Chapter 07
The party moving forward encountered the rat that had fled clinging to the ceiling once again. At their first encounter, they hadn’t been watching the ceiling (only Serena had been looking), so they’d let their guard down—but the second time was different.
“Hiyah!”
Hanson’s spear pierced the giant rat’s body. Impaled on the spear, the rat fell to the ground and thrashed. Hans quickly withdrew the spear and stabbed again, cutting off its breath.
“Well done.”
“Thank you, sir!”
‘Stab it gently so the spearhead doesn’t get damaged. Don’t just thrust wildly at the stone ceiling.’
Since he’d achieved results, he’d probably do better going forward. Serena hid her true feelings and praised Hanson.
“Look at the size. It could eat a person.”
Chrome confirmed the giant rat was completely dead, then tied its tail to his belt. Lavenda, who had been observing the giant rat with them, asked.
“Why are you taking that?”
“The meat would be a waste.”
“Eek! Serena, is it okay to eat rats?”
Philia shrieked and clung to Serena. Serena forced a smile.
“We’ll get out before that happens.’
‘Please.’
She’d been reincarnated as a princess, and she didn’t want to eat rat meat—something she’d never even eaten in her past life.
***
‘Is this one the leader here?’
No one had explicitly discussed it, but they all thought so. Because the dead rat was unusually large.
There might be more rats, but there wouldn’t be one this big. Everyone secretly thought that.
*Squeak, squeak!*
*Squeeeeak!*
*Squeak!*
They were wrong. It was a hasty judgment.
Three rats of similar size to the dead one attacked the party simultaneously. The party fell into chaos.
“Eek! Get away!”
“Aaah, aaaah, aaaaah!”
“Get away, you brutes.”
“Shoo, shoo.”
The giant rats, averaging over three kilograms, were extremely threatening. With their size, their teeth and claws were also large and sharp. Their fur was dirty and coarse, and their eyes held a strange killing intent and madness. The saliva dripping between their pointed snouts was sticky.
‘Wouldn’t getting bitten by those give you a disease? Even just their saliva splashing on you seems like it’d make you sick.’
Serena made a series of disgusted faces and pushed Philia, who was screaming in three-part harmony, behind her. After removing the cumbersome lady-in-waiting from the battlefield, she commanded those with weapons.
“What are you doing! Catch the rats!”
“Yes, sir!”
“These damn rats are so fast.”
As Chrome said, the giant rats were quick. Dealing with small, fast animals is quite difficult if you’re not used to it.
The rats easily dodged Hanson’s stiff thrusts and charged into the party’s rear.
“Kyaaa!”
Lavenda screamed and kicked the rat that lunged at her. Chrome struck the fallen rat’s head with his wooden sword.
“You bastard!”
The sound of its skull cracking was crisp.
“Die! Die!”
Hanson thrust his spear diligently, but his accuracy was poor, perhaps from lack of practice thrusting downward. Chrome targeted the openings of the rats dodging Hanson’s spear and struck.
The luck of hitting the head like the first time didn’t repeat. They took a few hits, but there was no real impact.
One of the two rats weaving between Hanson and Chrome ran toward the rear again.
Lavenda, who had previously kicked a rat, raised her leg again to target it. The rat wasn’t easily fooled.
Philia covered her cheeks with her hands and gasped.
“Goodness! A rat is clinging to her!”
The rat avoided Lavenda’s foot and bit onto her skirt hem. If it continued to bite her foot or calf, or jumped up to attack her upper body, she could be seriously injured.
“Give me the scabbard!”
Serena reached out to Chrome. Chrome threw the scabbard, and she swung it urgently.
Serena’s strike missed. The scabbard hit the floor, not the rat. Serena’s hand stung.
Fortunately, the rats seemed to judge that with more attackers, they were at a disadvantage, and fled just like that.
“Huff, huff.”
“What kind of damn rats are these…”
Hanson, who had been thrusting his spear like crazy, gasped for breath. Chrome also wiped the sweat from his forehead with the cloth wrapped around his head.
