Chapter 55 - Ack, RATS!

"Damn it, why am I always unlucky!" Yang Zhang cursed as he climbed the table. "Guys, help me! I can't fight these small things alone!"

"Squeak!"

"Chirp!"

Chestnut and Lt. Spicy Wing jumped from Yang Zhang's body and landed on the ground. They had small bodies, so it should be easier to hit those mutated rats.

Because Yang Zhang was only able to hit one or two after wasting so many pea bullets.

"Spicy Wing, try to fight one or two of them until your body heat is enough to burn them!"

"Chirp!"

"Chestnut, charge electricity around your body and tackle them one by one, careful not to get bitten!"

"Squeak!"

Lt. Spicy Wing started doing its Kungfu chicken and kicked those rats one by one. Its body started to emanate an orange aura, and the temperature around this room also started to heat up.

Chestnut also fought against those rats, it started charging, and the electricity around its body got zapped those rats before they could even touch Chestnut.

Yang Zhang continued to command his mutated pets while shooting the rats that tried to climb the table. He checked whether Ivy could help him because this rats problem would be solved in less than five minutes if Little Ivy could just—smack them all on the face with her vines.

But when he realized that Little Ivy got even more scared when she heard the sound of zombie hordes from outside, he quickly scrapped that idea.

Yang Zhang remembered how he defeated those mutated jungle chickens by flinging the rooster commander far from them, so the chickens had to follow their leader.

Since Yang Zhang was trapped in this house with these rats, the only way was to defeat this horde of rats was by killing the big rats, aka the rat leader.

Yang Zhang aimed at the big rat sitting far from the attacking rats, the big rat was probably three times the size of the small ones, and it didn't move an inch, making it a perfect target for his gauntlet gun.

BANG!

Yang Zhang fired a shot towards that rat, and the rat turned its head at him.

The rat stared at the bullet firing towards it, and—

Clank!

"What the—"

The rat deflected the pea bullet with its small claw-like it was nothing.

Yang Zhang's jaw dropped when he saw that. He gritted his teeth and fired the second shot.

BANG!

Clank!

BANG! BANG!

Clank! Clank!

"What the—how could that goddamn rats deflected all my bullets!?" Yang Zhang shook his head out of disbelief, he tried to attack again, but this time, he aimed at its stomach, hoping that the short arm wouldn't be able to reach its stomach.

BANG!

The pea bullet was fired at an amazing speed. But before the bullet could hit the rat's belly, the rat backed off and bit the pea bullet.

The rat crushed the pea bullet with its yellow teeth, even though it was comparable to a steel bullet.

The big rat screeched, and the horde of rats that fought Chestnut and Spicy Wing stopped attacking and returned to the big rat to make a formation.

The big rat screeched again, and those small rats climbed on top of each other to make a rat wall to protect their big boss, while the rest started making coordinated attacks towards Yang Zhang.

They quickly climbed on the furniture and tried to jump on Yang Zhang, attacking him with their sharp teeth.

"Fuck!" Yang Zhang quickly jumped to a chair and then a wooden dresser. He was standing on top of the tallest furniture in the house right now.

He aimed his gun at the rats about to climb the dresser now and checked the surrounding.

This house had a lot of wooden furniture that was definitely flammable, but the wall was made out of cement, so there was no way the fire would burn the zombies outside.

If he used the Spicy Wing's fire here, the only one who would be cooked to death was him and the rats.

So this was the time for Chestnut to shine because the electricity wouldn't be enough to set the furniture on fire.

He commanded Chestnut and Spicy Wing for another move to counter the swarming rats.

"Chestnut, come to me and charge your body! Surround your body electricity and make an electric dome!" Yang Zhang commanded. "Make sure no rat can climb this drawer!"

"Squeak!" Chestnut stood in front of the drawer, right in front of the rats that tried to climb the drawer to attack Yang Zhang.

