Chapter 3 Sweeping the Wine Shop

  Walking into the mercenary union's hall, it was still that window, still that receptionist.

  "Name."

  "Johnny Smith."

  "Professional."

  "Warrior."

  "Degree Certificate."

  Jiao Ni took out the sheepskin scroll worth five silvers and handed it over.

  "Alright, 5 yuan for the work permit and registration fee."

  Why don't you go rob, why don't you go rob! But Joanie didn't dare ask, he was afraid of hearing another stimulating answer - to be honest, robbery really doesn't make as much money as they do.

  After paying the money, a warrior-level certificate and a sheepskin paper were handed over. "Keep this scroll well, you can check all your task history and task information from it. If lost, you can also apply for a replacement, which is also five silvers."

  The function is quite high-end and worth the labor cost.

  "You are now a 9th-level mercenary and can accept 9th-level tasks. Please go to the task area on the left to receive your task. If you wish to join the Mercenary Guild, please inquire about it on the right side. Farewell."

  Mercenary group? Joanie shook his head. He didn't like to work with too many people, whether it was being held back or holding others back, it made him feel uneasy. A long time ago when playing World of Warcraft and joining a guild, forming teams to brush instances, that was because he could scold those rubbish teammates at will in the voice chat. But if it were in reality... forget it.

  The task area on the left didn't look like what Johnny had imagined, with several large bulletin boards plastered with countless messy task information. Still in a counter-like shape, many girls stood behind it, probably because women were more patient. Johnny walked up and said he wanted to take a look at some tasks. The person behind the counter smiled and handed over a thick book made of papyrus: "Please select your task."

  He opened the book, nodded and then closed it, looked up and asked: "What if I couldn't read?"

  It's really worthy of a large monopoly industry, the quality of employees is high. The girl remained expressionless, still with a smile on her face: "Then I'll introduce some tasks that are suitable for you."

  Jiang said thank you with his mouth, but felt ashamed in his heart: it seemed that he couldn't avoid being illiterate anymore.

  The top three nine-level tasks with the best rewards are:

  Test the safety performance of the lock for Wild Bear Lock, 100 locks, requires level 5 thief or above, reward 8 silver.

  Collect unlimited wild wolf skin, 5 silver for every 10 pieces.

  Sweep the wine cellar for the Lost Tavern, 3 silver coins.

  I'm not a thief, I won't go hunting either. That leaves only the last task. Joni thought to himself. But this reward is too low, isn't it? It's enough to make ends meet, but this is no better than going back to being a blacksmith!

  After registering, asking clearly about the location of the lost tavern, Joanie headed towards her destination.

  The tavern wasn't very big, and there weren't many customers at this hour, scattered sparsely around the room, basically all drinking and staring blankly. Joanie walked straight to the bar: "Boss, I'm from the Mercenary Guild, here to help you clean out your wine cellar."

  "Ah, great, finally someone's here." A meatball came rolling up, "Follow me."

  The two walked up to the entrance of the wine cellar.

  "For the past two days, I didn't dare to go down. If you don't come over again, the stock at the counter will be used up." The meatball said to Joanie, "There are two big rats inside, and there may be more. That day, I saw two of them and escaped. Trouble you. Wait a while and help me clean it up."

  Rouqiu opened the door lock, retreated to the back and said: "Get ready to go down, remember to close the door. If you don't remember, it's okay, I'll close it."

  Joni looked at the boss's performance, seemingly very afraid of what was inside, feeling a bit surprised. Isn't it just a mouse? The mice in this world aren't some kind of strange thing, I've seen them in my own home too, they're about the same size as the small mice on Earth. This boss is really timid, and it's worth spending three silver coins...

  Three silver coins?

  Joni looked back at the door leading underground.

  Logically speaking, it would be enough to just find a random customer and go down, why make such a big deal about posting the task? And it's still three silver coins, which is a lot for one person to eat, enough to last a month.

  The tavern owner was getting impatient: "Hurry up, what are you thinking about?"

  Even if it's a mutant creature, I'll accept it. It's just a level 9 task, do I really have to go back and fight iron for the rest of my life?

  Then Johnny opened the door and went down. The wooden door behind him was closed with a bang by the boss. The whole world fell into darkness.

  "Hey, damn it, give me a lighter!"

  Re-entering the wine cellar, Johnny held up a torch and looked around. The place was quite spacious, really unexpected that such a small tavern would have such a large wine cellar. There were wine barrels, woven baskets, vegetables in the baskets, and cured meat. A few steps further inside, there were also large chunks of cured ham. After careful examination, this cured pork leg had already been gnawed halfway through.