“Should I hold the scabbard?”
Everyone agreed with Lavenda’s suggestion. You didn’t need a great weapon to deal with rats. Courage and a club were enough. Serena handed the scabbard to Lavenda.
“Everyone did well. Let’s rest for a while.”
“Huff, I’m sorry.”
Hanson, who as a guard hadn’t managed to catch a single rat, apologized. Serena forgave him lightly.
Three rats had attacked simultaneously, everyone was in a panic, and their weapons were poor. It would have been better to swing the spear, but the corridor was narrow and the party was too close together.
“Next time, it’d be better to swing the spear shaft to strike them. We’ll spread out too.”
“I’ll do that!”
“What the hell do these rats eat to get so big? There’s no food in a tomb.”
“The place I woke up in was a cave. Before the earthquake, it probably wasn’t blocked, so they could have gotten food from there.”
If it was an ordinary cave, there would have been plenty of insects and moss for the rats to eat.
Chrome clicked his tongue and collected the rat corpse with the crushed skull. With rats hanging from both sides of his belt, his waist felt heavy.
“If these were all money pouches, how nice would that be.”
“Once we get out of here, they will be.”
“Really?”
“I am generous.”
“How dare you! Serena is famous for her generosity!”
All the royals had died, so the royal treasury was vast, and there were few to spend it. And Serena was the only woman in the royal family.
Even her grandfather, who scolded her for strange reasons, had never said anything about her spending money. The treasurer who managed the royal finances always asked if Serena had enough personal funds.
‘Even Richard liked it when I spent money.’
Even her strange cousin frequently gave Serena jewelry. Until she fell into this mausoleum today, Serena had been a truly materially happy princess.
***
“I was so startled. This is the end of it, right?”
Philia, who had seen and been attacked by rats for the first time in her life, expressed her hopes.
‘I wonder.’
Despite her efforts to think positively right after waking up, her thoughts were drifting toward pessimism.
‘Hamsters are bought alone, but what about rats? In games and movies, they always swarm in groups.’
For instance, guinea pigs are social animals, so in some European countries it’s illegal to keep just one. If these rats were the same? What if there were dozens, not just three?
Serena forcibly steered her increasingly negative thoughts.
Don’t forget positive thinking! In disaster situations, a positive mindset can determine life or death!
‘Since they ran away, they probably won’t come back.’
In various fiction like games, movies, and novels, beasts and monsters never flee and always fight to the death.
But that’s just a device to advance the plot, not reality. In the wild, even a small wound can lead to death.
That’s why wild animals don’t fight fiercely unless it’s a special battle like breeding season or territorial disputes. They flee well too.
‘Since they ran away, they probably won’t attack again. They’ll spread the word not to mess with us if we’re a group.’
Serena hoped the rat network would work quickly.
As they say, fortune and misfortune are interwoven. Where there’s an attack, there’s also discovery.
Serena finally found a trap. The floor color was different in just one section.
After moving the party back, she touched the differently colored floor with the tip of Hanson’s spear shaft. The floor gave way, revealing a trap filled with harpoons.
“We would have been in big trouble if we hadn’t found that.”
“That’s right. It’s all thanks to Serena discovering it!”
“How do we get past this?”
“The young ones could jump over, but my knees are stiff. What should I do?”
Everyone praised Serena’s insight, but Serena wasn’t pleased.
She had expected the trap to be on the floor or the trap switch to be on the floor, after all.
‘The rats were climbing the walls.’
The three rats that had attacked the party had also charged along the ceiling and walls. The first rat they’d seen had also traveled along the ceiling.
From then on, Serena had suspected there was a high probability of floor traps. She should have been happy that her prediction was correct, but she wasn’t—for one reason.
“The trap is really obvious.”
Because the trap was far too easy to spot.
To use an analogy, it stood out from the background as much as those parts in old cel animation that were highlighted to show what would move next.
