The Ratstein Foundation Party (2)
Dozens of crystal chandeliers lit Dunholm's night in a dazzling blaze.
Baron Schwarzenstein's villa affair was the absolute height of extravagance.
"Make way!"
From the entrance, every gaze snapped toward them at once.
Dressed in a silk gown with her chin held high, Hilde strode proudly across the red carpet.
Behind her, Mani and I—clad in shabby servant's clothes—grunted under the weight of heavy luggage bags as we followed.
I can't believe I'm actually wearing a servant's collar. This is so humiliating I could die.
I quickened my steps to avoid trampling Hilde's long train, grumbling inwardly all the while.
Our plan had worked brilliantly.
The story—relayed through the embassy—that a high-nosed elf young lady from Adlerheim had come to the capital on a secret visit seemed more than enough to open the foundation's doors.
Of course, the process hadn't been entirely smooth.
Though a noble in name, Hilde was currently a penniless, washed-up young lady of the aristocracy. Renting the dress and expensive jewelry had wiped out a huge chunk of the village emergency fund.
Still, we succeeded in getting invited to the charity event.
"Ahh, a distinguished guest from Adlerheim! We welcome you most enthusiastically."
Inside the banquet hall, everything was refined and peaceful.
Greasy nobles and high officials bedecked with glittering medals. Representatives of major trading houses with potbellies clinked champagne glasses and wore their most artificial smiles.
"That one posing by the window is a director of the Northern Railway Company. And next to him is a member of the House of Lords."
Hilde whispered, covering her mouth with an ornate fan, only her lips moving.
I held a silver tray demurely and kept my head bowed low, diligently gathering their faces and whispered conversations like a radar.
"Haha, Councilor. This quarter's profits are excellent as well."
"Isn't this all thanks to Baron Schwarzenstein?"
I collected the titles brushing past my ears.
They match the list from the secret ledger we stole from the mine vault, down to the last letter.
So those people over there, putting on airs of culture—they were the accomplices who had fattened themselves by working our beastkin kin as mine slaves.
My gaze, scanning the banquet hall sharply, halted at a table in the corner.
That is...?
Among the human nobles in their lavish dresses, rat beastkin girls in crisp maid uniforms bustled about, clearing empty glasses.
Rat beastkin maids, huh.
Thick suspicion rose through my narrowed eyes.
Is that the good deed the foundation never shuts up about?
Rodent beastkin tended to be poor and frequently mixed up in crime. The foundation's official motto was that they provided vocational training to these rootless rodent beastkin and placed them in respectable jobs as servants or secretaries.
But something felt off.
The expressions of the girls in maid uniforms were frozen like wax dolls. Just looking at the fingertips of the one wiping a glass—they trembled. More than anything, those uneasy eyes that furtively watched the humans around them.
Was it because my senses had sharpened dramatically after awakening as the Apostle of the Hamster Wheel? I instantly read the true emotion crushed beneath their forced thin smiles.
It was terror.
"Honored guests."
At that moment, a tall man strolled leisurely up onto the ornate platform at the center of the hall.
Hilde whispered in a stiff voice.
"That's him!"
An elf man with platinum-blond hair neatly swept back, of infinitely elegant and refined appearance. Baron Schwarzenstein.
Given elven traits, his actual age easily exceeded several centuries, but his outward appearance wore the mask of a flawless young nobleman of pure, unblemished beauty.
"Behold, if you will."
The baron affectionately wrapped an arm around the bony shoulder of a rat beastkin maid who happened to be passing by, and gently stroked her head.
The maid's shoulder flinched. She forced the corners of her mouth up into an awkward smile.
"Bestowing warm employment and compassion upon impoverished, destitute minority races such as these. This is the pride and mission of our Ratstein Foundation!"
Thunderous applause poured through the banquet hall.
The baron bowed elegantly and continued his speech.
"Thanks to the excellent patrons gathered here tonight, our foundation will be able to pursue even greater ambitions. A fortnight from now!"
The baron raised his champagne glass high and declared.
"We plan to carefully select and invite some among you to a special charity party on Ratstein Island. There, you will see with your own eyes the remarkable results our foundation has wrought, enjoy a variety of events, and spend a perfect vacation!"
Ratstein Island. In a fortnight.
I gripped the silver tray so hard it nearly warped, staring holes through the baron's oily face.
Just what horrific thing is he planning on that remote island?
A short while later, the baron vanished down a corridor in one corner of the hall, saying he would hold a private discussion with key nobles.
"Hey, you sluggish little servant! You got champagne on my shoes. Aren't you going to bring a towel to wipe them right now?"
"Y-yes, milady! I-I'm so sorry!"
