Chapter 34: Planning

Formidable Giant Rat - Lv.16

Hp: 60/100

Tch. Even after all my attacks the formidable rat still had more than half of its hp left. And thanks to its crimson haze it now took less damage than it normally did. Was I worried? Not at all. It would take a lot more than this single rat to make me worried.

As I ran toward the rat, I thought about what Simon would do. Unlike me, he would have never charged toward the rat. Instead he would have kept his distance and kept on launching spells. But I wasn’t Simon. I was far too hot headed to just attack from the distance and not engage my opponents in close combat. There was nothing I could do about it. That was just the type of person I was. But even though I was running toward my opponent, it was not like I didn’t have a plan. No, before I left Simon made sure I never acted without a plan.

Directing mana toward my feet, I began to quickly circle around my opponent as I laid my trap. To the rat, it looked like I was looking for an opening. But that was not the case. And it would soon found out once I got it in the right position.

Baring its teeth at me, the formidable rat glared at me angrily. Since it wasn’t moving, I was assuming it was waiting for me to make the first move. Shrugging my shoulders, I lunged toward the rat with my spear. I didn’t want to disappoint it after all.

As it leaped to the side, I tightened the muscles in my hand and swung my spear in the same direction it was avoiding. From the surprised look in its eyes, I could tell that it hadn’t expected me to do that. The only reason I was able to do this slightly complex maneuver was thanks to the points I had put in dexterity. The reason I put some of my points into dexterity was all thanks to Simon.

When I was training with my spear, Simon told me that using a spear wasn’t just about swinging and slashing things. Instead it was about control. I needed to know when to lunge and when to block. If I accidently overstretched when I was attacking, my enemy would make sure to take advantage of my mistake. And if I allowed my enemy to take advantage of my mistake, I would be killed. Therefore I always needed to be focused whenever I was fighting with my spear.

But even though I caught the rat off guard, I could already tell that it would be able to avoid my spear by twisting its body in an inhumane way. If I tried attempting the movement it was doing, my spine would break. Yet that still wouldn’t be enough to save it from my attack. Concentrating on my spear, I began to pour mana inside of it in order to launch a dark bolt. I managed to time the release of the attack just right so that it would strike the rat directly on its heart. Or at least the place I thought its heart would be. I didn’t really know the anatomy of a right so I was just guessing.

With a pained squeal, the formidable rat crashed into the ground from the force of my spell. Directly into my trap. Pushing some mana into the ground, I activated my trap which caused several earthen walls to spring up around my opponent. A few seconds later, the rat was completed trapped inside of my earthen cube.

Normally at this point I would sink the box into the ground to kill the rat, but I decided against it. This was the only formidable rat I had seen after hours of searching and I wasn’t about to lose the corpse just because I wanted an easy kill. Crouching toward the ground and digging my left hand in the dirt, I forced several strong vines to spring up from the ground and reinforce my cage. Since I wasn’t that proficient with using plant magic, I sometimes needed to touch the earth in order for my spell to be used to its fullest potential. Once I finished this task, I took a glance at my reanimations to see how they were doing.

The moment I turned my head I witnessed the sight of a bloody berserker rat. Not my reanimated one, the one that was still alive. I took the next few seconds to watch the battle so I could see just how strong my reanimations were.

There were several reasons why the berserker rat that my reanimations were fighting was getting decimated. First of all were the levels. The berserker rat and my reanimated berserker rat were both level ten. Viola was level fourteen however. This already tipped the scales in how the fight was going to in. Not only that, but when my reanimations fought together, the possessed remarkable teamwork. The only reason I could come up with for this was they were technically connected to each other by their connection with me. Therefore they could sometimes tell what their partner was about to do. Not being able to feel pain also helped too.

Nodding my head towards Viola, I turned back to my battle. I could’ve helped my reanimations if I wanted too, but there was no need. They had their situation handled. In a few more seconds, the berserker rat would be no more.

Although it had only been a couple of seconds, my earthen cube had several dents in it. I guess it was a good thing I reinforced it with vines. Sensing its approaching doom, the formidable rat was probably going berserk inside of its cage. Trying to find some way to escape. I couldn’t blame it either since there was no oxygen in my earthen cube and the longer it stayed in there, the weaker it became.

