Elemental Cats

Both Amber, back in the town of Yellow Sparks, and Hugh, lazing around in the camp, got a letter from the fifth level branch manager responsible for sending the Forest Janitors and overseeing the situation from a distance.

After Amber sent a message detailing the situation and the rat corpse, her sister's group and Toz brought back the fifth level branch manager had a bad hunch that it was something serious. He didn't doubt Amber's request for help and immediately sent a team with a fifth level mage leading it to go and help her. Considering it was for a first level plane sending a squad with several mid level mages, it was definitely overkill, but the manager didn't hesitate. His gut had always been trustworthy, and if it turned out to be nothing serious, the Forest Janitors get a paid vacation and then return to work well-rested.

Sending someone unnecessary rather than not sending someone necessary is a thousand times better in the manager's books, and based on the report he had gotten from the site, his intuition seemed to have struck true once again. The reports he got also gave him clues about what kind of beast they were up against and what to look for in the historical records and archives of different kinds of wild beasts.

After he sent the reinforcements, he and some of his secretaries had been fully devoted to scouring documents and books for any leads. Sending requests for files and old reports from archives and libraries all over and eyeing through them while looking for something that resembles the cadaver in front of them or something similar at least.

They had found something similar a few times. Rodents using protective coats of earth, or mice creating milewide nests with a population of mainly stupid, low level members of their race.

But those rodents were far too large and lived in solitude. The mice didn't have any sort of protection, and survived by creating a thriving ecosystem in cooperation with their surroundings. They were almost the opposite of the rats, that the Janitors were sent to exterminate.

The days passed without any findings of importance, and the manager's bad feeling continued to grow. They hadn't slacked off, to begin with, but sleepless nights once or twice a week eventually turned into sleepless nights filled with stamina potion-fuelled frantic investigating.

Eventually, the sleep-deprived and stressed-out minds of the manager and the helpers he had gathered decided to loosen the restrictions and widen their search.

As they continued looking without finding anything, the search broadened continuously, and eventually, they stumbled upon creatures that did the same thing to the ground the rats had done, leaving it a completely barren wasteland. The different beasts had different methods, but a group of them did it in a similar way by combining fire and earth magic.

Since the beasts were on the verge of going extinct or were already completely eradicated from all the known planes ages ago, most of the beasts were only referred to by a single moniker before the type of beast. A Scorched Earth Dragon could, in reality, be several different types of flying lizards that all brought death upon the land they passed through.

All Scorched Earth Beasts were dangerous and extremely detrimental to practically all life except themselves. Because of that, many operations and missions had been launched to eradicate them. Just chasing them away wouldn't do anything except delay the inevitable, and all exterminations were carried out with the utmost brutality and decisiveness.

The manager started writing a message warning both Amber and Hugh about what he had found out about the Scorched Earth Beasts and to tell them that if they can't deal with it alone and guarantee a hundred percent extermination rate ask for help, the guild will send it. But since sending reinforcements immediately might not be needed and would also wound Hugh's pride, straining their relationship, the manager decided to wait for an answer.

The records he had found weren't detailed about the specific characteristics of each beast, but the traits that were similar to almost all of them were clearly underlined.

No matter if they lived in groups or alone, they were incredibly tenacious and wouldn't stop killing the earth until they die, and even then, some of them continued stealing the nutrients and killing the plants in their surroundings after they had died.

As long as the beasts were eradicated pretty quickly, the ground wouldn't take too long to restore itself.

Aside from the ones who lived in groups being generally weaker than other beasts of similar types, there were no definite weaknesses if one ignored the weakness of attracting the hate of most living beings.

The manager sent the first message as soon as he finished writing the letter, after which he returned to looking for specific details regarding the rats the humans on the plane of First Ignition were up against.*

It took some deep diving into obscure documents, but they finally found a few entries about something called Scorched Earth Rats. Most of the recorded information was general things, like how they were weak and numerous, and if even a single one was left alive, it wouldn't take long until they pop back up again to continue spreading their barren terror.

The few times in history they had been discovered ended in disaster almost every time. Not because of their survivability, strength, or numbers, or anything like that. Many rat type beasts possessed this trait as well, but it was two entirely different things when comparing Scorched Earth Rats to other types of rats.

While other Scorched Earth Beasts tend to use the mana and nourishment they take from the ground, for themselves, regardless if they are herd animals, or lone wolves. The Scorched Earth Rats are different, the weak ones don't use it for themselves, they merely store it for something else. All the rats in a Scorched Earth Rats' nest are nothing more than containers of energy, disposable, and live with only one purpose. To bring that energy to the depths where they die handing it over.

The being on the receiving end is what turns every encounter with the Scorched Earth Rats into disaster. The one time it didn't happen was simply described as a fluke with no chance of it ever happening again, and no further details were given in the records the manager found.

*First Ignition is the plane Yellow Sparks is located on, last mentioned in ch. 2 "Flowing Bronze".