SLS is a heaven of food, most of the people waste it without thinking much around it. Food wastes are increasing every day in SLS. It keeps increasing which the numbers can hit TONS as people continue to eat and throw away/waste the food. As those food waste are too much even for the power plants to manage, so it is sent to reclaim the land.

Of course, the wastage system that man proud created has loopholes as there are even unseen beings that are stealing those food wastes just to survive, some of them salvage food from dustbin or even collective trash bin or heap. In the process, that more foods it gathers, more that it produce their offspring. As a result, it helps to raise a huge army of unknown creatures which the mankind could not foresee. This is where or how the pests become a force. Those creatures are often hidden in normal man everyday life as they are living undergrounds like holes, drains, pipes and etc, some of them bites man when it is midnight about 12 pm to 3 am causing the humans cannot sleep at night, which in return causing inconvenience to man. The country productive drop due to those pests. As the man tried their best to remove those pests, but they always find a way or new species to overcome Man actions. One of a good example, government try to educate their citizens on removing all remaining water to prevent the certain insects from laying their eggs and spray certain chemicals, these actions help reduce the certain insects but these insects always come back to bite man within a week or so.

One of the pests that normally people called mice, rats, mouse and etc, has one of the highest survival rates in the modern world as there are no natural enemies as they are hiding and working underground when they are hungry, they salvage their foods on trash bins that often create a mess up of it. As there is no cats or birds to hunt or keep their numbers down.

Cats and birds are current keeps as pets while the natural ones have a harder time to feed themselves and their young as Man destroyed those in order to create new homes and buildings for themselves. Thus their numbers decrease.

Back to the story

At 5 am in the morning,

"Ring, Ring, Ring"

All the corridors lights are blinking in red and loud alarm sound awake most of the survivors who are in deep sleep.

As most the people come down from the stairs, everyone is wondering is that a drill or actual threat that they are nervous about. What it is being discovered that the pests are attacking the safe zone as everyone start to remember that they recently have fought against the new enemies that are come from the drains and everywhere else that have holes in it. It is the pests that everyone hates, had come back with faster and much stronger to hunt us.

After gathering everyone who is awake to fight the pest, everyone somehow knows or subconscious that the day to fight them have come. It was obvious to all that the protection provided by the safe zone was going to fall any minute due to constant attacking of the shield of the safe zone. The problem is actually there is no protection at all for us to prevent the pests on flanking us like last time. As the enemy can attack from the drain and etc only except that we are on higher ground and somewhere like a staircase link from my area to the enemy area, in order to attack, enemies are forced to run/move up the small slope to my ground. This may be a way to reduce them for flanking us.

At 1st floor,

Once on the 1st floor, everyone is looking at that situation, half the so-called civilians/survivors attempted to flee in all directions and screaming of fear of pests despite my orders on calming them down as there are too many of them around the safe zone.

What I order them to do the triangle (tight) formation where there is the first person are spearhead while the other 2 are supporting the spearhead guy behind his/her sides, therefore, covering the flanks of the spearhead, if the spearhead is tired, he/she can be swapped with the side. In order to improve the efficiency of killing off the pests. Then each formation is layered between each other to perform tighter defence and the higher chance of triggering the Opportunity Attack once the rats rush toward the formation. Each formation have spaced a space away from each other in order to increase the tightness of the formation

Triangle (tight) formation (- = spacing, x = survivors, + = resting/healing)

-x-x-x-

x+x+x+

As the different team moving out of the safe zone, the battle has just started, at first it is easy to defend the safe zone as it is easy to target to kill the monsters while at the safe zone where the monsters can't attack them, but after 2 turns, the safe zone start to shrink and there is a new notice have appeared

Notice exiting safe zone, those who take part in the defend mission are to advance 6 spaces away from the safe zone or die.

And again, there are some people who they think they can ignore the warning and die for no good reason. The team are forced to advance to defend against the pests

After 3 mins later, in the mids of chaotic battle with the pests, it is hard to get any messages over the mass of survivors as the so-called civilians or they think they are, they are thinking on how to survive but they don't think what happens if the safe area is being conquered or if they don't listen, they may bring trouble to the rest of the team. In the end, I didn't have to lift a finger to punish them for disobeying orders as they try to escape back to the safe zone. but the safe zone blocked them from escaping. The enemies try to frighten them for causing more chaos to us, which means it is more loots and experience points for those who fight and live on.

A random man "AGGGGGGH RATTS ARE ATTACKING ME...Save me!!!!!" a few seconds later he got swarmed by the rats since he is too spread out from the team. As the rats take their turns to attack him one by one to he died, well this type of cases are common as there are people who for certain reason love to die for their freedom. By the way, it is not possible to help that guy since it is the rats turn, so the rats have the right to move around but not the survivors. People that are forced to see that man being attacked to he being knocked down then being bitten to his hp reach 0.

"Sigh, so now there are always people who don't listen and love to die, It just seems like death and making holes in the formation is these people favourite hobby, they just love to run around, screaming and shouting to lure whatever beings to attack them, when someone get some good stuff, they are first to steal them through whatever means needed for it" I am just disappointed with those people. Maybe it is possible to use them as a good bait for certain usage.

Notice New upgrades have been applied to the revived area

Notice New theory of equipment have been developed, (require workshop to apply)

The pest is hungry for their living flesh followed after the escaping civilians and caught them all without exception and were eaten alive. Maybe those survivors are not from my safe zone, most people know that running around and shouting is just the action of the bait. Those people have to lure those rats into running toward us like hordes of zombies in a way faster version of it, of course, none choose to fight back to survive. A few seconds later, someone just throws a can and suddenly it goes explode BOOM, the flesh of the rats fly like it is on fireworks then toxic clouds started to appear after the rat's flesh is being burnt, where their toxins that they have absorbed into their bodies are being released. The toxin clouds and the heat also kill other insects around it as it looks like some fast action poison as the bugs that are around died within 3 turns which says antitoxin pill become sure must pill to deal with this situation if someone breathes in that toxic cloud.