“If we were looking elsewhere while walking, or fighting the rats, we would have fallen for the trap. If we were watching the ceiling to beware of rats, everyone would have stepped on it.”
Lavenda sensed the princess’s discomfort and defended her. Philia chimed in too.
“The masseuse is right. The trap being crude suggests this mausoleum is old. Right, Serena?”
‘You shouldn’t have said that.’
What does that make Serena, who had scared the party, made them tense, and slowed their pace worrying about those crude traps?
Serena wanted to smack Huji’s greatest beauty’s pretty mouth a few times.
“That’s right! And this could be a trap intentionally placed to make us underestimate the other traps.”
Lavenda defended Serena again. But like spoiled food, Serena’s pride had also spoiled and lost its freshness.
“Lavenda is right. Let’s all move forward without letting our guard down.”
Serena smiled, hiding her bitter feelings.
***
About five minutes after helping Chrome, whose knees were stiff, cross the trap, the party stopped.
“Another fork.”
Another fork appeared before the party. This time too, there were five paths to choose from. Serena began to feel anxious, as the mausoleum seemed larger than she’d expected.
“Which way should we go?”
“How long has it been since we fell here?”
“How would I know.”
Portable watches were expensive, so none of the party carried one. The only ones who might have carried one were Serena and Philia.
Serena? Have you ever heard of a princess checking the time?
Philia, who should have been checking the time for Serena? She usually carried one, but unfortunately she was on leave. Philia’s pockets were full of gold and jewels, but she had no watch.
Serena kept her mouth tightly shut and calculated the time.
‘I ran away during breakfast, so when I left the massage parlor, it was around noon. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but it doesn’t seem like I was out for that long.’
Her body and mind were crying that they’d been working non-stop for 24 hours, but the actual time probably wasn’t that long.
‘At most three or four hours?’
After much deliberation, Serena made a decision.
“Let’s go back to where the fountain is for now. If the paths get more complicated here, we’ll need a map. And it seems all of you, including me, desperately need rest.”
In particular, Hanson’s condition, having worked day and night throughout the Foundation Day period, was serious. His freckled eyes were hollow, and his gaze was hazy.
His lips were so dry they’d cracked and formed scabs, and his hand holding the spear was trembling.
Escape was urgent, but pushing too hard would cause Hanson to collapse. In a situation where they didn’t know how far they had to go, they couldn’t discard their only armed force.
No one objected. The party turned back the way they’d come.
It felt like they’d been walking all day, but the actual distance covered was minimal.
They passed the trap and the place where they’d fought the rats. When they arrived at the first fork where they’d left the cart, the party noticed something strange.
“It’s dark? I could see light coming in from here before.”
“Right.”
Hanson, Chrome, and Lavenda, who had woken up near the first fork, had walked toward the strong light and reached the lobby. But near the fork, there was no light brighter than the corridor lighting.
“The side with the fountain is dark.”
On the contrary, it was dark. Tension lingered among the group.
Serena brought her index finger to her lips, silencing the party.
The closer they got to the lobby, the farther the corridor lighting was, and the darker it became. Chrome cautiously searched his cart.
“I’ve got a lantern.”
Chrome found a lantern in his cart and took it out, trying to light it skillfully.
“There’s not much oil, so we need to save it.”
“It’s fine. I can cast a light spell.”
The light spell was a basic spell learned when first studying magic.
‘I only used it when I learned it, and never again. It should be fine. It’s an introductory spell. A tutorial.’
Magic is also done with the body, so she trusted that her body would remember.
‘If I mess up, it’s a huge embarrassment. Pull yourself together, Serena.’
Fortunately, the spell succeeded. Serena moved the orb of light forward, receiving the party’s quiet cheers.
The party cautiously headed toward the lobby.
Apart from being dark as night, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual. Serena moved the orb of light around, illuminating the lobby.
Only the sound of water flowing from the fountain could be heard—nothing else happened. After obtaining Serena’s permission, Chrome shouted loudly.
“Is anyone there?”
