While standing by the Gate in the m, Mahya excimed, “Shit, we fot Lis’s advice about gettier armor. John, would you mind lending me armain?”

  I handed her the armor she had previously used and asked Alfonsen, “Do you have armor?”

  “I do,” he said, retrieving a leather armor adorned with small metal ptes in strategic areas and the rgest shield I had ever seen. The silver-bluish color of this shield was also unlike anything I had ever seen.

  “What’s the shield made of? I never saw anything like it.”

  Radiating pride, he said, “Mithril.”

  Mahya whistled and said, “Wow, that’s expensive.”

  “I’m from the royal family; money is no obstacle,” he responded with a tone of dession, looking at us down his nose.

  Mahya and I exged a g remained silent. Sometimes, a single gnce says it all; there is no need for words.

  I ed Rue’s body in the snake armor Lis had made for him and asked him, “Is everything okay? Are you fortable?”

  “Yes! Kill! Snakes! Yum!”

  We all burst into ughter. Scratg his ear, I assured him, “We’re looking for monsters, but if we e across a yum snake, we’ll do our best to elimi for you.”

  The speed at which his tail wagged made me fear for its safety.

  “Do we pn on being invisible?” I asked.

  Mahya shook her head and said, “No, we he moo see and attack us. If not, we’ll be stuck searg for them for hours. When we cross back, we’ll do it while invisible.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense.”

  Mahya took out wooden poles and started stig them into the ground a few meters from the gate.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “We don’t need unwanted visitors.”

  When she finished pg all the poles, we crossed the Gate. Oher side was a forest filled with short, twisted trees, thick leaves, and the st of damp soil. The smell reminded me of the ss in New Orleans: wet, musty, and with uones of rotten eggs. Sneaking along, I focused on listening ily to the various noises around us, determined not to be caught off guard. That thought reminded me of my mana sense, and I spread it as far as possible. After walking for about twenty minutes, we heard noises in the distance, but nothi ehe field of my mana sense.

  Mahya told me telepathically, “From now on, we should only unicate via telepathy.”

  We pressed on, and the noises drew nearer until a gigantic rat suddenly burst out from the shrubbery. It was even bigger than Rue! I jerked in surprise, widened my eyes, and briefly stared at it. Fortunately, Mahya had more experiehan me, so she quickly killed the rat by shooting a bolt into its eye while I was still stunned.

  I shook my head. You’re here to kill monsters. Don’t freeze if you actually see them.

  I took out my crossbow and started looking around more ily.

  Mahya said, “John, start harvesting it for the crystal. Alfonsen and I will take care of the other monsters. If we need your help, we’ll let you know.”

  I split my mind to stay aware of my surroundings and enpassed the rat in mana. Oddly enough, it didn’t dissipate. I diag and discovered it was an ordinary animal, or at least close to ordinary. The internal ans of the rats in this pce were in different locations, and I found a beast core, but it wasn’t a monster.

  “These are not monsters but mas,” I sent to both of them.

  “We o get back to the Gate NOW,” Mahya said urgently.

  In unison, Alfonsen and I asked aloud, “Why?”

  “These are rodents. They swarm. I don’t want to fight hundreds of them.”

  Hundreds souerrible, so I immediately said, “Let’s go.”

  We hurried towards the Gate when rats began leaping on us from the trees. I stashed the crossbow and sed it for the two Katana-like swords. Of all the ons Lis trained me in, those were my favorites and a gift from him.

  A rat leaped at me, and I struck it with a sword. It flew away but didn’t look injured. Instinctively, I covered the bde with a mana edge and hit the rat that tried to jump me. It took its head off. More and more rats were leaping at me. They stunk to high heaven, and each leaping rat assaulted me with waves of stench. Their movements fused my mana se was hard to keep track of what was happening whehing appeared three times: In my nose, in my field of vision, and my mana sense field, so I tur off.

  I kept fighting and killed a few rats.

  Oww!

  A rat bit my leg from behind. I immediately activated my mana sense; being fused is better than being attacked from behind.

  More and more rats leaped at me, and I fought them with both swords. The training that Lis forced me to do paid off big time. I moved on instind didn’t have to think about what to do. I moved and fought, almost like a dance. A rat bit me on the shoulder, and I nearly dropped the sword from the pain. I overcame the instinct, split my mind into the third part, and started casting Healing Touch.

