The dungeon was known to be a really dangerous place, to the point such that people could just potentially be killed by anything in there. As an adventurer, Deralst would not be surprised if he was to be killed by a monster right now. There would be no laws and restriction set by human around here, just kill or be killed.

Deralst knew that he was not someone who was really special around these parts, the things he could do not exactly unique either and there will always be something else stronger out there that could easily kill him, even inside the dungeon. People were weak like that.

Even so, Deralst was now calmly sitting on a huge rock from the rubble of a collapsed building, alone. He had long learnt to be more composed than usual when encountering the unknowns when delving inside the dungeon or it may just be a trait of his.

He had been lost in a dungeon before, while not in such an absurd manner it was still an experience he had. He quietly checked on the maps he had brought with him, while trying his best to identify where he was currently at right now.

The wide ceiling of the ruined city was so dark that it was like a night sky. The veiled darkness here covers not just from above but also from the corners of this place in the silent alleys and crumbling walls.

He was not able to get much of a bearing of this place. The surrounding was dark even with the help from the dim illumination of blue floating orbs, his own enhanced eyesight and even with the torch he had just lit.

The unsettling feeling about not know what was lurking among the shadows could be quite stressful to many. There might be something lurking among the shadows here. Some were common like the spiders, some could be as dangerous as the cryper, and some might be a lot more less known and just as dangerous to people. It was risky like that.

Aside from darkness, many things were blocking his view of his surroundings, like the various crumbled buildings that seemed more and more like the walls of a labyrinth. If Deralst were to try and understand where he was right now, he needed to find himself a higher ground to stand on. So he could get a better view of the subterranean city and any of the possible landmarks.

Actually, he would not be surprised right now if the necromancer had just simply took advantage of this situation and left him behind when he had finally reached the destination. Not that Deralst minded that too much right now.

Essentially, the current request he was doing was only something supplementary, as it aligned to what he was already planning to do anyway when he wanted to reach into the lower parts of the dungeon. He was currently more curious about exploring around the ruined dungeon city than finding the necromancer.

Even so, he still needed more information, more preparations and more scouting of the place, before he could delve even further into the depths of the dungeon. He still had a goal and many other things to do. And right now, he had to go and check that the necromancer was still around for him to continue the current request.

While examining the map, Deralst took out another of his pickled fruit to chew on while he continued to sat on the rock to recuperate his psyche. Despite how he seemed to be, he was feeling quite weary right now after his fight against the ghast.

It was not a physically straining battle but a mentally stressful one. He had encountered incorporeal monsters in the past, but he had not been possessed before. That was not a thrilling experience but at least he was able to get free from it by himself.

Deralst guessed that why he was able to do it was because his mind was suppressed to a certain degree, thus allowing him a stronger mental tolerance in overcoming the possession. Diabolists were known to be mentally resistant people anyway, they would have turned into corrupted insane monsters long ago if they were not so self restraining.

After taking a short rest to catch his breath, Deralst quickly rise back up and start to move to scout around the place. Deralst was not the type of person who just idlely sit and mope around anyway.

The city was quite hard to transverse around alone. Especially for someone as lost as him, who did not even know where his bearing was when he got here. The lost might get even more lost in this damnable dungeon.

As he walked through the stone paved path, there will always be rocks or various other debris found scattered across the streets or blocking his path when he was going though the dark alleys between buildings. The abandoned houses here were either made of hard bricks or some other stones.

The houses were mostly basic and bland. He found that most of the rooms in those houses were mostly empty or simply had a few basic yet rotting wooden furnitures. It seemed some of the houses even had storage rooms that were kept with a lot of pots containing various miscellaneous items. But they were not places that adventurers would expect to find treasure chests popping out of nowhere.

Deralst had also encountered a few more of undead monsters along the way. While they were not as dangerous as a ghost, they were still enemies that he would want to avoid wasting time and effort to fight against. As he was risking too much for too little gains.

He continued wandering around the ruined city searching for a better vintage point. Eventually, Deralst heard something coming from around the corner of the block. It sounded more like desperate shoutings that were hard for him to ignore, so he had to at least move to investigate the ruckus there.

He smothered his torch and threw it on the ground while stealthily moving closer to the source of the commotion as much as he could. Eventually, what revealed at the scene appeared to be a group of large prowling spiders encircling around two furry rodent looking creatures standing on two legs. They were being cornered and backed to a wall.

“Argh! DON'TZ COME ANY CLOSER!”

One of the rodents was shouting loudly in squeaky voice while swinging a short dagger around desperately towards the six spiders that seemed to be of another variant than the ones he had seen at the upper floors.

"HA! I canz take on all of you! I DARE YOU!" The one holding the dagger among them was shouting in a threatening voice against their to be predators.

The more rat looking one could certainly talk but if it was any other circumstances, Deralst would have just leave and ignore what was bizarrely going on around there if he were none the wiser. But instead of leaving, he had decided to stay behind this time to observe the struggle from behind a wall.

