern dungeon. Their fecundity is strong, and they multiply rapidly in warm zones. If left unchecked, certain sectors may become too difficult to pass for the typical adventurer.

Kill: 1000 Brootrats.

Progress: 872/1000

Time Limit: 61:03:25

Reward: 5,000 Hearth Points

Punishment: Suction of Barrier Energy for 5 days.]

The arrival of the monsters slowed down after a while though, and more of the other types of monsters started trickling in. In the end, the sky darkened and they decided to call it a night, pushing the non-core carcasses down, pushing some monsters climbing up.

That night, they were once again divided into two teams with at least two people pushing the monsters down.

Finn still had a batch of diluted potions left, but he decided to reserve those to when they were heading back. Anyway, their location was defensible, and they'd need many more repellents if they were walking in open space.

While the others cleaned up, Finn was back to making another set of barbecue. Nona and the rest took down the brindlejaws below, and a few moments later, there was a small mountain of lean meat and fat at his side.

He smiled and made food with most of them, though since his sauce was limited, he also didn't make too much.

This time, though, the essence food was increased to a third %! His appetite wasn't big enough to hoard every stick with essence food, so a few others did end up in the hands of his teammates.

Leiah, who had happened to have picked one, immediately noticed the difference and took out her assessment tool.

They blinked at the sudden movement. They had no idea what made her react like this because, visually, it was all the same.

"It is essence food."

The group gaped and then turned to Finn with the same befuddled expression.

Finn just smiled. "Well, it happens sometimes."

"With just meat and some sauce?"

"Well, technically, there are also vegetables," he said, pointing at the greens on the skewers.

"..."

When morning came, they headed in the direction of the inn, all while hunting for rats as well. By this time, he only had a few scores of rats he needed to clear, so it was more practical to head to the inn while doing so.

There was a mix of monsters now, and since they weren't wearing repellants yet (they were saving it for when their stats were drained), they were attracting a variety of monsters.

Except for the brootrats, everyone else handled the rest of the beasts. Further, even if some of them handled brootrats, they didn't kill them, giving Finn the final shot.

Finally, not too far away from the inn—

[Cleared! Active Mission 'Clear the Brootrat Mobs' has been completed!]

[Received! +5,000 Hearth Points]

[Adaptability Bonus received! +1000 Hearth Points]

[Early Completion Bonus received! +1000 Hearth Points]

Finn grinned.

YES!

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