[3] Nero (comic book character) suffers from sleeping sickness and looks for a more peaceful environment to stay.

Indeed, at that same time Van Zwam and his dog Tito are in the vicinity of said castle and hear that several people who once entered there never came back alive.

A local farmer advises Van Zwam to ring the clock in the castle's bell tower in case of danger.

Inside Nero encounters a huge rat, whom he manages to scare off, but is captured by the mad scientist Dr. Ratsjenko, who tries to murder him.

Ratsjenko has fled, but while Van Zwam and Nero try to find him they suddenly see a colossal rat of about two metres high.

Pedal, Van Zwam and Nero decide to enlist in the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven because Ratsjenko presumably hides there.

One day Nero discovers Rasjenko is his medics professor and chases him, but is hindered by student riots and jailed for public disturbance.

As Van Zwam and Pedal are thrown out of their apartment by their rent lord they suddenly hear Tito barking inside a building.

Ratsjenko, now completely frozen due to being inside the refrigerator for so long, is taken to the police department and sent off to an insane asylum.

[5] Nero tries to chase away a rat in strip 42 by throwing books by author Louis Piérard at the creature's head.

When battling the rats Jef Pedal quotes a line from Hendrik Conscience's The Lion of Flanders and Van Zwam tells his friends to think of the Six hundred Franchimontois.

Arne Sierens, Johan De Smet and Vincent D'Hondt adapted the story into an eponymous opera in 1984.