Today's Earth date: January 18, 1992

I can fall ten stories without taking damage now. Sorry, Mom. I tested that the way you think.

The Iomallach Governess also informed us that the would-be assassins have been arrested. They were part of some fringe rebel group seeking to overthrow the royal family.

That's lucky for them. We're all so grossly overpowered that anyone without the Diary would be stupid to try and kill us when we knew to be on guard.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Wayne and Fergus joined General Poltur and her men on a ride out to Targitaus' ranch.

The ratmen beat them there.

Thanks to Probe, Wayne knew something was wrong well in advance of his party's arrival. While the others urged their horses to a gallop to catch up, he Blitzed ahead to investigate, finding the situation more dire than he originally believed. When he was close enough for the ranch to be fully on his HUD, he could see a dozen or so blue dots bunched up in one of the barns and three blue dots in one of the three dormitory structures.

Wereratdolphin chirps echoed across the property.

"It's a big swarm, maybe forty seven rats and two batches of civilians," Wayne reported to Fergus.

"Should have brought the whole party."

"Yeah…"

When Poltur invited Wayne and Fergus to join her on a ride out to the ranch, the run felt like it would be an interview. At its worst, the suspect would attempt to flee. A coordinated ratman attack was not on the list of potential problems, nor was having to defend any civilians from said rats.

"I'm going after the group in the barn at the far end. The others are in a dormitory. It'll be the first building you see when you round that bend, white paint. Three blues inside."

"The General will have words for you about you giving orders, but she agrees with your plan."

Wayne dropped in at a side entrance for the barn, dispatching the few rats blocking the door. Before he went inside, he made note of the pairs of red dots that stuck to orderly squares on his HUD. He guessed those were caged arena monsters.

He ripped the door off the wall with Urg and went inside.

The ground floor of the barn looked down on rows of cages divided by walls of thick stones. Wayne saw hellhounds in the enclosures immediately closest to him. All of the security for the monsters themselves seemed to be in order, which seemed odd at first. His initial assumption was that the rats were betraying Targitaus and robbing him of his monster inventory.

But the monsters had not been touched. The rats were focused on the people who worked here.

Two rats fought to wedge a pry bar into the frame of an impressively durable door while two others stood a ways back, watching them work. They all had swords and wore well-crafted leather armor.

Emverdoo populated Wayne's HUD with healthbars, reporting that these were ratman rangers. For the first time in a long while, Wayne felt a chill run down his hackles. Most of his life-and-death experiences thus far had been thrust upon him in chaos, leaving him very little room for self-reflection.

But here, he was at the door with plenty of time to take in the challenge before him, giving him space to consider running. He was surprised by the strength of his desire to flee. Three ratman rogues came close to killing him in the Cuts, and these were four rangers. If these were character classes as Wayne believed, ratman rangers would be far better in a head-on battle than the rogues.

"There are high-level rats here! Don't overcommit until you know what you're dealing with."

The two rangers at the rear turned to deal with Wayne while the two at the door looked up for only a moment before going back to working the prybar. That triggered another wave of fear for Wayne. The rats always swarmed. Their numbers gave them power.

And here, two rats chose to ignore him. They saw him as that little of a threat that two of the monsters didn't feel they needed to help in the effort. Two ratmen rangers was all they needed to defeat Wayne.

In his time with Christmas List, Wayne learned Fencing from Pirates! near to the beginning of his adventure. Since then, his own combat experience built on the innate sword fighting knowledge imparted by the skill. As he crossed blades with the ratman rangers, however, he realized how little actual swordplay he had done in recent weeks.

Sure, he killed stuff with a sword, but the effort behind the victories was largely driven by other abilities. Some basic weapon technique was helpful for Blitzing through goblins and orcs, but they weren't reacting with parries and feints. The speed and power of his abilities won the fight rather than skill with his sword.

Off of his very first attack with these ratmen, one of the rangers countered with such swiftness that Wayne was nearly disarmed. His own shock was almost the end of him, but a last second Easy Out got him clear of the thrust in time.

These ratmen might actually be better swordsmen than he was, Wayne realized.

So he gave up on winning with swordplay.

Upsidaisy and then Gra bounced one of the rangers off of the wood ceiling and then the floor while Wayne used Insult Duel on the other.

"You have the manners of a beggar!" Wayne shouted.

Wink-Wing.

Defense Screens blocked a slash Wayne hadn't seen coming. His target had used his strategy against him, using the force of Wink-Wing to set up a swift and brutal attack instead of getting skewered by Wayne's blade. And the ranger was faster.

