Ch.131Chapter 131

The typical image of rodents, led by rats, was not a good one even in jest.

They were known to gnaw through not only grains but wooden houses, often leaving disease in their wake.

‘At least in this world, they haven’t caused dangerous plagues like the Black Death.’

Even though the real cause of the Black Death was fleas, not rats.

Aside from that image, rats were animals skilled at digging tunnels. Given their small size, what animal could be more suitable for the current situation?

Wendigo lined up the rats he had summoned from the forest and carefully examined them.

The Hrimtur watched with fascinated eyes as Wendigo performed yet another miraculous feat.

They were curious about what he intended to do with rats after having already summoned reindeer, elk, and wolves.

However, not everyone was intrigued.

Voltorn, who realized Wendigo had summoned rats to investigate beneath the snow, whispered to him with a worried expression.

“I know you’re no ordinary fellow… but will this work? The cold of the snowfield isn’t mild enough for rats to endure.”

Voltorn’s concern wasn’t excessive—even cold-resistant beasts like elk and reindeer couldn’t wander for half a day without returning to the forest, such was the severity of the cold.

If large beasts struggled to endure the cold, how long could tiny rats possibly last?

Voltorn thought the rats wouldn’t survive even an hour, let alone half a day, before freezing to death.

“Indeed, ordinary rats couldn’t withstand the cold.”

“…Perhaps we should take warriors and head in that direction instead?”

When Wendigo readily acknowledged this fact, Voltorn suggested an alternative plan with a grave expression.

Though they couldn’t ignore the damage, destroying the armored spider’s hideout wasn’t impossible.

The nearby warriors seemed to like Voltorn’s suggestion, grinning ferociously enough to reveal their teeth.

“That won’t be necessary… I suggested this method because I already have a plan.”

Wendigo calmed Voltorn with an exasperated look.

How could a man with many children and years of experience still be so hot-blooded…

At Wendigo’s cold response, the warriors became dejected and put away their weapons. Wendigo looked at them with disdain as he brought his claw to a rat’s head.

“Squeak?”

“Don’t worry. This won’t harm you.”

Wendigo infused mystical energy into the rat’s body through his claw. With uncharacteristically delicate manipulation, he pushed the energy in bit by bit, causing the rat’s eyes to flash as it transformed.

Increasing in size was just the beginning. Its claws and teeth became sharp and hard enough to gnaw through rock like butter, and its dirty fur became glossy.

When Wendigo removed his claw, the rat alertly surveyed its surroundings, then stood on its hind legs and squeaked loudly at Wendigo.

“Squeak squeak!”

“Well… can you dig through the snow and head underground?”

“A rat couldn’t possibly answer such a question… oh my?”

“Squeak!”

When Wendigo questioned the rat, Angrid, who had been skeptical, covered her mouth in surprise as the rat pounded its chest in response.

Others gathered around Wendigo to marvel at the intelligent rat, but when someone pressed down on his head, Voltorn frowned and roared.

“You fools! No matter how fascinating, how dare you press down on the chief’s head!?”

“Ah, I was just so curious that I… Argh!?”

“I was pushed from behind, I couldn’t help it!”

While Voltorn made the warriors apologize with his fists for their rudeness, Wendigo silently tapped the heads of the rats with his claw, bestowing mystical energy.

After empowering about twenty rats, Wendigo observed them.

The mystically enhanced rats, now more intelligent, assessed each other’s appearance and physique to evaluate their condition.

After evaluating one another, several rats stepped forward as representatives…

“Are they… establishing a hierarchy now?”

“That one’s posture is quite fierce. I think it should be the leader. Beasts should be fierce first and foremost—”

“Is fierceness important? They’re still rats, so being quiet is more important.”

“That one looks the most handsome to me.”

“Would beasts determine rank by appearance?”

The Hrimtur pointed at different rats, each offering their assessment of this interesting scene. The rat receiving the most favorable evaluations was the one that had given Wendigo the idea.