Normally I would’ve put it out of its misery by now, but I was still pretty irritated with it. These scars on my body wouldn’t just vanish, so it was only right for me to make its death as long and as painful as possible. Right? The only thing I was concerned about was if this was actually the right rat. If it wasn’t, I was just going to have to torture all of the formidable rats until there were none left. The anger in my heart wouldn’t just fade after one death. No, it required much more than that.

Around ten minutes later, the battle was finished. I was a little bit disappointed since I thought that getting my revenge would be quite gratifying. But if I was being honest, waiting those ten minutes for the rat to die was just boring. But oh well. I was still glad that it was dead and that was all that mattered. I took the next few seconds to survey my surroundings before I decided on what to do next.

The berserker rat was dead, just like I thought he would be. Judging by his missing body I assumed that Viola ate its corpse also. I always tell her to wait to eat them so I could see if I needed the corpse, but she always forgot. I didn’t really mind this time since I now had a good chunk of corpses thanks to the traps that I had laid.

Another thing that was nice was that my berserker rat reanimation was still alive. I had already made a couple of them before, but they had been killed in my previous battles. I wasn’t able to make as many reanimations as I would’ve liked thanks to Viola’s appetite. It seemed to me that the stronger she became, the more food she needed to nourish her body. Her appetite wasn’t really a problem now though since these sewers were practically filled with food. All we had to do was find it.

My reanimations and I spent the next few minutes gathering all of the loot and all of the corpses. We ended up placing them in two separate piles so I could have an easier time looking through them. As I looked at the weapons I made sure to keep an eye out in the general direction of the corpses. Viola had eaten a few without my permission before, and I fully expected her to try to do it again.

The loot I received from the berserker rats and the giant rats were pretty mediocre. I received a few basic potions and some kind of barbed weapon. After taking a closer look at the weapon, I soon realized that it was a piece of armor that was supposed to go on your tail. Seeing as how I was missing that kind of appendage, this loot would go to one of my reanimations. It didn’t even take me a second to decide who to give to.

As Viola flicked her newly armored tail sporadically, I took a moment to get a good look at her. Thanks to all of the battles we had fought, I had gained quite a bit of loot. And not all of this loot was for humans. I had gotten some armor that seemed like it would fit rats, and some armor that seemed like it would fit bats. I gave Viola the bat armor I received since the rat armor didn’t have a gap in it for her wings. By doing this, I made Viola way tougher than she already was. It would take a lot to take her down now.

The only thing I was disappointed about was that her armor was made of bronze. Although I would’ve wished for her to have some steel armor, I already knew how lucky I was to begin with. Just finding armor that fit her was a blessing. Now that I was thinking about luck, my mind automatically went to my luck stat. My luck stat still stood at a zero and I briefly wondered if I should increase it. I did just level up from this skirmish so maybe I should just put points into it. Opening up my status window, I put my points into luck. What was the worst that could happen?

Status WindowNameColm MarythouAge: 16Race: HumanLevel: 15Gender: MaleTitlesThe Peerless Descender, Undead ProphetHealth: 220/240Mana: 95/260Stamina: 190/240~Strength: 10[15]Agility: 30[3]Vitality: 10[19]Dexterity: 20Intelligence:30Wisdom:25Luck:5~SkillsMana Affinity, Mana Sense, Air Magic, Earth Magic, Electricity Magic, Dark Magic, Water Bullet, Fireball, Necromancy, Life Drain, Advanced Meditation, Enhanced Vision, Enhanced Hearing, Advanced Concentration, Stealth, Pain ResistanceUnallocated Points: 0

Once that was done, I resumed my examination of Viola. The only piece of armor she had was a bronze breastplate which size could be adjusted by a series of traps. Although I had some other pieces of armor that would’ve fit Viola, I didn’t have her wear them. There were two reasons for this. One was that she would be slower because of the weight and the other was because of her berserker skill. I did not want her to transform only to realize that she couldn’t thanks to how tight the armor was.

After I examined Viola, I moved on to my berserker rat. Unlike Viola, this reanimation had some wounds on it. This was because Viola was fast enough to dodge most attacks and if push came to shove, she could just fly away. My berserker rat however was forced to take the hits like a champ. Which he did.

