'I suppressed the noises!' Syla said to herself.
She managed to kill one of the mandrake, as Syla threw the lifeless mandrake body to the ground, she felt a wave satisfaction in her chest, the slimes inside her ears successfully blocked the mandrake's scream, saving her from being deaf. Now that Syla knew she won't be affected by the mandrake, she no longer had any worries for the next one.
And so, Syla began to pull the mandrakes out of its burrow one by one, with each of their shrieks being cut off by Syla as she swung her sword to cut them in half.
The process continued until all of the mandrakes in the field was killed, and while Syla was killing the mandrakes, her face also gets progressively redder as time passed.
Slash!
Slash!
One mandrake was killed, and then the next one. For an approximately 15 minutes Syla did nothing but pulling mandrakes and cutting them, since mandrakes doesn't have any combat ability except for their shrieks, killing them was as easy as stepping on an ant, and before Syla knew it, she had killed every mandrake in the field, only one remaining, and that last mandrake was the suspected queen Syla mentioned earlier when with Mr. Rick.
"Haahh.. haah.." Syla gasped for air multiple times, even though she didn't do anything that requires a lot of effort, her face looked tired, with her cheeks being red as if she was continuously blushing.
'Haah.. haahh.. Damnit, who would've thought that having a slime in both of your ears felt this good– If it weren't for the fact that im doing a quest, i would've succumbed to this pleasure.. They're rubbing every inch of my ears– Keukk, what are they even doing in there..' Syla thought.
'Last one.. This is the queen mandrake, i believe..'
Syla approached the last mandrake in the middle of the field, scorched by the blazing sun above her, she pulled the mandrake out of its burrow without warning and was shocked to see the size of it. Unlike the regular mandrakes that she killed earlier, this mandrake was heavy, and it stood at 150cm tall, despite the top of its head looking like a regular mandrake and the fact that it looked similar to the others when it was inside the soil, when Syla pulled it out, its whole body immediately followed.
SHRIEEEKKK!!
The Queen Mandrake let out a terrifying shriek that can be heard throughout the whole village of Hayville. locals in the distance had to cover their ears just because the shriek was too loud, although they stood far away from the queen, they still couldn't bear to hear its screech.
The queen mandrake screamed for 10 seconds before it ran out of breath, the queen then let go from Syla's grip before she could cut it in half, showing a strength that normal mandrakes shouldn't have.
"What!?" Syla was surprised to see the queen mandrake grew a pair of branches on the side and below its body that acted as a hand and legs.
"That thing looked exactly like the illustration in that book.." Syla said, she was fighting against both the queen mandrake and the pleasure from the slimes inside her ears.
Since the queen mandrake didn't lost its voice entirely, it will scream again if Syla doesn't kill it right at that moment, so she pushed her right leg backwards and lunged herself towards the queen mandrake, her sword ready to be swung as she gets closer to the monster.
Clack!
At first, the queen mandrake dodged Syla's attack by sacrifcing one of its hand to be cut off by Syla's sword, then it tried to take a deep breath, most likely to scream right at Syla's face.
Seeing that the queen mandrake was about to shriek for the second time, Syla increased her speed and moved in a zig-zag pattern to confuse the queen mandrake, her unbelievable speed caused an afterimages to appear where she was standing before, and when Syla swung her sword to cut the queen mandrake's in half, it once again sacrificed its other hand while its main body dodged.
"Got you." Syla said coldly, her hand suddenly rotated at the queen mandrake again, she performed a consecutive slash at the queen mandrake, and just like most of her opponents that she had faced, the queen mandrake was caught off guard by the attack and it couldn't dodge like before.
Syla finally killed the queen mandrake after just a minute, an overwhelming victory as she felt a tickling sensation inside her ears.
"Gaahh!?!! Stop it!!" Without wasting anymore time, Syla quickly pulled the slimes out of her ears, ending the constant pleasure that it was producing to Syla.
She looked at the two slimes inside in her hands and noticed a lot of earwaxew inside their body, the slimes had cleaned her ears and now they are craving for more.
"Ugh, that's gross... But thanks i guess?" Syla said before throwing the slimes far into the grassy plains, using her strength, she was able to throw the creature far into the distance.
Now that the quest was over, Syla brushed her clothes off from the debris before taking a chunk of the queen mandrake's body and put it inside her satchel, she then walked out of the field to meet with Mr. Rick.
"Queen Mandrake doesn't have that much of a difference than normal mandrakes except for their size.. Surely the adventurer's guild would know that this is a queen mandrake right?" Syla said as she looked at the black trunk in her satchel for the last time.
.
.
A few minutes later—
"You did it!?" Mr. Rick was stunned to hear that Syla had defeated the mandrakes, he and the other locals who followed him to see what happened was also shocked by the news.
"Yes, they're all gone now, all hundreds of them." Syla said as she smiled.
She then saw how fast Mr. Rick expression changed from amazement to relief, his eyes gradually turned glossy as the tears began to roll down.
"Oh my god.. Thank you.." He said while holding both of Syla's hand with his own.
"A- ahh.. Mr. Rick, it's okay, i just did what i had to do, you don't need to thank me.." Syla was being polite, however at the same, she was also glad that she could he a help to Mr. Rick and the people of Hayville, she unconciously wags her tail continuously as she sees the happy faces of the villagers infront of her.
"How could i repay you.." Mr. Rick said.
"We are saved thanks to you, thank you, miss Adventurer." One of the farmer that was also there expressed his gratitude.
"We're all thankful for you miss!" Another man said.
Before long, everyone that had gathered at that time was all thankful to Syla, the old, the man, the women, no matter who they are, they're all just a farmer at the end of the day, and because of Syla, now all of their worries and troubles have been solved just like that.
As for Syla, who received all of those thanks and praises, she can only smile and expressed the same gratitude to them, despite her acting like it wasn't that big of a deal, she was holding a stream of tears in her eyes, her heart raced with the feeling of satisfaction, and her tail swayed aggresively.
This was what Syla had always dreamed when becoming a wanderer, to see all of these strangers smile, and to see her using her strength for the greater good, just like her mom told her to.
"You're welcome, everyone." Syla said one last time.
.
.
As the sun sets into the horizon, Syla took on a carriage towards Direwell, after paying for the carriage that brought her here and the one that took her back to Direwell, Syla was left with only a silver coin as she used all of her coppers to buy food.
Syla waves at Mr. Rick for the last time as he was becoming further and further away from her, she looked at his wrinkly face and noticed that a faint smile was forming on his lips.
"Heh.." Syla said, smiling back at Mr. Rick, although he won't be able to see it because of his sight.