Silver Ranked Mission

"Little Bro, you have been very nice to your elder brother for the past two days! So I pulled some of my connections today to return the favour!" A middle aged man gulped down his tenth serving of wine as he patted the young man beside him.

"Oh! Big brother wants to repay me? Why don't you just give me your wife!" Tower, who was serving the middle aged man smiled and joked.

A look of sadness passed through the middle aged man's face suddenly, but he soon chuckled and kicked Tower lightly. "I am being serious here!" He then downed his eleventh glass of wine.

Tower did not tease the middle aged man anymore.

After joining the Adventurer Association, Tower came across this senior of his who was apparently a retired silver ranked Adventurer. This guy loved to drink but he did not have any money, so he, under the pretext of seniority, came to Tower demanding Tower to pay for his wine.

The basic strength requirement for one to become a silver rank Adventurer was 'Major Solidification Realm' of Body Strengthening or similar counterparts of other cultivation systems. This meant that this middle aged guy had strength equivalent to at least 100 humans.

Tower happily paid for the drinks as he planned to capture this guy with his Round Table. His strength would be given a huge boost on a successful capture so Tower did not act cheap.

But Tower did not expect that this retired silver ranked Adventurer would become useful this early.

The former Adventurer saw that Tower wasn't interested in his favour and snorted. "Self-Centered kid!" He muttered silently.

"Hump! Since you brought me wine, it's obvious that I would repay you!" He scoffed at Tower without hiding his displeasure. "It's a monster clearing mission, a silver ranked group mission! A silver ranked mission! I went through a lot of shit to get you a spot! But see how you treat your benefactor?!" The retired Adventurer angrily downed his twelfth glass of wine.

"Hehe! Sorry. I am sorry, big bro." Tower lazily apologized but the retired adventurer did not mind it as he saw Tower ordering more wine.

...

"Here! Carry our equipment." A bronze ranked Adventurer dumped a ton weight of equipment before Tower and two others novice adventurers like him.

Seeing the large size of equipment, Tower sighed. 'I knew that old fool was bluffing! What spot! It's fucking luggage carrier spot!'

But Tower did not decline the luggage. He and the other two, who were also novice adventurers like him picked up the heavy equipment and followed behind the large group.

Monster clearing missions were repetitive missions from the Adventurer Association. Since monsters breed and grow(cultivate) like humans, it was essential to eradicate certain amount of monsters to keep the danger from the monsters in bearable levels.

As for why the Adventurer Association does not issue a 'complete monster eradication mission' once and for all and get rid of all monsters, it was because the cost was unbearable!

Just a small scale monster clearing missions like this one required tons of equipment, numerous pills such as poison resistor pills, healing pills and strength pills which make each expedition burn a hole in the Association's treasury. Because of this, the Association had never issued a complete monster eradication mission!

Usually Silver ranked missions such as this were led by 3 silver ranked Adventurers and numerous bronze ranked ones.

The bronze ranked Adventurers were divided into three sections under the lead of three silver Adventurers. One silver at the head of each section.

The group would also take limited amount of novice ranked Adventurers to help them with the luggage. As for why they would only take a few Novice Adventurers with them, it had something to do with survivability. After all, when fighting a pack of murderous monsters, who would in the right mind would have the thought and time to help others?! Protecting weaker at the cost of stronger ones, bah! Only fools would do such things!

Even then Novice Adventurers would flock like sheep to take these missions. They would often bribe some senior level Adventurers to get a spot for themselves. After all, the pay for the mission was top notch and it came with higher level benefits, mostly in the form of Association Points.

But this let Tower understand that the retired Adventurer still had some say in the Association's matters. 'To think he was actually helping me?' Tower found it strange, after all, he wasn't the only one buying wine to the retired adventurer. Most Novice Adventurers brought him wine on daily basis, and they had been doing it for a long time too, so he was quiet surprised.

But suddenly, a strong emotion passed through Tower. His eyes turned sharp as he heavily snorted. 'Hump! I am the Supreme Ruler, obviously that old fart would give it to me!"

That's right! Tower used his narcissism to answer his own doubt.

....

Soon, The group reached Hell-Fire Forest which bordered the Miller City. Their mission was to clear monsters in a ten kilometer distance from the boundary of the forest. As for the distance after that, Gold and Diamond ranked missions were issued for that.

One kilometer into the Forest, the group finally faced a group of rabbit looking monsters.

One of the three sections took action immediately, and massacred the monsters before the monsters could even think of escaping. Tower was able to witness the strength of the bronze ranked adventurers firsthand for the first time. Compared to them, his strength seemed average at best. But he licked his lips as he narcissistically planned to offer these guys to his Round Table.

He also noticed that this section of Bronze Ranked Adventurers did not use costly equipment while dealing with monsters. They must be body strengthening cultivators as they had used their own bodies to counter the monsters hard body.

This simple tactic once again emphasized how costly a single expedition was!

By the end of the day, the group faced a total of 9 small packs of monsters and none that lived solely. The body strengthening section took action most of the time while the other two sections helped dealing with the fleeing monsters.

Seeing the monsters living in packs, Tower guessed that the monsters were not strong enough to live independently in a ruthless environment like the Forest. Only by living in groups would they be able to guarantee their lives while sleeping.

This situation made Tower think of his previous world. Like these monsters, humans of earth also liked to group together. Was it for survival too? Tower did not know! As Survival could mean a lot of things!

At night, the group set simple tents in a relatively large opening of the forest. They even lit a campfire to avoid the coldness of the night. As it was the month of Sun, it wasn't too cold, so most residents of the tents who were placed away from the campfire did not complain.

The group also did not fear monsters approaching their tents attracted by the campfire as they were fairly strong. Moreover there would be people taking turns to keep watch!

As for who, obviously as the free loading leachers, Tower and the other two novice adventurers had to take turns to keep watch.

Tower did not mind it though. as he had three minds, in which two of them were constantly resting. He could in-fact go without sleep for a week before he starts feeling the symptoms of sleeplessness.