I can’t understand it.
“How long will you ignore the words of the crops!”
I cannot comprehend it either.
“Farm owner, hurry up and negotiate with us!”
I don’t feel like understanding it.
Understanding…
Hah.
“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one….”
The farm owner glanced out the window and gripped the Bible tightly.
And like the faithful do, he prayed fervently.
Please let those evil spirits retreat.
But no matter how much he prayed, those moving, blasphemous crops did not disappear, and whenever he caught sight of what could be a pin-like spot on the face of that flower swaying like a head, a wave of shame would surge in his heart.
“Is he really trembling at such mere weeds?”
An American.
As a man who values machismo, his ego whispered to him.
Why was he scared of something so trivial?
If he’s frightened by such things, how can he even call himself a man?
If he’s scared of that, he’s no different than the nerds or fools he had mocked back in school.
That whisper truly prodded his emotions.
So when he was about to burst out and confront them, at that moment, he saw what they were holding in their hands.
A spiked mace and a spear.
The flower head was wielding maces in both hands.
No, rather than saying it was holding those… yeah.
It’d be right to say its hands were the maces.
At the end of its stick-like arms were rounded fists, and whether they were stuffed with stones or incredibly compressed plants, they were solid and heavy. Just their weight alone made for quite a threatening weapon.
If he were to yank that arm out and swing it around, well, even if it might not break bones, it could definitely leave a nasty bruise.
And the other crops… were armed with spears and knives.
Weapons presumably made from pulled aloe.
The sharpness was such that one could feel its danger from a distance.
Short-cut aloe became a knife.
Long-cut aloe became a spear.
A short aloe had a stick shoved through it to form a javelin.
The crops wielding aloe were lined up with those three types of weapons, with the javelin-carrying crop at the front, followed by those with spears, and at the back, the knife-holding crops brandished phrases that grated on the eyes as if they were protesting him silently.
If he jumped into that bunch…
He wasn’t sure how formidable the aloe was, but certainly, becoming a rag was a given.
For that reason, the farm owner could not dare to charge at those crops.
To clarify, it wasn’t that he was dim-witted, but rather that he hadn’t applied himself in his studies.
His not-so-bad brain was telling him… that if he jumped in there, it wouldn’t end well.
Jumping into a hole crawling with venomous bugs is not an act of courage.
It’s foolish.
He didn’t want to earn the dubious honor of receiving a Darwin Award.
Absolutely not.
Thus, with nowhere to go, he could only pray.
“Negotiate, farm owner! Negotiate!”
Of course, there were other ways besides hiding and ignoring them.
It was to negotiate with those crops.
But…
What did he even trust?
What belief did he have that made him think he could negotiate with those crops?
Was it even correct to say that the crops could speak?
They could be nothing more than savage crops that enjoyed eating people!
If he stepped out without thinking and got eaten, who would take responsibility for that?
Thus, the man stayed cooped up inside his house.
Until those crops disappeared.
And so, the man continued to recite his prayers…
At some point, he began to doze off.
The human mind is not made of steel.
Therefore, he was unable to overcome his fatigue.
And just like that, he drifted into Dreamland…
…
…
…
Rustle.
Rustle.
Creak.
Hearing some sound coming from somewhere in the house, he suddenly opened his eyes.
“What’s that noise…?”
His body was heavy.
Like he’d just emerged from a river, his body felt sluggish, and pain radiated throughout various parts of him.
His head felt foggy, and he even had a slight headache.
It felt like waking up from a nap.
Moreover, he could hardly feel reality, and somehow, he felt unsteady.
In the haze, he couldn’t quite distinguish whether the sound he was hearing was from a dream or reality.
Rustle.
Crisp.
But the moment that doubt surfaced in his mind, the sound returned as if to mock him.
The sound.
Like something scraping against wood.
“Rat…?”
That sound was one he recognized all too well.
The sound from the damned warehouse, where no matter how much he chased them away or killed them, the rats just kept coming.
No matter how hard he fixed up the place, those rodents had a habit of gnawing whenever they got bored and leave gaping holes behind.
The sound.
Rats.
Rats were scratching at the house…
“…Wait a minute. Those things are outside…?”
The moment he realized something, the man’s eyes shot wide open.
Rats are drilling holes into the house?
In this situation, filled with blasphemous crops?
That just shouldn’t happen!
He opened his eyes wide and grabbed the gun hanging on the wall.
And as he sprinted crazily towards the source of the sound, still groggy and barely able to control his hands, he somehow managed to load a bullet. As soon as he spotted the rat, he readied himself to fire, dashing towards the noise.
The location of the sound… was supposed to be by the back door.
“…Is this a dream?”
Upon reaching the back door, the man had no choice but to wear a bewildered expression without firing the loaded gun.
The back door.
No.
What was at the back door was a rat.
Right.
That in itself wasn’t unusual.
Since he heard the rat sounds, it was only natural that they would be there.
But…
That rat was… numerous.
Many.
If he roughly counted, there were more than twenty rats destroying the back door.
A horde of rats, as if their teeth were made of metal, gnawed incessantly on the back door, causing the thick wooden door he had personally installed to become little more than a rag. He was sure that even if a robber with a shotgun burst in and pumped rounds into the door, it wouldn’t have been damaged to this extent.
Moreover.
“…”
The little bastards weren’t running away as if they had eaten something wrong.
The ones who would normally flee in terror at the sound of a human footstep were gnawing away at the door regardless of whether he was there or not.
No, it would be fortunate if they were merely ignoring him.
One particularly large rat, the size of a human head, was looking at him as if to say, ‘What are you looking at? Move along.’ And it even had the audacity to squeak defiantly, glaring at him with an annoyingly haughty expression.
“Get lost!”
And the more astonishing thing was…
Squeak.
Even while he was yelling and pointing the gun at it, that rat kept its arrogant demeanor.
In fact, it squeaked back like ‘Do you really think you can handle what I’m about to do?’, calmly getting up as if it was an act of intimidation.
It was a scene that made him lose his mind.
What should he even call this?
A rebellion, perhaps?
Or were they just high on something weird…?
The man’s head was spinning.
Reality was closing in as if he had taken some drugs.
What on earth… what on earth is happening…?
The man clutched his forehead in disbelief of the reality.
Was it stress?
A cold?
His forehead felt unnaturally hot.
As he felt a throb in his head, he tried to pull the trigger…
At that moment he caught sight of the sign that the rats were displaying, and he exhaled.
“Farm owners must respect the rights to life of all beings living on the farm!”
Damn it.
“Are you all protesters?”
The silent question muddled with a sigh.
And just as if to respond to his question, the giant rat gave a squeaking nod.
This is…
This is…!
“Oh, my God.”
He wanted to cry.
Really, he wanted to cry.
The man shut his eyes and turned, seemingly trying to turn his back on reality.
He aimed to return to his room, to somehow sort out his thoughts.
But now, even that had become a challenge.
“…So what are you now?”
Because the way out was blocked.
The path he had taken was now obstructed by rats.
Whether they had slipped in through the back door or another route, a bunch of human-head-sized rats had formed a blockade, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Yeah.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Just like how players in football lean against each other to hold their ground, they were tightly packed and blocking the way.
“Oh, my God. Fuck!”
