"Drip... drip..."
Cold water dripped from the dark vaulted ceiling, falling among a group of figures whispering among themselves.
They held bone flutes and whips made from animal hide and iron nails. Swarms of giant rats gathered around them, restless and agitated, as though ready to pounce and devour someone at any moment.
"That outsider has already reached the Worm Tribe. Those idiots who only know how to raise worms may have already been wiped out."
"Perfect. That outsider has a gun! A gun! Once we get it, we Rat Speakers can rule all of Iron Country!"
"Guns aren't scary. Against a rat swarm, even guns are useless! That gun will be ours too..."
"The scout rats said that woman seems to be a Night Woman. Shouldn't we be more careful?"
"So what if she's a Night Woman? Once we get the gun and have the rat swarm's help, the Night Woman Tribe will just be an ordinary tribe..."
A group of people with sharp, rat-like chins gathered together, their voices sounding like the shrieks of rats as they spoke.
They were small in stature, bent at the waist and hunched over, like oversized humanoid rats.
The rats around them were also exceptionally huge, each one fat and stout like a hunting dog.
Just then, the rat swarm suddenly let out panicked cries and retreated in one direction, while staring toward the darkness on the other side.
The Rat Speakers immediately cracked their whips and blew their bone flutes, but they could not control the rat swarm at all.
The rats were trembling violently, as though they had seen the thing they feared most.
Then, from the distant darkness, came a tide-like hissing sound:
"His... hiss... hiss... hissss..."
Mixed within it was the sound of scales scraping across the ground,