Gauss picked off most of the mosquito bats first.
Then he glanced at the raven, Echo—who wasn’t idle in the least. Wings pumping, it had already darted after the bats trying to climb for the clouds. It flew faster than they did, and its hooked beak and talons were far deadlier. In terms of agility and killing power, those last two or three stragglers were no match for it.
Figuring Echo would mop them up, Gauss didn’t waste any more time.
The rest of the rabble were already breaking. Even with numbers on their side, two people weren’t going to stop every creature intent on bolting—but Gauss was going to try. This was his kill-count on the line; even aside from that, each monster was literal money. With bounties in play, every kill meant a bit of silver in his pocket. It wasn’t much per head, but these small fry were easy for him now.
He ignored the twenty or thirty that still had some fight in them—those snatching up weapons and trying to charge. If they were so eager to attack, he’d let them live a little longer; better to cull the ones who’d already lost their nerve, then turn the muzzle back later.
And the ones who’d lost their nerve were the… craven fiends.
Their fat bodies were already worming backward, shoving other minions in front of them like shields.
Gauss had no intention of letting them go.
A sapphire dart lanced toward the nearest craven fiend.
The bolt tore the air and struck its bulbous head dead-on.
Like a watermelon bursting, the head blew apart in an instant.
[Craven Fiend Slain ×1.]
[Common Monsters Index Entries: 15.]
The craven fiend lit up the fifteenth slot on his bestiary’s ordinary tab.
[Title acquired: Craven Fiend Hunter.]
[Title Effect: Penetration – Against craven fiends and their advanced kin, your attacks gain special penetrative force, more easily punching through their fatty layers.]
Weirdly, once the fiend dropped, its headless body slumped to the ground—and promptly melted into a puddle of pus and grease, vanishing without a trace.
Back to the Abyss on death? Gauss blinked. Not native to the material plane—strange behavior made sense.
He shelved the thought and swung his fire onto the other routing craven fiends and kobolds.
Depowered Magic Missiles and Firebolts alternated from his staff, carving efficiently through the herd.
Now and then, when a goblin clung to him and couldn’t get through the Omni-Armor with its blade, he’d spare a hand to draw the slender sword from his pouch and dispatch it with one clean thrust.
He’d noticed something curious: whenever he revealed himself as a caster, some goblins’ urge to attack spiked hard. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. Was there a reason for that?
Farther off, Alia, after loosing an Entangle to catch the ones skirting the edge, had taken to finishing blows with her oak staff. She wasn’t built for frontal brawling, but a professional’s physique was still a professional’s physique; a swung oak stick could absolutely kill kobolds and goblins.
At Gauss’s side, Ulfen became a gray blur. With the Omni-Armor bolstering it, the wolf slipped through the melee, and a single snap of those jaws would shear a small monster’s head clean off. There were too many targets to run out any time soon; with no fear of “kill-stealing,” Ulfen could show what a druid companion was capable of.
With two new ordinary entries secured, Gauss threw himself wholly into the “money grab.”
Text seemed to flicker past his eyes.
When the dust finally settled, the two humans and one wolf stood catching their breath.
“Feels like… we didn’t get them all,” Alia said, eyeing the mess with a touch of regret.
“We probably let twenty or thirty slip,” Gauss judged.
[Total Monsters Kills: 672.]
By his count, he’d just dropped roughly fifty himself. Ulfen and Alia together had taken another thirty or so; the rest had scattered into the trees.
By guild standards, this level of clearing counted as mission complete. When the numbers swell, wiping out every last one is tough. A hundred bottom-tier monsters determined to run are hard to encircle with a small team. Once they scatter into the forest, chasing them down is even less realistic.
“Catch your breath. Once we’ve recovered, we’ll go find the next target.”
Gauss lit a green signal flare—marking the site as cleared.
A guild collection team would come later to process the spoils.
“Okay,” Alia said between heavy breaths.
Her stamina wasn’t Gauss’s; after that burst she needed a moment to settle.
Gauss, practiced now, palmed a red mana berry and chewed it with a strip of rich, savory frog jerky. He’d been topping up even mid-fight, so the motions were second nature.
A few bites and warmth poured through his limbs. The mana berry’s energy, by the spell’s nature, transformed almost instantly into absorbable nutrients—like sweet rain soaking into him—quickly filling part of his reserves; the monster frog jerky hit slower but harder, a steady feed that would continue topping off the Energy Gland.
He held out another strip to Alia.
She blinked, remembering the time in town when she’d gamely reviewed his much-praised compressed frog jerky—and wound up so numb she couldn’t talk for ages.
Her pupils tightened; she grimaced and shook her head.
“I’ll… pass. You go ahead.” Her tone left no room for debate.
Pity, he thought, and popped the fragrant jerky into his own mouth. Follow current novᴇls on novel~fire~net
One mana berry and two strips of jerky would be enough to fill him up.
As he digested and his strength and mana came back, he ran the numbers from that sweep in his head.
“Elite Monster, Half-ogre: 2.5 gold apiece…
“Small fry vary a little; call it an average bounty of 1 silver, 10 copper each. If total kills were 75, that’s about 83 silver.
“As for loot: based on past experience—the ogre’s great-axe and armor, usable materials from the ogre’s body, miscellaneous camp supplies, the fodder’s weapons… all told it should fetch three to five gold.”
Add it up and you’re looking at seven gold—maybe more.
The guild would skim a share, but mostly as a token to cover labor.
That’s one of the big reasons people brave the risks and the cold for these purges: the money really does come faster than usual.
Gauss could almost see mounts, spell scrolls, and gear beckoning him on.