  Mahya yelled, “John, store the rats and keep moving. Don’t stop to fight.”

  I tapped the rat closest to me with my foot and gave the and to store it. To my surprise, I stored all the rats within the range of my mana field.

  Excellent!

  I rawees as I fought, stored them all, a running towards the Gate while fighting and healing myself. I wasn’t an expert fighter yet and got bitten several times, but I healed myself a going. A rat bit my ankle hard, and I fell, rolled on my back, killed it, healed the leg, got up, a running.

  I went through the Gate to Earth and realized I was the st to make it through. I looked at the others. Mahya looked fine, Alfonsen had blood on his legs, and Rue looked the most injured. Immediately, I healed him. Bites covered his legs, and a nasty bite on his neck made him whine in misery.

  After I finished healing him, he said, “Rue hate rats!”

  “Rue, you said a plete sentence!” I excimed enthusiastically and hugged him. “Now practice saying the sentences instead of shouting them into our heads.”

  Alfoomped over to me and barked, “Enthusiasm wait. Heal me!”

  Diagnosing him made it apparent that he had several bites on his legs, including one quite deep. After healing him, I examined myself and discovered that my armor was destroyed. I knew I had endured multiple bites, but I was so immersed itle that I didn’t register all the bites; I healed myself a on fighting. Cheg my mana to figure out how much I healed myself, I saw it was 1470/9300.

  Wow!

  I used a lot for the mana edge and to heal Rue and Alfonsen, but it still was a lot of bites.

  To be on the safe side, I diagnosed Mahya, and she had a minor scrat her hand. I was gd I diagnosed her because I detected an iion or disease in the scratot only the skin wound. After everyone was healed, I cast on Rue, Mahya, and myself.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Of course,” I said, took a deep breath and added, “That was intense.”

  “I hate swarmers,” Mahya said with an angry glower.

  We sat for a few mio recover. Rue put his head on my p, and I stroked him.

  Mahya told him, “gratutions on the levels.”

  I identified him:

  RueBonded FamiliarLevel 8

  “Buddy! You got three levels! grats!”

  “He got two levels,” said Mahya. “He was level six.”

  “Not five?”

  “No, he was level five after the dungeon and level six after the mother.” She gave me a reproachful look and asked, “You fot to identify him after the snake fight?”

  I nodded, embarrassed, and rubbed my neck. She and Alfoarted ughing.

  “Hey, don’t ugh! You grew up with this shit; I didn’t. I remember to use most things, but it takes time to bee a habit. For almost forty years, I didn’t have those abilities!”

  She patted my head like a child and said, “Yes, dear. Whatever you say, dear. There is a reason your Archive moniker is ‘Clueless.”

  I gave her a dark look and cut this versation short.

  After fifteen minutes, Mahya said, “We should start processing the rats.”

  Alfonsen made a sound of disgust, like he was choking. “Their st is rather offensive.”

  I gave him a medical mask and said, “Put this on; it might help.”

  Mahiya held her hand to me. “ I have ooo, please?”

  We dohe masks, and I took out all the rats. Wow! I knew I had fought a lot of rats, but not that many. Over thirty rats y in front of me! And Alfonsen was right, they stunk to high heaven. It was like a bination of a baby diaper and roadkill that were left for a week to bake in the sun.

  Ugh!

  I activated Appraisal, and the only thing that drew my attention was its head.

  Beast Core 2-4 Gold

  I didn’t remember how much I appraised the beast cores of the wolves and bears in Tuone, but I knew for a fact that it was higher. After removing the core from the rat, I uood why. It was as small as a grain of rice.

  “Aren’t those too small?” I asked Mahya.

  “We merge them.”

  “How?” I asked in surprise. I never heard of such a thing.

  “The same way you merge a dungeon core. You hold two together and flow mana into them until they bihat’s the differeween mana crystals and gems. And the capacity, of course.”

  I stared at her, pletely bewildered, and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Lis never expined?” She asked, looking surprised.

  I shook my head.

  “I won’t go into all the uses mana crystals have. I’m sure you have a few books on the subject. Maybe even books you learhe nguage already. Lis has tons of books on mana crystals. But we’re really after their ability to fun as mana batteries.

