The Rat's Gambit
As we moved south, the barren industrial landscape gradually gave way to vast stretches of farmland. Thanks to the artificial fertilizers developed through the advancement of both science and thaumaturgical engineering, the grain-producing capacity of this world had skyrocketed to absurd levels.
The southern region, already prosperous, had evolved into a breadbasket that not only fed the entire empire but still had surplus to export. If you wanted to put it kindly, it was a place where traditional values still held sway. If you wanted to put it harshly, it was the fiefdom of reactionary old-timers who wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of beastmen unless they were locals.
That was the south.
"We'll stop here for now."
We didn't march straight into the south. I parked the Behemoth near the border between the southern and western regions. The wolf beastmen under Mogant's command were exhausted from the long journey, they needed to eat, and most importantly, walking into the south with its deeply entrenched history of beastman discrimination without any leverage would be certifiably insane.
"I'll head to the slum near the Rubheim Marquis's estate. Most rat beastmen living in the empire are like that, but we get treated even worse than wolf, fox, or rabbit beastmen. We'll need to go deeper in."
"I trust you, 2nd Battalion Commander. What if I go with you?"
"Rat beastmen won't trust you no matter how famous a war hero you are, so long as you're human. It's much better if I go. In return, I need you to handle a few things."
"What?"
"Rat beastmen run on two things. Information. And money."
"So you're saying you want to take the money you squeezed out of Leonard Marquis?"
"I need one million crowns."
Handing large sums of money to a rat beastman. That's crazier than entrusting a fish to a cat. Rat beastmen were notorious among their kind for being savage and cunning.
But I trusted my 2nd Battalion Commander.
"Take it."
"And Commander— one more thing. Would it be possible to send a photographer? I need photographs of the submachine guns."
"There'll be one in the nearby town. The west is the region of technology and industry, so there's no way there wouldn't be one."
"If you give me the photographs of the weapons, I'll stake my life on convincing them."
"Don't stake your life. The money and the photographs can be lost. I'm more important to me than any of that."
Labelt-chi's goatee trembled.
"Understood. I'll wager everything I can do and make it happen."
"Good. I trust you."
To gather food and find a photographer, I loaded dozens of wolf beastmen onto the military trucks and headed for the village near the train station. As expected of a railway station on the trade route between west and south, the village was quite prosperous, and we found everything we needed. We had the money squeezed out of Leonard Marquis. We bought enough food to feed two thousand and loaded the wolf beastmen onto the trucks. We found a photographer too.
Then we returned to the Behemoth, and click.
"Developing the photographs will take about half a day. I'll do my best to finish as quickly as possible."
The photographs of the cargo hold stuffed with submachine guns, taken in the morning, arrived by afternoon.
"A central bank credit voucher worth one million crowns. And the photographs you requested."
"I'll be back within a week. Please wait here in the meantime."
Labelt-chi gorged himself on the bountiful food the wolf beastmen had brought, then snatched up the photographs and the money and dashed along the railway tracks, quickly disappearing from sight.
"Commander Volka. That rat beastman— the 2nd Battalion Commander— surely he's planning to run all the way to the Rubheim Marquis's domain in the south? From here, right at the border between west and south, that's quite a distance to cover on foot."
Mogant— Lucila's father— said with a grin. I smirked.
"Mogant, you don't know the characteristics of rat beastmen, do you?"
"No, I don't."
"Rat beastmen are small and agile. They're weaker than humans, but they can walk at the same speed as an average person, and when they really put on speed, they can overtake a car. Their burst speed is already insane, but the truly absurd part is their stamina."
"Stamina?"
"If they eat properly and get water, they can march for three days straight without stopping."
"That's... that's ridiculous..."
"I've seen it with my own eyes. So don't worry too much. The 2nd Battalion Commander is the most agile, quickest, and tireless soldier I've seen in ten years on the battlefield. He'll reach the Rubheim Marquis's domain in the blink of an eye."
I'd told him to be back within a week. I couldn't just sit around waiting that whole time.
"Mogant. Bring your people in front of me."
I had work to do.
