Chapter 126: Land of the Yeti 2
"Patience, analyze these marks on the walls. What kind of creature left them?"
A moment later, Patience’s analysis returned a result.
[Frost-rock Vole: A small rodent native to Glacius. It enjoys digging holes everywhere. The cold rocks on its back can absorb the surrounding cold air, maintaining a certain temperature within a one-meter radius to prevent the Frost-rock Vole from freezing to death.
When encountering danger, the Frost-rock Vole will launch the cold rocks from its body, instantly releasing the cold air stored within and freezing everything around it in an instant.]
Upon hearing this, Moira Lynch drew a sharp breath. ’This is going to be tricky.’
She examined the marks on the wall; they weren’t fresh and looked quite old. ’Good news. This means Frost-rock Voles haven’t been around here for a long time.’
However, before Moira Lynch could celebrate for too long, the System’s voice rang in her ears.
[Side quest issued to player SoySauceDrunkard:
Every year during this season, Frost-rock Voles become extremely aggressive for mating. The cold rocks on their backs cause significant harm to tourists visiting Glacius, dealing a considerable blow to the planet’s tourism industry.
Quest Objective:
Help Glacius resolve the threat of the Frost-rock Voles.
Reward:
One S-rank Awakening Stone, claimable at the Glacial Directorate upon quest completion.
Accept?]
When Moira Lynch saw the final quest reward, her eyes widened in an instant.
An S-rank Awakening Stone!
After all, the B-rank Awakening Stone she had found in the Wailing Tern’s nest was already extremely rare.
But now, Glacius was offering an S-rank Awakening Stone just to solve the Frost-rock Vole problem. This was enough to prove that the threat Frost-rock Voles posed to Glacius was worth more than the price of an S-rank Awakening Stone.
According to what the System had said before, main quests were mandatory, but side quests were optional. If you accepted and completed one, you’d get extra rewards, but there was no penalty for failure.
With an S-rank Awakening Stone on the line, Moira Lynch didn’t hesitate for a second and decisively clicked "Accept."
The next second, however, a message popped up before Moira Lynch’s eyes:
[It has been detected that you have not registered as an adventurer. As per regulations, for unregistered adventurers who accept a quest, one-third of the final reward will be collected by a third party as a processing fee.]
Moira Lynch’s eyes widened. ’It can do that? This game system wants us to work for it for free!’
"Patience, register me as an adventurer."
[Uploading your data. The review is estimated to take two minutes. Please wait patiently.]
Two minutes passed.
[Adventurer registration successful. As you are a minor, according to interstellar law, you may only accept quests of C-rank or lower until you come of age.]
Hearing this, Moira Lynch glanced at the side quest. It was ranked exactly C-rank, which meant she was eligible to accept it.
’A C-rank quest with such a high reward is definitely not normal. Glacius must have set the quest rank so low to attract more adventurers.’
Immediately after, an adventurer identity card was teleported before Moira Lynch by Patience.
Name: Moira Lynch
Status: Junior Adventurer
Adventurer ID: 94977238971525
Along with it, a map was also teleported.
Moira Lynch placed the adventurer identity card with her interstellar ID, then opened the map.
The map marked the locations of Frost-rock Vole lairs. As long as she could destroy one of them, Moira Lynch would complete the quest.
The map was rather abstract, and only with Patience’s help was Moira Lynch able to find her current location.
’What a coincidence. There’s a Frost-rock Vole lair right near me.’
Moira Lynch decided to complete the side quest first before doing anything else.
According to Patience, the Frost-rock Voles themselves didn’t have strong attack power; their main threat was the cold rocks on their backs.
The moment they hit the ground, they would explode instantly, releasing a blast of cold air that could reach absolute zero and flash-freeze everything in the vicinity. Who could withstand that?
’I just need to deal with these cold rocks, right?’ Moira Lynch thought.
Once the cold rocks were taken care of, the Frost-rock Voles themselves would be nothing to worry about.
For Moira Lynch, this task couldn’t have been simpler.
Following the route on the map, Moira Lynch twisted and turned through the terrain and soon found a Frost-rock Vole nest.
She didn’t get close, however. Instead, she extended her spiritual power, and soon, she had a crystal-clear picture of the situation inside the nest.
Upon sensing the size of the Frost-rock Voles, Moira Lynch felt like she had been deceived. ’Are you sure these are *small* rodents?’
’What part of this is small?’
Any single Frost-rock Vole dragged out of that nest would be bigger than she was.
Some had even grown to two or three meters long.
On top of that, there was an enormous one, likely the king of this pack, that was dozens of times larger than an ordinary Frost-rock Vole.
The fur on these Frost-rock Voles stood up like porcupine quills, and every strand was embedded with a fist-sized stone—those must be the cold rocks.
It wasn’t impossible for her to use her spiritual power combined with her spatial ability to take away all the cold rocks right now, but Moira Lynch was afraid that once the rocks disappeared, the Frost-rock Voles would instantly go berserk and rampage everywhere. What if she got hurt in the chaos?
"Patience, do Frost-rock Voles have any weaknesses?"
[Frost-rock Voles have a keen sense of smell and despise strong, pungent odors. Such smells will cause them to faint.]
’Got it. Keen sense of smell, can be knocked out by a foul stench.’
’If this were before, I could have just tossed a couple of turds over, but now, the surrounding temperature is frighteningly low. Any poop would freeze solid the moment it was out.’
’A pungent odor doesn’t have to mean a bad smell, right?’
Moira Lynch remembered that a batch of her Loli Fruits had recently ripened.
The fruits of this tree weren’t for eating; instead, they had all sorts of wondrous abilities, like creating smoke screens, knockout gas, tear gas, and itching powder. Basically, there was nothing you couldn’t imagine that it couldn’t produce.
Amidst a pile of fruits, Moira Lynch found two that were so red they were almost purple: Abnormal Pepper Fruits.
It was said that the Abnormal Pepper Fruit was ten thousand times hotter than the spiciest pepper on Caelus.
Out of curiosity, Moira Lynch had once touched one without gloves. Her hand remained fiery hot for days afterward, and anything she touched with that hand also became spicy. For those few days, she didn’t even dare to wash her face with her hands.
Moira Lynch looked at the two Abnormal Pepper Fruits in her hand and decided to use just one. ’No, wait, half should be enough.’
She took out a gas mask and put it on, then used a knife to slice one of the Abnormal Pepper Fruits in half. Instantly, the small space was filled with the acrid scent of chili pepper.
Luckily, Moira Lynch had taken precautions beforehand, but even so, the spiciness made her eyes water and she let out several sneezes in a row.
Moira Lynch tossed one half into water for preservation and sent the other half directly into the Frost-rock Vole nest.