N9, Balanced Diet

It had been a few days, or at least a few periods of sleep, since our encounter with the humans. After the incident, I briefly thought about moving our lair, but soon discarded the idea, this was the one safe room I had found so far. I could only hope those warriors would never return.

‘They probably don’t care about a few rats in a hole.’

I had no time to worry about the humans. Lately, I had been busy scouting the hallways, looking for the best place to ambush a lizard. My plan required a location with a lone lizard and a pack of rats with decent fighting strength. It also needed to be in an area where no other dangers would appear, that discarded the human’s main routes and any place near dog’s territory. Lastly, and most importantly, it needed to have a good escape route.

It had taken a while to find the perfect spot, but I had finally decided where to put my scheme into action. We would head there first thing in the morning.

‘Or afternoon, I can’t tell the time in this place, I don’t even know if it’s been weeks or months since I started assembling my gang.’

The corpses of the rats killed by the humans were still in our lair, we had been feeding on them all this time, but recently they had started to give off a rotten smell. I had picked the freshest portions and threw away the rotten ones, they had soon disappeared under a wave of crabs.

“Shrii, shriik.”

Hearing my order my followers stopped playing around and paid attention to me. I patted one of the corpses in our lair, it was time to eat. Soon everyone rushed to feed on the smelly meat, if my calculations were right after this meal all the remains would be gone.

‘Nice, I won’t have to worry about this shit anymore.’

Having food inside the lair had freed me from worrying about the next meal, but in exchange it had brought me many headaches, most of my subordinates couldn’t resist the sight of a meal in front of their eyes and wouldn’t stop eating until they were unable to move.

The food had also stirred constant fights among them. As if one piece of meat was so different from any other! I had to pile all the food in a corner and guard it, if one of my followers tried to approach it when it wasn’t meal time I would beat the shit out of it.

Even then, that didn’t solve all my problems. Many times I had come back from scouting the hallways to find half of my followers laying motionless on the floor, passed out from eating too much.

In the end, I had to thoroughly train everyone to withstand the temptation of food, and designed Number One as the guardian of the meat pile in my absence.

After ending the meal everyone was naturally sleepy. I also wanted to rest, but my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about the incoming hunt. I was continuously reviewing the plan in search of any detail that could endanger us. I had the feeling that my brain had improved quite a bit since I formed my gang and that my thoughts flowed more naturally. Even so, I still needed a long time to piece together a decent strategy.

I tried to distract myself by looking around. Most of my followers had their eyes closed and their breathing was calm and regular. Number Two had made a pillow out of one of his subordinates, and there was a few rat skulls I would have to throw later… I studied the ceiling, there were a few shriveled black roots that made their way from the back of the room, surely those were the remains of the nursery that had existed here. When I traced the path of the roots with my sight I discerned a white spot on the upper side of the wall.

‘Uh? What’s that?’ I couldn’t see it clearly. I moved to the front of the room and stood on my hind legs, but I still tell what I was looking at, the white thing rested in the lower part of a small hole close to the ceiling.

The thing had picked my interest, I looked at the members of my gang and saw that most of them were already sleeping.

‘I shouldn’t bother them, I better try to sleep, I will look into it after the hunt…’

I went back to my original spot and tried to rest, but after laying down for a few minutes and rolling around a couple of times I was more awake than before.

“Shriik! shrii shriik!” In the end, my curiosity won, I needed to take a good look at it or I would be unable to sleep. The sleepy minions were confused about the untimely assembly, but I didn’t care.

I got to the back wall and patted it with my front legs, a goon soon came and stood against the wall, ready to be used as a step. I repeated the process three more times and got four underlings as the foundations of my tower.

‘I should have enough rats to reach the ceiling.’

I got on top of a minion and repeated my orders, thankfully this wasn’t the first time I had done something similar. Well, to be fair Number One had been the first to come up with the idea, using more than one goon to reach the places full of moss.

‘That fellow is intelligent.’

At last, I ended with a four-story rat tower, Number Two and Three made up the third floor and Number One was at the top. Climbing atop followers was a bit tricky, but I managed to do it without falling down. After arriving at the pinnacle I observed the white thing.

‘Ugh.’ I was disappointed, it was a patch of white moss. From the floor, it seemed to shine a bit, but that must have been my imagination.

‘Sight, I will eat it since I bothered coming up here.’

It tasted the same as the green moss I had fed on before, it was probably dying from old age or lack of nutrients. I carefully made my way to the ground and ordered my subordinates to disassemble the tower and go back to sleep.

‘What a waste of time.’ I had lost some time in a pointless endeavor. Or so I thought, as I was going back to my resting spot something began stirring inside me, the sensation was strange, yet familiar, it was as if I had drunk a glass of refreshing water that had quenched my thirst.

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‘Uh? Don’t tell me I managed to poison myself just before the hunt.’

I stood up, but nothing else happened, and my body didn’t seem to be sick. After some moments I finally managed to fall asleep.

…

The time had come, all the preparations were done and my gang was in position. I had located a lone lizard not too far away, dozing off inside a tunnel. There was also a pack of rats nearby, with a fierce rat leading them.

Now I had to be extra careful. If died all my plans would be back to square one. Even if the band was still around once I got reborn they probably wouldn’t recognize me and I wouldn’t be able to lead them anymore.

