Shang was surprised that he got access to Initial General Stage beasts. Why would the Hunting Guild give him access to such strong beasts? Shang knew that he couldn't kill a General Stage beast under normal circumstances. After all, in his battle against the Vanishing Snake, Shang had had several advantages.

It had basically been a unique opportunity.

If Shang had fought a normal General Stage Vanishing Snake, he would have definitely lost. After all, the Vanishing Snake hadn't even attacked Shang with its tail for the first half of the fight, and its attention also hadn't been fully on Shang.

Shang was confident in his power, but he wasn't an idiot. He knew that he had no chance against a General Stage beast.

At least, for now.

With a more powerful weapon, Shang could imagine fighting a General Stage beast.

Shang looked around and noticed that the receptionist was busy doing something else.

So, Shang's eyes wandered to the hunter sitting beside him.

It was a man in his twenties, wearing armor made of brown leather. The leather reminded Shang of the Wasteland.

"Excuse me," Shang said to the hunter.

The hunter looked at Shang with a curious expression. "Yes?" he asked.

Shang pointed at the words on his stack of papers. "Do you think the Hunting Guild made a mistake? I don't think I'm powerful enough to kill General Stage beasts."

The hunter frowned and motioned for Shang to give him the stack of papers.

Shang gave it to him. After all, these missions were public, and everyone basically shared the missions. Shang doubted that he was the only one that had access to over 50 missions.

The hunter looked with furrowed brows at the title of the stack of papers and quickly skimmed through the contents.

"Have you killed a General Stage beast once before?" he asked.

"Yes, but I was lucky, and I had help," Shang said.

Plop!

The hunter threw the stack of papers back to Shang. "Then that's fine. No one is hunting alone anyways. If you killed one, you killed one."

Shang looked with a complex expression at the hunter's nonchalant attitude.

How did the Hunting Guild even know that he had killed a General Stage beast?

At that moment, the image of teacher Niria shot through Shang's mind.

Was it her?

'Anyway, everything seems to be in order,' Shang thought as he looked at the stack of papers.

Shang didn't plan on accepting these missions anyway. After all, he was not planning on dying.

However, he was a bit interested in their contents.

Shang opened the stacks of paper, and the very first page already showed Shang something very familiar.

"Kill adult Vanishing Snakes and document their appearance."

"Reward: 800 gold."

"Corpse: Forfeit."

Shang looked with confusion at the mission.

Then, he looked at the hunter beside him again. "What does corpse forfeit mean?" he asked.

"Means you have to deliver the corpse, and you don't get to sell it," he answered quickly without looking away from his own stack of papers. "Of course, the rewards are also higher. Those missions are generally worth it."

"Thanks," Shang quickly said as he looked back at the piece of paper.

gold.

That would be enough for his ore.

Shang took a deep breath and went to the next page.

He wasn't about to look for his death.

"Find clues of the Pest Queen's whereabouts."

"Reward: 500 gold."

Shang looked at the mission with confusion. 'Pest Queen? Does that have something to do with the Pest Cats?'

Shang looked at the hunter beside him but decided against asking.

He wouldn't accept that mission anyway.

Shang went to the next page.

"Kill adult Swamp Millipedes and document their appearance."

"Reward: 400 gold."

At that moment, Shang considered accepting the mission.

How powerful would an adult Swamp Millipede be? It couldn't be as dangerous as an adult Vanishing Snake, right?

But then, Shang remembered two crucial details.

First of all, the Soldier Stage Swamp Millipedes were only in the Mid Soldier Stage, while Vanishing Snakes were at the Late or Peak Soldier Stage. That was one of the reasons why they felt more dangerous to Shang.

Second, Vanishing Snakes were ambush predators while Swamp Millipedes weren't. They definitely weren't the sneaky kind, and it was easy to find them from quite a distance. That probably meant that their direct combat power was probably pretty high.

So, in the end, Shang decided against accepting the mission.

After that, Shang put the first stack of papers away. Obviously, these missions were too much for him.

Shang looked at the other stack of papers, and he quickly found more manageable missions.

Killing Vanishing Snakes.

Killing Swamp Millipedes.

Killing Pest Cats.

After that, Shang saw many, many more missions for killing other beasts. Most of them were completely unknown to Shang.

Shang also found some particular missions that didn't involve killing.

Some of them only wanted Shang to document the whereabouts of certain beasts.

Others asked about surveying an entire area and documenting all beasts that passed by him.

Some other missions wanted Shang to get some samples from soil or certain beasts.

But most missions were still about killing beasts.

After several minutes, Shang was done with looking through the stack of papers.

'The most lucrative mission is killing Vanishing Snakes. Each one is worth 80 gold,' Shang thought with a frown.

'I would need nine Vanishing Snakes, which would come down to over 24 hours of hunting in dangerous territory. Additionally, I have killed a lot of Vanishing Snakes already. I don't think the Vanishing Snakes are as numerous as Pest Cats.'

'On top of that, some Vanishing Snakes might decide against attacking me. I'm not sure if my suspicions are correct, but I feel like there have been fewer Vanishing Snakes attacking me the last time compared to how many there should be.'

'Maybe their instincts tell them that I'm dangerous.'

'If my suspicions are correct, it might actually take me three days to hunt enough.'

Shang looked through the other missions again.

However, they were not even nearly worth as much as the Vanishing Snakes.

For example, a Pest Cat only had a bounty of one gold.

Was he supposed to hunt 700 Pest Cats?

Swamp Millipedes were also only worth three gold, which was ridiculously little.

By now, Shang had realized that the academy paid way more for these kinds of beasts.

Sure, there were other beasts that had a two-digit bounty of gold, but Shang didn't know much about them.

'Seems like I have to work for a couple of days,' Shang thought with a sigh.

"You killed a General Stage beast once, right?"

Shang looked to his right at the hunter beside him. He hadn't expected the hunter to initiate conversation.

"Yes, I did," Shang said.

The hunter nodded. "I can see that you are new here, but I can also see your potential. I saw that you mostly skipped over the General Stage beasts, which is a smart move. It means you know your own limits."

Shang wasn't sure why the hunter was complimenting him. "Thank you?" he answered in confusion.

"How confident are you in fleeing from General Stage beasts?" the hunter asked.

"As long as they don't specifically try to hunt me down, I'm confident in escaping," Shang answered as he remembered how he had fled from that one pangolin.

The hunter nodded again. "Been to the southern parts of any of the two forests before?" he asked.

Shang nodded. "Yes, that's where I escaped from a pangolin that threw earth spears at me."

The hunter snorted. "That's an Artillery Pangolin," the hunter said. "They're very slow, but their ranged abilities can't be underestimated."

'Seems like artillery is a known concept in this world,' Shang thought with surprise.

"Anyway, if you managed to escape from one of those, there should be a rather fitting mission for you in that first stack of papers," the hunter said. "Of course, no mission is without its risks."

"There is one?" Shang asked in surprise.

The man nodded. "Page 49," he said.

Shang grabbed the first stack of papers again and went to that page.

pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ "Break the beaks of any young Javelins you find and mark their heads."

"Reward: 250 gold."

"WARNING: Javelins are on the blacklist! Killing them is strictly prohibited!"

Shang's eyes widened in surprise.