System used his tentacles to dig beneath the ash and snow. The snow at the border of the Warren Pins was only about ten centimeters deep, so he easily extended his tentacles into the dirt below. After a bit of searching, he managed to pull out a small number of grass seeds.

  He wanted to try out his new [Pnt Growth] skill, and these grass seeds would work well enough for his tests.

  In the snow-covered Lilt Forest, this skill wasn't exactly ideal. He wanted to know how well it would work in the much warmer Warren Pins and whether it could quickly produce fresh pnts for food.

  However, just as System was about to use [Pnt Growth], his antennae picked up some unusual noises.

  A dark gray rat nearly half a meter long suddenly emerged from an underground cave ten meters away.

  It was soon followed by nearly twenty more gray and brown rats. They ranged from ten to fifteen centimeters in length and emerged from the rat hole one after another.

  These rats seemed to possess wisdom. They first surrounded System's ant subjects instead of attacking immediately. It seemed like the rats didn't want to allow any ants to escape.

  The dark gray rat in the lead didn't walk on all fours like an ordinary rat. It stood on its hind legs like a human and was wielding two white daggers made of bone in its paws. The daggers seemed a little too rge for the ratman's body and looked more like bone short swords in its paws.

  The dark gray ratman wore various items made of bone fragments on its body, which appeared to be armor. However, the protection the armor offered was basically zero, and it was more decorative than defensive.

  Some saliva flowed from the corner of the ratman's mouth, and its eyes showed human-like greed. It was obvious that it already regarded System and his ant subjects as food.

  The ratman spoke in an unknown nguage, and it was clear that it possessed a high level of wisdom.

  ...

  System had a strange expression on his face as he observed the rats. He'd just been worrying about the ants' food supply, and now a rge amount of food had delivered itself right to his door.

  In the past few months, System and his ant subjects had successfully climbed up the food chain. With Shava's ability, she could be said to stand at the peak of mortal strength.

  Shava, who could easily defeat even ferocious gnoll warriors, would obviously have no problem killing this ratman.

  However, to System's understanding, the Warren Pins should be the territory of gnolls and pigmen. He'd never heard about any ratmen before.

  Whoosh!

  Before System had a chance to give Shava an order, a green spike more than ten centimeters long sank into the ratman's chest. The ratman screamed and colpsed to the ground, its body twitching from the spike's paralysis toxin.

  The little meatball flying in the air retracted a long meat tube back into his body, at the same time conveying a feeling of joy to System.

  After seeing the ratman fall to the ground twitching, the remaining rats were dazed for a moment, then immediately turned and fled in all directions. Some ran back inside the cave they'd just exited, while others simply fled into the distance. Perhaps there were other rat warrens there.

  System didn't let Shava chase after the fleeing rats. Having such a huge ratman as food was enough for his ant subjects to survive until they reached the grassnd three hundred kilometers away. Even half of its body would be enough to tide them over.

  However, System's command didn't stop the little meatball. Meatball spread his wings and stretched out his tentacles as he dove toward his target, directly knocking a little rat to the ground.

  "Father, I caught one!"

  The little meatball flew back to System holding the body of a little rat and sent a somewhat proud mental message.

  System sighed helplessly in his heart. Because of the ck of food these days, Meatball had only eaten dirt and grass, so his mood had been very low. System could only coax the little meatball like a child, saying that as long as he caught some food, he could eat meat again like usual.

  It was precisely because of this that the little meatball hadn't waited for System's instructions before attacking the ratman.

  "Then you can eat it."

  After the little meatball heard System's words, his body immediately squirmed, transforming into a giant mouth full of ferocious-looking teeth. Meatball happily bit off half of the little rat's body and started chewing noisily.

  System didn't watch Meatball eat. Instead, he walked over to the terrified ratman who couldn't move because of the paralysis toxin.

  System used his tentacles to pull a dagger from the ratman's hand. The dagger was made from the polished bones of some creature that System couldn't recognize. It looked very delicate and sharp. Its handle was wrapped in some kind of unknown brown skin or fabric. He grasped the dagger with a tentacle and thought the weight and bance felt pretty good.

  He found a line of strange marks on the bone dagger, which seemed to be words, but he couldn't recognize them at all.

  While he'd learned many words in the few months since he'd first arrived in this world, System had gotten zier about learning new nguages ever since Nellis had started acted as his transtor.

  However, even if Nellis hadn't fallen into a deep sleep, she only knew the elven and dragon nguages. She might not even recognize this ratman's nguage.

  After eating the golden acorn, System had inherited the knowledge of a druid who was fluent in multiple nguages. Unfortunately, System didn't have the qualifications to obtain the druid's full inheritance, and one of the parts he'd lost had been the druid's knowledge of nguages.

  Having decided to put an end to the ratman, System held the bone dagger with his tentacle and pointed it at the ratman's throat.

  However, just as he was about to take action, he pulled back the dagger. System stretched out his tentacles to pull the dark-green spike out of the ratman's chest.

  Meatball's paralysis toxin was quite effective, and the toxin was long-sting as well. The spike would only need to have the toxin reapplied after another ten days or so.

  System estimated that after pulling out the green spike, a creature the ratman's size would probably remain paralyzed for another two hours.

  He turned his head to look at the little meatball who was still chewing on the rat and suddenly felt a little irritated.

  Why did Meatball have to use poisonous attacks? If System killed the ratman right now, there would undoubtedly still be paralysis toxins in the ratman's blood, and his ant subjects would undoubtedly suffer when they ate it.

  System now had to wait for the paralysis effect on the ratman to be lifted. Then he'd stab the ratman's throat with his dagger and have Shava dismember it with her twin bdes. The ant caravan could then continue on their way with a rge supply of food.

  Fortunately, the little meatball hadn't used his red needle that contained deadly toxins this time. If he had, nobody aside from Meatball himself would even consider eating the ratman.

  ...

  System let his ant subjects continue resting. He wrapped his tentacles around the ratman's two daggers and used them to dig into the soil beneath the snow. As the paralyzed ratman looked on, System tried to use [Pnt Growth] to make some grass seeds germinate and grow.

  Even after System used [Pnt Growth] continuously for ten minutes, the grass seeds had only sprouted a one-centimeter-high bud. No matter how much power he used, the bud would no longer grow.

  He guessed that the skill had worked poorly because the temperature was still too cold at minus ten degrees, but it might also have been because the skill's level wasn't high enough.

  While System was using the daggers to dig into the soil and stabbing the ground out of boredom, his antennae suddenly detected a foul odor.

  It seemed that System's actions with the daggers had put a lot of psychological pressure on the ratman, causing the paralyzed ratman to soil itself...