A Champion of Rats - Chapter 0 Prologue

Preface

A rocky mountain towering high into the sky. At its peak stands a form. Half-man, half-rat. The ratling roars.

The sea of ratlings that fill the horizon as far as your eyes can see, all join their voices to his in a chorus of screams.

Why, you ask?

Because they’ve won. Because they’ve driven out the old and helpless natives of this land and have become its new overlord.

Oh, I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I?

Now they call me ‘Falk'[1].

That ratling screaming from the mountain peak a while ago? That was me.

Don’t get me wrong though, I wasn’t always this way. I was a human too, once.

How did I end up here? Now there’s a story.

Would you mind listening to me for a bit?

Editor’s Notes:

[1] 쓰벌 (sseubeol) is a derivative of the swear word 씨발 (ssibal) meaning ‘fuck’. We’re transliterating it as Falk.

To the readers. Ever since Barbarian translation stopped, we’ve been on the lookout for other projects to translate – ideally, something that has a punch, and deserves a look from the translation community (instead of being the ten thousandth rehash of a cookie-cutter tower, academy or hunter plot). This eminently qualifies. There were some other choices (including some that were recently picked up or resumed by other groups – check out Cthulhu Reincarnated and Martial Wild West, for example), but only a couple ended up winning. We’ll translate a few (maybe ten or so?) teaser chapters for each, then see which one is more popular, meaning that gets picked up for regular releases (or as regular as we usually manage) and the rest remain in teaser project hell.

Warning. This is one of the most consistently dark webnovels on the Korean scene. Trigger warnings for gore, cannibalism, slavery, etc. This is your only warning.