Chapter 5-The “Essential” Rat Quest
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After waking up and eating breakfast, I went right to the Labor Bureau center of operation, which is a four story red brick building. 

The first floor consists of the reception desks where clerks process requests and rewards. The second floor is a bar and eating longue where people could talk and pour more money into the Bureau. The third floor is made up of rentable meeting rooms to conduct business deals. Finally, the fourth floor is where the majority of staff offices are located. 

In order to conduct business at the Labor Bureau, an account is necessary. Registration varies based on what you want. Submitting requests without a registration is possible, but an extra fee is added depending on the request. Those who know that they were likely to regularly submit requests would create an account by paying a fee of 4 denarii a year. This includes benefits such as having your requests prioritized.

As for people looking to complete requests, a working account is required to do business. Account fees depend on your profession with manual laborers charged 14 nummi and mercenaries charged 2 denarii and 2 nummi annually. Additional fees would be leveraged if you wanted to create a traveling account, which meant that your account was valid outside the region you registered. Normally this is limited to the nation you’re working in, but some countries have agreements for multinational accounts. 

The reason for these accounts is to hold individuals responsible. Both the people submitting the requests and those fulfilling the requests could be given reviews based on their actions. 

Most requests involve menial tasks such as aiding in construction and seasonal farm work. Although killing pests is a fairly frequent request, hunting larger monsters or bandits is quite rare in places with a functioning government. This is mainly a job reserved for local authorities. Should a region rely too much on sellswords to take care of security, the authority of the local government would collapse.

Well normally this is the case. But due to the devastation Stygia suffered, the number of monsters and bandits are currently far more than the local authorities could deal with. Not only have patrols been downsized due to war, but corpses from skirmishes attracted both wild animals and monsters. Thus, Stygia is the perfect place to find employment as a sellsword.

When I approached the desk, a slender young man with long pointed ears greeted me, an elf. Elven society places a larger emphasis on education compared to others, so many elves become scholars or administrators. This young elf is most likely just working as a clerk to get experience before he moves up to a higher position. 

“Pardon me, but you’re someone who's looking to kill monsters and bandits right?” he asked when I got closer.

I guess the spear gave it away.

“Yes that’s correct,” I responded casually. “Do you have any available jobs?” 

“Are you working with a party or just solo sir?” he asked. 

“Solo,” I answered. 

“We currently have a job to take care of a small ratman band, if you’re up for it,” he informed me while bringing out some documents. 

“Are there any other jobs?” I wondered. 

“There’s also one to hunt a trio of marauding trolls,” he said uneasily.

It sounds interesting, but also sounds detrimental to my health. And since I have to be alive to get paid, I won’t be taking that job. 

“How much does the ratmen job pay?” I conceded. 

“2 nummi for every ratman tail you bring but the location is only a few hours of travel to the south.” 

“Yeah I’ll take it. Oh and if you find any reliable people I’d like to know if I can join them for work.”

The pay isn’t much, so I should find a party to take on bigger contracts. However, I do think that it’s important to cull the number of ratmen. Even though they’re nowhere near the threat of a bandit individually, allowing them to breed for too long can create serious problems.

I left the city, with my two horses, a few hours before noon. I was wearing all my armor aside from the lamellar cuirass. Against ratmen, my mythril armor won’t be able to shine. Despite being much rarer and harder to process than iron, mythril is roughly comparable to steel in use. However, mythril is the most potent magic insulator among any known material. When used as armor, mythril tremendously increases the wearer’s survival against magic making it highly favored among wealthy soldiers. However, ratmen don’t even have metal tools let alone magic. 

Since I’m dealing with ratmen, I also bought a weighted net for 5 nummi. 

I followed the river downstream, for around two hours until I found tracks which led from the river into a forest to the west. The tracks indicated that there were three individuals who probably went to collect water. I got off my courser and tied each of my horses to a tree. Normally I’d like someone to guard the horses, but if it’s ratmen then my horses would definitely win. 

To find the ratmen, I crept through the forest as quietly as an armored person could. Within twenty minutes I could hear the squeaky chatter of the ratmen. There were eighteen in total. Nine mature males, six females and three children. 

Calling them ratmen isn’t entirely correct. They have the head and fur of a rat with the body of a monkey. Unfortunately the cute and likeable monkeys only live in a small part of the southern nation of Fars, while ratmen exist nearly everywhere in the world. In terms of size, an average mature male ratman is about one meter and thirty centimeters tall while females are ten centimeters shorter. They’re about as strong as a 10 year old human, with the ability to use primitive stone tools. They can also throw projectiles, but I've seen grandmothers have killed more conquerors than ratmen with stones. 

I pulled out my bow and shot an arrow at one of the females. The bare minimum I hope to achieve is to wipe out half of the females in this group. Along with the children, these are the most likely to flee. More importantly, the less females the less the ratmen can propagate. This should also incite the males to charge at me, making my job easier. 

Shrieks rang through the forests as my arrows found their targets. The males of the group sprang into action with short wooden spears and clubs. Meanwhile, the females and children began to run away. 

By the time the male ratmen neared me, I had already killed four of the females with my bow. I dropped my bow, and hurled the net onto the two ratmen in the front. Then I ripped my glaive out the ground and swung it in a horizontal arc. The blade ripped through the throat of a ratman who was trying to free his two snared friends. I went up to the two trapped ratmen and plunged my glaive into each of them. 

Another two ratmen with wooden spears charged me while my glaive was stuck in the chest of one of their comrades. Behind them, three ratmen were hurling stones at me, the stones thumping harmlessly against my armor. I swung my right leg at the side of one of the approaching ratmen. I heard a cracking sound as I sent him flying into his comrade running by his side.  The two of them sprawled on the ground, desperately trying to get up. 

I quickly took care of the two on the ground, then turned towards the three remaining ratmen. Seeing the massacre, they broke into a panic and started fleeing. 

Since I have longer legs and the physical prowess of a discount demigod, I caught up to the three in no time. Noticing that their position was hopeless, two turned to allow another to escape. I immediately hacked those two apart and chased down the remainder. 

However, the issue of two females and three children remains. Since the remaining ratman ran eastwards, I assume that the females and children ran in the opposite direction. 

I began to carefully jog through the forest in search of the remnants. Thankfully ratmen aren’t known for being good with traps, but I still slowed my pace enough to remain cautious. 

It took me nearly half an hour to find the survivors who are now no longer survivors. Afterwards, I gathered up the bodies and some wood I gathered from the forest. Along the way I ended up killing a few wild dogs that picked up the scent of blood. 

At a mudbank clear of vegetation, I set up a makeshift funeral pyre to dispose of the bodies. This was probably the most time consuming part of the job. Even if I don’t get paid for it, it’s better that the bodies are properly disposed of so that other monsters and beasts won’t get attracted. 

After eating my lunch in a place that didn’t smell like blood and death, I went back to the town with my eighteen tails.

I got to the Labor Bureau and cashed in my reward for 1 denarius and 16 nummi. I’m fine with losing profits for a little while, but I should definitely work with other people for better paying jobs soon.

Still, I feel accomplished. Similar to rats, ratmen don’t pose a threat to a human the way a tiger would. Getting killed by ratmen is exceptionally rare, since they don’t actively attack humans. I would argue that you have to try to get killed by ratmen. The actual problem is their effect on agriculture. 

A tribe of ratmen can easily devastate a field or  a couple hen coops in one night. Should ratmen be allowed to propagate, a region’s agricultural productivity would plummet. Even so, hunting ratmen is viewed as a simple stepping stone for new adventurers and a chore for the more experienced. It’s like doing laundry, menial but immensely important. 

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