After everybody arrived, Carl and Rex quickly went towards an area of the city that had someone they both knew. Someone who was really worried about Rex and our Rodenti companion wanted to talk to them as soon as possible. This left Vera and some other members of Carl's group to help us get settled in for the night.

It was already clear that Carl was going to take us all the way to the main village, but it was something that would still take a few days as going through the Rock Fly tunnel required a lot of effort. I was thankful for the help and even more thankful when I realized that there wouldn't be hostility from this village. However, people from this village didn't really seem to like us.

It wasn't all that strange since I had seen that humans didn't generally have a good relationship with Rodenti, but their hostility felt a bit more personal. Still, thanks to Carl vouching for us and the fact that we came with Rex, who was their chieftain's son, they were at the very least polite to us and didn't outright reject our presence.

One way or another, Vera helped us find a place to stay for the night. There was this old house that was scheduled to be demolished so they could create a road there and expand their village a bit more, but it would still be a few days before anyone came. Because of the preparations for the battle against the Eaters, the people responsible for construction were not present and would not be continuing with any extension plan until after the battle ended. This meant that we would be safe enough there, and we didn't have to worry about getting in anyone's way.

The entire village was underground. Following along with what Rex told us, Rodenti generally didn't like to stay out in the sun very much. Or at least not most of them. There were still a few Rodenti with brown or white fur that seemed to be more at ease above ground. But here in the desert, even those wouldn't like to spend much time outside. It was too hot, too dry, and there were too many dangers for them above.

Still, their village was very comfortable. The blinding heat that you would expect from a desert did not seem to affect those living here, and there was even a breeze thanks to the connection between the two rock tunnels that led closer to the main village. Vera told us that the entire tribe just had this connection and the idea was to make even more in the future as they continued to expand.

"Why don't you just extend the main village? Why make different ones?" Riley asked as she led us to the house we would be staying at.

"Too many people same place is uncomfortable. Feels crowded. Too much. Rodenti fall back to bad behavior. Behavior ancestors try to stop. Also easier to food run out. Better if split. Smaller groups everybody more comfortable."

The way she said it made it seem like she didn't want to expand on the reason. We all felt fine with dropping the subject. After all, what she was saying wasn't something very unknown for humans even in this day and age. Every so often, you would still find someone who decided to leave a village because it just became too much. There were too many people, and they wanted a place a bit more quiet. That was even true in the old world. I remembered Pops telling me how he and my grandmother were trying to leave the big city and go to a quieter place because there was just too much going on. They were preparing to do exactly that when everything started.

Still, it was nice knowing that some things were universal. Like not liking crowded places that much, at least not in the long run, and figuring out that at least some of the Rodenti also knew how to enjoy leisure. I wasn't speaking just because of the Rock Fly Ttunnel, but in this village we saw people playing around, talking, and not spending their entire time working or something. It wasn't how it was in the village where we met Rixnala.

The unfortunate part was that no matter what we did or who we tried to talk to, the reception seemed to be the same. Any attempts at getting close to another Rodenti were met with rejection, and eventually, we all decided to stop trying and just hunker down for the night. Even when I mentioned that I had a cooking skill that could help people recover more Energy, I was dismissed. They said that they wouldn't let a human make their meals.

It was only when Rex and his uncle came back that we had a chance to learn why such hostility existed. It was a story that almost broke my heart, and it happened a few years ago.

When Carl and Rex's dad were younger, they went out on a trip to hunt and gather rain for the sister villages. During that time, they encountered a group of human merchants. Those people seemed to be down in the dumps, struggling to make ends meet and hoping to find a place to rest nearby. Once they realized that the Rodenti were not just monsters but people who could actually talk, they negotiated some help in exchange for supplies.

That sounded great at first, and it was a deal that Carl and his brother gladly took. For a few months, the humans would always send people their way to exchange supplies that the Rodenti weren't able to easily find in the area. Even some food occasionally. That lasted almost half a year, they had this business relationship with the humans.

It seemed that there was some unrest among the humans themselves. Not everybody was happy to negotiate with monsters, as they put it, and would occasionally try to lowball their offers or just flat out refuse to cooperate. Carl didn't mind that much since they were having similar issues in their own village. But they were at least respecting the humans. The same couldn't be said for the other side.

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Eventually, a group that was usually hostile and didn't treat the Rodenti very well suddenly changed their tune. They were now speaking fondly of the Rodenti and doing their best to approach them. In the end, they even offered to take a few other Rodenti with them to a different place so they could see where they were gathering some of the supplies they came to trade. That way in the future the Rodenti could go there themselves in case no one was showing up after a while.

The Rodenti liked the idea and sent a few people, all low levels since the bigger and more powerful Rodenti scared the humans. However, a couple months passed without any news from the people they sent. Almost a year after the first initial contact with the human traders, another group of humans appeared. These were dragging the previous traders along together with some of the Rodenti that had left.

