Proofreader: Xemul
At a quick glance, there were about a dozen people gathered near the inn.
Though not that big of a number, it was quite many for a gathering in the middle of the night, and although no one was leading them, they all began to walk slowly in the same direction.
Loren and Lapis followed the group while keeping some distance from them, hiding in the corners of buildings and behind trees along the street. The two tried to quiet their footsteps and not make any noises, but the group ahead of them walked without caring about the sound of their footsteps. Some of them were armed, so there were even noises of armors moving and weapons hitting each other.
Thinking it was quite noisy, Loren looked around, but he could not see anyone coming out of the surrounding buildings nor peeking out of the windows to check on the situation.
“This town sleeps quite well, doesn’t it?”
Lapis, who was walking like gliding with her fluttering priest robe, made no sounds at all. The fact that she was not carrying anything that made sounds might be a factor, but the way she moved her body without making a footstep sound or a rustling of clothes was nothing short of magnificent.
As for Loren, he managed to quieten his footsteps by using his knees, but he still made some noise. In addition, the dagger inside his jacket and the greatsword on his back still made some noise, and he could not reach the point where he could walk silently like Lapis.
“I guess I should have just left the greatsword behind.”
With the great sword, which was the heaviest of all Loren’s possessions, mounted on his back, he was inevitably restricted in how he could move his body, and was making noises all over the place. Without the weapon, he would not be able to fight, so it was an essential piece of equipment, but in a situation like this, it felt rather like a hindrance.
“You don’t need to worry much about it, do you? There is no indication that they will notice us.”
As Lapis said, the people ahead of them did not even look back. They just looked ahead and moved forward at the same pace.
It was a very strange sight for Loren to see people going in the same direction without any hesitation on the unlit streets. It was so dark that even Loren would have walked into things here and there if he had not been assisted by Shayna. It was strange to think that average citizens, who had not been trained in particular, were walking around in such darkness without any hesitation.
“Where are they headed?”
Loren asked the question that suddenly popped into his mind, but neither him nor Lapis had any familiarity with Suest. He thought that there would be no answer, but surprisingly, Lapis easily gave him one.
“It looks like they are walking toward the west of the town.”
“How can you tell?”
Impressed, Loren asked, and Lapis pointed to the sky.
“We can tell the direction by the position of the stars, can’t we?”
Just as Lapis said, there was really a way to do it. If you started going into details, there would be no end to it, but as long as one remembered some stars, it was not so difficult to determine the general direction.
“I see. So, what’s on the west side of this city?”
“I don’t think there is anything particularly big…”
Lapis said this yet her voice lacked confidence, as if she was searching her memory. Loren was somewhat relieved to learn that even though she was a priest in the service of the God of Knowledge, she did not have access to the detailed geography of a city she was visiting for the first time.
“So nothing worth checking then?”
“I guess so. At most, there is a west gate that leads in and out of the city wall, and an entrance to the sewage system, if I recall correctly, “
“Should we check that?”
Loren had no intention of asking what on earth she was going to use that information for, but there was one thing among what Lapis had told him stuck in his mind.
“The entrance to the sewers?”
“It’s one of several entrances on the outer edges of the city, used for cleaning and maintenance. The city’s domestic wastewater and sewage is collected in a sewer system that runs beneath the city. The entrance on the west side is the largest in the city, apparently, as it leads to the outside.”
[Well, that’s a suspicious place.]
Loren thought that a sewer was quite a fitting destination for a group gathered in the middle of the night with unknown intentions, but Lapis openly frowned when she heard his words.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning to go into the sewers?”
“Well… they continue to head west, the only place they’ll end up is outside the city or the sewers, right?”
“Loren, did you hear what I said? The west side drainage is the largest in this city, and it collects all the sewage, carries it out of the city and to the river, which is somewhat far from the city?”
Loren knew what Lapis’ expression meant when she said this.
In other words, it was the place where all the dirty water in this city drained, and the dirtiest place in the city is the best description for it. Since Lapis was wearing a white priest’s uniform, it was not difficult to imagine what kind of consequences awaited her if she were to venture into such a place.
“If you insist, I’ll have to give up these clothes…”
Even if she was lucky enough to not have her clothes soiled, the strong odor that probably wafted through the space would have seeped into the garments, and unless she used a very strong odor remover or detergent, she certainly would not have wanted to wear these clothes again.
The same can be said for Loren.
Loren would not hesitate to step in if necessary, but he certainly did not want his clothes, which he did not have many replacements for, or his jacket, which he used as his only piece of protective gear, to become soiled or smelly.
“It depends on the situation. I don’t want to be in such a place either.”
“In these cases, the worst thing you can think of usually becomes a reality…”
Lapis laughed weakly as she said this.
As if those words had become a curse, the group of people who were single-mindedly walking down the streets in the middle of the night eventually came to the western edge of the city, before a large door of a stone building with no decoration and no visible windows, standing alone at a distance from the other buildings.
Loren didn’t know what that building was used for, but he had a bad hunch about it. He asked Lapis, who was standing beside him with a sour face, if it was what he thought.
“Could it be that is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
As the two of them watched, thinking that it really always ended up with the worst scenario, the group opened the heavy iron door of the sewage entrance and went in with the same pace they had been walking before. The smell from the open doorway must have been quite strong, but there was no falter or hesitation in the steps of those who went through it.
When everyone had gone through the door, those at the end of the group closed the door, and the area was enveloped in silence.