  With a clang, Qiao Ni drew out the long sword from his waist. What the hell, such a big chunk of flesh was gone in an instant, this old mouse definitely wasn't normal goods.

  Proceeding with caution, he occasionally swung the torch around him, like a Hong Kong movie cop recklessly sweeping his gun. Suddenly, under the flash of light, it seemed that there was a dark shadow crouching in the corner of the wall. Joanie quickly aimed the torch at that direction, while holding her sword horizontally in front of her chest.

  A mouse as big as a hunting dog.

  Jony swallowed his saliva and thought to himself, "How did this guy sneak in?"

  Holding a torch and wielding a sword, Joanie approached the large rat step by step. The rat seemed to be asleep or was too frightened to run away.

  Just as Johnny was fully focused on the big rat in the corner, a great force came from behind and hit him forward with a stumble. At this moment, the motionless rat in front suddenly pounced over, slapping its paw on Johnny's chest.

  At this time, it reflects the advantages of good goods.

  Joni steadied himself and rolled to the right, focusing his gaze on a gigantic rat, half as tall as a person, staring at him with its blood-red beady eyes.

  How did all this come about!

  The top priority is to get rid of them, otherwise these two big guys will have a fresh dinner tonight.

  With his left hand holding a torch, he took a step forward and twisted his waist while his right hand wielded the sword to strike down forcefully. The giant rat leaped backward to dodge it, then counterattacked immediately. Jony retreated two steps in a hurry, using his sword to protect his chest at the same time. Seeing this, the giant rat didn't dare to come forward aggressively either and retreated back. A huge rat as big as a hunting dog also didn't idle around, jumping up with one paw swiping over Jony's chest armor before retreating back too.

  The money was well spent. Jony looked down at his chest, not a hair out of place. He raised his head and struck again with his sword, the giant rat dodging to the side as usual before pouncing once more. This time, Jony didn't retreat. He suddenly lay down on the ground, throwing the torch aside, holding up his long sword with both hands, just in time to meet the rat's attacking trajectory. Jony felt a surge of great force transmitted through his hands, and at the same time saw his sword slice through the giant rat's soft belly, its internal organs slipping out of its body. The rat leapt over Jony's head, and by the time it landed, its intestines had spilled out of its abdomen, with one of its feet stepping on a swaying intestine, let out a mournful cry, fell to the ground, twitching constantly, clearly unable to fight again.

  This passage has been seen many times in the past, but I didn't expect to actually use it. Joanie thought, just about to stand up, the long sword in his hand was knocked to the ground, and he was pressed down again. It turned out that the big mouse flew over and knocked open the weapon in Joanie's hand. At this time, the mouse really looked like a fierce hunting dog, knocking down its own enemy.

  Joni was startled, seeing the old mouse's head tilted to one side, as if it was about to pounce on his neck. He didn't have time to pick up his weapon, and instead stretched out both hands to grab its throat, swinging his arm to fling the mouse aside. Hastily picking up the torch, he stood up, facing the mouse, calming himself down, and slowly backed away, preparing to retrieve his long sword.

  The old mouse was thrown aside, flipped over and got up, arched its body, pounced, and rushed towards Joanie.

  Just as the mouse was about to reach him, Johnny also gave up the idea of retrieving his weapon. He kicked out with one foot, just like he used to kick mad dogs, and sent the rat flying a few feet away. Before it could attack again, he took a few steps forward and kicked once more, this time hitting the mouse in the abdomen. The mouse yelped in pain and retreated hastily towards the corner of the wall.

  Jiao Ni gave up the chase and turned back to pick up his long sword, roughly wiping the bloodstains on the dead mouse's fur before sheathing it. He calmed himself down and walked in the direction the mice had fled, only to see a large hole, square-shaped with a wooden frame around it, which was probably not dug out by those two mice. He used his torch to take another look, finding that the passageway curved and didn't know where it led.

  Jiang did not think much and walked to the door of the wine cellar, knocked on the door: "Hey boss, it's settled, come down and take a look."

  After a while, the door opened, and the meatball stepped forward with heavy footsteps, seemingly afraid to ask: "Really solved? Two only? Are you sure there aren't any others?"

  Jony waved his hand with a hint of complacency: "Rest assured, that big rat has been taken care of by me, and the little mouse has also escaped." After finishing speaking, his eyes had some malice: "But do you know how big those two mice were?"

