"who!"
Rats wearing tattered leather jackets surrounded the sudden green smoke. The flash just now allowed them to stabilize the familiar smell of warpstone that Skaven loved.
There were only a dozen or so rat shadows that appeared, and even though they looked like they were well-armored, this made them look even more attractive.
Just grab the armor and the warpstone!
Just as he was thinking this, a slightly stronger clan rat stared at the paws of the leader, a not tall white-haired rat.
To be precise, it was the green light on his claws.
He knew what it was, a magical aura.
This is a light that even mortals, who cannot see the realm of magic, can see.
The clan rat swallowed a mouthful of saliva and immediately knelt on the ground on one knee, hiding his trembling legs.
"It turns out that he is from the big city..."
"The engineer warlock of Clan Skryre."
Eski added for him, and then took a look around. It was probably a large group of shacks piled together without foundations.
"This is your nest?"
The engineering warlock with blue eyes looked at all the things around him that could barely be regarded as beds.
"A small clan with just over seven hundred people."
"Occupying such a large area, the den is still in such poor repair."
The more he spoke, the angrier the engineering warlock became. All the buildings here were clearly visible, and even the snow storage area did not exist.
There were no signs of holes in the rock walls, nor in the fortification area. Even a small clan would suffer heavy casualties when encountering large predators underground. I really don’t know how they survived.
There are only 700 rats, not even five infantry teams.
"The mana is not enough. Let's repair the two horned rats in place first."
With that said, the engineering warlock grabbed a guide wearing a leather jacket and asked.
"Why are their residences so dilapidated? Even the lower-level clans in the underground fortress are not swaying like this, as if they are about to collapse at any time."
"Most dens are like this. If you can build this shed without collapsing, you are considered a carpenter. In every small clan, you are a highly sought-after talent."
The guide, who was clearly in a bad mood and even his claws were starting to turn white, introduced the engineering warlock.
"Is this considered a talent?"
The engineering warlock punched one of the wooden pillars, and the rickety building with several rats sleeping underneath immediately collapsed.
Several rats got up and wanted to curse, but they raised their heads to face the white-furred figure, but they only dared to avoid it.
The wind of life continuously surges out from the earth. The newly grown vines catch the fallen wooden fragments and continue to grow upward. They are connected with their downward extending root systems to form new interesting vines. A house with reliable load-bearing and foundation.
"Your nest can still be used after being tidied up. I will make it at least as good as this for future buildings."
Engineer.
"What if you all went to feed Tregara, and the den that originally existed on the map suddenly no longer exists, and those of us passing by will be very troubled."
"Why don't you sit down and take a rest? You're still wasting your mana."
The engineer warlock looked back, wanting to see which rat was so rebellious, but found that the rat language of the elves was becoming more and more authentic.
The elf was sitting on a mat made of two animal skins, five or six meters away from a circle of white cloth where the clan rats led by Storm Rat sat.
Simply, the engineering warlock sat down on the seat formed by the growing vines.
"Ordinary rat people only have a life span of more than ten years, which is a matter of course. Experience and technology all require the accumulation of time, so only those like us who can get the elixir of life, or geniuses..."
"Although I understand, I'm still angry."
"So, can you understand how sinful it is for you elves to waste time?"
Although the words were addressed to the elves, the engineer warlock still spoke in rat language. Of course, these remarks were heard by all the rats present.
"Sorry, we can't. What does it have to do with you short-lived people if we waste ours?"
The witch spirit smiled and responded in her Ratman language, which looked more and more like a rat.
"Elf, you don't need to taunt me. I will extend their lifespan. I don't need a chief engineer to exchange the lives of a thousand slave rats for a hundred years of life."
"Is there such a way?"
Clan Rat asked as the whip marks on his legs had not yet healed.
"Yes, the power of magic, the power of life magic."
Engineers are natural.
"You, unlike these rats who have no future, you still have a bright future, scouts. You are the best dozen or so of my men."
