Admittedly, the corkscrew was sharp. I really wanted to turn around and lambast Baldric a bit more, but there wasn’t quite enough time to do that. It would simply have to wait until later, like many of life’s little pleasures. Thankfully, the corkscrew wasn’t so far away as to be impossible to reach. It would have been easier had there not been 40 or so medium-sized rats with glowing red eyes and abominably sharp teeth between me and my only weapon, but hey, I still had my formal shoes. What more does a Butler need?

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Skill: Basic Close Combat

Style: Way of the Butler

Skill Points: 51 ([DEX + INT] * 0.5)

I am but a Humble Servant, Sir. Combat is not within my repertoire, but even so, I shall permit no harm to this house or it’s occupants.

The Way of the Butler is a modified Martial Art style, founded by on . It requires a combination of high Dexterity and Intelligence to use proficiently. The Way of the Butler specifically allows for household objects and common, non-threatening items to be used in combat. This Combat style does not apply to traditional weaponry such as swords, shields or knives, but can be used to turn any other item into a deadly weapon.

Basic Tier: ([DEX + INT] * 0.5)

Advanced Tier: DEX + INT

Expert Tier: ???

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I gave a silent prayer of thanks to As You Command for my boosted Intelligence, since that was the only way I could possibly read the notification while letting my body continue fighting off rats on autopilot. My legs kept kicking, and the little buggers kept flying as I saw what Isekai Hero had created for me.

No way! Isekai Hero had…actually turned out to be helpful? Impossible!

First things first: apparently I’d founded an entire fighting style. I had no idea how I’d done that, or why I hadn’t simply been assigned a fighting style that was purely DEX focused, or been given magic that would have been INT focused. Instead, I’d apparently founded a style that relied heavily on two attributes, which was almost always a little bit worse than something that relied solely on a single attribute. Still, the scaling was nice! An average, going to a sum, going to probably a double at the Expert Tier. I still didn’t know how to advance my skills into new tiers, since that was a new mechanic, but continued use would likely have some part to play in it. Either way, not a question for the moment. In fact, none of these questions were important, and therefore needed to be set aside.

As soon as I swiped the skill notification away, however, I noticed that the Way of the Butler had clearly already activated and had started to help. My kicks were landing a bit more forcefully, and I was aiming them better. The heels of my shoes, which were slightly harder than the tips, were striking rats more often than they used to, as though my legs were course-correcting in mid-air for maximal damage. As a result, every so often, I was actually killing some of the little critters. I always felt bad about attacking and killing dumb animals, since the ridiculously overpowered nature of Isekai Hero meant that as long as I’d had some time to acclimate to my settings, I could probably outfight or outthink most of them. Still, I hadn’t gone looking for a fight this time!

As I continued to boot the rats, occasionally swatting a particularly enthusiastic one out of mid-air and back into the cold, damp ground of the cellar, I edged my way towards the corkscrew. Oddly enough, it was becoming more and more apparent how useful it would be as a weapon. Puncturing a hole into an unarmored foe was somewhat easier than trying to cut through it’s head or slicing it. It would also be easier to get deep puncture wounds than it would be to get deep cuts into the rats, who moved extremely fast. Once I was close enough, I waited for a moment and then flicked the corkscrew up into the air. It was a beautiful tool, in all honesty. 6 inches of shiny metal embedded into a carved wooden handle, sleek and deadly.

That…must have been the butler inside me speaking up. I had never really noticed such pedestrian things in any past life.

“Alright you little pests…Where’s your boss?”

The flow of combat was extremely simple. This was more so because the rats were dumb and not very good at changing their strategy, and less because of any real proficiency on my part. A rat would dive at me, I’d kick it up, stab it and then toss it to the back of the line. They were swarming, yes, but they also all seemed to want to kill the closest target, which was me. If there was already a rat up in the air for me to stab, I’d simply shunt the newest one back until my corkscrew was free.

It was the world’s most macabre circus, but I was definitely getting the job done. Slowly, slowly, the crowd thinned as a wall of rat corpses lined up at the back of the cellar. I’d need to get someone to clean it up….maybe Chanak. Or Baldric. I could even influence their minds to do it, if they didn’t want to be conscious.

Influence…Kel!

How had I been so stupid as to forget that I had a magic hedgehog? A magic hedgehog who specifically appeared to have some level of mind magic? All while I was fighting a horde of rats who were clearly under some kind of mind magic?

Blanc?

Yes, Blanc?

You’re an idiot.

You’re right Blanc.

Having had words with myself, I turned my attention to Kel, calling out to her.

Chirrup?

Yeah, I could use your help!

Ch-Chirup? CHIRRUP?

No, I don’t…wait, you don’t like fighting?

Chirrup.

Okay well, I don’t need you to like, bite them or anything.

Chirrup?

Having established that I didn’t need her to get involved in the altercation physically, I tried to compose a mental image that would make sense to Kel. What was the effect going to look like? This was more complex magic than I’d asked Kel to do before, but hopefully she’d be able to do it; There was nothing in Handel about tracing back mind magic that was controlling a swarm of rats, after all.

