Chapter 91 S-level Mission
Niaman Town is a medium-sized town in the central part of the Laine Kingdom, with a population of around several hundred thousand. Although the town is not large, it has all the usual amenities such as taverns, shops, adventurer's guilds, and magic associations.
It's already late April, and May is just around the corner. At this time, the Laine Kingdom has entered summer. This is a season that women love very much, because during this season, they can wear extremely beautiful skirts and show off their proud figures. Although it's only just begun to be summer and the temperature isn't very high yet, they've already subdued two seasons, six months in advance, and quickly taken out all sorts of beautiful skirts from the bottom of their closets and put them on. This has added a lot of highlights to this summer.
In the summer, the weather is extremely violent. Either it doesn't rain at all, or it rains heavily, and sometimes it can last for several days! The town of Nymann is currently experiencing such a situation, with torrential rains that have been continuous for three days, showing no signs of stopping, and the sky remains dark and gloomy.
It's raining so heavily that people can't go out to work, in this region where entertainment programs are scarce, drinking and chatting have become the choice of the vast majority of people. Pulling together three or five friends, casually finding a place, drinking and chatting while enjoying each other's company is a very pleasant thing. What kind of wine to drink is secondary, mainly because everyone rarely gathers together, talking about life, career, and recent fresh events...
"Have you guys heard? The Adventurer's Guild has a really interesting quest." In the middle of a small tavern, four young people sat around a table, drinking and chatting. All four were wearing short-sleeved warrior uniforms, drinking the most common ale on the continent. From their clear eyes, it could be seen that they weren't real adventurers. As they chatted halfway through, one of them said to the other three.
"What's the mission, come on and say it." The other three people urged him to continue speaking after he finished. The young man smiled proudly and said: "It's an S-level mission, and it's also an S-level mission without level restrictions!" "An S-level mission with no level restrictions!" The three young men exclaimed in surprise when they heard the news. Due to the loud voice and shocking content, it immediately attracted the attention of everyone around them.
The Adventurer's Guild has a strict task level system. Generally, adventurers of a certain level can only accept tasks that match their level. This is the guild's way of taking responsibility for both the task publisher and the adventurer. The higher the task level, the higher the reward paid out. If there were no level restrictions, many adventurers would forget about their own abilities in pursuit of high returns and overlook the unwritten rule that higher rewards come with greater danger.
If the level is too low, forcibly doing high-level tasks can easily lose one's life. This is a lack of responsibility to oneself and also a lack of responsibility to the publisher. Therefore, in general, the Adventurer's Guild does not recommend that publishers publish a task that all levels can accept.
If the quest publisher insists, the Adventurer's Guild will still post it as required, but such a quest is 10 times the commission of a normal quest! So unless the situation is special or the person posting has too much money to count, they won't post such a quest. And the Adventurer's Guild hasn't posted such a quest in several years, and it's still S-level! It can't help but be surprising.
The commission for a normal S-level task is at least 100,000 gold coins! If you multiply that by 10, it's 1 million gold coins! Just thinking about it makes my heart palpitate. "1 million gold coins? I don't think I can fit that in my house!" Although we still don't know what the task is, it doesn't stop people from fantasizing about the gold coins.
"What's the task, what's the task, come on say it, come on say it" The three young people at that table, while wiping the drool from their mouths, urged their companions to speak quickly. Completely unaware that because of their voices, the entire tavern had fallen silent.
The three of them didn't notice, but the young man who was speaking did. He had never received so much attention in his life. His eyes darted around, and he found that everyone around him was staring at him with fervent gazes.
"Hmm..." He cleared his throat a few times before slowly saying: "That task, it was issued by our city lord. Apparently, something extremely terrifying happened in one of the villages in the city. Three days ago, many people suddenly died without any warning or signs beforehand. The most terrifying thing is that after those people died, their bodies all rotted away, and the way they looked when they died was extremely frightening."
Here is the translation:
As he spoke, the young man seemed to have witnessed it himself, shuddering all over and then taking a sip of wine. "Over a hundred people died overnight, so the lord of the city wouldn't take it lightly, immediately dispatching several 5th-level priests and a 6th-level water-elemental mage. Who would have thought that by morning they were sent out, but by noon they returned - being carried back as corpses! They all looked just like the villagers who had died, their bodies rotting to death! Some people said it was an outbreak of plague, while others said they were targeted by evil spirits."
