Chapter 212: 113. Monsters of the Sewer -2 (Part One)
**
Thankfully, the girl named Yuria was still alive.
I checked out her status. Her attributes were fairly average for a girl around fourteen years of age. However, the part about her calmness, resourcefulness, kindness, and nimbleness still caught my eye.
On top of that, she was suffering from fatigue and was inflicted with some kind of toxin, not to mention having contracted a plague as well.
In other words, the toxins and demonic energy freely flowing within this sewer had infected her. If left alone, her condition would surely get worse and her lifeforce would have gradually withered away.
I reached out to grab her arm while my eyes under the helm vigilantly observed the tunnel behind her.
Some things popped out from the surface of the filth covering the sewers. This time, we were greeted by monsters with somewhat different external appearances.
They were two metres in height, almost looked like humans, and were completely bipedal as well. However, their heads were still those of rats with sharp fangs. Everything about them, from their lengthy claws to firm muscles, were unnecessarily memorable, I have to say.
They were ‘Red Ratmen’ that, as one might’ve guessed, had red fur.
It was kinda like someone had stuck the head of a rat on top of a bodybuilder.
Holy cow, they sure are pretty creepy to look at. Are you telling me that the city’s sewers are teeming with these kinds of creatures?
-Kiiiiaaaahk!
The Red Ratmen screeched, and while spreading their arms wide open, began dashing towards our location. They were much faster than the regular Ratmen.
Judging from that alone, I guessed that their physical strength should also be higher than the rest of their kind, too.
I couldn’t figure out how the hell such monsters ended up building a nest down in the sewers of a major city like Elusha.
I quickly pulled Yuria by her arm and retreated from there.
“Any other survivors down here?” I asked.
“I, I don’t know. But there shouldn’t be anyone.”
“That’s good to hear.”
I covered Yuria’s eyes with my hand. After hoisting the musket on my back, I summoned a bottle of holy water and poured the contents into the girl’s mouth.
The temperature on her body began rising up quickly. Her breathing grew laboured as well. Since she was already contaminated by the toxins and demonic energy, it was unsurprising to see this type of negative reaction flare up in her.
But that lasted only for a little while; her tormented expression soon became much more tranquil.
She must’ve felt safe and relieved to be held by someone – or maybe she was just too exhausted, I couldn’t tell – because she became limp and fell asleep in my arms.
But that didn’t matter, anyhow. She said there were no eyewitnesses or survivors down here, so…
“…Let’s wrap this up, shall we?”
Bright light exploded from some place behind my back.
Just before the crazy-eyed Red Ratmen could pounce on me, arrows of light stabbed cleanly through their figures.
Splash, splosh…
Metallic armour caused the dirty water to splash about.
A legion emitting bright light suddenly materialised in the sewer. They were outfitted with dwarf-made sets of armour, and equipped with shields and spears. Meanwhile, banshees wielding bows and arrows were behind their formation.
Back in the adventurer guild, there was a request personally signed off by the feudal lord of Elusha, asking for adventurers and mercenaries to investigate the sewers as well as to subjugate the monsters living down here.
It wasn’t as if I had accepted that request, but I figured no one would mind if I stepped up to finish it and get the reward later.
Well, the job of rescuing a girl wasn’t even nearly enough to satisfy me. That’s why…
“Sweep them away.”
…I might as well clean this place out, too.
**
(TL: In 3rd person POV.)
-Screech! Hiss!
A group of Ratmen around one metre in height were hurriedly scurrying along the sewer tunnel. They were fleeing at their fastest speed while cold sweat thickly coated their bodies.
Their furs were shuddering from pure fear.
These creatures, born in the darkness of the sewers, thought that this place was a paradise. Not only was it warm down here, all sorts of excrement and filth filled this place up, as well. And every now and then, prey even willingly showed up down here, ensuring that the Ratmen colony could eat their fill.
And if there weren’t enough to eat, they would simply devour their own kin. That was how they developed and evolved. They grew their forces and before long, even came to gain enough intelligence to wield weapons.
Their queen, the sovereign ruling in the sewers, told them this:
-We shall grow our forces and rise to the surface world. Spread out the plague, and once our weak prey have fallen, we shall devour them all.
