A Rattling Monster

Chapter 19: Fearing the future

I have, during that night, encountered the remnant of a rat nest. Why do I say remnant is because it only had 3 little rats, born earlier. Yes, had. I probably have killed the mother and the father but I am waiting for one of them to appears. The reason is that the newborns didn't look hungry and my last rat kill is from two days ago. After not waiting for a long time, I finally see something getting closer. The father or the mother. The sex of the rat doesn't matter what is important is his or her resistance toward my spells. I quickly rush toward the rat and knock him out. He looked terrified right before he was put to sleep. The scream of the rat finally ends, and peace reign once again. I love a peaceful environment, calm and without any sounds.

Afterward, I bind my captive and decide to first try to infect him with a disease. I use [Create Disease] and wait. Since I already know the effect, the fact that he is not awake doesn't matter. After waiting for more than 3 hours and even seeing the sun pierce through the grid of the sewers, I decide that it was a failure. Of course, during that time, the rat has awakened but each time I hit him on the back of the head. My capability of restraining a bird is high since they are all both stupid and weak, but just preventing them to use their wings and they become useless. For the rat, I cannot underestimate him. I know the speed that he can achieve and in his tortured mind, he will try to escape.

I now begin to use [Create Poison]. I suppose that if I didn't slaughter this orphanage, it wouldn't have any effect on him either. But the fifth level of this spell can bring me a surprise. And indeed, it didn't betray my hope. I use the same poison that for the human children, and I begin to see black dot appearing on his body. His veins turning black, his eyes leaking blood. On every orifice of his face is flowing blood. A dark and sticky one. At this moment, I slap him to see his reaction. He instantly begins to scream, but he fell in silence as he is drowning in his own blood. But before the blood in his mouth should have killed him, he stops moving. The famous heart attack, not the brain one I think. Truly the weakest organ of the body.

Based on this observation, I think that if I drop all my poison in a water tank that is filled with the water used by 100 human adults in half of a day, I can kill them all. The problem is, the current one that I am looking for sustains the life of dozens of thousands. I can't be as lucky as previously and have a minor pocket of water used by a single building. Think about a way to spread your poison. In the air? Only the disease can be spread like that, and since I killed those kids with my poison, the disease is lacking in power. In the water? The best way for me but the most difficult since I need a lot more power. In the food? That is a solution. Contaminate the food eaten by a part of the population. Like an inn or better a pub. Turn the drinks like a bottle of beer or a cup of wine into a deadly trap. The only thing that can prevent this is, does my poison taste something. If it doesn't, my plan cannot fail.

I will suppose that for one human adult I need one spell since my means of propagation are reduced. Each time my mana is full I can kill 9 adults because I have 92MP and I need to wait 10 hours before doing it again. That means if I don't stop killing, more than 20 victims each day. At this rate, I will probably evolve in less than 3 days. But that is without any problem, casting my poison directly on his food and no guard or magician to stop me.

But the consequence of my actions will probably be huge. So more guards, maybe a curfew, harsher inspection at the gates. Let's see first what is the answer of the mayor of this city.

Yes, a lot of guards. At least double the previous number. And some weird cloaked men and women. And one or two that look like a priest or the sisters of the orphanage. They have brought all their troops for this. So more guards, more men of the Church I guess and the second group should be mages? Maybe? Or adventurers. I should try to reach the trade area with the sewers. It is too dangerous for me to leave the comfort and the security of the underground.

And the situation is even worse. There is absolutely no way that I reach a shop that sells food. Every caravan is supervised by every mercenary available. The traders don't know what happened because they are still here, but they feel the increase of the security. And if even the authorities of Ronta are scared, they should be terrified. Every cart will be watched. So I can't poison the food in the shop, I can't poison the food in the cart. What can I do?

First of all, I have an advantage, I don't need to sleep or rest. So even if the security is increased, once the night is here, there will be fewer people awake. Then, I can still dig a hole in the wall of a shop. Now which shop. Not the baker, because most of his food is produced and consumed on the same day. The market gardener is the same deal, most of his products are daily consumption. It leaves the pub, with the bottles of drink conserved during a long time and the butcher. Even if fresh meat is his biggest product, he still has a lot of meat either conserved or that he will sell the next day.

I am uncertain of how alcohol and poison mix together, so I will try the meat. As usual, those wood walls mean nothing to me. Now let's see what should I poison. I only have 9 spells available so I need to hit something that will sell. I can see the body of a pork and with many piles of meat next to it. I am not an expert in the anatomy of a pig so I randomly choose the 9 piles with the most meat inside. As I spread my poison inside, I can clearly see the meat turning a little blue. That is not good at all. It is not to the point that it won't sell but it will clearly be more difficult.

Since I can't do a single thing about it, I return to my empire. And wait for a full day before trying in another merchant area.

(That is without the intervention of the butcher. When he noticed the weird color of his meat he decides to thro to sell it anyway? And they were actually bought??? Like seriously you have guards everywhere, it is the first time of your life that you see priest and mages walking together and you decide to buy blue meat? Ok not blue but red with a little blue on it. But those foolish humans have brought calamity on themselves and even happy because they got a reduction because of the weird color. Oh dear.)

Apparently, my stratagem has worked. As I noticed my level progressing quickly. Right before dusk, it finally stopped. I guess the last two were eating their dinner before dying. Currently, my all arsenal is looking like this:

"Attributes:

Name:???

Race :Rodent

???

Level : 18/20

HP:78/78

MP :103/103

Strength:13.6

???

???

Wisdom:20.6

???"

"Active skills open: [Sneaky-Sneaky lvl 4] [Venomous Bite lvl 1] [Infected Claws lvl 1] [Create Poison lvl 8] [Create Disease lvl 2]"

"Passive abilities open: [Scavenger lvl Max] [Language of Aria lvl Max] [Night Vision lvl 3] [Poison resistance lvl 10] [Disease resistance lvl 5] [Craftsmanship lvl 1] [Pain resistance lvl 2] [Plague Bearer lvl 2] [Poisonous Being lvl 5]"

The poison and disease resistance look like they evolve at the same time as my active skill. I guess it is to prevent the fact that I could die from my own spell. But [Poison resistance] is level 10 so I suppose the next level it will evolve because Systems love the number 10. Now that I think about it, I never gave myself a name. I should probably think about it in the future because a rat named Marc Cassidy sounds weird.

I am currently 2 levels away from my next evolution but it is more of a threat than a gift for me as I realize one thing. The contents of my past evolution had Ratman inside it. I didn't choose it to be less visible but now I am afraid that I won't have a choice. Funny that the very thing that will grant me power can at the same time condemn me. That means I need to leave this town as soon as possible. But not without a trail of bodies behind me.