  "How big? It's quite big, I didn't look carefully... How big?"

  "Come with me."

  The two of them arrived at the corpse of the giant rat, a bloody smell and the stench of intestines filling the air.

  "Boss, explain it to me, you didn't mention in the mission information that it was such a freaky monster."

  "It's actually that big!" The boss seemed to be scared, with his mouth agape and a bit stunned. He then let out a sigh, "This is going to waste so many things..."

  "Hey!" Joanie really wanted to kick him, "That's not the point! Don't you know how dangerous that big guy is? How could you not say anything? If it weren't for my superior martial arts skills and solid armor, I'd be the one lying here!"

  "But for me, the loss is the key......" The meatball muttered and saw Johnny staring at himself, hurriedly changed his words, "But you're fine, haha, it's all good. I'll go get a stamp for you to prove that you've completed your task."

  That makes sense.

  "And look at this hole." Johnny led the boss to the entrance of the little mouse's escape hole, "Did you dig this?"

  "Oh, this one, it was needed for business in the early years, so... cough, don't worry about this one, I'll get someone to take care of it. Let's go upstairs."

  I reckon this guy wasn't exactly a legitimate businessman even back in the day. Johnny thought to himself, nodding his head as he followed him out of the wine cellar.

  "Oh, right, the task says we need to sweep the wine cellar. The tools are all at the entrance, would you mind taking care of it? It's part of the task."

  Damn it, cheater!

  The customer is God, even if God does something wrong, as long as the price is right, he is still God. This was what the receptionist of the Mercenary Guild told him. It seems that this organization supported by the gods of commerce and war isn't made up of fanatics or anything, they can even use such blasphemous words as a motto to teach newcomers. Holding onto this spirit, no matter how great the injustice, Joanie endured it, well, more or less.

  Carrying various cleaning tools, Joanie arrived beside the corpse. The smell was really unbearable, although she had no resistance to killing, but physical discomfort still existed. Holding back her nausea, Joanie drew out a long sword and chopped, cut, hacked, and slashed, removing the giant rat's head and placing it aside. Then she silently cursed the boss while cleaning up the mess on the ground.

  Back at the Mercenary Union, it was already several hours later. The thick smell of blood still attracted sideways glances from others. Joanie held up the large head in her hand and came before the female receptionist who had received her: "Miss, I've completed the task, but it seems not to be what the task description said."

  The girl was very calm, as if she had seen this kind of situation before: "Let me check... Cleaning the wine cellar. Is this a creature from the wine cellar? It's indeed worse than what the publisher mentioned. Please wait."

  As she spoke, she pulled on a cord beside her. In no time at all, a rather burly man appeared before the stage.

  "Steven, go with this gentleman to the Lost Tavern and coordinate on the bounty issue." The receptionist said to the man, then turned back to Joanie and said, "As for this task, judging from the monster's skull, it does have a certain degree of difficulty, but it's not enough to be considered an eighth-level task. So this time we can only compensate you financially. Here are three silver coins, everything else will depend on your negotiation with the boss."

  Looking at the three round silver coins in his hand, Johnny's eyes were about to well up with tears. It wasn't easy, today he spent almost eight gold coins, and finally made a profit! At this rate, as long as I complete a few dozen more tasks, I'll be able to break even!

  Thinking so, Joanie really wanted to cry.

  Back at the Lost Tavern, Joni argued with the Meatball Boss for half a day and finally got two silver coins again. Stroking this hard-earned money, Joni couldn't help but sigh deeply. Those who were eliminated in their adventurer careers, did they die in battle or die of poverty?

  That mercenary, Stefan, seeing that things were settled, turned to leave. Johnny suddenly thought of a question: "That... Mr. Stefan, isn't it strange that such a big rat appeared?"

  The big man turned around, nodded and said: "It's indeed a bit strange. Mice of this kind are usually hunted in the wild. This time they appeared in the city, it's indeed a bit weird. However, since it's already been killed, there's nothing to worry about."

  Having said that, seeing that Johnny had no other questions, he left in big strides.

  "Generally... it's always like this... and yet there are still only normal varieties?!?" Joey sighed in a low voice, "What kind of world is this?!"

  Life has to go on anyway.

  Joni threw the rat's head into the trash heap behind the tavern, just in time to join the pile of corpses that had been cleaned up. Looking at the sun, it was already noon. Rubbing his belly, he was indeed hungry. So he slowly walked back home.

  This bowl of rice is really not good to eat after all. Joanie felt that she should probably make some more preparations.