"Basic unit drills. Proper handling of firearms. And let them experience my mana— the transmission technique. You all need to know what it feels like to be under my command, don't you?"
What I was best at. Military training.
Every city has its back alleys. Unlike the west, which had completely transformed into a full industrial city and factory district overnight, the south still retained many traditional buildings that preserved the atmosphere of the medieval era. The Rubheim Marquis's domain— the grain belt and the city of mages. It was a stinking, grimy back alley located among tall towers and ancient structures that Labelt-chi had run through nonstop for two days without rest.
He sniffed loudly, sampling the air.
His own kind were not the sort to be welcomed in these filthy back alleys. That was why most of them had retreated underground. Incredible agility and stamina. Silent footsteps. Overwhelming stealth even among all beastmen. Unlike wolf beastmen, who formed gangs, rat beastmen survived primarily as loan sharks in the underworld or as assassins.
"Smell."
Rat beastmen were especially sensitive to scent. They would mark the passages they used on the surface with special odors that only their kind could recognize, to distinguish them.
Labelt-chi familiarly pried open a sewer grate marked with the special scent and slipped inside. Unlike the expected torrent of foul sewage, the secret passage that looked like a sewer was clean and neatly organized. Labelt-chi walked and walked through the tunnel, and before long he had to listen to the sharp scream of a fellow rat beastman echoing from the darkness.
He quickly grabbed his own tail and lifted it high into the air. The pistol in his breast pocket was carefully set down on the ground.
"Longtail. One of us!"
Harsh whispers and cold stares flew toward Labelt-chi from the darkness.
"The smell isn't from our side. Where are you from?"
"The east."
"Why would an eastern rat come down south?"
"I want to do business with your leader."
Labelt-chi pulled out a thick stack of credit vouchers from his breast pocket and waved them.
"There's a deal that'll make money. I'm Labelt-chi of the Nine-Tail Clan from the east. I don't know who your leader is, but you've surely heard my name. You can't have never heard of the rat beastman who leads the Hellhound Brigade's rat forces, can you?"
The emotions in the stares from the darkness shifted slightly.
"We've heard of Labelt-chi. But how do we know you're the real thing?"
Labelt-chi pulled off the hood he'd been wearing and tossed it aside. The specially tailored military uniform that fit his body perfectly was revealed. Then he pointed to the Hellhound Brigade insignia clearly engraved on his breastplate.
"I don't think any of our kind would dare to impersonate this mark. Before the war, the leaders of each clan reached an agreement with the empire. Anyone caught falsely claiming this mark gets their tail cut off and is exiled. And look at my face. You've surely seen my face in the newspapers at least once."
The rat beastmen in the darkness fell silent. Then, with a creak, the iron tunnel door opened.
"Come in."
Labelt-chi walked boldly into the underground city, not hiding his military uniform. A small city of rat beastmen, built in one side of an abandoned underground canal. True to their obsession with money and information, from the start of the passage to the end of the village, there was nothing but market. Stalls and merchandise.
"You little tail-eating bastards!"
"Who do you think you're lying to right now!"
Eye contests and lies. The familiar city of his kind appeared before Labelt-chi's eyes. Unlike the other rat beastmen wearing tattered clothes made from cut-up grain sacks and flour bags, Labelt-chi wore his neat military uniform. The rat beastmen who had been squabbling and scheming fell silent in an instant, their gazes fixed on him.
"Hellhound?"
"We've heard of him! Labelt-chi?"
"The one who assassinated thirty high-ranking commanders of the Kramkin Kingdom, right?"
Amid the buzzing, Labelt-chi smiled and pulled out the credit vouchers, holding them up for all to see.
"One million crowns! That's a fortune! I want to meet your leader and make a deal! Let me see your leader! There's a big score that benefits everyone!"
The rat beastmen's gazes darted rapidly. And not long after, one of them approached Labelt-chi— a rat beastman armed with a thin dagger, his muscles well-trained and his calves lean and swift. In less than ten minutes, Labelt-chi had reached the leader's room from the entrance.
Rat beastmen were in a hurry. And they preferred things that were practical.
"Is the money real?"