There was a hint of kindness in Esky's eyes.
This is a treatment that even the headhunter Quirk doesn't have, giving these guys with brown, red, and yellow furs an advantage.
"It was also at this time that I realized what a waste of talent the Moss clan was."
The engineering warlock lowered his head and murmured.
As he spoke, the blue plane in front of him flashed, and a few dimensional coins were thrown into his mouth, biting them into pieces with just his teeth.
"What do you mean, there is no future."
The leader of the clan opened his mouth with sharp yellow teeth.
“No future means no future.”
Eski's eyes turned blue-purple, and he didn't even find traces of dimension stone in this guy's veins. He shook his head and extended his left claw.
"I extend your life span from 20 years to 100 years, and extend your prime of life from 5 years to 30 years. Is there any difference? Can you make anything?"
"No way. At most, you can increase your small clan from 700 rats to about 3,000. Maybe you can still have the money to go to Stinky Peak and buy a female rat."
As he spoke, the engineering warlock casually glanced at the surrounding buildings and continued.
"Then what? How will this get me?"
"You don't think that magic is a cheap thing without the life of a slave rat."
The rat leader of the clan almost chewed his teeth into pieces. This was the first time that he had come into contact with other rat people at such a high level. It was also the first time that other rats had spoken of him like this.
As he spoke, he placed his hand on the handle of the sword at his waist.
Just when he was about to pull out the knife, a huge force pressed on his hand.
Looking down, faint green stripes kept appearing on his hands.
"Don't do anything stupid, you clan rat thing."
The engineer warlock suppressed the clan rat and knelt down, then stood up, took out a few more dimensional coins and ate them.
"Of course it's best if you want to live in peace with each other. I just burned thousands of elite necromancers with a fire. The more than 700 of you are really not enough."
"I can bring you information."
The clan rat spoke with a low voice in his throat.
"ah?"
The engineering warlock licked the remaining green powder on his pink fingers, his tone still so casual.
"As long as there are enough dens."
Looking down at the clan rat, he saw that he had already made the gesture of exposing his neck humbly as the rats did.
"It seems that you really want to live a long life."
The engineering warlock's blue-purple eyes approached the clan rat, and he looked at the protruding patch of skin around his mouth that had some spots on it and asked.
"How old?"
"Nine years old."
That's it, Eski's body leaned back.
"That is to say, he is about to enter old age."
As he spoke, a blue plane appeared in front of his right paw, and a milky white liquid contained in a transparent five-centimeter-thick glass tube appeared in his paw.
This is the elixir of life that the Skryre clan has completely in the hands of the Chief Engineer Warlock.
"This bottle of potion can extend your life and adulthood for one year, but what reason do you have for asking me to give it to you?"
The engineer warlock looked at the clan rat leader with a rather cold expression.
"A mere piece of information is not enough."
"First, your intelligence is at most gathered near this small den. You cannot control too many dens, otherwise you should report to the underground fortress."
"Second, there is no way for you to tell me your information right away."
"Thirdly, the information that can be obtained from your clan has no effect on me."
With that said, the engineering warlock sent the white potion bottle back to the sapphire-like plane.
"To sum up, I can only ask you. In a few years, I will die of old age."
"Okay, that's it, I'm going to rest."
With that said, Esky lay on Teng Man's newly formed bed, took out a few dimensional coins, and threw them into his mouth like fried beans.
A few hours passed quickly.
The number of dimensional coins smashed into the mouth by the engineering warlock was almost a hundred pieces.
If you look at it with magic vision, there are elements of warpstone flowing in Esky's blood vessels, just like those non-caster rats who have eaten warpstone - rats who are too poor to afford potions. Will try to increase his strength by swallowing raw warpstone ore.
These parts that have not yet been constructed into the mana pool are always affecting the thoughts of the engineering warlocks.
This makes the engineering warlock's brain wander among arrogant, uncontrollable, and sometimes uncontrollable impulses that want to tease all living things in the world.
