Chapter 94 - Raid Preparation
Returning to my prime for ten minutes.
The price for that was either waiting five hours... or suffering ten minutes of uncontrollable madness.
Could I use that to calm down or suppress that tree over there, the one that looked like the World Tree despite having the completely unfitting name of "Little Tree"?
Obviously not.
Even if my power increased right now, I would probably have about as much presence to that thing as a single mosquito.
"Considering there might still be patterns I haven't seen... Yeah, I really was way too hasty."
Yesterday and today were the same.
Whenever there was no one beside me, I had a strong tendency to go completely overboard.
It wasn't something that had started yesterday or today, either.
The strange part was that I had been like this for so long that I barely even cared anymore.
The way to completely suppress the tree and make it bloom with new sprouts was simple.
I needed to make the tree completely lose interest in me.
Even if it wanted to pay attention to me, there needed to be so many other bugs around that it couldn't afford to.
Imagine not one mosquito, but a hundred mosquitoes attacking you at the same time.
Even if one mosquito was sitting on your leg and sucking your blood, if the other ninety-nine were buzzing around your face, you wouldn't have time to worry about the one on your leg.
"...Jjikjjiki, don't you have any family? Relatives, friends, or maybe some kind of village-sized community?"
It was a monster rat living in a forest with a monstrous tree like that.
Surely it would be useful.
And considering how quickly rats reproduced, there should be quite a large population of them.
If so, the madness that came once every five hours should be poured entirely into those guys.
Madness was like an infectious disease.
If I completely infected one of them with madness, it wouldn't take long before all of them became infected.
Apparently, people used a similar method when exterminating cockroaches.
They used poison with a delayed effect. A cockroach would eat it and return to its nest, where the poison would spread among the others.
Only afterward would the effect activate, killing them one after another.
"Jjik!"
"Can you introduce me to them?"
I was lucky.
Who would've thought the Chairman's annoying words would happen to come to mind at that exact moment and help me escape this difficulty?
I guess there really were things you could learn from your enemies.
I still had absolutely no idea why this thing had acted friendly toward me from the very beginning.
But there was no reason not to take advantage of it.
[Quest Generated! '...Seriously...?' - Find the group of Distorted Rats that harbor goodwill toward you and spread the power of madness among them. Although the rats infected with madness probably won't meet peaceful ends, it will certainly be an efficient method.]
[Quest Reward - Ring of Distorted Affection. Promotion Quest Exclusive Item.]
What?
Where did the exclamation mark go?
Our usually energetic System Window seemed awfully depressed today.
Did something bad happen?
Surely it wasn't suddenly feeling uncomfortable about me spreading madness to rats... to monsters, right?
If so, all I could say was that it was a little too late for that.
Did it seriously think I would feel sympathy for monsters?
Monsters inside a game?
No way!
"All right! Shall we go?"
"Jjik!"
From behind, the rat looked like it would be soft and fluffy as it rapidly dashed through the forest.
Wasn't its leg injured before?
Was it already healed?
As expected of a game monster.
It was surprisingly fast, so I quickly unsummoned Modaki and followed it.
Hey, I asked you to guide me.
Why were you running so fast?
I used my chains to follow Jjikjjiki, but instead of staying right behind it, I kept a moderate distance.
I still didn't know what kind of goodwill that thing felt toward me.
And I definitely didn't know what form that goodwill took.
For example, Dorphin also liked me, but he enjoyed tormenting me.
Levi also had goodwill toward me, but she was the type who enjoyed it even more the more broken I became.
For all I knew, even the horse this rat had been eating when we first met could've been something it had liked.
'The moment we reach the group, I'll use the skill and fully infect at least one of them with madness.'
I would have to be extremely careful during this process too.
When the group of badgers became infected with madness, or when those humans with monstrous physical abilities at the Fairy Lake were infected, things became impossible to handle.
I needed a method.
Like that time I made a cocoon to trap the Great Hero...
