Truthfully, I was glad that they were accompanying me. Nothing was more depressing than tramping around alone in the dark, stinky sewers underground. No, seriously. I had played games where I was forced to move through the sewers (the remake of Resident Evil 2, which I had played just last year, came to mind), but actually moving through one in real life? Disgusting. Ugh.

"We've come too far to back out now!" Adrian finally said. I realized that the main reason for their silence was because they were holding their breaths as much as possible, especially because of the d.a.m.ned stench in the sewers. Good thing I had cast a basic s.h.i.+elding spell over us to block most of the smell, but because I wasn't a wind mage (I never even learned basic wind spells), I wasn't able to cast it fully. I had to use the water version, which was a little less efficient.

"That's right. When I resolved to follow Sensei, I didn't care if I had to descend into h.e.l.l itself!" Melina added resolutely. I rolled my eyes at her exaggeration, but didn't comment. I was glad for her sentiment, if anything.

"Let me know if you see anything," I told the both of them, and then scanned the interior of the sewers with my gla.s.ses. The sensors detected nothing, but I knew how deceptive that could be. For one thing, they had limited range. For another, the motion deectors were not reliable, not with all the movement it was picking up. The sewage was gus.h.i.+ng ceaselessly, with gentle currents carrying debris and litter across the surface. There were too many movements picked up by the motion detector, and more than once I glanced at the sewage, half-expecting a Cyclops Rat to pop its head out of the thick sludge, its single glowing eye a glaring crimson in the darkness…only for it to be nothing more than a false alarm.

"Okay, Master."

"Yes, Sensei."

I rounded on Adrian. "Why are you calling me Master again?!"

"Because I'm supposed to play the role of Majic!" Adrian protested. "Be your apprentice while trying to learn magic to enter the Tower of Fangs and all that!"

"Learn from Melina! At least she's not pretending to be Cleao!"

"But she's pretending to be Melida Angel!"

"No, she's not…" I was cut off when Melina stepped forward with a question, pointedly ignoring my argument with Adrian.

"Hey, Sensei…when are you going to implant your mana in me?"

I threw both of my hands up in despair. "Why the f.u.c.k would I do that?!"

"Because…I still can't use mana…and you were moved by my determination to be a Paladin no matter what, despite clearly lacking the talent and the ability to produce mana, and decide to help me out?"

"YOU CAN USE MANA!" I yelled, exasperated. "You are NOT Melida Angel! You have the ability to use mana and cast spells! You're here to learn swordsmans.h.i.+p from me, not how to use mana! You could already use magic on your own, without needing me to teach you how!"

"But that's not how a.s.sa.s.sin's Pride went…"

"Who the h.e.l.l cares about a.s.sa.s.sin's Pride?!" I clutched my head with both hands, until Adrian tapped my shoulder.

"Uh, Master…"

"Don't call me that!"

"Okay, Brother Richard. But won't you be drawing the attention of the Cyclops Rats if you make such a commotion like this by shouting so loudly?"

I calmed down slightly and glanced about, watching the shadows for movement. Then I shrugged.

"That's precisely the point. I can't think of any other way to lure them to my position without making a lot of noise."

"So you mean all that fourth wall breaking and inane dialogue about other anime actually has a practical purpose?!" Adrian gaped at me, completely impressed. "You're a genius, Master!"

More like ad libbing, but I didn't want to destroy the G.o.dlike impression he had built up of me, so I grinned as if I had planned it all along and nodded.

"Yeah. The Cyclops Rats won't be able to resist coming to us if we make a bit of noise. If they hear humans moving around here, they will rush here for food."

"It doesn't seem like it's working, though." Melina sounded nervous as she glanced around warily. "I see no sign of them at all."

"Interesting…" I frowned and closed my eyes. For a few moments, I saw through the eyes and heard via the ears of my flock of Corvus that I had scattered throughout the bowels of the sewer. They hadn't detected any sign of Cyclops Rats. Not even a corpse. "I can't find any of them. Not even remains of their meals, or traces of them…no signs of any nest, nothing."

This was weird. Wai Po had no reason to lie to me…and in any case she was merely offering me second-hand accounts from other people who had actually seen these beasts – and again, I doubted those poor souls had any reason to lie and make up stories. After being hosted by Wai Po, I had went to Si Diao's house, and found evidence of a monster attack. The signs left behind by their claws and fangs matched those belonging to Cyclops Rats, so I had no reason to suspect fabrication on the Shrewsbury residents' part.

Yet something was clearly not right here. With the din that my charges and I were making, the Cyclops Rats should be charging forward ravenously, seeking to make a feast of us. There was no way these simple-minded creatures could resist the temptation of a warm, fresh meal approaching them. Maybe a few canny ones would be cautious enough to keep their distance, suspecting an ambush, but a pack of at least forty of them? Impossible.

Where could they be?

"Are they not in the sewers, after all?" Adrian asked skeptically, looking around and starting to get bored. I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it, gagging as I coughed and waved a hand in front of my face in reflex. Even with the s.h.i.+elding, the foul odor that permeated the underground pa.s.sageways could not be underestimated.

"The sewers are a ma.s.sive place. We have barely even begun to explore a small part of it." I pushed my gla.s.ses up as I scanned the darkness extending just beyond us. "We should search for a bit more and map out the place before giving up."

