Slaughter of rats

Before splitting Thomas asked Hull

« Hey Hull ! One last thing... who is that guy ? »

« You mean the boss ? As his surname say it he's the boss of the guild, his name is Roland. Every guild have a boss that is elected by the rest of the mercenaries, often the strongest. In this guild's case it is a weird situation too long to explain now. He and his wife came from a way stronger guild and both of them are rank B mercenaries. »

« I see, thanks for the informations. »

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The group walked towards the depth of the forest and grew bigger as they walked, it was either people that changed their minds and joined the crew or were latecomers, anyway by the end of the day the group that reached the cave was made of at least a hundred people.

Thomas was walking at the back of the group and didn't lower his guard because the group was big, they were now pretty deep in the forest and a grade 3 or 4 beast could ambush them, forget about the grade 4 Waterwalking Tiger even if they were ambushed by a great silver wolf like the one Thomas had fought when going out of the forest the group would be highly damaged.

Finally after hours of walking without taking a break they made it at sunset in front of the cave, Roland turned around and spoke to all the group

« I guess some of us are tired so we won't be trying to fight tonight. Tomorrow we'll attract the rats outside and kill them, then the next day we'll fight the Waterwalking Tiger if the rumors are true and this cave is it's lair. Let's rest for tonight ! »

That's when Thomas realized everybody had brought tents but him...

« Hey Thomas, I got one ready for you. »

Hull came from behind him and was looking at him with a smile, he had really thought of everything. He and his team had even prepared a meal that they shared with Thomas, they had small talk and he realized they were as nice as Hull, if they got in danger in the cave he'd try his best to help them out.

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The next morning everybody was woken up at the first lights of sun that shone through the thick forest.

« Everybody wake up, we are starting the mission. »

In less than a minute all the camp was cleaned from anything and everybody was standing ready to invade the cave.

Thomas was standing amongst them ready to go in, they had not spoken about the sharing method of the loot yet but he felt like as long as he gave more results than the rest he would be strongly rewarded, anyway if they tried to cheat him he could just get his share by using force, he had no doubt that he was at least equal to the strongest of this group.

The best was probably Roland or his team's magician, a rank B mercenary, it was said that a rank B mercenary was equal to a 1 ringed magician so Thomas was a hundred percent certain that he could take him on, he just had to be careful of that guy that was supposedly a 2 ringed magician.

« We are not entering the cave for now, even though the rats are only grade one beasts they multiply infinitely so we are attracting them outside. »

Saying that some people started to take out loads of meat from their backpacks, that's when Thomas realized that he actually had no information about this mission, he was wondering if just coming was enough to get a share of the loot... The meat they put at the entrance had a weird smell, a sweetness that shouldn't belong to meat, Thomas thought

'Won't this drug attract the Waterwalking tiger ? What about outside beasts ? Let's hope they know what they are doing, in case something like that happen I have to be ready to leave, I can't die right after gaining a second chance to life.'

When the loads of meat were put at the cave's entrance a small noise started to get out, gradually it grew and finally became loud enough for everybody to hear the rats squealing.

Soon a huge wave of rats started coming out, they were dark brown and had red shining eyes, they looked creepy. One alone couldn't do anything but in this wave there were at least two hundreds and they were still coming out, each one was about the size of an adult cat so they couldn't all go out through the cave's entrance.

As soon as they appeared people had already started to slay them, some crushed them with a hammer, some slayed them either with a sword or a spear, and a rare few used spells at the rats. From the back of the crowd flaming balls, ice arrows, lightning balls and other magical stuff flew at the rats. Thomas lined up with the magicians and all threw him a glance, except one of them the rest had never seen him, he was probably a newcomer. When his ring appeared it wasn't a glance anymore, they stopped what they were doing and looked at his ring. It was almost physical, they had never seen such a ring, it's appearance was also dominating, who was this new guy ?

He started gathering mana around him and the last guy that didn't look at him, the magician from Roland's team also looked his way

'Who is this rookie ? The mana thinned by so much when he started forming his spell...'

A flaming ball the size of a tennis ball was in Thomas's hand, unlike the other people's fireballs this one was blue, feeling the heat behind them every mercenary present there stopped what he was doing and watched back, even Roland did.

When the ball was thrown it didn't feel like it was going fast but it hit the group of rats right away in the middle.

Before that Roland's team's magician screamed

« Dodge ! »

Hearing that everybody on the frontline jumped to the sides, they all believed his jugement, this guy's name was Frank he grew up with Roland and his wife and they came together from a bigger city, he was named Boss of the mercenary guild but refused, everybody knew that the strongest of the guild was him but he refused to be above Roland for some reason, he was his underling both in the team and in the guild.

BOOOOOOM

The flaming ball exploded and all the rats that had gotten out of the cave were made into dust, the ground kept burning with blue flames and the rats inside couldn't get out anymore, the few that were already running and couldn't stop got into the flames and were burnt like their pears.

« Did you just try to kill us ?! »

One of the guys in front looked vehemently to Thomas and screamed at him. Obviously this wasn't Thomas's intention, he himself was surprised by what happened. When he started pulling on there neighboring mana he realized that it was way thicker than usually, when he realized that he had too much mana in the hand it was too late and he had to throw it if he didn't want to wound or even kill himself.

« Calm down, if I wanted to kill you you wouldn't be screaming at me right now. This place is weird it made my fireball stronger than expected. »

Saying that he looked at Frank, if someone could give him a reason to that that would be him. Frank smiled kindly and said

« You are probably a new magician, don't worry about that. Under us are tons of mana stones so the mana is very condensed in this place, it isn't you fault but you should be more careful from now on. »

That was the reason...

« Let's focus everybody ! It was only a mistake let's get back at it when the rats are freed from the flames ! »

Minutes later the flames stopped, the rats come back attacking for the meat and the slaughter started again, until now the human side had no casualties while the rats had lots at least three thousand of them.