17 : Venom Rats – 2\n\n\n“A rat that spits poison……”\nNo matter what tactics or strategies you formulated, unless you had sufficient information on your opponent, it wouldn’t even make for a good theory.\nWith that judgement, I moved over to the boundary between the 1st and 2nd layer.\nThen, I lifted both of my hands up, appraising every rat I could see.\n\n\n△△△△△\nPoisonous Bite Rat – Level 5\nHP : 1517/1517\n▽▽▽▽▽\n\n△△△△△\nPoison Spitting Rat – Level 6\nHP : 1487/1487\n▽▽▽▽▽\n\nThe result was that the rat which spat poison wasn’t the usual Poisonous Bite Rat, but a different species altogether, the Poison Spitting Rat.\n\n“10 biters, 4 spitters. The spitting ones also looked over their surroundings a lot.”\nThe level of the enemies were around 5 ~ 7. If we take the average of them all, then it was about 5.5.\nTheir amount of HP differentiated individually, but generally, the Poison Spitting Rats were comparatively lower.\nThough, when they hadn’t spotted an enemy yet, the Poison Spitting Rats would often raise their upper bodies and look around, a movement that likely indicated that they were scanning their surroundings.\n\n“Nn……”\nI left the first layer’s staircase room just to be safe and let out a groan.\nCurrently, I only had a Poisonous Bite Rat’s Tooth Knife and the Rebar with Attached Concrete in my hands.\nHowever, the latter required me to cling onto my opponent’s body before hitting with it, so realistically, my only weapon was the Poisonous Bite Rat’s Tooth Knife.\nAnd also, since their alert radius had a dense range, I wouldn’t have the time to stick to just 1 rat. When it comes to getting out of this situation with just my current equipment…… The only choice I really had was to quickly poison them and run around wholeheartedly until they died.\n\n“Yep, impossible.”\nThat was out of the question wasn’t it?\nMy agility wasn’t something that was exactly high and the opponents had long-ranged attacks.\nTo make matters worse, if it gets to grappling, my arm strength wouldn’t allow me to break free. At that point, it’ll be checkmate for me.\nI’d have to be some sort of superhuman to go hunting after these 14 rats in this situation.\n\n“Realistically, could I lure them out using some sort of method? I wonder if I could create a new item or something to deal with them.”\nI expressed the pragmatic options I thought of into words. For the time being, I’ll try putting the former into practice.\n\n“Sei!”\n“Jyuu!?”\nStanding at the entrance of the room with the stairs of rubble, I found an adequately sized piece of debris and tossed it near the space between the 1st and 2nd levels.\nThe thrown debris makes a loud noise and tumbles, causing a rat to come and check out the situation…… It notices my appearance and starts approaching towards me.\n\n“Jyuaa!”\n“Wha!?”\nNaturally, if there’s a loud noise, it wouldn’t just be one that reacted.\nFollowing up was a Poison Spitting Rat that came up to the edge of the hole, sputtering the deep-green liquid at me.\nBecause of that, I left the room with the staircase and hid myself in the outside passage.\nThen something unexpected happened.\n\n“Jyuuuuu……”\n“Geh……”\n“Jyuujyuujyuu……..”\nThe Poisonous Bite Rat that was supposed to have chased after me, didn’t pursue any further.\nIt’s as though it was saying that beyond this point, it was no longer under my jurisdiction.\nThe Poison Spitting Rat did not go after me either.\nFor a moment, I stuck my right hand out from behind the wall. The Poisonous Bite Rat was standing guard at the middle of the hill, while the Poison Spitting Rat was seen at the top of the hill with its mouth wide open.\nThey held a posture that completely suggested that they were going to intercept me.\n\n“No no no, why do you guys have this much command……”\nI could only helplessly joke as I twitched my cheek.\nIf they had just pursued me, I would’ve been able to deal with them one by one.\nCNP’s monster respawns were fairly slow so I could’ve managed somehow or another.\nHowever, this situation now made it clear that my enemies wouldn’t bother chasing after me.\n\n“Just to be sure.”\nI knocked on the wall once to create some noise and try to lure them out.\nDespite that, neither of the rats showed any signs of movement.\nTheir immovable figures made it seem like they had devoted themselves to guarding that spot no matter what happened.\n\n“……”\nYeah, this was obviously a strange state of affairs.\nOr rather, its movements were definitely different from the Poisonous Bite Rats of the first layer, almost as if it was something else entirely.\nWithout a doubt, the level of the AI was probably raised.