"Do it, Chestnut! ELECTRIC DOME!"

"Squeak! Squeaaak!!"

BZZT! BZZT! BZZT! BZZT! BZZT!

Chestnut started charging its body and then unleashed a dome of electricity around its body. Chesnut's electric dome automatically zapped any rats and cooked them crispy, deterring the rest from climbing the drawer to reach Yang Zhang.

"Hehe, Chris P. Rats," Yang Zhang chuckled and quickly shook his head to remind himself, "Okay, stop playing around, Yang Zhang."

Yang Zhang saw that Spicy Wing was standing in front of the rat wall. They were trying to protect their boss behind them. Yang Zhang got an idea, he doubted that Spicy Wing's attack could kill that big rat, but it could definitely stagger the big rat with a surprise attack.

He checked whether Spicy Wing had enough heat inside its body and made sure it was enough. He commanded, "Chestnut, go ham on them! Roll on them and break that rat wall!"

"HABANERO CHICKEN BOWLING! STRIKE!"

"Chirp! CHIRP!" Spicy Wing rolled like a ball of fire and then dashed straight to the rat wall.

The ball of fire was proven to be too hot for the rats. It struck through them like a bowling ball hitting all the pins and headed straight to the big rat.

Yang Zhang quickly aimed his gauntlet gun at the big rat, and when Spicy Wing was able to hit the big rat and stagger it for a few seconds, Yang Zhang took the chance and started firing his gun.

BANG!

"Scrheee!" The big rat screeched in agony. Since it couldn't deflect or bite the bullet, the big rat was forced to take the hit of the pea bullet.

Yang Zhang continued firing pea bullets at the big rat, hitting its head and belly many times. The bit rat turned vulnerable as long as you could stagger it for a second and continued attacking, though it would take at least three bullets to hit the same spot and pierce through its skin.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

"SCHREEEEE!" The big rat was finally down after Yang Zhang lost count on how many times he shot it.

The remaining rats that hadn't been cooked to a crisp by Chestnut or burned by Spicy Wing were staring at their dead big boss rat and then quickly rushed to enter a hole, escaping from Yang Zhang and his mutated pets.

Lt. Spicy Wing and Chestnut joined their master and hugged him to celebrate.

"We did it! We killed the mini-boss in this village!" Yang Zhang said excitedly.

"Squeak!"

"Chirp! Chirp!"

After making sure there were no remaining rats, he checked the window and the door.

This house was already surrounded by zombies, so leaving from the window and the door was impossible. The only way out was—

"The chimney," Yang Zhang said. He jumped down and entered the chimney. It was actually quite big, at least it would fit for Yang Zhang's body, and he could see the clear sky from the end of the chimney.

"Little Ivy is our only hope for now," Yang Zhang said. He opened his palm and patted Little Ivy's small head. "Ivy, can you help me right now? You're the only hope."

Little Ivy sensed the plea from her master. She opened her trembling vines slowly and looked at Yang Zhang, "Vii?"

"Yeah, can you pull us out? Don't worry, we're inside a house right now. The zombies can't get in," Yang Zhang said.

"Vii…"

Little Ivy stretched one vine and grabbed the end of the chimney. She pulled Yang Zhang and the rest slowly until they came out of the chimney. Little Ivy quickly hid inside her master's sleeve again after doing her job.

Yang Zhang heard the sound of the zombies under the house. It seemed that they hadn't noticed Yang Zhang had already escaped through the chimney.

Now that he was on top of a house, he could see the whole village clearly.

The village was quite small but densely populated, seeing the narrow distance between one house and another. There were zombies everywhere. Even though that old woman told him that the village would be the second base for humans with immunity to live in, it seemed there hadn't been any meaningful zombie extermination.

"Well, let's forget about that for now, because the main goal is right in front of us, that big house," Yang Zhang said as he pointed at the two stories house that was noticeably bigger than the rest of the houses here.

"We need to go there!"