Chapter 3: Their diet isn’t limited to ordinary food.

…

Of these three traits, they already had a clear understanding of the first and third. Just from the boxes that had been easily gnawed through, they’d already guessed the culprit had formidable teeth.

As for the third trait, Su You could also make a guess: the missing copper and silver coins were probably gone for good. They hadn’t been stolen—they’d been eaten. And once something’s been eaten, there’s no getting it back.

As for the second trait, while Su You had deduced it, she had never seen this kind of rat before, so she couldn’t quite grasp just how “voracious” they really were.

Still, Su You was mentally prepared. She’d already started imagining these gold-eating rats as being on par with the legendary gluttonous beast, Taotie.

Though it was a bit odd to compare Taotie to a rat, it did fit her initial impression of the gold-eating rats.

“I think I know what it is now.” Su You explained about the gold-eating rats, and both Laike and Jinluo’s faces turned grim.

Rats were already creatures humans despised—everyone wanted to beat a rat in the street. It was the same on this continent.

But rats were tough, bred quickly, and survived almost anywhere. You could never get rid of them all, no matter how hard you tried.

“If it really is rats, we have to wipe them out as soon as possible. Whether they’re gold-eating or silver-eating rats, the fact is they consume resources. If we don’t catch them, what if they eat up the territory’s other resources?” At this point, Jinluo was actually relieved that the gold-eating rats had targeted the bank first.

Because, in any situation, money is always the most valuable and also the least valuable.

Humans assign value to it, but in itself, it’s useless to people.

If it had been the territory’s material storage warehouse that was hit instead of the bank, the loss would have been even greater.

Su You and Laike understood this as well.

But knowing was one thing—how were they supposed to catch rats?

Rats aren’t people. They’re small, agile, and can hide in any corner. Places humans can’t reach are perfect for rats. Without a good method, all they could do was wait and hope to catch them by chance.

“My Lord, I’ll arrange for people to keep an eye out for any signs of rats.” No matter what, it was best to stay vigilant.

As for how to catch them, Su You would have to think of a plan.

This whole thing had happened too suddenly… No, actually, it wasn’t all that sudden.

Su You had already considered that, since the territory’s supplies were abundant, the system might try to disrupt their disaster preparations by targeting their stored resources.

Clearly, these gold-eating rats were meant for that purpose.

Su You told Jinluo to go rest, and Laike went off to organize a search for the gold-eating rats in the territory. Even if it didn’t work, it was better than doing nothing.

Su You returned to the lord’s manor. When she got into bed, she absentmindedly petted Lingbao, who rolled over to her. But she couldn’t sleep at all—with gold-eating rats around, how could she possibly sleep?

“These gold-eating rats must have some weakness, or some trait we can use against them…”"