Chapter 75
Gren returned to the three girls and started banging his s.h.i.+eld. "Let me know if you hear something coming." After sitting there for a few minutes, Gren realized that nothing was going to happen. "Any other plans to get their attention?"
"Making a lot of noise is just going to make them scared to approach this area. If you spread the smell as you're cooking some meat then it might attract them. I've used it before to attract a pack of wolves to an area that made it easier to hunt them. It should work with the rats as well." If Shenzi thought that it would work then it was worth a shot. He felt a bit stupid for thinking that banging his s.h.i.+eld would work but now there was a different solution.
There was only one problem that Gren could think of. "How do we spread the smell? I don't know wind magic." He did have a few spell books that had wind spells in them but they required knowledge from a beginner's wind spell book that he didn't have. There was a good chance that he'd be able to find it in the Merchant Republic of Doga or if it there then there was a library on an island to the south that would definitely have it; however, only magicians could visit there so he'd have to go alone.
Shenzi didn't know a polite way of telling him that he was being an idiot. "Are you always so stupid when it comes to thinking about things that don't involve magic? Just wave something around like a fan. You've got that s.h.i.+eld you can use so just wave that." Gren decided to ignore the abusive language and to just follow her advice.
Gren set up his cooking pit and started a fire. The system didn't have stone or brick unlocked yet so the cooking pit was made of solid iron. He'd have to remember to wait for it to cool down before he stored it again; the temperature of the stored objects were preserved in the pocket dimension and he already had an accident caused by placing something from it that was too hot.
After cooking several pieces of boar meat, there was finally some noise from down the hall. Gren's arms were getting tired from waving the s.h.i.+eld so he was almost glad to hear it. The meat itself was eaten by the women while he was waving the s.h.i.+eld. There was a rat approaching the trap, occasionally stopping to nibble on the pieces of its dead friend. They were truly disgusting creatures; only their own kind could stomach to eat their flesh.
Gren got the rat's attention by lightly clapping his hands. The rat didn't call its friends like it was supposed to and instead slowly crawled to the trap. "Why is it that when I want them to come in a swarm it doesn't happen?"
"This
Shenzi's methods seemed brutal but the rats would kill Gren's group if they got a chance; there was no reason to show any mercy. Gren put the trap back in place just in time to see a group of rats charging at them through the door. Gren gripped the handle on the trap that he added after confirming how the points work. Trap kills would count as something killing itself with his trap but if he held on to the trap then it would count as him killing them. This was the only way for the kills to count towards the research points.
When the rats poured into the trap, Gren could hear countless screams of pain coming from them. They were slowly being grinded up on the blades and spikes thanks to the rats behind them pus.h.i.+ng them further inside. The dead rats were piling up and the rats behind them tried climbing over them which only caused more casualties as they met new layers of blades and spikes. The trap was getting clogged up due to the ma.s.sive number of rats.
"You girls stand back." Gren turned around to make sure that they followed his instructions but noticed that they were already far away. He already had a plan for when the trap got filled up. There were pipes placed along the ceiling of the trap that had holes facing downwards. Each of the pipes led to a hole that was next to the handle.
Fire alone wouldn't travel through the pipes evenly so he used a combination spell that used fire and water magic to produce a large amount of steam. Soon, the rats that were still clinging to life inside the trap itself were completely dead. With them dead he could store them away to make room for more; he had to use the water left on their bodies to pull the ones further back closer to his position so that he could clear the trap.
Looking through the open door, there were a handful of rats left on the other side of the trap. The trap wasn't needed anymore so he stored it away and launched icicles at each of the remaining rats. Their deaths were swift, unlike those of the rats before them. "Well, we can't be sure that there aren't more ahead. Want to keep going?"
All three of the girls were shaking their heads. "I think we should call it a day and block off that exit from earlier." Shenzi was used to the death of animals but she was sure that she would have nightmares about what she just witnessed. Their flesh was torn off their bodies and bubbling up as they screamed in pain. Gren's methods were efficient but too brutal for her taste and she wasn't sure why he was acting casual about it.
"Understood. I'd say that we've earned the payment with this. Let's head back." When they got to the hole, Gren helped Shenzi up first and then the two of them a.s.sisted the kobolds in getting up. Shenzi reached down and helped him up once the kobolds were up. "You girls go back upstairs. I'll block off this hole and meet up with you."
After the others left him alone he had the system scan the hole. The system came up with a metal frame with bars to block both sides that would fit the hole so he had the system place it into the proper position. It was extremely obvious that something was on the other side of the bars but if someone decided to break through them then it wasn't his problem. It would prevent any rats from breaking in and that was all that he needed it for.
Now he could officially say that the job was complete. He just had to sweep through the cellar one last time to make sure that nothing was in it. Shenzi and the kobolds were waiting by the stairs so when he was done doing the final check he just met up with them. "Alright, ladies, we're all set. Make sure you've got everything because we're leaving."
Gren pulled out a hammer, nails, and several planks to cover up the broken hatch before climbing up the stairs. The light reflecting off the snow blinded him for a short while until his eyes could adjust. After everybody was outside, he nailed the boards over the hatch as best as he could with the wood underneath being rotted.
"Hey, Gren, where did you leave the cart?" Gren turned around to look towards where he left it. Gone...
Gren couldn't help but laugh. The cart was the only thing left that his system had created besides Ahk's axe that wasn't marked with the FMC label. The other weapons were all broken or lost and his armor was sold. Even if he reported it stolen there was no way to determine that it actually belonged to him. "I guess it belongs to someone else now. I'll just make a new one when we get home."
Although he would normally be angry at someone stealing his stuff, the cart was cheap and he was in a good mood. Killing all of those rats ended up getting him another seven research points. Why worry about something that was worth less than two thousand points when he just made over seventy thousand? He almost had enough research points to get the Simple Mechanics research project that was needed for both the Internal Combustion Engine and Firearms research projects.