High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2187: Chapter 408: Human-faced Rat

Perhaps the ’relationship’ that the source mentioned was not merely a romantic one, but involved having children; perhaps Mister Sima was not suitable to be the guidance for the Hunting Team, and even her relationship with Dr. Xiao was merely a rumor spread by word of mouth.

In any case, the young wizards in the observation room were praying wholeheartedly that the Atonement’s guiding teacher would be Su Councilor from the Moon Council, praying to see that beautiful figure on the small screen before them.

On the other side of the screen.

The young wizards of the Atonement Hunting Team were unaware of the small entanglement in the observation room.

The fleeting laughter of the Red Hats gradually faded, and the wind and snow outside the magical barrier unexpectedly calmed down a bit. Through the translucent barrier, the sun behind the clouds resembled a dead fish eye, devoid of any warmth.

Whoosh!

A gentle breeze passed through the barrier, carrying a touch of snow, and stopped in front of the Six-pointed Star Array. As the snow fell, the tall and thin figure of Mister Blood Werewolf was revealed.

In his hand, he was holding a big mouse with a human face.

The ’mouse’ seemed to have its limbs and tail broken, and its neck was pinched, yet it still remained fierce, struggling ceaselessly in the hands of the tall thin warlock, with a crumpled and hideous face turned skyward, baring its teeth in a terrifying grin, revealing two rows of crooked and sharp fangs.

”Human-faced rat?”

”Really like cockroaches, cleaned year after year, yet never clean enough.”

Xiao Xiao and Zhang Ji Xin’s voices almost rang out simultaneously, only the doctor sounded slightly surprised, while the voice of the red-faced male wizard carried a hint of gloominess.

”Traces of human-faced rats were found in the directions of two o’clock, seven o’clock, and eleven o’clock, it should be not a small tribe.” Dylan took off his mask, breathing with a slight white mist—as for a vampire, this kind of weather was truly unsuitable for hunting—he took off his hood covered with snowflakes, stamped his feet: ”There are a few especially large human-faced rat footprints in the snow, I suspect this tribe was birthed after the death of a giant.”

Traditionally, human-faced rats were an evil creation of black magic, transformed from deceased cultists, they were rare and mostly would only appear in the basements or sewers of where dark wizards once lived, serving evil gods by instinct.

However, the human-faced rats in the Silent Forest were ’naturally hatched’—under the nurturing of the Silent Black Tide and abundant magic power, the spirit fragments floating in the Silent Forest combined with the ubiquitous mice, eventually forming this kind of magical creatures filled with dark aura.

Similar to most low-intelligence creatures in the Silent Forest, the human-faced rats here congregate in tribes, those birthed from the same source of spirit fragments naturally gather together, and the stronger the life before death, the more spirit fragments it dissipates after death, and thus, the larger the tribe of human-faced rats birthed.

Correspondingly, these large human-faced rat tribes are very dangerous, because there is a high probability that similar to ’priests’, human-faced rat elders, capable of casting certain talent magic of the deceased, might be born among them.

Upon hearing the hunter’s report, Zheng Qing did not issue a command immediately, but rather looked at Xiao Xiao.

”Doctor, what do you think?”

The leader of the Atonement Hunting Team had the wisdom to know his limits for most of the time, refraining from making any rash decisions. And Xiao Xiao’s reaction just now spoke volumes.

Under normal circumstances, some human-faced rats wouldn’t surprise him.

Even large human-faced rat tribes birthed after a giant’s death.

”Sounds like those little things have quite the appetite, already surrounding us.” The doctor joked while shaking his head, then lowered his head again to fiddle with his divination tokens, his voice hesitant: ”The prior divination results foretold the arrival of great danger... but these human-faced rats don’t feel like it... Divination shouldn’t be wrong, yet I can’t see any other danger. Really a head-scratcher.”

”For an average hunting team, a giant human-faced rat tribe is already a very dangerous opponent.” Another main hunter of the Atonement Hunting Team expressed his opinion: ”Even if there is something worse, we must first deal with these ’cockroaches’.”

”The Elder is right.”

Xiao Xiao took a deep breath, looked up at the eleven o’clock direction—wind and snow intertwined with dense forests, obscuring not only vision but also sound, making it difficult to judge the current position of the human-faced rats.

He withdrew his gaze, looking at the human-faced rat Dylan dropped on the ground, picked up a divination token, and poked the rat’s belly, nodding slightly: ”...Just as described in the ”Wizard World Encyclopedia”, the flesh of the human-faced rat is tough and sour, not good to eat; its fur is too greasy, with weak magic power attachment; its bones are too hard for grinding bone powder, too brittle for carving magic wands; but their souls have certain characteristics that only wizards possess... whether for black magic experiments or for certain Alliance law-regulated experiments, there is a huge demand for human-faced rat souls.”

”So, we’ve struck it rich.” The fat wizard concluded.

”Let’s just say we made a gain,” the Diviner slightly corrected his wording: ”You should consider the talismans, charm bullets, and other materials needed to eliminate these troublesome human-faced rats... plus, the school’s cut.”

Click!

The charm gun in Zheng Qing’s hand made a crisp loading sound.

The leader of the Atonement Hunting Team glanced at their diviner, teasingly remarked: ”The way you describe it, it sounds like First University is some sort of terrifying terrorist organization.”

Bam!

He raised his hand and fired a charm bullet into the sky, reinforcing the magic barrier surrounding the hunting team once again. The howling wind and snow subsided again, almost simultaneously, dozens of snowflakes at the edge of the barrier were suddenly tossed up, like dozens of suddenly blooming flowers, human-faced rats covered in snowflakes screamed, swarming out, dozens of ghostly white bone knives pierced that layer of translucent barrier.

It sounded like nails scratching a blackboard.

Or like wire scratching on glass.

Curled claws reached forward greedily, Zheng Qing could clearly see the wrinkled face and sparse, messy hair of a human-faced rat not far away, his first impression was that these creatures looked more like some kind of deformed monkeys, rather than mice.

The screeches of human-faced rats mixed with the sound of bone knives scraping against the magic barrier were sharp and harsh, redirecting the attention of the Atonement Hunting Team leader.

”Only this many, far fewer than the ghouls we encountered on the Stage of Dreamy Fiction!”

The young scholarship student gave a spirited pep talk to his comrades while rapidly issuing one command after another: ”Doctor, surveillance curse to scout all around!”

”Monitor, prepare the Guarding Curse! Ready the Chaos Spell! Ready the Soft Leg Curse!”

”Fatty, Elder, Gentleman, prepare the Wind Spell!”

”Swordsman, patrol all around, make sure to protect the doctor!”

”Finally... Broken Bamboo, Continuation Bamboo, Flying Soil, Zhu Rou!”

”Broken Bamboo, Continuation Bamboo, Flying Soil, Zhu Rou!” The other six hunters of the Atonement Hunting Team collectively raised their law books and recited this ancient pre-hunt blessing.