Lord of Rot

The dog problem was dealt with for now, which left the foxes.

”I don’t know how to speak fox,” Pitz said, her cheeks flushing slightly. ”May I go over and try to talk to them?”

After Pitz struggled to imitate a few fox-like ”yips,” she finally declared the attempt a failure. In Leech’s opinion, however, the skulk of foxes had clearly understood her words; they were just refusing to communicate.

”Have the dogs watch the foxes,” Leech said. ”Winter is coming, and fox-fur coats sell very well.”

After taking Pitz on a tour of the grounds, Leech basically confirmed that she could communicate with animals, but that was all it was—communication.

Whether an animal chose to listen to her depended on its own mood and personality. Strictly speaking, a burly man with a club who didn’t know a word of dog language would have better luck commanding a dog than Pitz, who could speak it fluently.

The dog would even proactively try to guess the club-wielding man’s intentions just to avoid a beating.

This made her distinctly different from Arkke. Arkke had ”control.” She could directly command insects, demanding they follow her rules, and they would never disobey.

Pitz was even looked down upon by chickens and threatened by dogs who called her a bitch.

’Come to think of it, her world must be pretty awful. To suddenly hear so much abuse for no reason... Animals have no morals. They certainly aren’t polite.’

After being told to change into a maid’s uniform, Pitz officially had a job in the castle.

Pitz’s main job for now was to help Leech train birds of prey. She was to have them circle over Porcupine Territory in shifts, serving as a 24-hour surveillance network. As long as Leech wanted to check on things, he could project his consciousness into one of the birds, which also prevented them from simply flying off and never returning.

The rest of her duties involved training dogs.

Leech ordered two members of the patrol to stand behind Pitz with clubs while she trained the dogs. The primary goal was to teach them whose orders to follow and to have them understand a few basic commands.

For example, to teach a dog to run forward, normal training would require food lures and a lot of clumsy, indirect instruction.

But Pitz just had to repeat a single word over and over, translating it with a few ”WOOFs,” and the dogs would commit the meaning to memory.

In the future, the dogs would be a great help with tracking and killing enemies.

The ones with better pedigrees would be bred to produce offspring.

As for those with poor pedigrees, they were thoroughly stripped of their right to reproduce.

...

”You’re amazing!”

The young maids chatted during lunch.

Little Eyes leaned close to Pitz. ”So many rats, and they actually listened to you.”

Pitz was a bit embarrassed. ”I just suddenly started hearing them talk.”

Then she glanced over at Arkke. She’d heard that Arkke could control insects and that the Lord valued her ability greatly. Rumor had it that Beekeeping Village existed entirely because of her.

’And she’s so beautiful,’ Pitz thought, stealing a glance at Arkke. ’If I were that beautiful, the Lord would surely like me, too.’

When Pitz first discovered she could hear animals speak, she thought she was going crazy. She started by trying to communicate with the most common creatures in her home—rats—but they weren’t very bright.

Her personality became withdrawn, and since she wasn’t in the best of health, she wasn’t suited for outdoor work.

When the castle put out a notice for a rat-catcher, she felt she could give it a try. She never expected it would change her life.

’She and Arkke have similar abilities,’ she thought. ’We can definitely understand each other and become good friends.’

”Hm?” Arkke noticed Pitz staring and turned to her, puzzled, before offering a kind smile.

’She’s even more beautiful when she smiles.’ Pitz could feel her cheeks burning.

Wearing a beautiful dress and a ”katyusha” headband, living in a castle... life was like a dream. Before this, she’d thought she was cursed.

They even got to share the Lord’s leftovers. The Lord was always so generous, taking care of everyone.

Especially the ice cream!

Pitz had been given a scoop. It was sweet, refreshingly cool, and its creamy fragrance lingered in her dreams.

She loved it here!

”But the castle rats just keep showing up,” Goblet complained from the side. ”They can smell their way inside. One of the cabinets was chewed to bits, and Mr. Simon was furious... I heard that was a cabinet Lady Ellesmere brought with her, worth over 50 Silver Moons.”

Besides Lady Sparrow and the other washerwomen, Goblet was the only senior maid from the older generation who still lived in the castle.

The other young maids looked blank at the mention of Leech’s stepmother.

That didn’t stop them from being shocked to hear that a precious cabinet worth 50 Silver Moons had been ruined by rats.

Pitz could communicate with rats, but some of them simply chose to ignore her and hide in their holes, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She could communicate, but she couldn’t command.

”Maybe we could get a cat,” Pitz said. ”Rats are afraid of cats.”

”That’s a great idea!”

The idea soon reached Leech.

”Get a cat? Of course.”

He said, ”Let Pitz go choose one. Pick one with a good personality that’s good at catching rats.”

The cat’s purpose wasn’t to catch the rats, but to scare them.

’At least it would keep them from brazenly appearing in front of me again.’

The castle had never kept a cat before, but some commoners in Porcupine Territory kept them to protect their grain, though even then, it was hard to avoid chewed-open sacks or rat droppings in the wheat bags.

After Pitz selected a black cat, Leech gave it a look and allowed the black cat with the white ”gloves” on its paws to stay, dubbing it the castle’s ”Rat Defense Knight.”

After a quick tour to familiarize itself with the castle, the black cat soon demonstrated its superb rat-catching skills.

”It found a nest!” The maids following Pitz with brooms and shovels watched in amazement as the little black cat squeezed into a rat hole and emerged carrying tiny, red balls of flesh, one after another.

More than twenty of them! In a few weeks, they would have become more than twenty damn rats!

Little Eyes said, ”My mom says that if you mash up these baby mice and mix them with mud, you can put it on a wound to heal it.”

A few of the other young maids nodded along, having clearly heard similar folk remedies.

The black cat sat beside the pile of pinkies, looking smugly at the maids gathered around it.

”Qingtian, you did so well.” Pitz took out a piece of dried meat and offered it to the black cat.

The cat lowered its head to gnaw on the treat, satisfied, its tail swaying gently. It didn’t even mind the young maids reaching out to pet it.

The black cat, carefully selected by Pitz, had an excellent temperament.

”The cat is black, so why is he named Qingtian?” Little Eyes asked, confused.

Pitz shook her head. ”The Lord said that since the black cat has a patch of white, crescent-shaped fur on his head, his name is Qingtian.”

”Shouldn’t he be called Heitian, then?” Little Eyes muttered, before asking, ”Can I have these baby mice? My mom got scalded with hot water. She’s always so careless and rushes through everything.”