Chapter 294: The Ugly Rat that Polluted the Sea (11)

The Ugly Rat’s question hung in the darkness after the battle, and Ketal kept his mouth shut long enough to chase it to its root. The answer, once he stripped it of everything extra, was simple. He just progressed the Quests.

At the beginning, the Quests had been manageable—annoying at times, but straightforward, the sort of tasks that honed one’s edge rather than chipped it. Then, at some unmarked point, the curve bent upward. The next prompts grew harder, and harder still, until even Ketal could not clear them without thinking, planning, and spending himself. They were no longer chores; they were ordeals.

However, seeing the difficulty spike, Ketal did not balk. He took it as a sign. If the system raised the stakes, it was because a reward worth the risk waited somewhere ahead. Perhaps, he thought, there would be a way out of the White Snowfield at the end of that road. On that hope, he pushed every Quest with his full strength, leaving nothing in reserve.

At the end of one such path, he saw the thing he had never once encountered within the White Snowfield. Something malformed and singular enough that even his battle-trained mind filed it under one word: uncanny.

The moment he laid eyes on that uncanny thing, a Quest appeared.

[Quest #784]

[Respond to the presence before you.]

[Info: Completing this Quest will allow you to leave the White Snowfield.]

The instant those lines floated in the air, something in Ketal turned like a lock. His vision narrowed. If he dealt with the thing in front of him, he could finally escape this accursed place. That thought ran through his brain like lightning and burned away everything else. He did not stop to investigate or bargain. He did not press for names and meanings. He threw aside caution and hurled himself at the target to kill it.

“Hm.” Ketal exhaled softly at the memory.

That uncanny being had said something to him after defeating it—some string of words slung back at him across that gap. Had he listened more carefully, he might have pieced together more than he did. Even now, all he had retained was the last thing it said, a line that had branded itself into memory. He did not think going back would change what he had done, but he could admit that a part of him regretted not listening.

“I see from your face you think you’ve guessed at something,” the Ugly Rat rasped, the corners of its mouth twitching.

“I have,” Ketal said. “But I have no reason to tell you.”

“Of course you don’t,” the creature replied, sounding neither surprised nor offended.

Ketal swept his gaze across the black water and the carved horizon, then returned it to the ruined thing before him. “In any case, nothing large is coming out, is it?”

“Some can force themselves through,” the rat said. “But the Outside does not hold their interest. Those with interest are busy with quarrels within.”

Small fry might slip past, but if they were only on the level of Whitie, the beings Outside would be able to handle them.

“I got the gist of it.” Ketal nodded once. He had enough to frame the situation. “Good. Then get out.”

The rat’s red-rimmed eyes widened. “You will truly let me go?”

“Do I look like a liar who breaks his own word?” Ketal asked it.

The creature thought back through their exchanges, then gave a small, wry sound. “Come to think of it, even in there, you never truly lied. I thought this place would be my grave, but I have been granted an unexpected mercy.”

It lurched, found its feet, and steadied itself with effort. Half its body was spoiled; all the authority it had gathered and burned had guttered. Even so, a Ugy Rat was still a powerful being. In this state, returning to the White Snowfield would not be a problem.

“It is a pity I can never come Outside again,” it said. “No matter. I will change my aim. I will devote myself to staining and dyeing the entire White Snowfield.”

“That is your business,” Ketal replied. “As long as you never come out again, we are done.”

Whatever happened in there was not his affair. The rat turned to leave.

“You have shown mercy,” it said, glancing back. “Let me repay that with a service.”

“I do not need it.”

“You likely will,” the rat said, a thin smile scraping across its ruined muzzle. “You have avoided one question on purpose.”

It was, by any sane order, the first question one should have asked—more urgent than any of the small, neat queries he had indulged instead.

“I know why,” the rat went on, its voice a harsh, breathy chuckle. “You really don’t want to know about them, do you? If they ever learned just how much you wished to avoid knowing, they would be saddened. That is why I will tell you myself.”

It told him one piece of information. Ketal’s face tightened. The muscles along his jaw bunched; his brows drew together.

“I truly did not want to know that,” he said.

“But you needed to know,” the rat answered. “Think of it as gratitude for your mercy. Do not thank me.”

“You are an eyesore,” Ketal muttered, clicking his tongue.

The creature tittered and threw itself into the wide sea. The rotting mass that had fouled the world began to depart it.

“Farewell, monster’s whelp,” it called as it slid beneath the surface. “Let us never meet again.”

With that, the Ugly Rat was gone. Ketal watched the place where it had vanished for a breath, then turned and walked. It did not take him long to find what the sea had left behind.

A severed forepaw lay on the sea floor like a discarded tool. He picked it up, weighed it once in his palm, then pushed it into his pouch.

A notification bloomed across his vision.

[Quest #789 Complete]

[Rewards will be distributed.]

***

At that hour, the fight outside the Abyss had already ended. The battle that had raged in clamor and blood simply stopped, as if a hand had closed upon it. The monsters the rat had corrupted and driven could only move within the range of its domain.

To face Ketal, the rat had called every drop of its contamination back into itself. The result was a world scrubbed clean. The miasma that had stained wind and wave winked out. The monsters born of that blight evaporated as if they had been mist in sunlight. The suddenness of it left people looking at one another, mouths half open.

A few heartbeats later, the sea hissed and parted. Ketal rose from the depths. Bayern reached him first.

“What happened?” he asked Ketal, voice low.

“It will never be able to come here again,” Ketal said.

Bayern’s eyebrow twitched. He was not a man given to dullness. He heard the shape underneath Ketal’s words and understood it exactly. He also understood what he needed to do next. He turned from Ketal and faced the barbarians and the followers who had stood shoulder to shoulder through the fight.