Without any greetings or formalities, the leader of the southern clan asked directly. Labelt-chi produced the one-million-crown central bank credit voucher without hesitation and tossed it to the figure before him. The leader picked up the thick credit voucher, sniffed it, and examined each one meticulously before his goatee began to tremble.
"That's an enormous sum! And it's all genuine too. Must've come from those stingy machine-worshipers in the west, eh? I can smell the oil on it!"
"Correct. It's money Commander Volka squeezed out. And he's planning to squeeze the southern pigs dry too."
"Chik! Those southern pigs are going to be in trouble! They're clever and cautious!"
"That's why I need your help."
"A commission?"
"No. It's a trade. More precisely, a proposal."
Labelt-chi pulled out the photograph of the submachine guns and held it out to the leader.
"We have a thousand submachine guns. We can give you five hundred. And we've secured enough ammunition for all of you to use. If you want the money and the guns, we'll hand over everything."
"What's the price?"
"Information to blackmail the southern nobles. And your clan's relocation to the north."
"Chik! You want us to leave for the freezing north?"
"It won't be cold. Commander Volka will find you a home."
"A home? A home on the surface?"
All the rat beastmen gathered in the leader's room burst into laughter.
"Humans hate us! They won't give us a home! Even the trash in the slums hate us! We've lived in sewers everywhere we've ever been!"
"Commander Volka is different. He's the one who treated me and my clan members as equals for ten years and led us. We went through hell with him, and now we've earned the recognition of the empire's people."
Labelt-chi's goatee trembled. He raised his own tail.
"I swear on my tail. That man will provide us with a home. He'll secure enough food and proper rights for us. His older brother, the Northern Grand Duke, passed away recently. Commander Volka is now the ruler of the north."
"Commander Volka is the Northern Grand Duke?"
"That's right! This is an opportunity! If you want, you can just pocket the money I threw at you and keep living down here! But if you see this as an opportunity— if you think of that money as investment capital to secure a real home and real rights— then use the money and the weapons we'll provide to help us. We need information to blackmail the southern nobles."
"Chik!"
"And let's cross over to the north together. Grab the chance to live in a proper house with a real bed, not a stinking sewer. A house with a shower."
Labelt-chi raised his tail even higher and walked toward the leader.
"The north is broke right now! It's in chaos! That's why we have to squeeze money out of the south! And to do that, we need leverage to threaten them! Clan Leader! What will you do! Will you take my hand! Or will you just pocket the money and live in comfort!"
The rat beastmen chittered, exchanging glances. And then, at some moment, they all fell silent simultaneously.
"Ten years. Leader. Ten years. We've fought alongside Commander Volka for ten years. None of us have ever seen anyone like him. Everything I've said is true. If you need time to gather information, give me some. Check whether my words are true or lies. If they're lies, you can cut off my tail, and I won't complain."
When Labelt-chi's last words ended, the silence stretched on for a long time.
"Do you know the story of the bastard child that could break the marriage ties between the Marquis and the Viscounts?"
"I heard from the wolf beastmen on my way here that there were rumors of something like that in the south."
"It's not a rumor. It's real. And we even know which house the bastard is hiding in. If we have proper weapons— not daggers or poison needles, but real firearms— we could grab the kid. The Marquis's bodyguards and knights, even mages are protecting the place. You can't take it with daggers and poison alone."
Labelt-chi smiled.
"I can teach you how to use guns effectively."
"If you give us the money and the guns, and guarantee the future of our clan, we'll cooperate willingly. Capture the bastard and hand him over. If we bring that child back...
...it'll be enough to blackmail Rubheim Marquis, the pig king of the south."
The leader raised his own tail high into the air.
"I, the leader of the Twisted Tail Clan of the south— Kka-chi— swear on my name!"
It wasn't just Kka-chi. All the council members of the Twisted Tail Clan simultaneously raised their tails.
Labelt-chi's smile deepened.
"Let's go meet him. Commander Volka. The moment you keep your word, the five hundred submachine guns and that money are all yours."
The chittering filled the room. It was the sound of rat beastmen cheering with joy. And Labelt-chi gladly joined in their celebration.