Chapter 136 Encounter (1)
The moment that Lin Fan saw this mission, he immediately knitted his brows.
Then without any hesitation, he pulled the paper off the board and headed over to the reception desk.
Tian Tian was very busy with setting up this new Mercenary Guild branch, but the moment that she saw Lin Fan come over, she dropped everything to receive him.
However, even if Lin Fan tried to keep his face calm, she could see the dark look in his eyes. After being with him and learning about him for some time now, she still had this bit of ability.
So before he said anything, she asked, "What's wrong?"
Lin Fan looked around them and realized that there were too many people, so he said, "Can we talk in private?"
Tian Tian looked into his eyes and saw the serious look he had, so she gave a nod. After giving some orders to one of the receptionists on the side, she took Lin Fan to a private room on the second floor.
Only after the door was closed and making sure that no one was listening, did Lin Fan put the mission paper on the table and ask, "Do you know anything about this?"
Tian Tian picked up the mission paper to look at before revealing a confused look.
She had almost been certain that it would have been something to do with the dungeon since that was the most important thing for them, but she never expected it to be about some random mission.
After reading the mission paper, Tian Tian revealed an even more confused look since she couldn't figure out what Lin Fan's problem with this mission was. So she just asked, "What's wrong with it?"
Lin Fan asked, "When did it change from a search mission to a kill mission?"
Tian Tian knitted her brows when she heard this.
After a few seconds of hesitation, she said, "This is something that concerns the reputation of the Mercenary Guild, this isn't something that can be done that easily. Even if we are close, that doesn't mean that I can betray the clients of the Mercenary Guild like this."
Her eyes were firm as she looked right into Lin Fan's eyes, not backing down a single step.
Lin Fan understood where she was coming from and he knew that this was a lot to ask of her, but this was just too important for him to back down.
So he gave a sigh and said, "I'll just say that I'm involved in this matter. Is that enough for you to trust me?"
Tian Tian just kept looking at Lin Fan for a while, but after a minute, she also gave a sigh and said, "I don't know what I can do, but I can at least look into this matter for you. If there's any information I can get for you, then I'll do what I can. Is that enough?"
Lin Fan gave a nod before saying in a grateful voice, "Anything you can do is already helpful. I know that I'm putting you in a hard position."
Tian Tian revealed a bitter smile before saying, "You owe me one."
Lin Fan leaned in with a teasing smile and said, "How about I pay it tonight?"
Tian Tian gave him an angry look and gently slapped his chest as she said, "Is that the only thing on your mind?"
However, when she turned away, there was a blush that appeared on her cheeks.
After settling that matter, Lin Fan chose to follow his original plan and still head out with a mission. After all, if he were to place too much attention to this mission, it would attract the wrong kind of attention. So it was better for him to act more casually for now.
There wasn't much available other than missions for the dungeon, but of course, it wasn't as if Lin Fan could go into the dungeon. The dungeon belonged to him, so if he were to go in it and defeat the mobs that spawned, that would be counterproductive.
But speaking of the dungeon, with the arrival of all these new people, he could see his DP balance jumping up.
Most of these mercenaries were people with some form of cultivation, so the amount of DP that they gave was much greater than normal people. With all these mercenaries here, it would just take him a few days to earn back all the DP that he had spent on refurbishing the dungeon and the town.
Once all of that was earned back, all that was left was for him to wait and profit.
Of course, he also needed to spend some of the DP that he earned to expand the dungeon and make it even better to attract more people. But Lin Fan already had plans for that, so all he was doing was waiting for the DP needed to make these expansions.
The quest that Lin Fan chose in the end was a beast extermination quest.
Since there was a new Mercenary Guild branch that appeared in this area, the quests that were around the area were also transferred here. Previously, all of those quests had been given to the Sunset City branch because that was the closest branch to these villages that had put in the request.
However, since most of these requests were for remote areas and they didn't pay as well, they had almost never been taken.
Now that there was a branch in this town that was much closer to these villages than Sunset City that was also attracting a decent amount of merchants, this solved a big problem for the Mercenary Guild.
The mission that Lin Fan took was one asking for help hunting down a fox type spirit beast that had been stealing livestock from a village. It had already been in the vicinity of the village for over a year now, so the villagers had a good idea of what it was and what kind of cultivation it had.
It was just that no one had ever taken this mission, so the villagers had had to live with this fox type spirit beast for the longest time.
But that was all solved now since Lin Fan had taken the mission.
After all, Lin Fan was a High Qi Gathering Realm Cultivator now and the fox spirit beast was estimated to be no more than the Second Qi Gathering Realm. To take care of a spirit beast like this, it was as simple as waving his hand for Lin Fan.
The village itself wasn't far from Lin Fan's town, so he was able to get here in just a few hours. The sun was still high in the sky and it hadn't even reached noon yet.
When Lin Fan arrived, the villagers and the village chief immediately greeted him since to them, he was their saviour.
It wasn't like before where the village chief had been slow to greet him and had come with thugs. This time, the village that had put in the request was nothing more than a simple village.
After he arrived, the village chief immediately said, "Sir mercenary, it really is a blessing that you've come. It's been so long since we've put in the request and there has been no response the entire time. We really didn't know what we were going to do."
Lin Fan nodded and looked at the children that were staring at the side. He could see that they were a bit thin, so it was clear that the village had suffered quite a bit from the attacks of this fox spirit beast.
Lin Fan turned back to the village chief and said, "Un, I'll do what I can. Can you take me to the areas where the fox spirit beast has attacked?"
The village chief was surprised by how decisive Lin Fan was, but since Lin Fan was offering to rush with this job, the village chief had no reason to deny him. The village chief had wanted Lin Fan to kill this fox spirit beast as soon as possible, but it was naturally awkward for him to mention this.
In the end, he was nothing more than the village chief of a simple human village while Lin Fan was a powerful cultivator and mercenary. There was no comparing the statuses that the two of them had.
So the village chief quickly led Lin Fan to the fields and barns that had been raided by the fox spirit beast recently.
Lin Fan could immediately see traces of damage as soon as he arrived and he narrowed his eyes as he went over to investigate. However, there was a limit to what he could do, especially since he didn't have any tracking skills to begin with.
So after looking around for a bit, he released the Gale Sparrow and Greeny's puppets to start looking for more traces.
The Gale Sparrow headed up into the sky while Greeny's puppets started sniffing around the area that the fox spirit beast had damaged, looking for some kind of scent trail to follow.
As for what kind of puppets Greeny used, it had put some seeds into some rats and had turned them into puppets. Mosquitoes were good for searching in close areas, but they couldn't beat the sense of smell that rats had.
Lin Fan could have used dogs, but suddenly pulling dogs out of the Pet Storage Space was a bit too much, so he settled for using rats.
Then again, the sense of smell of these rats couldn't be underestimated.
It didn't take them long before they were able to find the scent trail of the fox spirit beast.