Although she was illiterate, the female ratman still had the ability to speak.

  System had originally pnned to interrogate her for a few days and ask her more things, but after only two days, she died.

  Because System couldn't speak and his only option had been to torture her, in addition to the fact that the her physical condition had become poor soon after the interrogation had started, System and Bck had only learned a few words of the ratman nguage after a whole day.

  It was only because System had already known the [Pgue Language] that he could figure out a few words of the ratman nguage.

  ...

  At first, the female ratman had only been feverish. After a day, she'd fallen unconscious, and some purple and bck pustules had appeared on her body. She'd started twitching soon after that and had quickly died.

  The corpse of the tragic ratman was very unpatable and exuded a foul odor. Neither System nor his ant subjects had any interest in eating this kind of rotten food.

  His subjects' bodies had reacted badly when they'd eaten the regur pgue-bearing rats from the Warren Pins, and their bodies had twitched from time to time, but a pgue of that level wasn't fatal. As long as they stopped eating rat corpses, they would slowly get better.

  System noticed that the pus oozing out of the female ratman's corpse was very strange. He could feel some intimate emotions from the pus, just like the ones from his [Pgue Mucus], but he couldn't control the juices oozing out of the pustules.

  However, although it couldn't be controlled, when System spit his [Pgue Mucus] onto the pus, the two merged together. This gradually formed more [Pgue Mucus], which could then be controlled and recycled inside his body.

  The recycled [Pgue Mucus] could quickly replenish his health, just like a life potion from the games and novels of his previous life.

  At this point, even a fool could understand that the ratman's death had likely been caused by System's [Pgue Mucus].

  Most likely, when System had been practicing maniputing his [Pgue Mucus], some of it had spshed onto the unfortunate ratman, causing her to be infected with the pgue bacteria.

  It seemed like the bacteria in the ratman wizard's bottles and jars weren't as useless as System had originally thought. It was just that they had no effect on insects.

  This pgue was clearly effective on ratmen, but either it had no effect on insects, or the effect was extremely small.

  System specuted that the pgue carried by his mucus should be effective on warm-blooded animals, but not on cold-blooded animals.

  ...

  Over the course of the next few days, System tested his [Pgue Mucus] on some small rats, insects, and other arthropods, confirming his guess.

  [Pgue Mucus] was indeed only effective on warm-blooded creatures. It had no noticeable effect on insects, scorpions, fish, or shrimp.

  However, his [Pgue Mucus] was extremely lethal to rats. Not only could a spsh of his mucus infect them, as long as rats simply smelled his [Pgue Mucus], they would develop symptoms of fever after a few hours. After another one or two days, the rats' bodies would be covered with sores, and they would die while oozing pus.

  If his [Pgue Mucus] touched a rat's skin, it would accelerate the pgue infection. Instead of dying within two days, the rats would then die within six hours.

  System felt that the female ratman who had died likely hadn't touched his [Pgue Mucus], but had only smelled it.

  If any wounds on a rat's body touched the [Pgue Mucus], or if it was swallowed directly, the rat's death would arrive within an hour.

  The rats would squirm and struggle on the ground, with dark purple pustules growing on their bodies at a speed visible to the naked eye. They would then suddenly die when the pain and struggle were at their most intense...

  ...

  The effect of System's [Pgue Mucus] was very strong, but perhaps because the germs and the living mucus had fused, it wasn't very contagious.

  If pure [Pgue Mucus] was exposed to the air, it would cause a fatal blow to any warm-blooded creatures that smelled it. However, although the corpses of rats that had died while oozing pus due to [Pgue Mucus] would also emit a foul odor, this smell wouldn't continue spreading the pgue.

  Of course, if those rat corpses infected with germs were force-fed to other rats, those rats would also die.

  Now that System knew just how deadly the pgue he carried was, he was relieved after testing its infectiousness. If his pgue caused the popution of rats and birds nearby to go too low, it would definitely be something he regretted.

  After all, if the popution of rats and birds in the pins decreased sharply due to the pgue, it would cause insects without natural enemies to reproduce rapidly and completely devour the pnts.

  When food became too scarce, System would have to migrate with his ant subjects again.

  ...

  During these five days, System's pgue experiment on the little rats had gone smoothly.

  Nothing special had happened, and the ratmen that System had been looking forward to encountering hadn't appeared again.

  Instead, System saw tired gnoll warriors retreating from the direction of Lilt Forest, with some bearing injuries to varying degrees. He didn't know if it was because of a battle with the remnants of the Winter Legion or for other reasons.

  Because System was conducting an experiment on his [Pgue Mucus], when he saw these gnoll warriors, he selected one of the teams that was passing by as test subjects.

  He first changed the color of his body so that he could camoufge himself in the grass. After that, he spit out a small ball of [Pgue Mucus] onto the path that the gnolls would have to pass through.

  When the gnolls arrived, System made the ball of mucus suddenly explode, spshing pgue germs all over the gnolls' bodies.

  Perhaps because [Pgue Mucus] had a certain level of corrosiveness, the thirteen gnolls were in chaos for a while. It wasn't too long before they continued on their way, though.

  System didn't follow them. He only used [System's Eye] to observe them from thousands of meters away in the sky.

  These gnolls were much stronger than the average ratman, but they were also less resistant to pgue than ratmen and rats. Their resistance was at about the same level as birds.

  After just two hours, the gnoll warriors began to show symptoms of discomfort. After two more hours, one gnoll died. An hour after that, except for one gnoll who seemed to have used some method to resist the pgue and escape, the other twelve gnolls were all dead.

  Because the gnolls had been moving fast due to being in good health for the first two hours, they had already traveled nearly fifty kilometers. System had no intention of going any closer to observe the gnoll corpses.

  He estimated that if his [Pgue Mucus] was sprayed directly onto a gnoll warrior's wounds, the gnoll would die within a few minutes. However, this only referred to ordinary gnolls. If the target was a gnoll that had been promoted to the magic or extraordinary level, System didn't know whether his pgue would still be effective.

  ...

  He didn't spend much time thinking about gnolls, since his colony shouldn't have any conflicts with gnolls in the near future.

  When System returned to the nest after his experiment, he went to see the little meatball again. After so many days of research, System had finally made progress in activating [Morph]. He pnned to activate the talent in himself in the next few days.