"Understood, Sensei." Melina nodded impa.s.sively, as if I had just instructed her to get some homework done. "We'll find them."

"If we can't, we'll just return to Shrewsbury neighborhood and stay the night. Keep watch and protect the residents from an attack, then follow the Cyclops Rats back down here. Hopefully they will lead us to their nest."

Even as I said that, I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. I preferred to deliver a preemptive strike and eliminate the Cyclops Rats before they could pose any threat to the residents above. Of course, even if I exterminated a bunch of vermin down here, I still intended to stay the night or two to ensure that they were fully eradicated. You know, just in case there was a lot more than three dozen of them. Wouldn't surprise me if there was an infestation of hundreds of these things.

If that was the case, I might be forced to call for reinforcements from the military. Even the Federation couldn't ignore the dangers of hundreds of Cyclops Rats living under one of their cities. They would deploy a whole company of soldiers to flush them out completely. Or so I hoped. The only reason why they left this to student-scale missions was because the evidence only pointed to there being relatively few Cyclops Rats, which normally could be dealt with by high school students and mages-in-training. However, once those numbers exceeded a certain quant.i.ty, then we would have no choice but to call in the military.

It would mean giving up our mission rewards, but since I wasn't getting much from this particular mission in the first place, I had no problem with that. And I honestly would pay to get out of the sewers.

The three of us continued to move within the sewers, and I kept track of our location through the holographic mini-map displayed on the bottom left of my lenses. Conveniently enough, just like the Resident Evil games, it showed the places we had already explored, marking the areas green while the unexplored places remained gray. Those that were only partially explored were colored a red hue, which meant that we had to return to them later to explore.

Obviously I didn't want to go through the trouble of backtracking, so I ensured that every area we entered was a deep green before moving on to the next chamber. I was essentially relying on scripted events to encounter the monsters instead of hoping for random sp.a.w.ns…

Wait, this wasn't a game. It would be fatal to treat this as a game. Cyclops Rats didn't just sp.a.w.n from ones and zeroes. They were real, breathing creatures that already populated the sewers prior to my arrival. If I continued to treat this as a game, I would end up making a mistake that would cost me my life. Not just me, but also the lives of the two kids under my charge.

Speaking of those two kids…

"Still nothing." Adrian was trying his best not to complain, but he sounded sulky. "Where could they be?!"

"Maybe they only used the sewers as a route…a path to move them from one place to another, but their nest is actually located elsewhere." Melina was thinking hard, and I had to give her some credit for her suggestions. It was entirely plausible that the nest of the Cyclops Rats was located not in the sewers, but elsewhere, and they only made use of the underground pa.s.sageway as an in-between. That would suck. If that was the case, then it was best to return to Shrewsbury above and wait for them to come at night.

The monsters mostly came at night. Mostly.

"Where did they come from, then?" Adrian asked curiously, glancing above. "The forest outside Lupin City?"

"Maybe. It's worth a try."

I was about to agree with Melina's a.s.sessment when I stilled. Holding up a hand, I signaled for both kids to stay silent, because one of my Corvus had picked up something. He flapped his wings and soared through the stale air, intent on locating the source of the sound. A couple of hundred meters away, from the sound of it, there were huge splas.h.i.+ng noises. As if something ma.s.sive was coming our way.

Something ma.s.sive…or a horde of many creatures was approaching.

"What is it?" Adrian demanded, unable to suppress his curiosity, but I ignored him, distracted by whatever was coming our way. He knew better than to press me, not when I had that look of utmost concentration on my face.

Then they came into view. A whole horde of Cyclops Rats were scrambling in our direction, sending waves of disgusting sludge splas.h.i.+ng against the concrete walls. Their single, glowing red eyes seemed to illuminate the otherwise inky blackness of the underground sewer, and their blurry paws sported wickedly curved claws. Their filthy, black fur allowed them to blend in seamlessly with the darkness, and dagger-like fangs hung from their jaws. Wire-like whiskers appeared to stretch out, tense from their predatory hunger.

And there was a lot more than the three dozen that Ah Gong reported. Almost a hundred of them was cras.h.i.+ng toward our direction, squealing in rabid delight.

Biting my lip (because I didn't want to take a deep breath), I summoned a bow and prepared to face that direction. The Cyclops Rats had finally gotten close enough to be heard by both Adrian and Melina, and the motion detector on my gla.s.ses was going crazy, showing multiple giant signals closing in on our position. Just as I expected.

Conjuring Alnasl, I fitted the flaming arrow to my Sagittarius-pattern bow and took aim. The flickering flames illuminated our position, casting reddish-orange hues on the moldy, gray concrete walls and damp granite ground. While some people might have criticized me for making us more visible to the enemy, I knew it wouldn't have made a difference. The Cyclops Rats were known for being able to see in the dark. If anything, the flames of my arrow would have momentarily blinded them, forcing their eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness.

Not that I was counting on that. You could never underestimate monsters, no matter what rank they were.

"This…" Adrian began, his voice taut with fear, but he had drawn his sword. As did Melina, who bravely stepped forward, only for me to wave her back. Like h.e.l.l I was going to let the kids risk themselves. Instead, I had them stay behind me while I kept my blazing arrow pointed in the direction of the pa.s.sageway where the Cyclops Rats would emerge from.

"Be careful," I warned, my eyes narrowed. "They are coming."