This adventurer is overly righteous.

On the seventh day, the dawn was still clear and bright. Carter got up earlier than Croya and the others. His face had several fine dents from the straw stalks pressing against it. Sleeping in the cowshed was probably not as comfortable as he had said the night before.

In contrast, Croya slept quite comfortably; even the worst bed was better than a haystack.

"Hurry up, I have other tasks to do." Standing on the edge of the field, Carter looked quite displeased. "I originally thought I would only need to take care of you for two or three days at most."

I will try my best.

In the green wheat field, Croya's figure was quite conspicuous. He stopped to answer, holding a millstone-sized stone, and then covered a hole hidden among the wheat stalks.

Those holes were undoubtedly dug by those field mice that were almost turning into monsters; they were about the size of a washbasin and there were many of them.

Kroya intends to block all the holes, leaving only one as the sole entrance and exit.

It wasn't just Kroya in the wheat field; there were other young adults from Nome Village as well. These field mice posed a huge threat to everyone who made a living by farming, and they had to be completely eradicated.

Only two or three of them together could lift the same size stone as the one that Kroya had just put down.

The other villagers of Nome also stopped what they were doing and came to watch the wheat field. Each of them held a hoe or pitchfork, and no one wanted any fish to escape. After a while, they came back again. Once all the holes were blocked, several women came to Kroya's side with bundles of straw.

Kroya didn't recognize the grass; it looked similar to foxtail grass. The villagers told him that when this grass burned, it produced extremely pungent smoke and an unpleasant smell, making it perfect for this situation.

After clearing away any flammable materials that could cause a fire and checking that no cave had been missed, Kroya nodded.

"Once the wind blows east, we can pour the smoke in."

"Wait a little longer."

Kroya said to Carter, who was standing behind him, and the two of them stood together at the only unblocked opening in the hole.

If anything goes wrong with Kroya's actions, Carter will naturally step in to help. Creatures that are almost transforming into magical beasts are not so easy to deal with; otherwise, the villagers wouldn't have asked the adventurers for help.

"Don't let your sword slip off their skin. Be precise. Force alone won't do any good," Carter instructed. Then, a gust of wind rose, flames ignited, and thick smoke billowed into the cave. Both men drew their swords from their waists, leaned forward, and stared at the cave entrance.

The skin of the rodent-like magical beasts is smooth and resilient, and they move quite nimbly.

Even adventurers with considerable swordsmanship skills might be caught off guard and let their opponents dodge, making these farmers even more difficult to deal with.

What Carter had to do was cover for Croja and kill the field mouse that had narrowly escaped from Croja's sword.

Besides Carter and Croa, the other villagers of Nome Village also gathered together, each on edge. They had tried similar methods before, occasionally managing to kill one, but overall with little success.

"They should be able to."

"Kroya is very strong."

"Kroya's sword is very sharp, there won't be any problems..."

Although he had only been in the village for less than seven days, there was now almost no one in the entire village of Nome who didn't know Kroya.

The other person's excessively fair skin was out of place among them, and his exceptionally handsome appearance made him look like a well-dressed nobleman. Such people usually looked down on them, but Kroya was different. He accepted all the commissions from the Adventurers' Guild in Whitestone Town from Nome Village and carried them out carefully and meticulously. In addition, he also voluntarily helped everyone he met without asking for anything in return, without the slightest disdain.

Or perhaps, he simply enjoys it immensely.

It's really strange that there are such people in the world, but Croja is such a person, and he has earned their respect.

  

Therefore, they held unique hopes for Croa.

As the dark smoke gradually filled the underground passage, a tremor traveled from the ground to the entrance, causing small pieces of soil and rocks to shake and fall.

Kroya gripped the hilt of his sword tightly.

"grumble!"

A huge field mouse with exceptionally smooth, yellowish-brown skin darted out from behind the thick smoke. To an ordinary person, it would appear as if layers of yellow lines were passing by, yet Kroya's sword landed precisely on its neck.

The sharp blade sliced ​​through the fur and sank in, cutting through the flesh like butter before hitting the bone. The blade paused for a moment, but then severed the rat's head, spraying blood everywhere.

Carter's eyes lit up. That sword strike was fast and accurate. It was no luck that it could decapitate the field mouse. Kroya's martial arts skills were quite proficient, already surpassing the level of ordinary novice adventurers.

For a novice adventurer, being able to pierce the body of a field mouse is considered a success; for someone less skilled, even if they manage to pierce it, the pierce won't go deep into the body and will simply slide off the surface of the skin.

But Carter then felt a little frustrated. Kroya had such good martial arts skills, yet he was wasting his time on these meaningless tasks.

"The first one."

Kroya counted in his mind, then kicked the roughly one-meter-long field mouse carcass away. Blood flowed from its neck to the ground, but Kroya didn't care.

They're just big rats; killing rats won't be a burden for Croya, especially since these field mice can be deadly.

The appearance of the first field mouse was like a harbinger; soon, other field mice emerged from their burrows, but none could escape from Kroya's sword.

His martial arts skill level is E, which is quite good among experienced elite adventurers.

"The eighth one."

The headless field mouse carcasses were piled up to one side, along with some smaller, normal-sized ones. None of them escaped death. Their skins could be peeled off and sold, but the villagers were kind enough to buy them at a slightly higher price than the market rate. Carter looked incredulous when he heard this.

"Is that all?"

After a long while, no field mouse appeared. Croya, still staring at the burrow entrance, asked aloud.

"There shouldn't be any more. This place can't support too many magical beasts." Carter judged based on his experience. "Their activity range is only about five acres. It's already enough to raise eight field mice that are almost ready to become magical beasts."

Wild creatures have a small chance of transforming into formidable monsters for various reasons, but at the very least, they need food to sustain their lives.

"But why are so many field mice suddenly undergoing metamorphosis?" Kroya said. "I once read a book about monsters and magical beasts in church. The book said that among social creatures, it is possible for a magical beast with special abilities to be born, which can promote the metamorphosis of the species."

"For example, goblins. Some goblin lairs can grow rapidly because a special goblin leader is born. These goblin leaders can increase the transformation probability of the next generation of goblins, and the clan will quickly accumulate various elite goblins..."

"You suspect there might be a leader among these field mice?"

Carter frowned.

"That's right." Kroya seemed to hear a rumbling sound coming from underground, and he narrowed his eyes slightly.