A Higher Food Chain

The haughty gnollmen and the timid, cowardly goblins resembled a lord's tax collectors and the farmers working his land.

And that was indeed the case. Before long, System saw the goblins dragging over a battered wooden cart piled with plant fruits and a small amount of meat—apparently half of some cow-like creature.

The shabby wooden cart was clearly quite old. System spotted a rust-covered iron axle on its wheels.

The cart was obviously not something the goblins could have made. He had no idea where they had obtained it.

Without dwelling on it, System listened closely to the conversation between the two sides.

Perhaps because of the two unique abilities of innate Perception and Mind Transfer, although System could not understand the languages of the gnollmen and goblins, he could still grasp the general situation from their movements, expressions, and tones.

After all, in System's eyes, neither species was particularly intelligent, and their exchanges lacked the human talent for veiled maneuvering and false civility.

The gnollmen's purpose in coming to the goblin village was much as System had first assumed: they had come to collect food.

The goblins brought out a cartload of food, but the gnollmen thought there was too little meat and too much fruit. They let out dissatisfied roars.

The leading gnollman seemed to be saying, "You despicable, cunning green-skinned vermin! You dare deceive the valiant gnollman warriors? I'll kill you all!"

The surrounding goblins huddled together, furious but afraid to speak, trembling all over.

The goblin village's chief seemed somewhat more intelligent. He wore a fawning smile, apparently explaining why meat was so scarce.

Yet in the end, the goblins failed to reach an agreement with the gnollmen.

The gnollmen bared tongues dripping with saliva and grinned greedily. Whatever they said, the gathered goblins became even more panicked.

Apart from the leading gnollman, the other two suddenly dropped to all fours and began sniffing the ground. Sinister smiles spread across their faces.

The two gnollmen quickly headed toward a pile of weeds...

System had thought the gnollmen had found food hidden by the goblins. Instead, they pulled three goblin children from the grass.

The gnollmen efficiently snapped the necks of all three goblin children.

Seeing his companions' actions, the lead gnollman selected two elderly goblins as well.

Before the terrified eyes of the goblins, the gnollman drove his claws through the heads of the two elderly goblins. Then, with shocking bloodiness, he licked the red-and-white fluid from his claws in front of them.

Under the gazes of the goblins, the gnollmen tossed the goblin corpses onto the cart full of food.

Not long afterward, after the gnollmen's angry roars had died down, the three gnollmen walked in front, while five young goblins appeared behind them, pushing and pulling the cart laden with food along a forest path. They seemed to be heading for the grasslands dozens of kilometers away.

Once the gnollmen had left, the remaining dozen or so goblins looked somewhat relieved.

They all knelt in the same direction and formed peculiar gestures with their hands, as though carrying out some special ritual—or perhaps a prayer.

The goblins kept repeating the same word, one that had also come up several times during the conversation between the goblin chief and the gnollmen.

"Lord... of the Glacier?"

Thinking of the emotional tone of their earlier exchange, and of these goblins kneeling toward the glacial mountain range thousands of kilometers away, this term surfaced unbidden in System's mind.

Perhaps it was the Lord of the Glacier. Perhaps the King of Ice and Snow. Or perhaps the God of Winter.

In short, it was something combining a cold adjective with a noun like lord or ruler.

System watched the goblins for a little longer. Seeing nothing else of note, he spread his wings and left.

The gnollmen's slaughter of the goblins had been cruel and bloody. System had thought it would make him uncomfortable.

Yet his heart barely stirred.

If he had to describe it, watching the gnollmen kill goblins felt much like watching a frog swallow mosquitoes. He felt almost nothing.

If there was any other emotion, it was a trace of admiration for the gnollmen's methods—seemingly crude, yet actually full of wisdom.

They used cold, bloody methods to keep goblins captive and have them provide food. And when they found the goblins' food supply insufficient, the gnollmen did not hesitate to kill the old and weak among them in order to maximize the amount of food.

First, the old and weak goblins could be used as food. Second, killing them reduced their consumption. And it also let the gnollmen pressure the goblins with terror and bloodshed.

The gnollmen's method of keeping goblins captive seemed highly successful.

System realized that his emotions seemed to have become abnormal. Yet unlike before, he did not reflect on it or question it, nor did he miss the feelings he had possessed as a human in his previous life.

Ever since the old druid had used traps to slaughter a million locusts, an unnamed shift had taken place in how he viewed things.

To System, goblins and gnollmen were merely creatures higher up in the forest's food chain. Though they possessed language and rudimentary intelligence, they had not developed civilization.

The gnollmen might be somewhat better, but goblins were ultimately nothing more than creatures struggling bitterly in the forest, a little higher on the food chain.

For now, however, System would basically have no dealings with them.

Just as mosquitoes became food for frogs, frogs were eaten by venomous snakes, and snakes in turn were eaten by eagles.

But eagles had no interest in mosquitoes.

After returning from the goblin gathering place to his temporary nest, System flew patrols around its surroundings.

For the time being, he lacked the ability to settle accounts with that old druid. But System had decided to find the rat that had intruded during his third metamorphosis.

There was the grudge of his own brush with death, and the pain of watching Shawa be tortured by the rat. He would find that rat and kill it!

With his strength after metamorphosis, System felt he should have the advantage against that rat. He might get injured, but there was still a very good chance he could kill it.

The only question was whether he could find that rat.

Within a little over a hundred meters of his temporary nest, System found eleven rat burrows in succession.

Because of the earlier torrential rain, most of the rat holes were empty. He had no idea which burrow that rat actually lived in.

System had no intention of crawling into the rat burrows one by one to search. Clashing with a rat inside its burrow was quite unwise.

He looked at the sky. It was already nearing dusk; in about an hour, the world would turn pitch-black.

Rats were typical nocturnal creatures, hiding by day and emerging at night. As long as this rat went out to forage after dark because of hunger, with his current vision that turned night into day, System would definitely spot it.