Fortunately, he knew in advance that this was all an illusion caused by the dimension stone, and he suppressed the impulse forcefully.
"Okay, the mana is almost restored."
Sweating all over, with oil on his fur that contained the smell of battle, the engineering warlock stood up from Tengman's bed.
The leader of the clan rat was still kneeling there, as if his knees had taken root. Only then did Eski remember that from just now, the power of the dimensional stance had been exerted on the clan rat.
"Still no reason?"
The engineer spoke mockingly, soaking his injured knee with the wind of life.
"Your opportunity has just slipped away. Don't regret it."
"I want it. No matter what."
The leader of the clan rat put on a pleading posture.
"I'll give you three months to make some achievements first. As for your nest, which is not much better than a dead man's thing, I don't think you can do anything."
Patting the clan rat leader on the shoulder, the engineering warlock spoke.
"Let's reach the settlement by the sea in one go."
As he spoke, a burst of green smoke flashed past, leaving only a series of vine-like buildings.
"From today on, this is my bedroom, you all should vacate it!"
The clan rat leader immediately stood up, used his tail as a whip, and whipped the other clan rats.
On the other side, there was another long period of spinning and the unbearable retching sound of the clan rats.
"Hold it all back to me, otherwise I will confiscate the food you secretly hide in your cheek pouches, and let you completely eat the wind of life, and you will not even be able to smell the food."
The engineer warlock's tail whipped hard on the ground.
The clan rats immediately blocked their mouths with their paws and swallowed the regurgitated food again.
"This is where?"
The wizard was asking the guide a question when he was stopped.
"Shh!"
The engineer warlock raised his pink finger to his mouth.
The weak spell calls out to the wind of Aegir, and these flowing lightnings bring echoes three hundred meters away.
"Three three-person teams and one four-person team. A standard thirteen-person team."
"It's one of our own."
The white-haired engineering warlock breathed a sigh of relief.
Generally speaking, in the underground world, apart from the undead, dwarves, and ratmen, there are only monsters.
But here, we are already close to Nehekhara, and no one knows whether those humans who are good at constructs and necromancy will guard the emptiness like the empire a thousand years later.
It is so empty that the rat-man assassination team can kill the opponent's professors and historical witnesses at will, burn the opponent's books, and directly tamper with the opponent's history.
But will the same be true of Nehekhara?
If that's the case, why are there no dungeons beneath Lahmia?
Logically speaking, a trading city that is close to the sea and has fertile farmland in the south should have an underground stronghold of the rat people, but no, there is no such thing in the map of the underground fortress.
There are still three channels to maintain material communication between the underground fortress and the base camp in the west: the western channel that directly crosses the Acid Sea, the northwest channel that takes the underground river, and the northern channel that takes the World's Edge Mountains.
If it could be replenished directly from the wealthy Lahmia, the birthplace of vampires, which is only 1,200 kilometers away...
Just as the engineer warlock was thinking about it, he was reminded by the sound of a rat,
"This is the edge of the sea crossing area, and it may not necessarily be friendly forces."
It was the guide who issued the warning, which made the engineering warlock focus on the thirteen-man team.
"On the other side is a gathering place for human gadgets, and there are even more terrifying monsters in the deep tunnels."
"Their stronghold is a quite large city."
"So, they also have an organization similar to the Council of Thirteen, which is built on the entrance to the deep tunnel."
Another guide interrupted him at this time and said.
"Their strength is close to ten thousand. I heard when I was serving Reikek that they will not allow anyone from other clans to cross the sea from here."
"They will just be thrown into the underground passages to feed the monsters."
"I can't tell you the specific reason why they did this, but they have become richer recently."
"If it weren't for the fact that the underground fortress didn't have enough energy to organize an expeditionary force and march 600 kilometers to attack here, Lord Ikrit, or the previous Lord Staden, might have already occupied this place."
When the engineering warlock heard this, he smiled instead.
"In other words, if we capture this place, no one will have any objections, right?"