‘They will be rivals instead.’

I got on my hind legs and patted the floor twice with my front paws, my followers had to wait here. The first part of the plan had to be done by myself, after that everyone would join the hunt.

I left my minions and walked down the hallways. A few turns later I saw the lizard poking out from one of the sewer-like tunnels.

During my scouting I had found out these reptiles were a bit faster than a rat, but with my bigger size I should be quicker than them, this was a calculated risk.

“Shriik! Shriik!” I woke up the scaly beast, it didn’t look happy that I had interrupted its sleep.

“Shriik! Shriik! Shriik!” I provoked it with loud shrieks and lively movements. I could almost see the annoyance on its face. The yellowish-green creature was bigger than me, if it caught me with its mouth I would end up severely wounded.

It didn’t take long for the angered lizard to approach me. When I saw it coming I ran away, keeping my distance. At first, the scaly creature only intended to chase me away, but I kept irritating it.

“Shriik! Shriik! Shriik!”

Finally, the beast lost its patience and started pursuing me in earnest, it was time to lead it into the trap. I rushed along the hallways until I found a pack of five rats. The fierce one acting as their boss was barely bigger than me, but judging by its bulging muscles it was a lot stronger.

I had to make use of that strength now. I got in the midst of the pack before anyone could react, the lizard followed behind me and a messy fight broke out.

The reptile changed its focus to the rats biting it and I left the melee before anyone could notice.

From a distance I watched the situation unfold, the lizard had badly hurt one of the small rats, but their boss was also dealing quite a bit of damage. The reptile’s legs were bleeding from the vicious bites of the fierce rat. I was observing everything quite attentively, depending on how this went I would need to adapt my strategy.

‘If this pack fails to weaken the lizard I will need to lead it into another one.’

After a while, the fierce rat managed to bite the lizard’s neck from behind and a lot of blood gushed out of the scaly beast.

‘Oh! So they have a weak point in the back of the neck.’ It was a bit tricky to reach, but if I was able to imitate that movement I would only need to wait for the lizard to bleed out.

The scaly beast was struggling frantically, three of the rats were dead or badly hurt and the fourth one was of little help. The fierce rat and the lizard finally engaged in single combat, this was the best development I could wish for, it didn’t matter who won this fight, it would be too wounded to be a threat to us.

“Shriik! shrii shriik!” I called my gang, we had to seize this opportunity. In the time they took to reach us both fighters had viciously lashed at each other and were bleeding profusely.

My followers assembled behind me, Number Two was yearning to join the fray and I didn’t make him wait too much. I closed the distance to the two adversaries with energetic strides and swiftly bit the neck of the distracted lizard, the scaly beast tried to strike me with its tail, but by the time the tired blow came I had already retreated a step back.

‘I hope my underlings understand I only want to fight the lizard.’

In the future I might have to make use of other packs to take care of strong foes, if my underlings attacked everyone indiscriminately it would be a disaster.

My worries were unfounded, the rest of my gang joined the fight and imitated me.

‘Yes! This is the result of my efforts training them!’ When I did something new the members of my pack would imitate me. They bit the lizard and backed off, the reptile could only keep one or two of them at bay by lashing out with its tail.

After a few rounds, the lizard fell to the ground, too wounded and tired to move. The last of its vitality drained from its body along with its blood.

‘I did it! I finally killed one of them!’ I was exhilarated, until now we had lived as scavengers, feeding on what we could find, this fight marked the beginning of our path as hunters, we were no longer at the bottom of the food chain.

‘It will come the day when I won’t have to fear anything down here!’ For that to come true I had to keep expanding my gang and grow into a fierce rat, then I would be able to focus on exploring this place to find clues about my lost memories and body.

I started to think about all the possible paths I could follow. ‘I could take on the lizards and see what lays past their territory, many of the human warriors follow that route, there has to be something useful in that direction. Or after I get enough followers I could fight the dogs… but I don’t think it’s worth it, I would rather push past the humans and reach the surface…’

There were many things on my mind, but now wasn’t the time to think about them.

‘This hunt isn’t over!’

In front of the lizard the fierce rat was breathing heavily, its body covered in blood from the many injuries it had received. I waited a bit, unsure of what the fierce rat would do, the muscular rodent looked at my pack, then turned around and slowly retreated with its surviving follower. Seeing the scene I felt a tinge of guilt, I had used them as sacrifices for my plan.

‘But I have kept all of my minions safe. That’s all that matters.’

I wouldn’t endanger my own gang when I had better options. Those two and their dead companions could have died any other way, every day rats died by the dozens in these hallways.

After the two rodents disappeared from our sight I took a bite at the lizard, it was my first time tasting meat from a different species since awakening in this place. The flavor of the raw flesh wasn’t very different from that of a rat.

‘I wish I could cook this, I’m pretty sure lizard meat tastes like chicken.’

My followers joined me, and some of them fed off the bodies of the deceased rats. I didn’t mind, it was a natural thing to do, we needed all the food we could get. If we were in danger of starvation I would have finished the two survivors.

I felt incredibly sleepy after ending the meal, there were no leftovers other than the biggest bones. Already dozing off I decided to guide my band back to our lair.