I could create a dome-shaped prison with chains, trap one rat inside, and prevent it from escaping.
Then, after it became completely infected with madness, I could release it.
Hmm.
That sounded good.
It would also be troublesome if they fought among themselves and wiped each other out, so I would have to intervene appropriately.
Hopefully, they didn't live too far apart.
They should all live close together.
Nice and cozy.
Packed tightly side by side.
The more they rubbed against each other, the more stressed they would become.
And that would probably make the madness spread even more easily.
"Jjik! Jjik!"
"Yeah, yeah. I can see them now too."
If these had been ordinary rats at the very bottom of the food chain, they probably would've lived in underground burrows.
But these guys clearly didn't need to worry about things like that.
Most of them were relaxing openly across a wide, flat field.
There weren't as many as I expected, though.
Maybe because they lived comfortably, they never developed the instinct to reproduce excessively in order to maintain their species.
"In that case... I'll just create that instinct for you."
Fwoosh!
The moment I prepared my Domain skill, black flames began wrapping around my body.
That familiar emotion, almost impossible to control, rapidly swelled inside me.
"Don't hate me too much, okay?"
Bang!
A faint darkness erupted from the madness that had taken black root inside my chest.
Naturally, Jjikjjiki, who had been standing near me, became trapped inside my Domain.
The startled creature turned around.
I quickly approached from behind, grabbed it by the back of the neck, and poured the power of madness into it.
Just like what had happened with Nalchi, its body gradually began turning black.
Even though this rat seemed much more intelligent than Nalchi, the infection spread surprisingly quickly.
And like Nalchi, it soon led to a rough, forced evolution.
[The Distorted Rat has become infected with madness and is beginning to mutate!]
It seemed they had changed the wording after the beta test.
Maybe they thought calling something an "evolution" after it became infected with madness sounded strange.
To be fair, Nalchi's transformation hadn't exactly looked like evolution either.
It had felt more like he had turned into some twisted creature.
"Mutation" definitely fit better.
[The Madness User's hope has seeped into the Distorted Rat, causing it to mutate into the 'Pure White Herald of Madness'!]
"...Didn't you just say hope? Then why did it become a Herald of Madness? I thought I was the strange one, but this game is pretty messed up too...."
The rat had originally been closer to gray.
But after its mutation completely finished, it became pure white and changed into something resembling an unusually large but otherwise ordinary bear-sized rat.
The intimidating and grotesque feeling from earlier had disappeared.
Its body had become slightly smaller too.
Honestly, it looked surprisingly plain.
"...Hmm! Go infect all of them!"
Sliiice.
"Jjiiik."
The very moment I thought it looked plain, the rat opened its mouth as if splitting it into six sections.
Six thin, tentacle-like tongues wriggled out as it answered.
I suddenly felt like I had created something that absolutely should not exist.
Thank goodness this was only a test.
"Jjik!"
"Yeah, yeah. Good luck! I've got my own work to do, so do your best!"
Activating my Domain made me feel stronger almost immediately.
But knowing that it would end after ten minutes made it difficult to feel happy about it.
In the end, it was only a temporary solution until I met Hayangi.
Still, I couldn't deny how useful it was right now.
That was exactly what worried me.
I might become too dependent on it.
"Let's get to work."
I produced chains and spread them underground beneath the large field where the rats were living.
There, I created a rounded hemisphere slightly smaller than the area itself.
Once all the rats currently visible moved above the hemisphere, I would pull the chains upward.
Then I would completely surround them from both above and below.
I would enter with them and explode my madness, infecting them.
After that, they would probably spread the madness among themselves.
"Jjiik! JJIIIIK!!!"
Jjikjjiki appeared and immediately began its sudden slaughter.
Shrill squeaks filled the area.
The rats tangled together in confusion, panicking and completely unable to decide where to run.
Just one madness-infected rat appearing among them had already thrown the entire colony into chaos.
Now I could understand why the Empire kept such an unfairly close eye on me.
I could understand it.