\nThen, as for why it increased…… Most likely, I assume there was a leader or a specific individual somewhere.\n\n“The existence of a leader had been brought to light, was it something fortunate or unfortunate?…… I could only see it as nothing but unfortune right now.”\nIf the reason behind the enemies’ rise in cognitive ability was a leader, then if that leader was defeated, exterminating the rats would become easier afterwards wouldn’t it?\nHowever, I had no way of knowing where this said leader was, so I had no means of being able to lower my enemies’ intelligence.\nOn top of that, this discussion was based off of an inference that there was an enemy leader in the first place, so it was just wishful thinking.\nI couldn’t deny the possibility that there was no leader and that every single one of them just possessed intellect.\n\n“For now, I can’t do much with the cards I have in my hand, so let’s return to the safety area once.”\nThe Poisonous Bite Rat and Poison Spitting Rat that were keeping watch on the hill went back to the 2nd layer.\nTherefore, I did the same and retired to the safety area.\n\n“Well then……”\nI retreated back to the safety area and looked over the items I left in there. I contemplated over what kind of items would allow me to break out of the current deadlock.\n\n“What’s necessary was something that could bring the fight to a 1 on 1, or possibly, something that was able to hold back multiple enemies. If not, then maybe something that could round them all up.”\nTo put it simply, I’d have to defeat them one by one without the other rats realizing anything, or make it so that it didn’t matter even if the other rats happen to notice.\n\n“In real life, when it came to hunting rats or perhaps I should say, exterminating them…… Was it boric acid balls that they used? Well, the point is that it was poisoned bait right?”\nI’d be using poison to deal with Poisonous Bite Rats, but its already been confirmed that they themselves could be poisoned.\nSo it’ll probably work on the Poison Spitting Rats as well.\nI’ve also had my own fair share of experience in being poisoned with food that contained toxins.\nIt was possible that the rats would be okay with ingesting poison but…… I believed there was worth in testing it out.\n\n“Come to think of it, I wonder what those rats were eating to survive.”\nRather, what made me anxious was the fact that I had no idea what the rats were eating.\nThe damage on the walls were probably from them sharpening their front teeth, but their actual meals were utterly unknown.\nStill, I don’t think they were living off of the fog, or should I say the curse in the fog……. Well, I have no choice but to include this in the things I’ll have to test out.\n\n“Let’s see, for meat….. I guess organs were fine.”\nFirst off, what I was going to use as feed was the internal organs of the Poisonous Bite Rat I dismantled yesterday.\nSince carnivorous animals seemed to have preferred to eat innards and there was an aroma after being left out for at least a day, it’ll probably end up as some good feed.\n\n“The front teeth of the Poisonous Bite Rat contained poison within them and I had quite a few of them, so I should use those too.”\nBecause I had around 10 Poisonous Bite Rat front teeth, I could use 5 as poisonous bait.\nHowever, the front teeth of the Poisonous Bite Rats were items that used the surrounding curse to generate poison, so even if I crushed it up and sprinkled it on top, it wouldn’t create any poison.\n\n“Skewer the intestines…… It’s not enough huh.”\nI tried stabbing the Poisonous Bite Rat intestines\nYet, it had only generated a small amount of poison.\nDuring the time I was dismantling and eating a Poisonous Bite Rat, I was inflicted with the poisoned status condition, but with just this amount of poison, it would simply be recovered naturally and that’ll be the end of it.\n\n“Rather, I wonder what the actual conditions were for the Poisonous Bite Rat’s front tooth to generate poison in the first place.”\nI tapped on the tip of the Poisonous Bite Rat’s front tooth\nNo poison seeped out.\nIt was the same even if I touched other parts of it.\nHowever, when I tried piercing the liver, a small bit of poison was formed.\n\n“…… It seems like there were still tons of things to investigate, including the conditions to get the Poisonous Bite Rat’s front tooth to produce poison.”\nI stored the poisoned meat inside of my fur bag, took the Poisonous Bite Rat’s front tooth in my hand, and left the safety area.\nFirst, let’s do some various experiments using the Poisonous Bite Rats in the first layer.\n