Once the rat had been sure of the distance between itself and those armored people, it stopped. It looked around to see if it was alone, and it saw something. It saw a group of rats in front of it. The dark rat had no feeling of kinship between itself and those other rats as they had been far too separated from the same family tree. The monster rats were originally rats, but had soaked up magic power. This caused them to mutate into a new, more powerful species. With the dark rat evolving once as well, it had been further separated from its ancestors.
The dark rat looked over to the other rats; they had not yet been aware of it. The rat approached them under the effects of its abilities, and decided to train one under used skill. The group of rats had begun to hear a whisper in the back of their minds.
[Stand up and begin to snarl.]
The rats didn't understand why, but they felt an instinctual need to follow this command. As they had no reason not to, they stood up and snarled and growled. At what? Nothing really, the command just told them to snarl. Then, not the group of rats, but the dark rat heard something.
[Skills: Rat Command have leveled up!]
The rat took note of this, and then used another command.
[Walk out into the street.]
The rats began to move, but then stopped. Their instincts to live and wisdom of the dangers of humans told them not to, however, this command was stronger than before, so their instincts clashed and they felt dazed. They proceeded to follow out the previous command though. The dark rat took note of this: if the command went against the rats nature it would cause a battle in their minds. The rat then kept commanding them for a while, until it heard.
[Skills: Rat Command have leveled up!]
It appeared that the rat had found a good way to use its time. The rat sent a command to the group of rats.
[Walk out into the street.]
This time, the rats followed the command albeit hesitantly. They walked into the street, and no one seemed to notice. The rats then heard another command.
[Attack a human.]
This action was completely ignored by the rats as this would go extremely bad for them if they did. It seemed even standing there made them very uncomfortable. The rat had an idea.
[Come back to the alley.]
This command they followed happily; the group of rats had happily scurried into the alley. Then something awful was heard.
[Fight each other.]
This command went ignored, completely resisted by the rats. There had been 2 small rats and 2 big rats, a family. If these creatures were human, they would have been the very image of a nuclear family. The dark rat decided to try something else. It ran up a building and looked for another group of rats, which it found. It commanded the original group to go to the other rats, and the dark rat followed along. Then each group of rats heard a command.
[Fight.]
While the rats may have been the same species, they did not harbor feelings of kinship with one another. Each group began growling, and a fight took place. They clawed, bit, and maimed at each other. The original group won, but with heavy injuries and one casualty. The mother rat had died in the battle.
[Skills: Rat Command have leveled up!]
The dark rat looked on and used its newly leveled up skill.
[Walk into the street, and attack a human.]
The injured group of rats began to walk; they were nervous along the entire way. The rats were not nervous about going into the street, they had done this before, but they were worried about the part after. Attacking a human. The humans were dominant in this area, but with the commanding voice being more powerful, they didn't feel like they had a choice.
The rats arrived at the street and saw a group of heavily armored humans. The rats walked up, and attacked the one in the lead.
*****
Sheila was walking on the street, but had still been thinking of that presence in the alley. It could've been nothing, but there was something about it. As she walked on the cobblestone road which was part of the path back to the cathedral, but suddenly she sensed it again. It was coming from an alley not too far from where they were. She continued walking, straight towards that presence.
"Hey captain, you missed the turn!" A cat-eared girl behind Sheila said.
Sheila responded, "I felt something up ahead, go without me."
The car-eared girl said, "No, we'll wait here for your return."
Sheila heard this message and made a thumbs up to show that she was alright with this. She walked up, barely a meter from the rest of her team when she felt a sudden scratching and scraping noise against her leg. It was a group of rats, attacking her. She stared down at them and felt a separate presence influencing their minds.
"A royal rat!?" She thought to herself in surprise, but then she noticed something. This presence had been dark, like the kind she felt earlier. A royal rat's presence wouldn't have felt like this. She took the aura centered in her chest, and had it flow into her eyes. She saw the energy. It connected to each of the three rats attacking her and led back to a large gathering of this energy. Dark was the only word to describe this presence. Indescribably dark. A void of no return for any light. Not evil though, confused she began to walk towards that alley, but felt someone bump into her. She turned her head to the right and saw a boy with black, messy hair who was wearing an apron.
*****
*****
Henry had gotten off work. Besides the incident of him tripping, there were no other problems. Everyone had times when they messed up, but Henry couldn't get his mind off the accident. He clearly felt himself tripping on something about the size of a small dog, and there was also the missing steak, destroyed grate, and trail of meat juices. What the hell had happened? Henry went behind the inn to where the grate led. On his way he noticed a gathering of people on the street. He looked over and saw a crushed rat, its middle crushed in. This reminded him of his life when he was on Earth.
Henry was no ordinary boy, he was reborn in the world of Nrober from Earth. He was a sophomore in high school who had tripped and bumped into a guy holding a toaster connected to a mobile generator. Henry and the toaster had fallen into a lake, and he was electrocuted. Somehow his soul was pulled into Nrober, and he was prompted with a status screen. Henry was an isekai manga nerd and immediately realized what was happening. After thanking all the gods that existed and celebrating, he looked over to his skills and stats.
[Status:]
Name: Henry Reklaw
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 0
Level: 1
Hp: 45/45
St: 50/50
Mp: 33/33
Str: 3
Dex: 3
Agi: 3
Wis: 20
Int: 28
Cha: 3
Con: 3
Mnt: 3
Lck: 10
Skills: Translate
SP: 10
AP: 10
Henry immediately questioned his surname. Reklaw? His surname had been Walker though? It must've been from his new parents then! Henry chose to ignore that and looked at his Ap and Sp. These must stand for ability points and skill points. As an isekai nerd, Henry had a great intuition when it came to these things.
Henry looked at his stats, they had been mostly 3s. The high intelligence, wisdom, and luck must be from his situation of reincarnating. Henry then looked at his skills: [Translate], a classic. Henry then looked at his Ap, and proceeded to put 5 in dexterity and 5 in agility. Henry then looked at his Sp. Suddenly a skill board opened up, interesting. This was just like the manga and light novels he read! Henry looked through the skills and found one he liked.
[Storage]
[Can place up to 50 Kg into it. You can not place living creatures into it.]
[Cost: 5 Sp]
Pricey, but understandable; it was a pretty good skill after all! Henry then purchased it and continued to look through. There he saw something that sounded pretty cool.
[Alchemy]
[The mixing, combining, and manipulation of ingredients.]
[Cost: 3 Sp]
Bought! Then something else caught his eye.
[Water Magic]
[The use of magic to create and manipulate water.]
[Cost: 3 Sp]
Purchased! Now that's all I can do, time to head into my new isekai life!
[Finalizing process]
[Creating [Unique Skill] because of rebirth]
[analyzing current abilities.]
[Skill created: Hasty Craftsman]
[Hasty Craftsman]
[While doing any kind of craft, the speed of the process is multiplied by 2. All skills will also be buffed along with Agi.]
This was great! He can now head into the world and be an isekai hero! That was 16 years ago. Oh how naive he was. Henry thought to himself, "Where had my life gone to shit?" Then he bumped into a heavily armored woman.
*****
The rat stood there from the alley, wondering why the group of rats hadn't died, or killed anyone yet.