Chapter 35: Ratapocalypse (2)
Rin carried Luke, reverting his body weight to normal. Rin looked behind to find Elise still engaged with the rats, slaughtering them dozens of paces away.
"Elise, leave them," he yelled.
"I'm trying," she said.
Elise was facing the rats alone, and she was killing them, her face and body smeared in rat blood. She looked no less than a freak.
He was surprised to find Elise was doing better than he had hoped for her. It was nothing like how he first met her when she was half-arsing everything, getting scared of blood. But now, she doesn't seem to care about the blood. Well, she didn't have the luxury of caring for them at all.
"There's something wrong with those rats," Luke said, his eyes drawing towards where the slender figure of the teenage girl was fighting alone.
"You don't say." Rin turned his head around, trying to find the way they came in as quickly as possible.
"I mean, more than usual," Luke retorted, nudging him on the shoulder. "Look, the rats are mostly ignoring her. They are coming after us."
Rin turned to look back and blinked in startlement. It appeared that Luke wasn't mistaken about what he said about the rats. Most of the rats were really ignoring Elise and coming their way.
True, the girl was engaged with the rats, but she was only doing a favour to them, obstructing the rats' path to them.
"Are they after the evolution gems?" Luke asked, clutching the small pouch on him.
"Don't think so. Elise has those gems on her as well," Rin didn't know the answer. "They may very well be sexist."
His face wasn't looking good as soon as he found dozens of rats trailing them. A few rats weren't really anything difficult to deal with. But when the number rose to a hundred, that was another story altogether. Moreover, it seemed more were coming, sqeaking all the way.
"Did we trigger something in the dungeon unintentionally?" Luke asked, furrowing his brows.
All they did was hunt a couple of hundred of those ravenous rats and hamsters, which seemed like the obvious things to do in a dungeon. Then again, this game was different. This could be an inbuilt feature of its dungeon for all they understood.
But why only after them?
Rin didn't bother with the answer, and dropped Luke on the ground. He unequipped the ring of healing immediately and tossed it to his former captain to heal his wounds.
"Find the way out," Rin told him, arming his sword in one hand. His quiver only had four arrows left, which couldn't contest the overwhelming number of rats in their surroundings.
Rin covered for Luke, giving his friend some freedom to find a way out.
"This isn't what I'm looking for on this Sunday morning," he muttered, and started massacring the ravenous rats that came his way.
The cloth on his nose was already missing. Rin had to wrinkle his nose to survive in the disgusting stench of rotten flesh and piss—the rats were reeking.
He dropped his body weight, pushing energy upwards in the mark as well as re-materialising his mana cloak. His acrobatic movement let him deal more damage than what the rats could do to him, even though the numbers were overwhelming him.
[Superhuman Intuition reached LVL 4.]
[Swordsmanship reached LVL 7.]
[Focus reached LVL 9.]
Still, the number of scratches would stack, as Rin was simply one person. And rats were everywhere.
Even if Rin swiped his sword wide, he was pretty sure he would hit at least one. A handful of their numbers were after him at a time. If he was unable to kill them all in the nick of a moment, more would come to overwhelm him.
Rin sprinted, his boots crushing the mangled rat corpses on the ground. His muscles started to ache as an unbearable heat surged through his back. All too familiar.
Rin grunted. He wasn't looking forward to that familiar game at all.
"Rin," Luke bellowed after him, "they are only after you."
Rin turned around to change his direction the moment he heard him. In the corner of his eyes, he could see Luke was relatively free, with only a handful of rats chasing after him, unlike Rin, who had easily aggravated a couple of hundreds of them on his back.
"What the hell?!" Rin swore, slashing his sword as he beheaded the two feet tall screeching abomination.
"What the hell did you do?" Luke's voice came into his ears.
"Nothing, Bruh!" Getting his teeth, he came towards Luke. He didn't intend to be the sacrifice for them. "Did you find the way out?"
"It's this way," Elise said before Luke could even open his mouth. She was pointing to her right and their opposite. After Rin took away all the aggression of the ravenous little shits, she became much freer and came back to her senses.
"What are you waiting for, then?" Rin yelled, rushing in the direction she pointed. "Withdraw!"
Luke didn't stay on his spot ceremoniously, either. He slashed his quarterstaff to make his way towards the opposite direction where Elise pointed. However, his job became way harder since Rin was going in the same direction as him.
Hundreds of hungry rats squeaked in the way, obstructing his path of escape.
"Rin," Luke yelled, "Can you--"
"Not happening, mate," Rin retorted before his friend could finish. He was pretty sure what Luke was going to ask.
Whereas Elise was much freer, as Rin brought the rats to her opposite. She already noticed the odd notion of the rats only chasing after Rin.
"Why are they after you anyway?" she shouted, reaching the exit point before everyone else.
Rin grunted, having no answer.
"Are you carrying anything in your person?" Luke asked, joining him.
Rin's thought process stopped as she reminded himself of all the items he was carrying. He barely had anything with him. He had hidden the notebook on the farm, whereas the coin would always find its way back to him. Other than that, he was only carrying dozens of gems in person.
"Wait," Rin reached for his pocket. He brought the small obsidian gem out of his pocket. "I have this stain with me."
Right at that moment, a humongous squeak resounded throughout the caverns, freezing them on their spot.
Not just the three of them; even the ravenous rats weren't making any noise, glued to their spot.
Rin grunted. "Great, this is what we have been missing."
-- Gift
received