“We have won!” he shouted. His voice carried Myst and rolled across the field like a drum. He lifted his chin and spoke again. “The foul creature that dared to stain our domain—the mighty warrior Ketal has cast it down!”

A roar answered him.

“Ketal!”

“We won!”

Cheers broke loose in waves. The men lifted axes, cried one another’s names, and let relief rush through them until it became joy.

***

The victory took shape as a festival. The barbarians crowded into the city squares, biting sausages and wiping grease with the backs of their hands, drinking beer from heavy mugs until the foam clung to their beards. They were not alone.

The faithful came too, drawn by the shouts and the food and the rare warmth of a people who had habitually turned them away. They were awkward at first, unused to welcome. The barbarians, lacking practice in diplomacy, made up for it with eagerness, and awkwardness became comfortable once they realized no one would throw them out.

Surprisingly, Ketal did not join them. He stood at the edge of the world and watched the water. The land and sea had been soaked in venom. The miasma had been thick as mud; even holy power would have taken years to cleanse it fully. That was the scale he had prepared himself for.

However, right now, the shore beneath his boots was clean. At the rat’s last strike, the creature had pulled every thread of pollution into itself, and Ketal’s Myst had eaten it all.

No one noticed what that meant. The world did not hang plaques. Yet from the world’s point of view, it mattered. If he had not consumed that poison, it would have blown like a volcano and fallen as toxic rain over the north. It would have spoiled rivers, soil, and lungs.

For Ketal, that was a minor, practical relief. Yet, it was not where his mind was. He kept his eyes on the sea because he was looking past it. Beyond that line lay the White Snowfield.

The seal is breaking,

he thought.

The Rat had forced its way through, and though it had taken harm to do it, a creature like that had stood on the Outside. That meant others of its tier, if they chose to push themselves, could do the same.

And those below that tier would have an easier time. Whitie had set the precedent: weaker creatures could slip through with little effort. The world had not yet brought him further news or pushed up a fresh Quest window; for now, it seemed nothing else had emerged. He refused to treat that as a reason to relax.

Monsters can come out, and not only monsters but other terrible beings as well...,

Ketal thought.

“This is tiresome,” he said, sighing.

He had left the Inside and still had to spare thought for what crouched in there. Annoyance rose sharp enough to taste.

I will have to prepare.

“Oh, you were here,” Bayern said, his boots scuffing the stone as he came up behind him. He halted at Ketal’s shoulder and looked where Ketal was looking.

They did not see the same thing. Ketal saw the White Snowfield past the horizon. Bayern saw the sea, and the line carved through it. The ocean was split. A long, long scar cut through the heaving water. From the seabed to the sunlit skin of the surface, a gouge had been opened that refused to fill. Ketal’s strike had parted the sea.

A chill pricked Bayern’s skin. Heroes could influence the world. He knew that as he was one himself. He also knew, for that very reason, that their influence rarely felt like this. Normally, what such a person did was more like issuing the world a command or nudging a concept until it changed shape for a while. It was pressure applied to the underlying script, not a rip in the page.

However, this was not that. This felt like something had taken the world by the edges and torn.

“You will be busy,” Ketal said, breaking his thoughts. Bayern blinked and turned himself back to the tasks at hand.

“For a time, we will be very busy,” he said.

There would be damage to tally, dead to name, wounded to dress, and ground to restore. The work that came after war was always harder than the fighting. The barbarians’ virtues did not include meticulous cleaning; in fact, their strength and bluntness could make such work worse if left unsupervised.

“This time, it will be better than before,” Bayern added, allowing himself a small breath of relief. “We have the faithful.”

The faithful had done what the barbarians could not: they had cleansed the land. Then they had staked their lives to stand against the monsters. They had been one of the pillars that held the day. Because of that, the church’s position in the North had grown immeasurably. Even barbarians thought twice now before dismissing a priest out of hand.

“I speak well with them. We will take their help. It is a good thing,” Bayern said, almost to himself. “The North will change,”

At last, the churches’ presence had been acknowledged in the North. The land would no longer be a place only for barbarians. The will of the gods would fall here, and their laws and care would take shape. Bayern, who had spent years at the hinge between his people and the rest of the world, could not help but feel satisfaction.

“Of course, there will be clashes at first,” he went on. “Hatred layered for centuries does not vanish in a single day. Holding that in check is my work.”

“And after that?” Ketal asked him.

“When the North settles,” Bayern said, “I will lead the barbarians and the faithful into the wider world.”

They would help a world in turmoil. In the same stroke, they would carve out a place for barbarians within that world. They would break the twisted pattern of mutual exclusion—of helping while being shunned and shunning while begging aid.

He wanted the North, and the people called barbarians, to become part of the world in truth. That was Bayern’s end goal.

“A worthy purpose,” Ketal said. “It will not be easy.”

“It will not,” Bayern agreed. “But I am their king.”

As king, he would set his shoulder to it and bear the weight.

Ketal inclined his head. “Impressive. You have my support.”

“It is all thanks to you,” Bayern said. “How about you? What will you do now? Will you remain in the North?”

“No.” Ketal let his gaze travel far out across the water, as if he could trace a line to the White Snowfield with his eyes alone.

There were monsters in there. There were also things that were not monsters.

“I have my own preparations to make,” he said.

The Ugly Rat’s last words slid through his mind. His expression tightened despite himself. Even recalling them sourly bent his features.

“Congratulations, Barbarian,”

the Rat had said with a giggle.

“Your subordinates are looking for you. To find their leader, they are trying to come Outside.”