The situation isn't good and it was pretty impossible that I could just rely on them to handle the situation. Especially all the pests that I hate come together to be my enemy and most of us are the semi-shock state. Basically, we are a force to fight the enemies that we hate the most. Where those people from other places have lured a horde of pests to us.

I know exactly why SLS rats are so poisonous, Rats in normal village eats trash and etc, they are not poisonous if you eat them, but in SLS, we are living in the rising building, rats eat trash and food waste along with it. Most of the time, they drink dirty water and etc waste ...in order to survive, so they grow up in such a place that if they don't eat such things you know plastics, foods that are toxin like frying oil use for months don't even change used to fry the food, if you are the people who eat this, of course, if you eat once in a while you do not get sick what if you are eating this stuff for years I bet that you get sick easily, the oil has been processed in this way, those contain a small amount of toxin due to chemical reaction, just think rats everyday eat this type of oil plus plastic and other toxin substances, even if it does not die their bodies will contain all the crazy toxins there, once it died and burnt, the toxin is released into the air. I advise everyone never eat those rats meat even in real life to prevent food poisoning unless in your hometown, they offer them and you have no problem eating those rats.

At the same time while fighting the rats. I notice there are 2 types of them have appeared, the first one I called it the Fat rat which are rats that are fat and slow one. They will explode when it dies due to its fats contain some form of flammable substances that will cause it to explode. The second rat, it will be known as the skinny rat. It can use a quick dash to do headbutt attack which can surprise attack, someone, if he or she did not notice their pressure. With my shotgun, it seems that they are exploding for a reason as the pieces of shells randomly kill the fat rat, it will cause a chain explosion with it and process to repeat again making it is fun to watch.

While I am firing, Alice quickly use firestorm to clear them many of the pests died due to her spells but more pests come to reinforce them, Others use their range skills to do certain damage to the horde. In order to save ammo, I try out mana and ki double wave strikes which it is not as effective as the shotgun as it only cut cross the horde, hopefully killing the fat rats so it can explode to damage other pests except for rats, well Da Yi start to use her pipe bomb as shines. As once it hit. The explosion will cause an area of effect which kills the pests, I guess in the end the loot she may get the most. Lucky this is the world is a tactical RPG game with squares and turns otherwise we may be killed by the rats due to the speed that they have.

"Surrender and bow to our feet or We will send waves of rats to overrun you" A person who looks like a rat who dresses up as one with animals furs shouted.

Da Yi throws the pipe bomb at him but the bomb did not explode as intended that is kind of funny back the topic, enemies see us as hostile so they launch an attack on us, waves of rats, cockroaches come to attack us from their sides, all of us panic and don't know what to do as they are too many of them, Ava shout defend the safe area, then everyone is forced to defend their home from those pests.

More reinforcement coming in as newer types of pests coming from the trash apartment that they have thick skin that can reduce the effect of pipe bomb, Da Yi that crazy bitch start to order his man, i don't know why or how come she has a man, the man who looks like a dog(MC is best as insulting people lol in the battle) to me quickly attach 5 pipe bombs as one with a blue tape, then she grabs it to light it up and throw at the newest pests, "BOOM PATTTTT BOOOM x5", the special pipe bomb hit the heavy hardshell cockroach and split into many parts then blow its surrounding into dust. Business is booming for Da Yi in the future as people have seen how effective her pipe bombs are. More and more people will be buying her pipe bombs to fight the battle as they know that these bombs can help to clear a large group of monsters using a bomb. As a result, people will start to use them if there is a reward is more than the cost.

People will keep buying her bomb even though she keeps raising the price of the bombs. (Da Yi really have business sense know how to make money during a battle) well, that is in the future.

Back to our current situation, basically, we form a human shield to block their attacks, people swap out if they cant tank the pests, suddenly a group of pestiods come from the trash apartment man pestiods this is what I call them pest like rats combines with humans well maybe it is not that strange after all. As humans with insects or strange parts wield those spears (1) have appeared, they join the battle by throwing their spears, well some of them rush in on the melee fight that manages to break through a gap by killing one of the survivors, but the survivors swapped out to cover the gap, on the meantime the spears are thrown and injured many of us, things go bad as now they have range units plus spawns of pests by their side. I see some people are swapped out due to fatigue. After a few turns, it becomes an odd stalemate where people are just killing those pests and people from other sides have no spears to throw at us meanwhile pills are taken to remove those damage and debuffs taken. At the same time, we are running out of bombs and survivors are getting tired of constant using of their weapons to fight against those pests.

This is where people who recently lured the pest start to transform into monsters and start to attack us causing us to be in a disadvantage. They killed most of the survivors who have swapped out in the formation. Despite heavy losses, we manage to kill most of the people who cause that confusion.

After have seen how those people betraying or pretending to allies, the safe zone or system need more improvement on figuring them out

Notice the system have not tagged them as allies but mere survivors

The system is getting more intelligence than I do, sorry system for blaming you for no reason.

"Retreat back to the safe zone" I shouted as loud as I can.

Finally, everyone rushes as fast as possible back to the safe zone in order to lick their wounds. Maybe one of the most important lessons that survivors have learned is to cooperate better in team and formations. Solo or being alone is easier to be a target in the battle as they are being flanked so often.

To be continued