That's when this new group explained what exactly was happening. The humans saw the Rodenti as monsters still and decided to use them as free labor. A field where they toiled away night and day to take care of crops that the Rodenti themselves were never able to have. The humans who came by essentially did the same thing that the traders from Europe did with the natives. They captured them and enslaved them. Because they were only a few low-level ones, the Rodenti were not able to fight back against larger numbers or better armed opponents. The lack of food also forced the Rodenti to be unable to level up, so they couldn't even get more powerful skills to fight back. Not to mention, the humans apparently were using some of them as hostages. They threatened to kill them if the rest of the Rodenti didn't fall in line.

Thankfully, this other group of humans found out about that and, while they were not entirely sure if the Rodenti were friendly, they had kinder hearts and decided to trust them and help them escape. During that attempt, a fight broke out. A fight that, while it served to kill most the humans who were enslaving everyone, also came with some casualties of those who had left.

Despite being saved by humans, the Rodenti were left with a very deep impression that humans should not be trusted. Sure, some could be good, but treating them all as if they were going to be fair and honest resulted in their loved one's being killed. That wasn't something they wanted to happen again.

I had to admit, as much as that sucked, I could really understand where they were coming from. I knew that was exactly the type of thing that humans were prone to do. Trusting all of us just because a handful were good was a bad idea. As a matter of fact, this was even half the reason why I was not giving the System to just about anyone. I was sure that there would be someone like those people who would want to use that power to just control everybody else.

Still, Carl promised that he would talk to the people so that they would be at least a bit more hospitable to us. We made sure he didn't have to do that. After all, we were just going to stay here for a day, and we couldn't really argue against their stance.

Still, after our conversation, Carl even stepped out and convinced a few Rodenti to let us use the kitchen so I could practice cooking for myself. Having more people eating would benefit me more according to him. He wanted Michael and Riley to have the same opportunity, but unlike cooking some food for a specific group, messing with their crops or the few plants that they were able to grow here, or with the weapons and armor was a bit too much of an ask for anyone to be comfortable with.

Even then, he offered his own weapon and armor for Michael and Astrid to start working on so they could increase their own subclasses as well. He was offering Riley some plants so she could perfect some potions or anything that they might need. It wasn't going to give large amounts of anything, but he at least had some leverage on the village to request those supplies.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for me to get a new level. But at least the triplets were doing well. Trin, Trun, and Tran seemed to be thriving in the village, making new friends and trying to figure out what they could trade here. They also came back to sleep in the same house as us. It was a bit strange, but they made it clear they felt better staying with people they knew.

What no one expected was that small action would end up making the rest of the Rodenti see us as more trustworthy. But that was something that Carl only told us the next day during one of the breaks in the rock tunnel journey to the brother village.

Another interesting piece of information that we got was that the sister village was known for its weapon making. They had apparently discovered an iron mine nearby and had been using that to make rudimentary tools. They had a very loose understanding of blacksmithing but were pretty good carvers. Even with the skills related to stone shaping, they could specialize in ore shaping. This allowed the Rodenti to have some weaponry that was made of metal, mostly iron or copper. They had discovered that gold wasn't that good of a mineral to become weapons. However, it was still far from the type of weapons and tools they could create using proper blacksmithing techniques.

Unfortunately, I didn't really know how to do that, and neither did Astrid with her storage. So even if we did bring this up, we wouldn't have a chance to teach them how to do it. The only advancement we were able to give them was the knowledge that metal tended to be more malleable if it was hot. Very hot. And that made it easier to bend in different ways.

They were already aware of the fact that metal tended to be more malleable if it was hot. But they never considered using that to create better tools. This meant that our suggestion could have been a step forward in their technology.

Aside from that, we found out that the main village was focused on food production. But even it was straining itself lately as the amount of food required by all the people that were getting to the main village was steadily rising as more and more Rodenti started to appear. This seemed to be strange since apparently Rex's brothers and sisters were not supposed to come back, but Rex quickly explained that they weren't the only ones who had left on journeys. Other well established individuals, including some that went specifically to certain villages, were also asking for help. They were exchanging favors and allowing them to repay by sending people to this battle.

The more I heard about it, the bigger this entire thing started to sound. And that was without considering the fact that part of this mission included me and my friends figuring out a way to extract information from one specific Eater that was supposed to be deep into the nest. If that didn't work, we were going to have to figure out another way. Likely prepare another attack on a different nest, that could result in a much more troublesome situation when it came to saving the world.

But that was something I was going to worry about in the future, as right now we were about to reach the main village where Rex came from and where we knew his father was waiting for us right after the rock fly tunnel.

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