"Why so slow! Tsk, commoner stock is useless after all."
When the surrounding nobles' gazes turned our way, I immediately launched into my pitiful servant act.
That Hilde—she seemed oddly to be enjoying herself.
"Eek! I-I'll be right back!"
Playing along with Hilde's performance, I naturally slipped out into the dark corridor.
I immediately leaned against a secluded wall and closed my eyes.
Time to open the Apostle's power.
Go, horned mice.
First targets: the spirit horned mice I'd already scattered inside and outside the mansion. Next: the ordinary wild mice that had been crouching in every corner of this villa all along.
"Squeak?"
Alright, move in sync with the horned mice's control. Got it? When I give the order, fetch it right away.
"Squeak!"
My command was relayed secondarily through the clever spirit horned mice as antennas to dozens of ordinary field mice. The shrewd mouse swarm synchronized as one with my will and scattered into the cracks throughout the villa.
The swiftest horned mouse began to dog the baron's shadow at breakneck speed.
Vision share, begin.
No particular threats in sight for now. Nobles exchanging trivial chatter, businessmen haggling over black money—even scenes of sticky secret trysts. Through the murky vision of the mice, various scenes of the mansion flickered past as I doggedly pursued only the back of the baron's head.
The baron exchanged greetings with nobles, a leisurely smile on his face, then vanished into a tightly closed private lounge in the farthest corner of the mansion.
Huh, they're all gathered in one place?
Through the horned mouse's murky vision, the scene inside the lounge came into view. There, sprawled arrogantly on plush sofas, were the councilors who had been putting on cultured airs in the banquet hall earlier, and an elf man who was supposedly the Adlerheim ambassador.
Wait, that one's the chief superintendent of the Security Bureau, isn't he?
Even the bastard who had ignored and covered up my report when Polly was kidnapped was occupying a seat.
Click!
The moment the door closed, the kind, benevolent smile that had hung on the baron's lips cooled into something cold and venomous, like a viper.
"Ugh, by the World Tree!"
The baron neurotically scrubbed the hand that had just affectionately stroked the rat beastkin maid with a handkerchief. Then he flung the handkerchief into the blazing fireplace.
"Heh heh, you've had a hard time out there."
At someone's joke, the baron snorted irritably.
"It was revolting. I'm sick of those things too… And some inferior half-elf who rolled in from who knows where dares to crawl into my banquet hall!"
"Ah, you mean that little elf kid? Her family background seemed decent enough…"
"She's nothing but a bastard of base blood, no matter how you look at it. Isn't that right? Though her connections are useful enough."
The baron mocked Hilde and drained the liquor in his crystal glass in one go.
"Indeed. A mixed-blood? Look at that stunted height of hers, calling herself an elf… Ha! When the blood mixes, they drop to the level of beasts. May the World Tree watch over us!"
Even the Adlerheim ambassador snickered along with the baron's slander.
The human nobles seated around tossed a half-joking complaint, as if slightly hurt by the remark.
"Heh heh, Baron. We here are humans, you know?"
"Ah, but of course you are the chosen ones! The perfect exception."
"Puhahaha!"
The scene of them clinking glasses and snickering among themselves.
It was right then.
A rat beastkin maid who had carefully entered to clear empty wine glasses, tense as a bowstring, tangled her feet and staggered. The silver tray tipped slightly and, of all people, bumped the chief superintendent's shoulder.
"What the hell… What's this!"
The superintendent's face twisted in displeasure.
"S-squeak…! I-I'm sorry…!"
The maid dropped flat to the floor, her face deathly pale.
The baron's reaction was a long way from the word "mercy."
"You savage… Unterensch!!"
The baron's face twisted for an instant into that of a vicious demon.
"You small, inferior little rats should be bowing your heads in gratitude just for being allowed to breathe the same air as exalted beings like us! How dare you defile this place!"
Thud!
The baron mercilessly kicked the thin abdomen of the maid prostrate on the floor with his hard shoe.
"Kyaaaah!"
The girl screamed and rolled across the floor. As if that weren't enough, the baron reversed his grip on the ornamental silver cane he held and madly beat the girl's back and head.
"You vermin!"
Crack!
The dull impact of breaking bones and screams filled the lounge in a way that made the skin crawl. The high officials and nobles sprawled on the sofas savored their blood-red wine as they watched the horrific spectacle—as if watching some cruel arena entertainment.
"Puhahaha!"
These sons of bitches…!
My fists trembled so hard the blood drained from them.
"Haa, haa… Damn it, got dirty blood on me."
After thrashing her for a long while, the baron caught his ragged breath and tossed the bloodied silver cane onto the floor. The girl, beaten black and blue and unconscious, was dragged out like a piece of luggage by other human servants who had been waiting, and dumped in a corner.
