High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 769: Chapter 117 D&K_1

Behind the cluster of cats, on an open ground not too far away.

Originally, there were only five little mice huddling together, quivering with fear.

Now, the area is stacked high with these small rodent animals with pointed faces, round ears, gray fur, and long tails.

Each pair of mice are crammed together, their tails knotted, their heads facing the same direction, neatly arranged on the ground like turnips sold by vendors at the morning market. Unlike the five trembling ones they first encountered, these newly arrived mice all have their eyes tightly closed and are completely still.

If it weren’t for their nostrils gently fluttering and the occasional twitch of their whiskers around their mouths proving that they were still alive, this scene would be eerily similar to the horrifying events that once occurred in Auschwitz concentration camp.

”The quality of this batch of mice is a bit poor,” said Dr. Xiao while holding his notebook, crouching in front of the pile of mice, occasionally playing with them with the feather of his quill pen, checking their teeth and tail, and jotting down or sketching in his black notebook.

”This will do... The school has almost been cleared of mice by them, I think it is already very difficult to find this many,” said the black cat casually, pacing around the pile of mice, ”In fact, even if there were extra cages in the store, my cat gang could not provide any more mice... unless you would agree to substitute squirrels or hamsters. There are still many of them.”

Squirrels or hamsters are definitely out of the question, Xiao Xiao is well aware of this.

The Absolution Hunting team’s planned shop on the pedestrian street isn’t a pet shop. According to Zheng Qing’s suggestion at the previous Knights Group meeting, their shop should belong to the tertiary industry -- this can be seen from the name of the shop that they finally decided on after several group meetings.

The full name of their planned shop is ’Ding-Ding-Finance-and-Kill-Kill-Bug-Co., Ltd,’ or ’D&K’ for short, meaning ’Ding Ding Finance and Pest Control Ltd.’ The term ’ding ding’ mirrors the sound of jade coins dropping into a pocket and thus the onomatopoeic word was unanimously approved by all members of Absolution; ’pest control’ comes from a series of tasks recently assigned by the school.

Due to the early resurgence of ’The Silence’ this year, the ecological chain on the entire Buji Island has undergone certain changes, the most direct impact being more and more ’troublesome creatures’ appearing in the campus -- including scavenger beetles moving in flocks, as well as mice, eight-eyed spiders, five-legged beasts, and Red Chain Snakes, which all prey on scavenger beetles.

As the core area of the Magic World, the University naturally wouldn’t allow these dirty little bugs to wreak havoc in their backyard. Therefore, the school has issued a series of tasks, requiring all academies and research institutes to clear these ’bugs’ as soon as possible.

Obviously, professors won’t catch mice themselves and wouldn’t lower their dignity to do so; the staff have more important work to attend to besides their own tasks. After a quick discussion at a private meeting, the bosses of several academies threw these minor issues to the energetic young wizards in school.

They even euphemistically referred to it as ’practical training.’

Zheng Qing was deeply skeptical about whether catching mice or scavenger beetles could serve as a useful training exercise. However, considering this task accounted for ten percent of the tutor’s assessment at the end of the term, not many people dared to slack off.

Being unable to handle troublesome tasks does not mean one can’t be lazy.

Even in the Magic World it’s the same -- rules are rigid, but people are flexible -- wealthy students would pay others to help catch bugs, mice, Red Chain Snakes, spiders, and other small animals; those who can’t afford to pay but are good at their studies would exchange tutoring or note copying for a sufficient number of kills.

Only those students who are poor performers academically, from less privileged backgrounds, and not particularly sociable would have to diligently crawl through grassy areas, drains, and other dark corners every week to catch these seemingly never-ending bugs.

Of course, the wizards in the Absolution Knights Group don’t belong to this last category -- while they don’t have much capital and not everyone does well academically, they possess a highly capable leader.

Since Zheng Qing has gathered a group of cat assistants, the task imposed by Old Yao of catching a hundred mice every week has become child’s play for him. On any day he pleases, he will merely spend his after-dinner leisure time going to the woods and ordering his furry subordinates to deliver plentiful and stout mice.

In the beginning days, Zheng Qing was selective about the mice.

Mice with sparse fur, those less than a month old, pregnant ones, and those with physical impairments or bitten-offs tails were all rejected -- he only wanted those robust mice with shiny fur.

Submitting this kind of mice, compared to the mice of others, would naturally reflect well on him.

Soon, other members of the Absolution Knights Group learned of Zheng Qing’s trick -- many members from Jiuyou Academy’s Knights Group, including Xiao Xiao and Zhang Ji Xin, demanded fair treatment from their leader and wanted his help in catching mice.

Without hesitation, Zheng Qing confidently promised to help them all.

For him, it was a simple matter of giving additional instructions to his helpful cat minions.

As the saying goes, once sated, one thinks of lustful matters, which, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, means that once physiological and safety needs are met, people will pursue social, esteem, and self-actualization needs.

In other words, since catching mice isn’t difficult for Zheng Qing, could they fully utilize this ’surplus capacity’ to create greater benefits? Whether it’s to exchange the excess mice for money or to deepen their relationship with their classmates, it was far more profitable than returning the unnecessary mice to the wild.

The first to present a related proposal was not Zheng Qing, not Xiao Xiao, nor the Elder Zhang Da from a respectable family, but the little wizard Lin Guo who had grown up eating from different families in Beta Town.

”Aren’t we planning to open a shop in Beta Town? Don’t we already have a main product ready?” During a meeting to discuss the new shop name, the young wizard suddenly changed the topic, shifting the discussion to future prospects.

What to do after the shop opens, is something that everyone is concerned about -- granting that, Zheng Qing’s original thought was just to find a more spacious and comfortable gathering place outside of school for the Absolution Knights Group, just like those clubs from Alpha Academy. As for the business after the opening, according to his idea, they will do whatever they can get, after all, it is part-time, and the first requirement is not to be troublesome.

”We can’t just take up such a good location and sell only second-hand books, notes, inefficient magic potions... of course, I’m not saying that your talismans, Captain, are lousy, but no matter how good your talismans are, can they compete with the wholesale costs of the Green Grocery Store? Can they secretly sell illegal talismans like the Wandering Bar?”

”Comparative advantage, comparative advantage... without comparison, you can’t find the advantage.”

”Since catching mice is easy for you, Captain, then this must naturally be our biggest advantage!”