There were actually reasons why he had done so. Deralst had heard from the adventurers in the association before about these rodent like critters. They were commonly known as the rodent folks, but the adventurers tend to simply just call them Ratlings as a convenient slang.

The rodent folks mainly lived around the fifth floor, and were well known for their extensive knowledge of the underground city. They commonly encounter and interact with the adventurers around here.

They were mostly a bunch of elusively mousy denizens who were even helpful to the adventurers at times. So their presence were greatly tolerated by the adventurer association. But due to some of their shrewd personalities and even their past histories with humans, some people would be quite distrustful of them.

While Deralst was neutral in his opinions about the rodent folks, he was not currently keen on associating himself with them either. But he knew that their insight around the city could be very helpful to him right now when he needed to ask someone for directions inside a dungeon.

After some considerations while watching the standoff drew on pointlessly. In the end, he had chose to step up and help them. Having made a decision, he quickly went forward from the shadows of the wall and threw a dagger at one of the spiders, which started burning after it was struck.

"Whatz!?"

Without stopping, he drew out his sword and rushed towards the remaining spiders, with a low sword slash, he sliced one of the spiders in half while its still on the ground and he kicked away another spider jumping towards him in the thorax.

These hunting spiders were a lot larger but lesser compared to the ones above that were hunting in groups large enough to form a swarm. They were at least twice the size of a large dog. Their long yet lowered legs gave them the impression like that of the ambush jumping type of predators.

After having killed two of the spiders, Deralst swiftly continued to slash through the apendages and body of another one as it attempted to grab at him for a venomous bite. Deralst then moved back to take on a defensive stance after his initial surprise attack. Heating up his sword as he swung it threateningly at the remaining spiders.

Having just been overwhelmed so suddenly and easily. By intuition, the other spiders sensed that their life was in danger, and so like retreating grasshoppers, they instead reacted by quickly leaping backwards from Deralst's swungs and hastily retreated back into the shadows.

Deralst clicked his tongue, those spiders were smarter then he thought....and now they had gotten away. There was no point in giving chase to the spiders now either so while still holding on to his sword, Deralst simply turned to looked at the other two rodent folks. Both of the ratlings just stared at Deralst in shock but one of them simply shouted.

“Wow! You have chased away the spiders!"

It walked up to Deralst carelessly and cheerfully with its hind legs, it looked chubby and had an appearance that seemed more like a mole with longer claws and feet than a typical rat. It had brown fur and was only wearing a baggy looking green pants with a cloth bag slinged behind its back. It also appeared to be quite dopey and naive.

"You have saved us! So you must be a good guy!”

The adorable mole looking one exclaimed happily in a slower friendly voice but other more rat looking one was initially hunched low at a distance away, seemingly to be more cautious and uneasy. But it quickly snaked foward to smack the other one on the back its head with its paw like hands.

"Ow! Rak, thaaat hurts!"

"Shutz up, Pacon! How many times do I have to tell you that we don't suddenly talk to humanz like that!"

The leaner one seemed to be called Rak. It was shouting angrily at its other buddy, while still keeping an eye on Deralst. It talked so quickly in way that spit would sometimes fly out of its mouth. Most likely also due to its two long protuding upper tooth that was projecting over its lower lip. After it finished berating its partner, it turned to look at Deralst.

“Hmph, so you saved ussst. Big deal, we can eazily ezcape from those spiderz. I still don’t trust yer. Humanz.”

“But Raaak! He is a good guy who saved us!”

It smacked the cubby looking rodent again.

“Ooow!”

Like the mole looking one, Rak was also wearing a pair of clothed brown pants and with it a haversack behind its back. Additionally, it was also wearing a brown shirt too. It had a slightly lighter but similar fur color to its other companion.

Rak turned back to look at Deralst suspiciously in the eye, its eye looked rounder from Deralst's height and angle as given that it was only tall enough to only reach Deralst's stomach. Which was also in a sense as tall as a young human child.

"I don'tz think that you saved us out of yer kind heart." Rak snorted.

It spoke rudely as it spit to the ground on the side. Its body was still hunched and arms lowered, it still maintained some form of cautiousness and tact when talking to Deralst.

"So, what do yer want human?"

"I am a bit lost around here, so I want to know if you could give me the directions towards the entrance to the sixth floor?" Deralst spoke frankly, there was no point in lying now.

“Of courze we do! Who do yer think we are?" It snorted again.

"But It’z gotta cost yer!”

“But Rak, he saved us…..”

The rat looking rodent smacked his buddy in head angrily again.

“Ow, stop doing that!”

“Shut up Poby yer fat idiot! The dungeon iz getting more and more heretic lately. How do yer think we get food in our belliez? We need to be more forzeful here!"

Rak was talking faster and faster, as spit was flying everywhere from its mouth.

"You know that some of the spiders are still out there right? Would you be fine to accept my additional assistance to protect you on your trip as a favour for you to show me the direction?”

