Mr. Rat of the Steam World

Chapter 45 Full of Harvests
"Yawn~"

After Lu Ran finished mailing the mailbox, he found a place to sleep in the house nearby. His front paws rested naturally on the edge of the cloth bag, his head was resting on the soft cloth, and his little eyes slowly closed.

Perhaps it was the day's journey that had exhausted it, because soon Lu Ran's breathing became even, and its small body rose and fell slightly with each breath.

……

"I can talk now, I can talk."

Lu Ran opened his eyes and immediately saw the familiar silly dog. He turned his view and quickly realized that he was dreaming again, but this time it seemed to be a new story.

"What is this thing?" Bella tilted her head and moved closer to Lu Ran.

I'm just a gray rat, what could I possibly be?

Lu Ran opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but still couldn't make a sound. The next moment, he saw Bella open her big mouth and bite him. Almost instinctively, he felt fear and wanted to run away.

"Whoosh..."

Lu Ran suddenly accelerated, and Bella behind him was stunned, her face full of surprise.

"It can still move."

"Brother, don't run away."

"Bro, you smell so good..."

!!!

Why is it like this again!

Lu Ran cursed and swore, but this time he knew the way well and headed straight for the sewers.

As Lu Ran stepped into the grille, everything went black before his eyes. The next moment, light surged from afar like a tide.

Lu Ran suddenly woke up, her mind still a bit blank. She looked around in a daze. The sun was pouring in from the window, casting long patches of light on the floor. It was clearly high in the sky.

Looking again at the cloth bag under his head, he realized that it was already the next day.

"It's this dream again."

Lu Ran grumbled and cursed.

"However, the plot of this dream seems to have come a little earlier than expected. This Bella actually said she'd never seen me before, even though I looked at her so clearly..."

Lu Ran paused, suddenly realizing something was wrong.

"If Bella really hasn't seen me, does that mean the perspective in the dream isn't necessarily the same as the gray rat I am now...? I can't speak in the dream, maybe I really can't speak. If I were a living being, there's no reason why Bella would say I could still move."

Lu Ran's eyes widened, revealing a hint of disbelief.

"What the hell am I?"

He remembered that when he transmigrated, he was just an ordinary rat lying dead in the sewers.

"No, we have to go find that idiot dog and ask him again what he actually saw."

Lu Ran sat up abruptly, carrying his small cloth bag and about to leave when he suddenly realized that going out in broad daylight was a bit too arrogant.

His cloth bag contained over 2,300 gold pounds, a gold watch, and a revolver; when piled up, the bag was several times larger than his entire mouse.

How can I hide this?
"No, we have to leave the things here first, otherwise it will be difficult to catch a ride to find Gouzi."

Lu Ran reluctantly put down the cloth bag, knowing he could only wait until he rode the dog back to get the items. He also needed to pick up the novel mouse along the way.

I don’t know if this guy has arrived yet. Even though we didn’t use this little guy when identifying extraordinary beings, Lu Ran originally planned to call this guy to bring him back to the territory.

……

It's still the abandoned factory behind Oak Street.

This was Lu Ran's second time here. The last time he left, Bella had terrified him, and he almost thought the place was haunted.

He couldn't understand what was so fun about this lousy place.

After searching around inside, Lu Ran found his way back quickly without going in circles. He soon arrived at the warehouse entrance, where Bella had been last seen.

"Bella?" Lu Ran called softly, looking around warily.

Just then, a faint, sluggish feeling lingered over me.

The sensation wasn't a smell or a sound, but rather a faint, invisible distortion, silently clinging to the skin. Lu Ran's steps faltered, and the hair on his body seemed to stand on end as if attracted by static electricity. "No, no."

The surroundings were eerily quiet; even the howling of the wind through the broken window frame sounded exceptionally clear.

Lu Ran rubbed his eyes, vaguely sensing something.

The next moment, when he opened his eyes again, he actually caught a faint flash of light in his vision.

It wasn't physical light, but rather an unnatural fluctuation of air at a specific angle. This was something he hadn't seen on his last visit; the only difference was that this time, after completing his magical enlightenment, he had activated his spiritual vision.

"Is there an aura of magic here?"

Lu Ran's heart stirred. He held his breath, concentrated his mind, and tried to enter that strange state of expanding his attention outward.

hum...

A faint resonance came from the depths of my mind, and my vision suddenly changed!
Countless previously undetectable, extremely faint specks of colored light, like miniature stardust, slowly seeped out from all parts of the factory, even from the cracks in the walls and the floor.

They were not random, but rather, under some invisible pull, they all converged slowly in the same direction—towards the abandoned warehouse door with its copper lock!
"what is this?"

A look of surprise flashed across Lu Ran's face, and his claws instinctively dug into the cracks in the rough stone slabs on the ground.

This scene is somewhat similar to the feeling of finding free energy in the air after initiating magic, but it is on a larger scale and more... regular.

He cautiously took a few steps toward the warehouse door, avoiding the dark green, squelching moss underfoot.

As the distance closed, the light spots and wisps in the field of vision became clearer, and the energy particles in front of them vaguely outlined a circle of strange and mysterious runes. These runes swirled like vortices and were far more complex and larger than the ones painted on the back of the mirror before!
If you had to put it in perspective, the previous one only consisted of two or three runes, while this one has at least tens of thousands of runes.

Looking at this rather regular pattern, for some reason, a word almost subconsciously popped into Lu Ran's mind.

"Magic circle?"

Lu Ran gasped, his mind racing: "Could Bella's so-called new friend be related to this thing?!"
Hide-and-seek, disappear... so the purpose of this magic circle is... teleportation?

Lu Ran's heart pounded wildly. He tentatively reached out his claws, his thoughts wandering, and he subconsciously wanted to touch the magic circle in front of him.

"Second brother!"

A familiar shout startled Lu Ran, causing him to retract his outstretched hand.

Lu Ran turned her head, quickly calming down, and said, "Where did you run off to again?"

Bella spun around excitedly: "A few of my friends disappeared again. I'm looking for them. They said if I find them, they'll feed me something delicious again. That stuff is so tasty!"

Lu Ran was taken aback, and tentatively asked, "What does the friend you're talking about look like?"

"What does it look like?"

Bella tilted her head, and as she thought about it, she couldn't help but paw at the ground a couple of times: "They look like two-legged creatures... well, not entirely... They wear black robes, and some of their exposed skin has scales, while some is green..."

"Humanoid, scaled, green?"

Watching Bella rack her brains, Lu Ran muttered to himself. Although he remained calm on the surface, he was shocked to have a thought that he dared not think about further.

Could there be a monster-filled underground world beneath this city...?

Lu Ran didn't dare to stay any longer and quickly told Bella to leave.

"Let's go now, we'll come back to play hide-and-seek with them next time."

Lu Ran jumped onto Bella's back, grabbed the fur on the guy's back, and soothed him when he saw that the guy was still a little unhappy.

"Next time you come, I'll help you find them."

"Really, Second Brother?"

Bella was overjoyed. The next moment, she was filled with energy and, with a push of her back foot, she transformed into a white blur and rushed out.

I first went to Gray Street to pick up my things, and took a look at the brick building, only to find that it had been sealed off.

It must have been Earl Biden's doing.

Lu Ran glanced at it from afar, then, clutching his small cloth bag, went to the nearby mouse's hideout. He found the bewildered novel mouse, didn't explain much, and simply pulled it away, riding Bella towards the manor.

As they walked further and further away, Lu Ran glanced back with a hint of lingering satisfaction.

"I've really learned something new."

(End of this chapter)