Fart.

Wayne tried not to gag, but both rats, including the one still struggling to recover its bearings, recoiled, giving the Zero Hero more space.

Then Wayne did something that, to this day, he was still ashamed of. In the face of skilled, potentially superior opponents, he abandoned all sense of tactical combat ballet to instead panic activate every skill and spell he could think of.

He button-mashed.

En Passant and Righteous Cloud turned Wayne into a moving whirlwind of swords for a full Blitz, while he also summoned Linebacker bot, enhanced with Super and Flame Bracelet. The little garbage can robot was replaced by a taller, much cheesier football robot, like a mid-2000s graphic gimmick for football broadcasts. And the robot was on fire.

Linebacker bot slammed into one of the rats jimmying the door and pumped its legs to drive it against the wall, choking it with its forearm. The rat screeched, trying to escape the flames.

At the same time, Wayne's blades diced up the two rats who had already engaged him. A submarine alarm went off in Wayne's mind. That was Metox, warning him of a ranged attack.

Easy Out.

Stolen story; please report.

An arrow flew past Wayne's face. When he looked up, the remaining ratman ranger was already pulling his bow back to release a second arrow.

Wayne saw red dots moving in on his HUD, rats outside were coming to help.

Slyway Robber.

Wayne sucked 17 points of agility from the last ratman by the door and then used Burner Max to instantly refill his empty mana pool. The ratman, robbed of all dexterity, immediately tripped and broke both ankles. It lost its head a short moment later to Wayne's sword. As Wayne swiveled to face the next wave of rats, a new mess of health bars popped into existence on his HUD, but he didn't need to read their names to know these weren't more ratman rangers.

Dozens of beady black eyes stared down their dolphin beaks at Wayne. These were undoubtedly wereratdolphins, and they were active in broad daylight. He had little time to fully appreciate the implications, his thoughts overrun by the chorus of rapid chirps descending upon him.

There were too many chirps. Way too many.

Fart.

Fire a Broadside!

Fire Extinguisher.

Rise.

Wayne had a Cure Poison potion uncorked the moment he appeared one floor up in the barn loft but was surprised to find he didn't need it. None of the dolphins had bitten him.

There were still people in the barn who needed help.

Rise.

Wayne hopped off the roof, dropped down next to the door where he first came in, and attacked the wereratdolphins from behind, his boosted agility cutting into their numbers like a weedwhacker. In seconds, more ratmen followed Wayne inside, yikyikyiking their dolphin heads off to replace the numbers he had only just cut down.

They started to close in again, overwhelming him with numbers.

Fart.

Rise.

Rise.

And he came in behind the rats once more. This time, the ratmen were out of reinforcements. The many bodies of their mutilated pod mates weakened their ability to mount a meaningful counterattack. Several sword thrusts and one Righteous Cloud later, the room was nothing but rat corpses.

Red dots outside the barn began to flee. Instead of pursuing, Wayne decided to check on the blues.

There were too many bodies piled in the barn to open the storeroom door. When he used Urg to augment the effort, the door handle simply tore away, leaving the door behind and still very much closed.

"Rats are blocking the door!"

"Can't you move them out of the way?" a muffled voice called from inside.

Wayne looked at how many bloody rats he would have to relocate. He grimaced. He really didn't want to touch any rat bodies, let alone half a dozen of them.

"Back away from the door!" Wayne yelled back. He grabbed the ratman prybar, activated Two by Four, and smashed through the door. He punched out the few splintered boards that survived, and he didn't have to touch any rats.

"Mind your step," Wayne said, offering his hand to help the hostages out of the storage room and onto the platform of corpses.

"Is it safe?" one of the stable hands asked.

That was a good question, actually. The retreat Wayne saw on his HUD wasn't a total forfeit for the ratmen. They seemed to be giving Fergus and Poltur a challenge on the other side of the farm.

"Change of plans," Wayne said. "Group hug."

Before anyone could protest, Wayne wrapped as many of the survivors with his arms as he could and used Rise to move them to the loft.

"Stay hidden until you hear the all clear." He hit Rise again, hopped off the roof again, and called for another group hug to transport the rest. They were reluctant, but they agreed with some coaxing. As Wayne deposited the second group of civilians, he heard a loud pop, almost like a gunshot.

"Help!" Fergus called over Voice. "Wereratpufferfish are exploding!"

Wayne Blitzed off the roof, heading toward the dormitories.

He heard two more pops.

"Are you okay?!"