Composing an image while trying to swat and stab rats was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Clearly, I needed to practice The Way of The Butler while utilizing Kel in order to become proficient with it. In the meantime, it felt like I was literally splitting my mind down the center, severing connections to my body and letting it act on autopilot while my conscious brain tried to imagine a mental picture and push it to Kel. I imagined that every rat had a small, white beam of incandescent light connecting it’s brain to some figure. For good measure, I thought of the figure that was controlling the others as vague blob of darkness: The Rat Chief. The beams of light were all coming from the Rat Chief, and going towards the others, to signify control. Mental visualization was hard, but hopefully Kel had enough context clues to understand what I meant.

As I pushed the mental image towards Kel, my concentration lapsed for a moment. It also wasn’t helped by the fact that Kel apparently tensed up every single time she wanted to cast any magic, which made the quills on her back stand out. And as Kel was situated in my breastpocket, the quills were stabbing me right in the chest. As a result, I was a second too late swatting away a rat that had decided to try for glory by attacking my face, and it’s sharp little teeth dug into my cheek. At the very last second, I’d managed to turn my face so that it’s original attack, aimed for my eye, had missed.

“GAHHHHH!” I screamed out in rage, ripping the rodent away from my cheek, causing the gash to open even deeper. In a little bit of a blind panic, I threw the rat into the center of the swarm instead of poking a hole into it’s body and getting rid of the problem entirely. If I’d had much more time left on Business at Hand, I’d have activated it, but since I wasn’t sure when the penalties would kick in, I didn’t want to risk it. Moreover, it felt a little too much like giving Isekai Hero control over my thoughts and actions, and I wasn’t a huge fan of that.

As I blinked tears away from my eyes, wiping crimson liquid from my face, I grimaced. I didn’t have an HP bar anymore, so Isekai Hero must have removed the concept entirely. A rat bite shouldn’t have done much damage, but this stung! Hopefully, these guys weren’t venomous.

On the plus side, Kel had stopped tensing. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any white beams of light or any dark blob that was clearly controlling the rats. The rats didn’t seem particularly deterred by the lack of magic either, continuing their incessant assault.

Chi-chirrup. Chirrup chirrup!

Yeah, I can see that!

…cheep.

Well, at least she was apologetic about it. Still, getting confirmation that Kel had failed wasn’t exactly a bonus.

It had probably only been a few minutes, and while I wasn’t tired yet, I didn’t have a solution in mind yet. I needed to figure something out, hopefully something that didn’t involve stabbing all of my attackers until there were no more rats left in the Manor. So….Why hadn’t it worked?

Kel was naturally inclined towards mind magic. This thing was probably using mind magic. Why couldn’t Kel find it? Had I been…too specific? Fay had warned against extreme specificity, so perhaps I needed to be more general. What would be more general than beams of light? I needed some sort of signal to identify whatever thing was controlling the rats. If Kel couldn’t manipulate light beams, well, could she manipulate?

Ah. Of course.

This mental image was a lot easier to compose. I simply pictured all the rats standing in place, completely frozen and pushed that to Kel. Hopefully, whatever it was that she decided to do, this would be easier to accomplish for her. For bonus points, maybe it wouldn’t affect whatever mage was controlling them, and I would be able to track it down.

“AAGHHH!” I screamed out loud again as Kel bristled in my pocket. I’d been prepared for it this time, so I didn’t lose my focus quite as much, but still, annoying. As Kel worked, I continued my routine: Kick, stab, throw. Kick, stab, throw.

Kick.

Stab.

Throw.

Rinse and repeat, over and over. It felt like a dance, as though the movement was getting more and more polished each time I did it, becoming a practiced movement. Every so often, I had to widen my stance, and prevent a rat from sneaking by, but for the most part, they were dumb creatures and didn’t deviate from their attack pattern. Clearly, I had vastly undercounted them…or more and more were joining the fray, because I had certainly killed off more than forty at this point. It must have been dozens, because rat corpses were piling up slowly but surely.

In the distance, I heard a sound. Was Baldric…shouting?

“WHAT?”

“DINNER!”

“…WHAT?!?”

“DINNER, SIR BLANC!”

Was he asking me to go up-RAT!

Another rat had decided to fulfill it’s glorious destiny by attacking my face! I swiped for it, but Baldric had managed to distract me just enough. What was he even still doing in the cellar? WHY NOT LEAVE?

As my arm missed the flailing rat, I could see it’s razor sharp yellow teeth approaching my throat. Clearly, rats didn’t have any dental hygiene.

I ducked, just a little too slow, and the rat managed to lodge itself into my eyebrow. It’s teeth opened another large gash above my left eyebrow, and it scrabbled at my face as I tried to rip it off. It was lucky that Excelsian magic didn’t require constant concentration, like magic on some other worlds had. I certainly would have lost control of any spell I’d been trying to cast right there.

Just as I managed to foist the critter off, remembering to impale it on the corkscrew this time, Kel stopped tensing. I could tell, since the sharp, throbbing pain in my breastpocket disappeared…As did the constant attacking of the swarm. The rats, instead, stood stock still, frozen in position, their red eyes twitching back and forth even though the rest of their bodies could not move.

CHIRRUP!!

Yes, good job Kel!

Chi-Chirrup! Chirrup!

Ah, right. Good point.

Now….who, exactly had been behind this? I scanned the room, searching, looking…