Defense of Hamster Wheel Village (1)
Late afternoon, the setting sun licking the outlines of the northern forest.
The spirit horn-rats I had stationed thickly around the village outskirts snagged some suspicious uninvited guests in their sight.
The moment their sharp warning hit me, I wasted no time dragging the Rat Ranger force into the woods.
In the underbrush of a forest sinking into cool shadow, green berets melted into nature as naturally as water seeping into soil.
Horn-rats. Share your vision.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and the view of a horn-rat flattened under damp fallen leaves projected straight into my mind.
Crunch. Crunch.
Crude leather boots tramping through grass and leaves.
"Ugh, all this fuss just to catch a few damn rats?"
One of the men in the shared vision roughly slashed at the brush with his sword, grumbling. Cheap, dented iron plate; a scar covering half his face. Typical thugs who had switched careers from adventuring.
"Shut up and walk. The pay's fat enough, isn't it? Client side seemed pretty damn thirsty for this one."
The man at the front growled low as he adjusted the crossbow on his back.
"Said they don't have nearly enough game for the upcoming festival. Rodent beastmen have gotten real scarce lately."
"That's why we crawled all the way out to this backwater dump, right? Word is there's a settlement here crawling with over a hundred of the little shits. We just need to roughly pin down the location, headcount, and entry routes, then bounce. Leave the real bloodletting hunt to the main force."
Their filthy conversation struck my eardrums cold through the horn-rat's hearing.
I had expected this.
The butterfly effect of completely stripping the Blackstone Mine had looped all the way around and finally reached our front yard.
I snapped my eyes open.
Toward the Rangers pressed flat behind thick tree trunks, I sent a quiet hand signal with a chill gaze.
Don't let a single one leave alive.
At the merciless gesture, the Rangers led by Temi nodded silently.
The rodent beastmen's distinctive small frames and light footsteps made for near-perfect stealth in a forest they knew by heart. Even the soft rustle of leaves in the lowest brush vanished completely into the wind.
The moment the thugs were about to pass unguarded beneath a massive ancient tree—
Fire.
Silent lips moving.
At the same instant, the strings of Ratpid Bowguns snapped from the trees above and the brush to either side.
Thwip-thwip!
"Guhk!"
"Urgh—!"
No time even to scream. Sharp arrowheads mercilessly punched through the throats and thighs of the two lead mercenaries. They toppled like rotten logs, frothing blood.
"Wh-what the hell! Shit, ambush—!"
The man behind them recoiled in terror and clawed for the sword at his waist—too late.
"Hiyah!"
Rangers launching from the branches overhead brought blunt clubs down hard on the crowns of their skulls.
Crack!
"In the Goddess's name! Die!"
With the dull sound of fracturing bone, the man's eyes rolled white.
The ambush was a success.
"D-damn it! It's a trap!"
The remaining two mercenaries went pale and tried to flee—but they were already rats in a jar.
"Squeak! Squeak!"
"Aaaagh! My—my ankles! Argh!"
Field rats poured out of the brush on every side like mad things, instantly sinking teeth into legs and ankles. A second rain of arrows slammed without mercy into the thrashing men's thighs.
This forest was our territory from the start. Scum like them could never escape alive from the dense encirclement of Rat Rangers who knew every scrap of terrain by heart.
"Don't move! I'll put a hole in your head!"
I pressed the cold twin muzzles of my pistols dead-center against the last mercenary's forehead. My finger already half-squeezing the trigger. The man's legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees in the mud.
"S-spare—!"
"Shut up."
I dug the muzzle harder into his vein-bulging brow and looked down coldly.
"Blackstone Mine got cleaned out completely, so you're short on game, right? That's why you've been tearing through the capital's slums, grabbing every rodent beastman you can find?"
"H-how the hell do you—koff!"
"I'm the one with the gun. I ask the questions. When does the Foundation's main force hit? Size and composition?"
Feeling the chill of the barrel, the mercenary's teeth chattered like a leaf in a storm as he spilled everything in a rush.
"T-tonight past midnight! Around dawn, I heard! Ex-adventurers and... former soldiers! W-we're just the advance scouts confirming the approach is solid! Please, spare me!"
"Tonight, huh..."
I looked up at the sky without much interest.
Even the last blood-red edge of sunset had vanished beyond the forest ridge. Pitch-black darkness was settling heavily over the woods.
"I answered everything! I-I don't know anything else! So please just let me go!"
"Fine. Just like I promised—I'll send you on your way. To the afterlife."
"Huh...?"
I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
Mercy was a luxury for bastards who tried to sell our own kin. Always would be.
From the belfry of the Hamster Wheel Village sanctuary, an urgent bell pealed as if it would tear itself apart.
The small iron bell that normally marked worship hours swung with wild, desperate force.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
At the choking, frantic peals, villagers who had been laughing and chatting while preparing dinner poured out into the central square all at once.
"What's going on?"
"Did a monster come down from the mountain?"
Murmuring residents.
I vaulted up onto the platform in one bound.