"There, there, Baron. Calm yourself. After all, the streets are full of disposable consumables like that, aren't they?"
The superintendent filled the baron's empty glass with a sly smile.
"By the way, this party on Ratstein Island! I'm greatly looking forward to it."
"Same here! I heard the hunting event in a fortnight has been prepared especially specially?"
Hunting? They're holding a hunt at a charity party?
The combination of those spine-chilling words made every nerve in my body stand on end. Without delay I redirected the mouse swarm and began combing every nook of the villa's study and secret rooms like searching for lice.
"Squeak!"
The information the horned mice and field mice brought back after infiltrating the study through the narrow ventilation ducts poured into my mind in a flood. Scraps of ledgers densely recording the flow of suspicious black funds. And unidentified black stone fragments mixed with a metallic reek and a strange spice scent.
What the hell is all this?
In the moment a thick question cut through my boiling rage—
Apostle…!
Right now, from deep beneath your feet, a most dreadful smell is rising, it is!
A smell?
It is no ordinary stench of blood. A most repulsive and unholy… dense demonic energy is what I sense, it is!
The words Camilla had secretly warned me about at the teahouse flashed through my mind like lightning.
In the capital's back alleys, I sense traces of an ominous, sticky magic.
I immediately spun the mouse unit around.
Get down below right now!
The mouse unit raced as one toward the source of the stench. Soon, even to my nose, sharing vision with the horned mouse, a sticky, slimy, nauseating smell came wafting.
The place they reached was a wine cellar underground, locked tight as a drum. On the surface it was stacked with oak barrels, but at the bottom a cool crevice yawned open.
After a long time of successively passing through narrow vents and mouse holes into the deepest, most secret space vibrating with a bizarre stench—at last the hidden basement appeared in the horned mouse's murky vision.
W-what the hell is this!
The floor of the hidden basement. There, a vicious magic circle drawn in congealed dark-red blood coiled like a snake. From the ceiling hung thick iron chains and rusty slaughterhouse hooks that cast a cold gleam. For the basement of an elegant noble villa, the atmosphere of a nauseatingly grotesque slaughterhouse…
And in a corner of the magic circle, white fragments swept together like trash.
Those are… bones, aren't they?
A chilling premonition crawled up my spine, making my skin crawl.
Oh no…! No! This must not be, it is!
Rodentia and the spirit horned mice, sharing the vision, all wailed as one.
If only they had been animal bones. Skulls that resembled human structure yet were absurdly small and delicate. A tailbone jutting from the end of the pelvis. And soaked deep into the marrow—a scent of kin that even I could not help but recognize by instinct.
My breath caught in my throat.
Th-these crazy bastards…!
Selling our rat beastkin kin as slaves to mines or factories wasn't the whole of it. They were offering our people as sacrifices in the basement!
I roughly severed the vision share with the horned mouse.
"U-uaaah… squeak…!"
Leaning against the dark corridor wall as if collapsing, I expelled ragged breaths like a beast. Cold sweat poured damply down my spine.
Bones of our kin are rolling around in the villa basement? These bastards deserve hell!
They aren't just corrupt. They need to be smashed right now! I should kick down that tightly closed door this instant and turn them all into hedgehogs with my bowgun!
No. Calm down. Endure it. I don't even have a weapon on me right now. This is the perfect heart of enemy territory.
I had to inform Hilde of this horrific fact first and get out of here immediately. And I had to call in the Heresy Inquisition. That ominous magic circle and the pile of bones in the basement—they were clear evidence of demon worship that would allow the Heresy Inquisition to intervene!
I braced myself against the wall, staggered to my feet. The moment I was about to take a step to hurriedly leave the corridor—
From the shadows silently rippling behind me in the dark corridor, someone seized me around the waist in a tight embrace.
Huk!
The instant I reflexively clenched what was in my bosom and tried to take a defensive stance—
"Kyaaa! Good heavens, who is this?"
A woman's voice, so lively and seductive it made my skin crawl, clung stickily to my ear.
"Isn't this our Rodentia's adorable little apostle kid?"
I whipped my head around in shock.
The one looking down at me while back-hugging me from the darkness was a sensual black-haired beauty in a splendid black dress as if the night sky itself had been woven into fabric.
The obsessively clingy cat goddess who had nearly made Rodentia faint by trying to lick her all day long in Oakwood Village. Felicia was looking down at me with interest, a playful, seductive smile on her lips.
"Well now, little mouse. Just what have you been secretly peeking at during this fun party?"
Felicia stuck her tongue out.
"Nyaah~"
"Squeak!"
Suddenly my cheek was licked.