The injuries on his body ranged from small cuts to a big open wound on the side of his leg. From what I could tell, it looked like my berserker got this wound from a berserker rat’s vicious bite. Although my berserker couldn’t feel any pain I would still need to fix the wound up. If I didn’t, it would affect it in the middle of combat.

If I was being honest though, I didn’t really need to fix it. I could always make another reanimation to take its place. But I wasn’t going to do that since Viola was going to receive some wounds like this sooner or later so I needed to know how to fix them. Not only would it give me practice, but I would also gain experience for my necromancy skill. It was a win-win situation and all I had to do was sacrifice a little of my time in order to do it.

Telling my reanimated berserker rat to stay still, I began to think about how to fix the wound. I didn’t have any thread so sewing it up wasn’t an option. I would more than likely have to rely on my magic to fix up this wound. I just needed to figure out which one.

Air magic, electricity magic, and dark magic were out of the question. I couldn’t figure out any way for any of them to be useful. Water magic wouldn’t work because my level was too low and I needed ice magic in order to close any of the wounds. This left me with earth and fire magic.

If push came to shove, I could probably just cauterize the wound. I didn’t know how helpful that would be since there was always the chance I might accidently set my reanimation on fire. I hadn’t had time to train my fireball so it was still a little bit unstable when I created one. Therefore my only choices were earth magic or just ask Simon when I got back. In the end I chose to do something with earth magic because there would be a time when I wouldn’t be able to rely on Simon. I needed to start being independent before it was too late.

Placing my hand beside the cut on my reanimated rat, I began to slowly conjure some moss from the ground. Once the moss was big enough, I applied it to the wound, covering the sore. The reason the moss was able to stick was because I concentrated on making it have adhesive and healing qualities. Healing wasn’t the only thing my moss could do. I could also poison it in order to damage my opponents. I hadn’t had a chance to use it in battle yet since I never had the right opportunity.

After working for a few minutes, my reanimated rat was now covered in various patches of green. When his wounds finally healed, my moss would drop off without me having to do anything.

Once I was done working on my reanimation, I moved on to the corpses. A good bit of them were damaged thanks to the harmful nature of my traps but there was nothing I could do about it. The ritual to fuse the bodies would take more time, but my reanimation would benefit from it in the end. Walking closer to the pile, I removed the formidable rat, two berserker rats, and six giant rats. I let Viola devour the rest seeing as how I didn’t need them.

Starting with the giant rats first, I grabbed the two highest level ones by tails. I placed both of them in a clear spot a good distance away from each other. I didn’t want to accidently include them both in the same ritual since that would be a waste. Once they were in position, I dragged two of the rats by the leftmost one. Once they were there, I put them in a triangle formation and began to perform my necromancy ritual. A few minutes later and I now had a reanimated giant rat. I did the same thing with the remaining giant rats leaving me with two reanimated giant rats.

Once I finished creating them, I gave them the order to follow any reanimation that was a higher level than them. I also explained the hierarchy that they would need to follow, it went like this. They obeyed me first and foremost, then Viola, then whoever was the strongest. I did it this way so Viola or my other reanimations could guide my weaker reanimations in battle. Thanks to my necromancy skill improving, I could now have more reanimations that I could’ve before. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to give them orders so I needed to have some kind of failsafe.

My plan for these two giant rats was to have them fight in tandem with my berserker rat. They wouldn’t have a hard time doing that since that was what they naturally did when they were still alive. This would also allow them to win fights by having more numbers rather than more strength.

The berserker rats I had were put in the same ritual shape as the giant rats were. The only difference was that the formidable rat was in the middle. I didn’t want Viola to eat the formidable rat because I thought it would be a waste. Although the formidable rat wouldn’t be as strong as Viola, it could probably beat any other rat in the sewer that I had seen. Plus I would have more reanimations which was always nice.

I headed back to Simon’s base around fifteen minutes later. As I walked, I made sure to pick up all the loot that I had been storing away. Waste not want not was the go to phrase. Viola was perched on my shoulder while the formidable rat walked behind me, leading the other rats. I felt a small satisfaction as my reanimations turned to look at me. My army was slowly starting to come together. Soon nothing would be able to stop me.

AN: Thanks for reading and special thanks to DLAngel and NuitBlanche for providing some good tips.