After talking so much, the young man felt a bit parched again, so he prepared to take another sip of wine. He didn't realize that he had gotten carried away with his words and also with his drinking earlier, and it wasn't until now that he remembered he had accidentally finished his own wine.
Holding an empty wine bottle, hesitating whether to have another one, a clear voice came from beside: "Boss, give this young brother a big bottle of red jade wine." Turning his head, he found that at the table next to him, there was a well-dressed middle-aged man smiling at him.
From the direction of his finger, the young man easily understood that the "little guy" in his mouth referred to himself. The Red Cui wine costs 1 gold coin for a small bottle, and 10 gold coins for a large bottle, while he usually can only afford a small bottle of wheat wine for 3 copper coins! Not to mention the 10-gold-coin wine.
It was just a small bottle of wine worth one gold coin, something he had never dared to think about. He hadn't expected that today someone would invite him for a drink. The young man's eyes narrowed into a slit as he swallowed his saliva and repeatedly said thank you to the middle-aged man. The surrounding area was filled with envious gazes.
The boss was very efficient, and the wine came up as soon as the young man finished saying thank you. However, at this time he felt that his mouth was not dry, and he tightly grasped the jug of wine brought by the boss, as if afraid it would fly away.
Then he continued: "After the death of those six mages, the lord didn't dare to send anyone again, so they posted a quest at the adventurer's guild to investigate the cause. Since one 6th-tier mage had already died, the guild initially classified it as an A-level task, but just a day later, or two days ago, according to reliable sources, over a dozen A-level adventurers died in that place!"
"The guild immediately raised its level to S-level! However, not a single S-level adventurer was willing to take on that task, and the people in that village had all died by yesterday morning! And another village about 2 kilometers away from that village also started to experience similar deaths! Many people began to flee their homes, and by yesterday noon, it's said that the two villages where the strange phenomenon occurred were completely deserted within a radius of ten miles!"
"Under pressure, the city lord changed the task to an unrestricted S-level task with a reward of 5 million gold coins yesterday afternoon! And he also said that if this problem can be solved, the reward will be 10 million gold coins! At that time, many people accepted the task, but only a few lucky ones came back alive. They didn't know why they could survive either, and no cause of the incident was found."
"They were scared back, according to the few who survived, at that time they went with at least thousands of people, but in less than two magic hours, only a few of them were left alive! So from yesterday till now, no one dares to take that task again, and no one dares to get close to those two villages within 10 miles around! After all, you need to be alive to spend money."
Perhaps it was the stimulation of that big bottle of wine, but the young man directly finished speaking in one breath, and then said to the middle-aged man who had brought him the wine: "Sir, I also heard that there are more than 30 miles of road in the village where the trouble first started. If you're interested, sir, you can go take a look at the Adventurer's Guild. Now everyone is talking about it, and I just heard about it too." Then he smiled awkwardly, but didn't have any intention of drinking anymore.
Although he also felt a bit embarrassed to exchange such a big bottle of wine for just one piece of news, since the deal was made, he didn't plan on returning it. In his heart, he thought: "It's him who wanted to give it to me, I didn't force him, why should I return it?"
It's okay, the middle-aged man didn't seem to want to take back the wine either. After he finished speaking, he nodded at him and then walked out with his tablemate. And it wasn't until now that the young man noticed who his tablemate was. A young man, a pretty little girl, and the cute little cat in her arms! The three of them plus one pet beast, under everyone's gaze, each holding an umbrella in their hand, slowly disappeared into the rain.
They were the Little Meteor gang, with the middle-aged man dressed as Little Meteor, the young man as Little Rain, and the little girl naturally as Little Spring. There was also a cute little cat - Little Leopard. Because of the rain, although they weren't afraid, Little Meteor didn't want to stay in the forest on a rainy day either, and they had already been in the forest for almost a month, worried that Little Spring would get bored, so they came out.
Because of the Easy Muscle Technique, Xiao Liuxing and the others didn't change their appearance, especially Xiao Chun Tian. When she first learned this technique, she would change her appearance almost instantly, but now she's gotten bored with it and doesn't want to change anymore. Xiao Liuxing also doesn't want to force her, so they've kept their current appearances.
As for that S-level task, don't mention it, Xiaoliuxing actually had some interest, but not in the money, rather in the disease itself. From the young man's description, Xiaoliuxing knew it was definitely a very severe plague, and although he had seen many diseases, this was his first chance to encounter a plague, so he couldn't miss it. Therefore, he decided to go take a look, and of course, he wouldn't be biased towards money either, so before going, he still decided to accept the task first.
