In the middle of his experiments, Rino heard a familiar sound from the system.

Ping!

He ignored it for now. There was a more important task at hand.

Ping!

A second notification made Rino reconsider his decision.

"You," he pointed at the goblin shaman. "Take over."

With that, Rino excused himself to check the updates.

Naturally, the first thing Rino did was to claim the reward for his side quest swiftly completed.

===

Side Quest #13

Objective: Harvest King Toad Paralysis Poison

Reward: Paralysis Poison Cure Recipe

Claim your reward here.

===

Rino quickly browsed through the cure recipe to see if he had the ingredients needed if anyone became poisoned by the toads. The recipe was so strange, and Rino wondered if it truly worked.

"Only one way to find out," he told himself and stared at the paralysed squirrels. Thankfully, he knew where most of the ingredients were within the forest.

Teleporting all over the place, Rino gathered the required ingredients, including potato berries. Without a mortar and pestle, Rino could only use some rocks to smash it against the flat surface of some other rock to create a paste that he tossed into a pot and boiled it using magic until the water turned green.

Then, he looked at the paralysed squirrels and gently pried their mouths open. Strangely, the paralysis poison did not make them stiff. It was closer to a muscle relaxant, and Rino force-fed the 'cure' potion to the poisoned squirrels who were still alive to test the effectiveness.

It took almost two hours for the cure to work, but Rino was satisfied with the results. While he waited for the results, Rino took a look at his updated daily quest.

===

Daily Quest #10

Objective: Hunt King Toads

0/15 King Toads

Time Limit: 5 Days.

Tutorial here.

Reward: Basic Culinary Skill

Claim your reward here.

Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.

===

This was it! Rino did not care about the time limit. There was plenty of time to turn the quest in. However, this skill was something better than earning sleep hours, in his opinion. Ever since the mashed potato fiasco, Rino had a phobia of cooking anything because he had no idea what he should be doing. Making food was more difficult than casting a deca-tier spell without chanting.

This was his most favourite daily quest to date. Rino could not express how happy he was to get this survival skill that he failed to learn in his previous life. Despite his superior intelligence, Rino tried several times in the past to make food for himself, but there was too much destruction that he decided it was better to leave this to someone more capable.

After all, in this world, there were things people were good at and bad at. Rino's talent was simply not meant for the kitchen, and he accepted it. He also used to believe that God made everyone fair, even if people were often treated unfairly in life.

Thinking of ways to kill more than one bird with a single shot for the newest daily quest, Rino planned the itinerary of his hunting game. At the same time, he wondered if this basic culinary skill will let him make mouth-watering toad kebabs.

Noir was a cat, and cats love chicken. Some people claimed that frogs tasted like chicken. Hence, Rino would test it out on someone who still had a sense of taste to give him feedback on the toad kebab before serving it to Noir.

Up above, Ace shivered. He did not want any part of that huge ugly frog in his mouth! It looked slimy, deadly and disgusting. Besides, he doubted anything living would taste good. Potatoes tasted like mud, so going by this logic, toad kebabs should taste like slime and blood. That was a terrible combination to imagine.

Rino remained blissfully unaware of Ace's preferences and made it his goal to turn the toads he received from the hunting game into fine cuisine. Nobles back in the old world often enjoyed weird food. From raw fish to snail eggs, those overly wealthy, bored people tried them all. Heck, Rino even saw some people paying for edible gold. If it were up to him, Rino would have saved those gold flakes from their stomachs and used them for his transmutation experiments.

Behind him, Rino could hear the archer groan as they lifted the heavy toad's stomach. Someone made a slip somewhere, and the guts came spilling, giving off an unbearable stench. Thankfully, Rino was dead, and it barely affected him. On the other hand, Mutt whined and begged to hide in Rino's shadows for a while. Even dead, the sabre tooth wolf had an incredible sense of smell that never dulled.

Pitying his hound, Rino allowed Mutt to disappear, but he returned swiftly to remedy the situation. These guts and innards were too gross. Rino used magic to cut everything out and bury them using earth magic.

"There," he told them and looked at the toad skin.

While it was not the smoothest and pleasing material to touch, Rino did not think there were any other monsters he had at his disposal for making rugs. Too bad he did not kill the serpent monster he saw earlier in the day. That skin would have covered miles of floor space. Rino might even have enough leftovers to make clothing and bags.

"Remove and clean the toad skin. I want to make leather out of it at a later date when we have the ability. Do not damage it."

Nodding obediently, the hunters did their best of separating the flesh and bones from the skin now that the awful innards were removed. They cleaned and washed the skin using water that Rino conjured as the lich supervised their progress.

If it took this long to process one kin toad, Rino could not estimate how long it would take to dismantle all fifteen king toads. The night was almost over, and the hunters were still trying to cut the meat from the bone. At least the skin was successfully separated in one piece, even if it was still very slimy.

Rino had no idea if it was still coated with poison, but he would try to soak when they returned to the farmhouse. If that doesn't work, Rino has to make his own soap. Thankfully, he knew just how to do it, but that would mean saving those toad fats.