Several small boats were moored at the underground waterway’s dock. The men unloading the cargo all wore hoods pulled low over their faces. All of them were members of the slave traders.
Rata of the Ratbone clan stood with his arms crossed, quietly watching their work.
The pale blue glow of a magic crystal lamp barely managed to push back the gloom. It should have been morning by now, but sunlight never reached this underground harbor, leaving it forever shrouded in dimness.
Rata loosened the collar of his coat, letting the damp air around his neck escape.
The abandoned castle that hid Ymir had an underground waterway running beneath it. To transport enough food and slaves to satisfy their master, water transport was essential. Once, this same passage might have carried supplies meant for a siege.
When the unloading was finished, the men bowed in unison.
“That’s everything. And… there’s also a report about last night.”
At those words, Rata’s brow furrowed.
“…In Flocia?”
The man who had spoken gave a short nod and handed him a sealed letter.
“It’s confirmed, sir. The details are written here.”
“…Well done.”
With a dismissive wave of Rata’s hand, the men boarded their boats again and departed down the dark canal.
He clicked his tongue in irritation.
Six boats’ worth of supplies—yet Ymir would devour it all within a day and a half. Worse still, this new report threatened their future supply of slaves.
“Flocia… warrior corps? At a time like this…?”
Rata scanned the report with narrowed eyes.
It detailed how the Raven Warrior Corps had breached the Flocia Dungeon, the very place that served as their base of operations. Even the hidden sector sealed by a magical key had been uncovered.
It wasn’t an entirely unexpected move. Flocia was a vital hub for river transport and anyone with a hint of imagination could guess that slave traders might have a foothold there. But for them to have discovered the hidden area—that was a serious blow.
Rata clutched a handful of his chestnut hair, biting his lips in frustration.
“Damn it…!”
To feed Ymir’s endless hunger for slaves, he’d granted the river bandits permission to abduct people by force. Until recently, their stock had come mostly from the destitute ones buried in debt and desperation.
Which meant… the moment they’d resorted to more violent methods, the Warrior Corps had caught their scent.
—A blunder.
But not yet a fatal one.
“If the boy with the horn truly is there…”
Rata’s gaze drifted toward the shadowed waterway. Flocia lay just beyond. It’s so close that he could almost smell the damp stone of its dungeon.
“Then perhaps… if I lure them into the dungeon and set Ymir-sama upon them, I could erase those meddlesome fools entirely.”
His lips curled into an irrepressible grin.
It had taken him four long years to build the slave traders’ network from the ground up. Though he is a monster, Rata had learned to blend in among humans, reveling in the pleasures and profits of their world. His loyalty to Ymir was genuine—but the urge to preserve the organization he had created ran even deeper.
The World Serpent, Jor, despised Rata’s pragmatism. Yet the Ratbone of the Underways bore his pride like armor. He had built his empire of flesh and coin before Ymir stirred from slumber after all.
“…Kiki”
Rata’s face turned pale immediately after laughing. The ruined castle shook. Though it’s weak, it was enough to make his pulse stutter.
A dry click escaped his throat.
—Right.
He had nearly forgotten. Before anything else, he had to inform that giant that the quality of the “meals” is about to decline.
At the underground wharf, drugged slaves lay strewn about like discarded cargo. All of them bore worthless, defective skills.
“…If it weren’t for the need to find rare ones, debt-slaves alone would suffice.”
Rata muttered, his nose wrinkling in distaste. Turning sharply on his heel, he retraced his steps through the damp stone passages. The echo of his boots followed him down the long corridor as he hastened toward the chamber where his master awaited.
“…Ymir-sama”
The moment Rata pushed open the heavy door, his body went rigid.
A towering figure—easily over two meters tall—stood with one hand pressed against the wall. Unkempt strands of golden hair spilled down his massive back.
“…Flocia.”
The voice rolled through the chamber like distant thunder.
Cracks spiderwebbed from beneath Ymir’s palm, crawling across the wall.
“Y–yes…”
Rata’s throat constricted.
The air was so tense it felt as though stepping any closer would reduce him to ash.
“Something worth devouring seems to have awakened… in the north.”
Ymir sniffed the air, his face still turned toward the wall, like a beast catching a scent. Before Rata could even deliver his report, his master had already sensed the disturbance in Flocia.
“The boy with the horn… he may have come.”
Flocia’s dungeon was already partially awakened. Hidden doors sealed by magical keys gave it remarkable value as a base of operations.
And yet, one unresolved mystery drifted through Rata’s mind.
“But—there shouldn’t be… any god left to awaken there, is there?”
His desperate murmur earned no reply.
“I’m going as well.”
Rata lifted his head.
“There’s power stirring in the lake. The battle with Odin… it’s reaching its peak.”
Ymir’s gaze was fixed on something distant—something Rata could neither see nor sense.
In the end, the war belonged to the giant alone.
Rata and Jor were merely shadows cast by their master’s will. If Ymir’s intentions could not be read, then there was no way to scheme against them. Perhaps it was simply the limit of his design—a flaw built into a creature made, not born.
“Fenrir, Hati, and the other wolf-boned ones who have yet to awaken—if I feed on this magic, they will stir as well.”
Ymir spoke without turning. The breadth of his back filled the chamber with menace.
“Well then, Rata. What will you do?”
“Y-Ymir-sama…”
Rata’s voice trembled as he dropped to his knees of his own accord, one hand pressed to his chest.
“I failed to prevent the Warrior Corps from entering Flocia and allowing our slave supply to falter. I have no excuse. But—please, grant me one more chance.”
His words tumbled out in a rush. He still valued the slavers’ network he had painstakingly built. He craved control over Ymir not out of devotion alone, but to protect that hard-won organization. Yet beneath all his schemes, a primitive terror smothered any further plotting—the fear that this time, his plotting might very well get him eaten.
“…I would go ahead of you myself, my lord.”
Ymir did not turn. Speaking to that immense back, Rata continued.
“Flocia is less than half a day from here. I’ll disguise myself and slip inside to sow confusion among the Warrior Corps.”
Ratbone Rata was not one to court risk. He had never taken to the front lines himself—until now, when he saw no other way to redeem his blunder.
“Since the world message, talk of heroes has drawn adventurers to Flocia. It is always a city of trade. If I dangle the dungeon’s secrets before them, I can prevent the adventurers from banding together.”
His tongue moved quickly, afraid to let the silence catch him.
“And besides,” he added, forcing steadiness into his voice, “there’s an old safeguard I called back some time ago. It’s about time I collected on that insurance.”
At last, Ymir moved his head—only slightly, as though some distant thought had just resurfaced.
“…Very well.”
Relief washed through Rata, loosening the tension that had bound every muscle in his body.
Ymir spoke, still facing the wall.
“Go on ahead, I will follow later.”
Rata bowed low. The gesture carried its own humiliation, yet his hands trembled not just from fear but from a strange, helpless thrill. To kneel before such overwhelming power—perhaps that, too, was a kind of ecstasy.
“My thanks, my lord.”
Crack. Crack.
Frost spread across Rata’s body, creeping over his skin like a living thing. The World Serpent, Jor, could swell its size in proportion to her magic—but Rata possessed another gift entirely. The figure of the refined merchant warped and shuddered, flesh and bone twisting until the man who stood there was someone else entirely.
Long ago, there had been a squirrel that scampered along the World Tree, whispering and tattling on all it met—Ratatosk, the Messenger of Malice.
And within Rata’s bloodline, that same power stand —the magic to assume another’s form.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com.
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