The rat with attractive gray fur shouted at the others who were glaring at each other, then pointed at Wendigo.

Naturally, all the rats turned their attention to Wendigo, who laughed in bewilderment.

Who could have imagined he would one day be determining the leader of rats?

“You received mystical power because of that one, so that one is your leader.”

“Squeak squeak squeak!”

Fortunately, the rats seemed to acknowledge the truth in Wendigo’s statement, lowering themselves before their leader rat to show submission.

Wendigo stroked his chin thoughtfully. Since things had come to this, he thought to bestow a name upon the leader rat.

“Quick would be good, meaning fast like a rat.”

“Squeak squeak!”

When Wendigo designated him and bestowed the name, the leader rat—now Quick—squeaked with great joy.

He was already grateful for being given power, but now to receive a name as well—how could he not be delighted?

When Quick let out a long squeak, the rats organized themselves into groups of five. The rats who had stepped forward as representatives became the leaders of each group.

Quick, standing at the very front, looked at Wendigo with shining eyes. His pupils burned with determination to accomplish whatever task lay ahead.

* * *

After completing preparations, Wendigo sent the rats to the armored spider’s hideout on the backs of reindeer. Though he wanted to possess one of them to actively monitor the situation…

‘It’s not certain, but when the possession was forcibly broken, damage was clearly transferred to me.’

Wendigo wasn’t careless enough to dismiss as coincidence what the Hrimtur women had witnessed.

Being alive, his jaw might have turned, if not his neck.

Though Wendigo generally preferred to solve problems directly, this time he decided to borrow only vision and rely on the rats for action.

“Squeak!!!”

“Squeak squeak squeak!”

Quickly arriving near the hideout thanks to the reindeer, the rats descended to the ground following Quick’s instructions.

Quick was the last to come down, surveying the surroundings from atop the reindeer. He moved his front legs in various directions, assigning zones to the rats and issuing commands.

Like well-trained soldiers, the rats quickly formed a large circle and began to gradually narrow it…

Crunch!

“Squeak!”

“Squeak squeak!”

When they sensed the armored spider’s hard shell with their whiskers, they began digging through the snow, heading deeper downward.

Quick led by example, digging at the most dangerous central position. As the rats broke through the snow, which had frozen as hard as ice, they kept as quiet as possible to avoid disturbing the armored spider…

“!”

‘Oh no…’

One of the six groups faced a crisis. While digging, they had discovered an armored spider’s eye.

Wendigo expected chaos to ensue… but strangely, the creature didn’t react despite the rat being right in front of its eye.

The rats, who had frozen in place, realized this too. They tilted their heads curiously in front of the eye, then covered the armored spider’s eye with snow.

Why on earth wasn’t the armored spider reacting?

‘Did we luckily find a blind armored spider?’

While not impossible, it was an overly optimistic assumption. Logically, it should have reacted when whatever was covering its eye disappeared.

Recalling the completely motionless armored spider, Wendigo formed a hypothesis.

Like bears hibernating, perhaps armored spiders also entered deep sleep to survive in this snowfield?

‘If reindeer or deer ran across their backs, the impact would wake them from sleep. But rats are small and quiet… they might not wake up.’

Fortunately, the rats seemed to realize this too. One rat quickly climbed up through the tunnel and visited each burrow to spread the news.

With the fear of discovery gone, the rats used their teeth and claws without restraint to rapidly expand their tunnels.

Thud…

“!”

The first change occurred with Quick’s group. As they dug downward, snow began flowing down without being touched.

After digging through more snow, Quick’s group discovered a cave beneath the ground…

‘…Was it an armored ant rather than an armored spider?’

In the cave connected to several tunnels, armored spiders the size of wild dogs were busily moving about.

Some were moving rocks and soil, others were transporting unidentifiable plants, and still others were moving eggs that looked like giant pearls.