"Yes! Don't get caught near one when it's all blown up!"

The first ratman Wayne saw in the dorms had a pufferfish head, as in instead of a neck and skull there was a pufferfish on the shoulders of a ratman body. Before the monster spotted Wayne, its head was small, barely larger than a deflated balloon. As soon as it saw Wayne coming, its head expanded to the size of a beach ball in seconds.

Wayne now understood what Fergus meant. He took blown up to mean "already exploded," like "hey Bill, the hot pocket in the microwave was blown up," but that was wrong. Fergus' warning was about literal inflation.

Easy–

The pufferfish head exploded, releasing a bright, disorienting flash and a painful shockwave. The worst migraine Wayne ever felt thundered through his brain like a runaway train.

-32 hit points.

And Wayne didn't see the other two wereratpufferfish.

-32 hit points.

-32 hit points.

He stumbled backward for the door, but the concussive blasts had him turned around. Instead of fleeing, he ended up deeper in the wereratpufferfish horde. Several more exploded, fast as machine gun fire.

-32 hit points.

-32 hit points.

-32 hit points.

-32 hit points.

-32 hit points.

Rise.

Wayne collapsed on the roof of the dorm, gasping for air. He had 18 hit points left. That was too close. Far too close.

He pulled a healing potion from his belt and poured the blessed liquid into his mouth.

+100 hit points.

"Wayne?!"

"I'm alive."

"We're in the next dorm over. Could really use you."

Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, Wayne climbed to his feet and ran across the roof. He landed one stride from the door of the second dorm and charged inside. On the other end of the building, Fergus and Poltur stood between rats and three farmhands. Nearly all of the ratmen Wayne saw had dolphin heads.

Based on his HUD map, there was another door behind them. Poltur's men were on the other side of that, defending an attack from the rear.

Two of the three pufferfish rats inflated. Wayne hit Upsidaisy and Gra on each of them, bouncing their fish heads off of the low ceiling before yanking them back to the floor. The stun deflated both.

A Water Elemental and an Earth Elemental appeared on either side of Fergus and crashed into the crowd of chirping dolphin abominations.

One more wereratpufferfish began to inflate, but Fergus froze it with Freeze Please. Wayne hacked through the mass of enemies, his sudden attack from the back giving him a significant advantage. Poltur wordlessly spun to assist her men outside when she saw the Zero Hero drawing attention from the rats inside. Soon, Wayne and Fergus followed her out.

From there, the rest of the battle was cleanup, running down the handful of ratmen who ran for the hills when the battle turned against them.

Poltur and the other soldiers were with the survivors when Wayne and Fergus returned. Of all the farmhands on the ranch, three fell to the rats early in the swarm, likely before the Zeroes had arrived. For the number of rats Wayne saw, that survival rate sounded remarkably good to him.

"The people were secondary targets," Poltur explained. "They doused Targitaus' office in acid. So far, all of the tunnels under the farm have been collapsed as well, but we're still searching those."

"Acid?" Fergus asked in disbelief.

Poltur motioned for the Zeroes to follow. Targitaus' office was the next building in the row of dormitories. No more than a small farm house, the damage of the acid was easy to see. Most of the first floor still sizzled, blowing putrid smoke. Every surface and every stick of furniture had been soaked. The ratmen were thorough.

"Your deduction is difficult to dispute," Fergus said, trying to open the pages of a ledger with a delicate pinch. It stretched and melted even under minimal pressure. Hoping for salvaging something useful looked futile.

"How do we keep underestimating them?" Wayne asked, frowning.

Fergus shrugged. "This was a calculated effort to keep anyone from learning whatever was in here. I've never heard of ratmen having this kind of intelligence."

"Nor have I," Poltur said.

Wayne rubbed his nose. "We're not just clearing nests anymore. This is warfare, and we aren't soldiers."

"That's difficult to dispute," Fergus agreed. "Also not something two scholars with questionable drinking habits should be in charge of managing."

"Definitely not." Wayne looked to Poltur. Before he could continue, she spoke.

"The conflict is bigger than adventurers, that much is easy to see," Poltur said, confirming the Zeroes' concerns. "I suspect it's bigger than Iomallach even."

"We don't mind helping, and we'd be happy to turn over our research, debrief sessions, tactics questions, all of it."

"I appreciate that," Poltur said. "It will take some time to get kingdom leadership together. Would be good to have Cuan and Bata involved at a minimum."

"Whatever you need," Wayne said. "We'll get to work consolidating what we know right away."

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