"All hands, attention!"
At my declaration, a smothering silence dropped over the square.
"As of this moment, I declare a state of emergency for the village! Tonight, the Ratstein Foundation bastards are coming to drag us off as slaves!"
"W-what did you say?"
"Oh gods, the mine people finally made it here...!"
Just as the deathly pale residents began to tip into panic, Sena stepped forward before the platform, raising her heavy shield high.
"Everyone, calm yourselves! There is no need to fear!"
Sena's distinctive clear, firm voice filled the plaza.
"Everyone, follow the guides to the underground sanctuary and take shelter at once! The Goddess of the Hearth and the Lord of the Hamster Wheel watch over us! Those vermin will never set foot past our threshold!"
Perhaps thanks to Sena's rock-steady cry, a strange sense of steadiness began to return to the eyes of the trembling girls.
Never thought we'd end up using the underground sanctuary as a bomb shelter.
It was spacious and deep enough inside—perfect as a shelter for the beastmen to huddle together.
Under Sena's calm command, the residents evacuated underground in good order.
"Rat Rangers! Full assembly!"
At my cold order, mouse-eared girls in green berets formed ranks on the drill ground.
There was not a shred of fear on their young faces. Only razor-edged killing intent burned bright in every eye.
"We'll fight too, Chief!"
Some of the braver villagers who refused to evacuate stepped forward, gripping pitchforks, pickaxes, and wooden mallets tight.
"We won't be dragged back to that hellish mine as slaves again!"
"In the Goddess's name! Squeak!"
They had never received proper combat training, but the fighting spirit ready to tear out the enemy's throat right this second boiled just as hot as any Ranger's.
"Good. I like that spirit! You'll handle supply and support behind the Rangers. Carry arrows, and if anyone's wounded, evacuate them immediately!"
"Understood! Squeak!"
I jumped down from the platform and ran straight for Mani's smithy.
In one corner of the forge, I stopped before the door of the warehouse we had kept locked tight all this time.
"Mani. Open it."
"For real? ...So the time's finally come to pull this nightmare out."
I wrenched the lock open like I was smashing it.
"No time left to hoard anything for later."
Creeeeak.
The heavy iron door swung wide, revealing the weapons we had been saving, cold and waiting.
Five brand-new Adlerheim Empire needle rifles seized from the Blackstone Mine garrison.
A mountain of mine-blasting explosives still in their wooden crates in the corner.
And priest-made Molotov cocktails the kitchen crew had packed tight into empty glass bottles with sticky slime oil.
"Rangers! Start hauling these first!"
We dragged the explosives out of the underground storehouse first and buried them without mercy along every major forest path the enemy was likely to use.
"Uncover those traps we dug earlier, right now! Lay leaves over them naturally!"
"Scatter every last caltrop along the approach to the village entrance! I want holes punched clean through their boots from sole to instep!"
The once-peaceful Hamster Wheel Village rapidly finished fortifying.
The Rangers repaired the traps they had previously dug. I liberally sowed sharpened caltrops along every path the enemy would charge down.
On the highest watchtower and the sturdy rooftops of the houses, Mani and the Rangers set up the repeating ballistae.
Clank!
The heavy, vicious metallic sound promised bolts ready to spit out at any moment.
"By the way, Mani—that thing. Can we use it right now?"
Once the weapons were in place, I pointed with my chin at the center of the square.
The giant Hamster Wheel Tractor prototype that had just started warming up was belching thick steam from its rear.
"Boiler pressure's cranked to the limit, but... well..."
Mani crossed her arms with a thoroughly dubious look.
A grotesque mash-up of crude steel plates and wooden boards. Visually it radiated enough oppressive weight to steal your breath. The problem was that it had never undergone a single proper field test.
"It'll roll forward, that's for sure. But the damn thing's so stupidly huge that's the issue. Hard as hell to swing around in these tight, dark woods at night, and it'll be way too sluggish to actively tear through the middle of their lines."
"What, so it's just a decoration?"
At my incredulous question, Mani shook her head hard.
"No! Once it starts mindlessly bulldozing, it'll do that insanely well!"
So it was useless as a mobile strike asset for us to charge into their lines first.
"Then we save it."
A trump card to smash their formation flat in the single most decisive moment.
Before long, a cool, perfect darkness settled over the village.
Hamster Wheel Village, where the peaceful smell of evening cooking used to rise. Tonight, as if by agreement, every light was extinguished.
In the pitch-black dark where even the moonlight held its breath behind clouds, the taut bowstrings of the Rangers on the pointed palisade and weathered rooftops surrounding the village were drawn tight toward the forest.
And at last, the spirit horn-rats I had planted at the mouth of the forest path drove a sharp signal straight into my mind.
[SQUEAK!]
Dozens of hostiles detected approaching in stealth.
"They're coming. All units, ready to fire."
In the darkness, the Rat Rangers and I quietly hooked our fingers around our triggers.
This village was the sanctuary we had broken our bones to build.
We would hand it over to no one!