“Nobody’s here, right?”
With the group he had been tracking gone into the sewers, there was no point in hiding, so Loren stepped out from the building he had been hiding behind and slowly made his way to the door that led to the sewers.
The door had been opened just a moment ago, and there was a strong sewage smell in the air. Lapis covered her mouth with her hands as she followed Loren, but she started coughing as they got closer to the door. When they reached it, she couldn’t stand it any longer and put her forehead on Loren’s back and clung to him tightly.
It was no wonder, Loren thought as he endured the stench that was wafting around him. It was not unusual for Loren to smell such odors on the battlefield, and to some extent he was used to them. But the smell of a sewer where the sewage of an entire city collected was so strong that he worried that his nose would never work properly again. Loren walked on with Lapis in tow, thinking that if they stayed too long, the smell would seep into his clothes.
As they finally stood in front of the sewer door, Loren put his hand on the handle.
“Please wash your hands properly after this.”
“You don’t need to tell me.”
Loren was not a fan of dirty or smelly things. Although the handle of the entrance door was not dirty, he promised himself that he would do as he was asked and wash his hands thoroughly afterwards, partly because of his own feelings.
“And you’re going to open that door?”
“Well, you have to open a door to see what’s inside, don’t you?”
“It will be horrible if you open it. Moreover, you can’t see what’s inside just by opening the door. The sewers are underground, so there’ll be only stairs going down.”
Even though the door was only open while a dozen or so people were passing through, the smell of the place behind it was so strong that Lapis was dazed. If that door was opened and they had to smell the odor wafting directly from inside, no one knew what kind of state she would be in. But there was no sense in following that group of people all the way here and returning without knowing what was going on.
“You can leave if you want. You won’t be able to stand the air inside.”
“That… I’m sorry, but I’ll take your word this time.”
If one thought about it, Lapis’ mother was a Demon King. For humans, such a position would be comparable to that of the King of a country. Loren did not know if Lapis was aware of this status or not, or if the demon race had such a notion, but as the daughter, she was in a position where she could be called a princess. It was not so strange that as such Lapis could not stand the smell of sewage. Rather, it was more surprising to Loren that she had followed him all the way to the door before he opened it.
Loren watched as Lapis hurriedly moved away, and after she had gained enough distance, Loren put strength into the hand on the handle and opened the door.
The mass of stinking air that poured out of the door was so strong that it almost made him feel as if he was under physical pressure, and he almost ran away from the place. But Loren held his ground and slightly leaned in. There was indeed a staircase leading down from the entrance, and at the end of the staircase, there was a fairly large space. There were no lights, of course, but Loren, who had borrowed Shayna’s vision, could see as well as if it was in daylight, and he began to descend the stairs, though reluctantly.
When he reached the bottom of the 20 or so steps, the air was slightly hot, and the smell was even more unbearable. Enduring the nausea that was rising, Loren stepped into the space beyond, which turned out to be a canal.
At both ends of the canal, which was probably filled with sewage, were passageways for people to pass through for cleaning and maintenance, and the canal itself extended all the way to the west. Loren’s vision clearly saw the foaming, foul-smelling sewage water, and he looked toward the end of the canal, thinking that in a case like this, it was good to have a clear vision.
It had not been long since that group of people had passed through here, and Loren thought that he could at least see their backs if they were moving along the passageway. But even though he could see far end of the passageway, which went all the way to the west, he could not see anything resembling a human figure in the middle of it.
When he turned his eyes to the other side of the passageway, there was still no sign of anyone.
Loren wondered if he was so late that he had lost sight of them, but no matter how hard he looked, no moving things existed in the space.
“They didn’t dive into the sewage, did they?”
Those people were behaving strangely to that extent. Loren thought that this possibility could not be ruled out, but naturally there was no way to check the sewage.
As he thought about how much he didn’t want to pick the option of going in himself, Shayna’s voice came to his mind.
[‘For the time being, there is no sign of life though?’]
As the King of Death, Shayna was able to detect the signs of life forces. Even though that was an ability of an undead, it was a very helpful ability in this case, Loren thought. It meant that there was no possibility of someone being in the sewage, so he didn’t have to check anymore.
“Then where the hell did they go?”
[‘That… There are countless small signatures at the end of this corridor, but they’re not the sizes of humans’. I don’t know what they are.’]
“Rats or something? I’m sure they are not uncommon in sewers.”
[‘I’m not sure about that.’]
Loren wondered what to do.
He thought about going down the passageway for a while, but didn’t feel like it at all. In addition, he had brought a greatsword, but no tools to conduct a search.
It didn’t take him long to realize that it would be dangerous to go in too deep without preparation, and he decided that it would be best to leave at this point. Paying attention to his surroundings, Loren went back the way he came and went up above ground.
“It’s honestly disgusting to explore that place…”
As Loren exited the door, thinking that the two staying at the inn probably would not like results of his pursuit, he saw Lapis’ misting a spray in her hand. He wondered where the hell she had kept it. Loren knew it was apparently a perfume because of the rather harsh citrus smell emanating from it.
“I really did smell…”
“Sorry Loren, I know it’s bad manners to do this, but please forgive me.”
Loren had not been in the sewers for that long, but the smell had definitely permeated his body. With a very apologetic look on her face, Lapis sprayed him with perfume. Loren, resigned himself, and obediently accepted it with a downturned mouth.