  “You store mana in several ways, but gems or crystals are the most effective. You use diamonds or mana crystals without aspect to store mana feneral use. In ems, the aspects are i and ot be removed. Fortunately, you know how to remove aspects from mana crystals, so we don’t have this problem.

  “Also, mana crystals are best for this purpose because you store the same amount of mana in one of these tiny crystals as a twenty-carat diamond or even bigger. If we merge them to this size,” she showed me a circle the size of a grape with her fingers, “something like thirty crystals, we reach the ste amount of a diamond over a thousand carats big. Besides, your house’s charging station is inpatible with gems, so we need mana crystals.

  “After I pce them in the boat’s system and bance all the flows, we take them out, put them in the charging station, auro the boat when full. If we fill all the nodes, we’ll have enough mana to sail to the US and back.”

  “Appreciate the expnation,” I said, giving a nod. “How many rats do we have?”

  They both took out all the rats they had stored, and after ting them, we had eighty-seven rats.

  “Is this enough?” I asked Mahiya.

  She sighed and said, “No, we least five times that and preferably ten times that.”

  Alfonsen looked aghast, shuddered, and shrieked, “Are you proposing that we partake in a battle agai hundred rats? Have you lost your mind? They pose a risk, smell terrible, and are revolting!”

  I was in plete agreement with him. Eight hundred rats? I shuddered, too, and said, “He’s right. No way I’m fighti hundred of those stinky things.”

  Mahya’s shoulders slumped. She sighed, and said, “Maybe the Gates in Tibet will have a better option.”

  We tio process the rats, and all the while, my mind was w to find a solution. After removing the cores from all the rats, I turo Mahya and asked, “What do you want to do with all the bodies?”

  She g the pile of rats, then back at me, shrugging nontly. “Let’s throw them bato the Gate,” she suggested, her voice casual, as if this was an everyday task.

  “How?”

  “I’ll show you.” Mahya grabbed o, holding it up by the tail. She walked fidently toward the Gate, touched the inside of one of the anchor stones with one hand, and with a swift flick, tossed the rat inside.

  Huh?!

  My eyes widened as the rat disappeared through the Gate. “How did it get through the Gate?”

  “I activated the Gate when I touched the anchor stone,” she expined matter-of-factly. “And sihe rat is dead, there’s no problem throwing it in. It won’t work with a live creature.”

  After we fihrowing all the rats in, I cast on Mahya, me, and all around the Gate to get rid of the blood. Satisfied with the result, I turo Mahya and said, “I might have an idea of how to collect the rats that we need.” I scratched my as the thought solidified in my mind.

  Mahya’s eyes lit up with i as she stepped closer. “How?”

  “If we poison them, will it harm the beast cores?” I asked.

  Mahya shook her head. “No, and it’s a good idea,” she admitted. “But how will we get them to ihe poison? Mas are smart; they won’t just eat it because we want them to.”

  “Rats like cheese,” I said, tapping my temple as the idea clicked into pce. “So we use the smelliest cheese we find. It should mask the smell.”

  “Ugh,” Alfonsen groaned from behind us, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “The odor of smelly cheese is more potent than that of the rats.”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled, “but we he fuel to reach the US, and I don’t know about you, but I prefer to smell stinky cheese instead of fighting murderous rats.” I gave him a pointed look, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

  He sighed audibly, his shoulders slumping i. In a resigone, he replied, “Yes, I cur.” He paused for effect, ping the bridge of his nose. “Cheese is the more favorable choice when pared to bites.”

  After returning to Hangzhou, we took a day off to recover from the battle, the looking for stinky cheeses and rat poison.

  In the first cheese shop, Rue said, “Cheese yum! Rue cheese!” And, of course, he wahe smelliest ohey had. I bought him one, which disappeared in four bites, and the rest of the options for us.

  In the cheese shop, he announced, “Cheese stink! Rue hotel!”

  “If I remember correctly, in the previous shop, you wahe sti cheese they had. Expin to me how the smell now bothers you. Hmm?” I told him.

  He looked up at me with i puppy-dog eyes and wagged his tail. “Rue smart! Rue ge mind!”

  “You mean Rue wants to go watch a movie?” I asked.

  He lowered his head and watched me from the er of his eye.

  Busted!

  I took him back to the hotel, and we tio look for stinky cheeses. After we bought fifty kilograms of them, we went looking for rat poison. We were looking for a liquid poison to i into the cheeses, but unfortunately, we only found grains.