Wendigo immediately understood why it had been difficult to find armored spiders on the surface.

Naturally, it would be difficult to find armored spiders on the surface when they lived underground.

This was already a sufficient discovery, but Quick seemed determined as he changed the tunnel’s direction to move closer to the floor.

Reaching the floor, Quick surveyed the surroundings and began searching the cave while running along the ground. Fortunately, the armored spiders showed little interest in the rats, perhaps due to their small size.

Wendigo admired Quick and the rats for performing such a dangerous task.

‘I chose rats well indeed.’

As if knowing what Wendigo wanted, Quick explored the tunnels to discover what the armored spiders were doing.

Most armored spiders were scraping rocks and soil with their legs to expand the tunnels.

Some were harvesting moss from what looked like farms or dismembering prey dragged down from above.

Quick watched as an armored spider separated bones and flesh from a beast, swallowing dryly.

What frightened him wasn’t the dismemberment itself, but what happened when one armored spider ate a piece of meat—another armored spider immediately attacked in great anger.

The attacker punched through the head of its fellow like a madman punishing a traitor, then began dismembering the corpse. Quick quickly directed the rats to another tunnel.

The next tunnel they arrived at appeared to be a hatching chamber, filled with beautiful pearl-like eggs.

The armored spiders tapped the eggs with their legs to check them, then vomited a viscous liquid onto them. The surface of the eggs then wriggled as they absorbed the liquid.

Wendigo watched the scene with disgust. Though similar to a mother bird feeding her chicks, it was far more repulsive.

Quick carefully moved between the eggs, cautiously tasting the liquid, then his eyes flashed.

‘…Judging by how well he’s eating, it must not be poisonous.’

“Squeak squeak.”

“Squeak~”

Quick fed the liquid to his hardworking subordinates, then continued searching the hatching chamber. Having filled their stomachs, they intended to check the tunnel at the end of the chamber.

Quick headed toward the tunnel at the end of the hatching chamber without much suspicion, but the tunnel’s appearance was quite strange.

Massive pillars carved from rock and ice, a huge bed made of leather, and a shell of an armored spider filled with water that seemed out of place in the cold cave were just the beginning.

Beautiful crystals and colorfully tinted moss were displayed in the corner, and spider webs emitting a soft glow hung on the walls like tapestries.

‘This… doesn’t seem like a space meant for armored spiders at all.’

Wendigo was puzzled by the human-like sensibility of the space. There was no reason for ill-tempered armored spiders to create such things.

Quick also sensed something odd and slowly moved deeper while looking around…

“How strange. I never expected to see a rat here…”

“Squeak?!”

Startled by the voice, Quick looked up toward the ceiling. There was the most incongruous being in this already incongruous space…

A beautiful woman with the lower body of a spider was blinking as she looked down at Quick.

The spider woman jumped down from the ceiling and landed lightly on the floor. She bent down to examine Quick closely, then frowned.

“You… I sense mystical energy from you. Are you a spy sent by a god?”

With only her lower body being that of a spider, could this spider woman have her own story?

Wendigo thought that perhaps the problem could be solved through dialogue…

BANG!

“Speak… NOW!!!”

Whatever else, she clearly had grievances against the gods. The spider woman’s hideous mouth split into four parts as she unleashed a terrible voice, and her legs shattered the floor as she threatened the rats.

The woman’s face, looking down at the rats, twitched with bulging veins that clearly conveyed her anger.

“Squeeeak…”

Naturally, Quick wasn’t brave enough to stand up to such a threat. Standing on his hind legs, he stared at the spider woman with a blank expression and open mouth.

Watching the scene through another rat’s eyes, Wendigo sighed deeply.

‘Ah, of course. I was foolish to hope for a peaceful conversation for once.’

Still, unwilling to abandon the hardworking rats like worn-out shoes, Wendigo took the risk and attempted to possess Quick’s body.