What an amazing turn of events this was!
The Ratmen that should’ve usually hidden themselves in darkness of the underground somehow grew intelligent, propagated greatly in numbers, and became so much stronger.
Not only that, they even got to escape from the humiliating days of being lab rats of some strange ‘magicians’ as well.
However, it was also true that their queen had come to acquire powerful strength, toxins, and truly unstoppable reproductive powers thanks to those ‘magicians’.
In only around three months, hundreds and thousands of Ratmen had been born. At this rate, it shouldn’t be all that strange for them to start dreaming of founding a kingdom that the ‘humans’ often talked about. Maybe, founding an empire wouldn’t be out of question either!
The kingdom of rats – a world ruled by the Ratmen would soon become a reality!
‘We are smarter than humans!’
‘We are stronger than humans!’
‘Our first step towards greatness starts from here!’
These were the thoughts of the naïve creatures trapped within the cage. However, they foolishly thought that they were correct. While harbouring dreams and hopes of a better future, they prepared their wings of flight from this place.
But then, an ‘invader’ had shown up in this underground city of rats.
The Ratmen looked behind them.
Click, clack, click…
A legion made out of hulking figures at least two metres tall while kitted out in gleaming armour was relentlessly advancing forward.
They held shields and brandished their pointy spears.
The Ratmen tried to fight back, but these invaders were overwhelmingly stronger. They shoved the monsters back with their shields, trampled them with their metal boots, and stabbed with their spears.
Arrows of light raining down indiscriminately slaughtered the Ratmen. The monsters became deeply terrified. Not even once had they run into creatures of such calibre down here in the sewers.
Could this legion be a part of the human armies existing on the surface?
Could the human armies really be this incredible?
-Uwaaaaah…
The Ratmen began spewing out their unique toxins, but they didn’t stop there and even began vomiting out what was in their stomachs into the sewer water below.
From their mouths, poisonous fog and vomit containing all sorts of deadly plagues began flooding into the sewer. Surely no living army would be able to withstand those two deadly factors combined.
In fact, all the humans who had shown up here so far had all fallen powerlessly from this type of attack.
So it should work this time as well…
The Ratmen’s eyes widened in shock.
The invaders, with their eyes shining eerily under their helms, were not affected in the slightest by the attack. Instead, white smoke was rising up from all those places they had stepped on.
The Ratmen flinched in surprise and hurriedly looked at the ground where the army had marched past. The sewer water found on all the places where the white army had stepped on was being purified.
All sorts of excrements and filth got cleaned up in an instant.
Goosebumps broke out on the Ratmen’s hides as they stumbled backwards in shock.
To think that this legion was capable of purifying all those dirty, disgusting filth so easily! It was as if the invaders planned to completely crush the Ratmen’s home today.
The monsters began fleeing from this place. They screeched loudly to each other.
‘Run away!’
‘Let’s go to where our queen resides! We must report back to her!’
‘Our city, our kingdom is in danger!’
It was right then – the corner in front of the fleeing group of Ratmen suddenly crumbled down.
Ku-oooooh…
A huge figure covered in metal plate-like armour at least three metres in height strode out from the corner.
The Ratmen got to see into the space under the armour thanks to their much lower height. And what they saw was an undead made entirely out of bones.
It was a Bone Golem.
All semblance of colour drained out of these Ratmen. They raised their heads up and stared at the armoured existence lifting up its large mace.
‘O-oh, dear queen!’
‘Please come and save us…!’
The mace mercilessly slammed down.
The army of undead numbering in the hundreds had taken over the sewer system. All the filth found here got purified as they marched past.
The thing was, though, these undead were working quite quickly at the moment. It was all because of the order their master had given them.
-Sweep them all away before anyone notices you guys. Wipe them all out and scrub this place as clean as you can.
The undead operated systematically as their master had ordered.
They hunted down all the monster rats scurrying about in this area before other people showed up down here, and along the way, used divinity to purify all the plague and filth clogging up the sewer water.
Their sovereign’s word was absolute.
The undead legion then began glaring at the location where the underground sewer system linked up to.