  Wheuro the hotel, ut on surgical gloves, took thin wooden sticks, made deep holes in the cheeses, and stuffed poison grains inside.

  I called Rue and asked him, “Smell this, please.”

  “Stinky!”

  “Does it stink like cheese or like poison?”

  “Cheese stinky!”

  Good enough!

  It took us hours to stuff all the cheese, but finally, we were done ao sleep.

  The day, we returo the Gate. Mahya agaihe camoufge poles, and we crossed the Gate, this time invisible. The other side of the gate was full of bones.

  Ugh!

  The rats ate their family. The thought made me shudder in disgust, with goosebumps all over my body.

  We moved all the bones so they wouldn’t prevent us from crossing bad crept to where they first attacked us. We didn’t see or hear a si.

  I telepathically asked them, “Shall we tinue, or leave the cheese here?”

  “Maybe it’s better to go back towards the Gate where we don’t have to go far to pick them up, spread the cheese, make a lot of noise, and cross the Gate back when they e,” Mahya suggested.

  “endable idea,” responded Alfonsen.

  We returo the Gate area, and fifty meters from it, we started walking around and scattering the cheeses. After we scattered all the cheese, we stood by the Gate, celed the invisibility, and started shouting and making noise.

  I shouted, “Stupid rats! Delicious food here! e eat!”

  Mahya and Alfonsen snickered but said nothing.

  When we heard rustling irees, we quickly crossed the Gate and decided to wait a day and see what happens. We returo the keside and spent the rest of the day swimming and pying ier. We didn’t use the E-foils; the ke was too peaceful, and we didn’t want to disturb its tranquility.

  The day we crossed the Gate while invisible and immediately saw corpses of rats. We walked around, collected them all, and I asked Rue, “Look for the ones we ’t easily find and store them. Give them to me when we cross back.”

  “OK!”

  Good thing his shouts were mental, or all the living rats would be here in minutes.

  We collected more and more bodies—I personally collected over two hundred and I had no idea how many they collected. After ten minutes without finding another body, I returo the Gate.

  I asked them, “Are we done here?”

  All three of them sent a “yes” in unison. Rue, of course, yelled it, and we crossed the gate back.

  Oher side, we removed all the rats and started processing them. I didn’t t the rats, but simply opehe head, took out the core, threw the rat into the Gate, and moved on to the rat. We tio work like this until it was dark, and me and Mahya cast ht balls and tio work. At some point, I could no lohrow rats into the Gate. Something blocked me.

  After casting invisibility and attempting to cross the Gate, I came face to face with a mountain of corpses. I pushed the mound, but only the ones I touched moved, and it was disgusting. Switg to telekinesis, I kept pushing them further and further until the mound was teers from the Gate.

  I feel sorry for the Traveler who will try to use this gate in the near future. The stench will be appalling.

  We finally finished processing all the rats sometime in the middle of the night. I ed Mahya and myself and also the entire area around the Gate, auro the hotel just after sunrise. After ting all the crystals, including the crystals we collected the first time, we had nine hundred and sixty-four crystals.

  “Is that enough?” I asked Mahya, rubbing my shoulders and gng at the pile.

  “I’ll know for sure after we merge them to a good size, but I think so,” she replied, her eyes narrowing in tration as she examihe pile.

  “We’ll take care of it tomorrow,” I said, stifling a yawn. “I’m going to bed.”

  Before I went to sleep, I went to shower. I had the spell, but I needed water. I took a long shower, scrubbing myself and washing my hair repeatedly, shuddering now and then aing goosebumps. It was a harrowing experience.

  Before falling asleep, I thought about it and cluded that while it was disgusting—especially the stench of the rats and opening their heads to remove the cores—overall, this experience was good for me. I saw I was no longer helpless but could fight to defend myself and deal with particurly unpleasant situations.

  But there were still things I o work on. Like remembering to move and not waiting for Mahya to remind me. Also, practig my mana se was a fantastic tool, but I wasn’t using it enough. Lis taught me to fight, but I o develop myself in those things. Overall, I felt I did well in my first actual battle. It felt like a signifit achievement. I was also gd we didn’t have to fight eight hundred rats. I shuddered at the thought.

  It was always better to work smarter, not harder.