On 25th of June, Gideon was ready to take on another task. After training for the last 2 days, he understood that his fighting technique is a little rusty and needs on-field experience to bring it back to his previous level of fighting.
This time, he was surprised to know that Henry and Sienna are going to join him in the Adventures Association to make sure he is getting a task that will not be more dangerous to him and would not get injured.
They were worried too much about him even after he admitted that it was his carelessness that led to his injury.
They also wanted to meet Nila in person to thank her for being concerned about their foster son when he was injured, sending the nurse, Raam to look after him when needed, with no charges to his medication and consulting.
When they arrived at the Adventures Association, they were blocked by a muscular kid with curly hair who was staring at Gideon as if he would jump on him for a punch at any time.
After staring at him for a few seconds, the curly haired kid smiled and jumped at him, hugging him tightly which made them realize that it was Gideon's friend whom he hadn't introduced to them, yet.
"Good to see you again Gideon. Hope you are ready for our next adventure." He said with a smile and looked at the middle aged couple standing behind him and said "Hello. You must be his parents. I am Manav, a friend of your son."
"They are my foster parents." Gideon immediately corrected Manav which made Henry and Sienna look at him with a sad expression which he didn't mind. He didn't want to hide the truth as he didn't like lying to people when they asked him for anything.
Henry and Sienna looked around searching for Nila, finding her in a reception desk that was handing out tasks for the adventurers who have selected the tasks they want to take and also confirming the team is in the correct size to take on the task they had selected.
They stood in the line in front of her desk waiting for their turn to thank her while Gideon reluctantly went to one of the digital boards around the floor to choose the next task he could take along with Manav and Meera.
It didn't take long for them to choose a hunting task as there were a few level-1 hunting tasks on the board which were yet to be taken by other newbies because they are too easy or the commission for completing it was less.
The task he chose was to hunt Bronze Teeth Rats that were ruining a farm in the village. The predicted number of rats was 8 and the commission for completing the task was 80 dallans, or 10 dallans for every kill.
Gideon chose this task as it would be easy to deal with the Bronze Teeth Rats which they had already fought in the school under supervision of their combat trainers even before Soul Integration and he wanted to tune his fighting techniques before going out into the wild.
The Bronze Teeth Rats mostly roam in the damp areas and seeing them in the farms are not new for them too, but they had never seen them in groups more than 3 or 4 which shows this colony of rats are bigger than usual and could be even more than 8 as it said the commission would be 10 dallans for every rat killed and proof submitted.
When he submitted the task#13934 to Nila who was talking with Henry and Sienna with excitement and a smile which was more than her usual professional smile, they all sighed in relief as he took an easy task which is also close to the village defence wall where monsters don't roam like in the wild.
After confirming the task and his team of 3 members, which was necessary for this task due to the number of rats they have to hunt, Henry and Sienna thanked Nila one more time, before leaving the Adventures Association leaving Gideon with his team to complete the task they had taken.
They reached the farm that was just outside the village defence wall in 30 minutes and changed to their armors and had their weapons ready to enter the farm in search for the Bronze Teeth Rats they were there to hunt.
Gideon looked at his left thigh and noticed the tear which was there because of the Steel Coated Mantis's attack that injured him was stitched. He unconsciously slid his hand over it to feel the stitch that was there on his brand new armor and sighed lightly and took a deep breath to gather his thoughts and focus on the current task.
Gideon and Manav entered the farm which was more than double the size of the farm Henry and Sienna own while Meera stood at one of the corners of the farm with Metal Horn Bison, Manav's monster partner close to her with her bow in hand with an arrow notched to it ready to shoot if necessary,
Jaice was flying 5 meters above the ground, acting as a scout and to attack the rats and chase them towards the team, in case they are far to them, while Meera's monster partner, Steel Claw Hen was scouting around in the ground ahead of Manav.
Gideon watched his every step not to step on the tomato plants that were only his knee high while Manav didn't care about the plants and only looked around in search for the Bronze Teeth Rats.
He couldn't bring his monster partner into the farm as it would start eating the crops which would be causing trouble for them after completing the task and Meera stayed with it as she is an archer who needed good vantage point to use her bow and arrows, so she had to stay out of the farm and keep an eye out for her teammates and support them in their fight.
They started searching for the rats from the outer side of the farm as mostly the colony would be situated at the corners and rarely at the center of a farm or any other damp areas.
After 15 minutes of searching, Manav noticed one of the rats running towards a hole and informed Gideon about the hole he just found. They both gathered together to investigate it and see if they could find any other rats nearby to confirm if it was the colony of rats they were searching for.
But they didn't find any other rats nearby or none came in that direction again for some time, in or out of the hole and they had to continue their search for the large colony they had been tasked to destroy.
Gideon discreetly gave instruction to Jaice through their bond to keep an eye on that hole to see if there is any activity close to it and moved away from it and maintained a minimum distance of 5 meters from that hole.
After searching for another 30 minutes, Manav got a little frustrated in finding no monster to fight which was affecting his focus in searching for the colony, but Gideon remained silent as he knew his patience and persistence will bear fruits sooner or later.
Gideon asked Manav to go out of the farm and be with Meera for some time so he could regain his composure and then come back again as his frustrated actions would hinder their search for the colony.
In the meantime, Jaice had already noticed a few rat holes with no activity and informed Gideon who walked around to those areas. He was a little puzzled to see no activities around the holes even for more than an hour as the ground was still wet which would make the rats come out of their holes.
He continued searching for the traces of rats till noon and went out of the farm to have his lunch and relax as he was a little exhausted after focusing 2 full hours in search for the rat colony.
When he was eating an egg sandwich prepared by Sienna with Manav and Meera, Jaice informed activity near one of the rat holes she discovered earlier and that there were 4 Bronze Teeth Rats coming towards them.
Gideon immediately informed it to them and dropped the egg sandwich he was eating back into the box, closing it and unsheathed his short sword while simultaneously taking a defensive stance looking into the farm.
After a few seconds, he noticed the rats that were coming towards them and could see that they were only in Tier-1, level-1 as their height was only close to his ankle. The same level of rats he fought before the Soul Integration.
CLANG
He swung his short sword horizontally, hitting a rat that jumped towards his abdomen, sending the rat flying a meter away. He looked around to see that the second rat also jumped a second later targeting his knee which he side stepped to dodge.
When he got ready to face another attack from the rats, Jaice informed something which startled him and made him shiver.