Watching them in interest, Deralst instead politely offered from the sides but Rak simply grunted in reply while crossing its arms.

"Ok! That sounds nice! I will help you!" Pocan simply shouted.

Rak placed its own paw on its face as if it was already regretting a lot of things when it heard that Pocan simply just accepted the offer from Deralst just like that. That's not how negotiations works.

“Argh whatever, but know thiz, human. This iz still just a compromize!” Rak eventually gave up, as it just continue to shake its head, sighing.

“Now follow me, human.”

Rak said slowly as it waved its paw as an indication.

"Yeah! Now we got another job to do!"

Pocan said cheerfully as Deralst followed them on their path. After a while walking around in confusing twist and turn, they then moved into a few different buildings where they moved to withdraw packaged items from various pots found in the houses. They also seemed to specifically know which one to look for and these folks were at least confident enough to know where they were going. He hoped.

Afterwards, they led him inside of yet another building located in the more wrecked parts of the city. Which the room inside was simply empty and dusty, aside from a bed and a few rotten furniture there. The two legged rat simply squat down to move a large stone tile on the ground at the side of the bed by sliding it forward.

What revealed underneath the stone tile seemed to be a sloping hole big enough for a human to walk down. The hole seemed to be a dirt barrow that seemed to be dug through by someone instead of it being a natural occurrence.

“What are yer waiting for? Get in there!”

Deralst hesitate a bit about the idea of following the rodent folks into a dark narrow tunnel but in the end, he still decided to continue to head on inside the tunnel anyway. After everyone got inside of the hole, Rak did a final look around through a peek from below before moving the tile to cover back the hole. And the room finally returned back to its quiet and empty state.

__

The tunnels under the ruined city were about three metres wide and was large enough for a human to walk comfortably inside with a burning torch. The tunnels were constantly shifting and twisting while forking into different paths, presumably leading to exits to the surface of ruined city or to another path of various other destinations.

A person could get lost in here, while continuing to travel in circles without getting anywhere near an exit. It actually made Deralst wonder how the rodent folks were even able to recognise the path so easily without any confusion or hesitation. They just moved through the tunnel paths like usual without even slowing down.

Eventually, through a hole of a large crevice, Deralst was led into what seemed like a huge tunnel but it was actually more like a dark underground sewer, the dirt path started to turn into a path made of paved stones again. Over the time, It had now became dry and relatively free of any foul stench from the stinking water carrying the waste of the city in the past.

Standing at the end of the tunnel path was a huge mole like creature that appeared to be as big as a bear standing on its hind legs while it seemed to guarding an entrance to somewhere else. Looking at the huge creature while using references from the association, Deralst immediately recognised that it was actually a buggane.

"Zote, so it is now yer turn to look after the entrancez?"

Rak spoke in a slower and a more respectful tone as it waved at the buggane a distance away.

"Ah Ranrak, didn't expect to see you here at this time." The buggane responded by waving back its huge claws slightly.

"Remember to send my regards to your mother."

"I will, but right now I need to bring thiz human inside firzt."

The buggane turned its face towards Deralst, it looked....hulking and hairy. It was an unexpected of the conversation just now to show that the buggane was actually quite intelligent.

"Alright then, no point holding you all back. You all may move on now."

After greeting the buggane and moving through the path. What the two rodent folks had led Deralst next was even more astonishing. He was led to another huge underground sewer complex that was now a thriving subterranean rodent community.

Various rodent looking folks of any kind could be seen moving on two legs there. They were not afraid nor surprised when they saw Deralst walking though the place. Not that Deralst minded being stared at anyway, he was used to it.

Many types of different rodent residents could be seen there. Such as moles, rats, mice, and even some hybrid looking ones such as the mole rats could be found there. He could also spot some other human adventurers among them too and even more of those bugganes moving around the place.

Stone houses could be seen being build there along with various good selling stalls managed by the rodent folks and even torch stands lighting up the area. It was a huge bustling community. The streets was full of busy people, children running around and playing.

Nobody would expect that an underground dungeon to be safe and teeming with people. Actually, given that people do not normally lived inside a dungeon, this place was one of the few good areas to serve as the very few resting stops for the adventurers. It was well known in the town above that the rodent folks sold their services to many of the adventurers as guides or for trade and even as transporters at times.

But some of the adventurers tend to be unwilling or even downright refusing to travel among the rodent folks into dark tunnels and dirty sewers due to many reasons. Afterall, many people were distrustful of the rodent folks due to their cunning and thieving personalities

But after some agreements made with their own representatives, the rodent folks had agreed to stop their own kind from attacking and robbing the traveling adventurers. Any of the rodents who were to do so these days will be tracked and hunted down by their own tribes.

Presently, a lot of the new adventurers tend to willingly rely on them for supplies and guidance. Meanwhile, many experienced adventurers also use their services to conveniently get through to the lower floors without having to always go through the troublesome labyrinth ruined city. It was also an optimal place for other more unsavoury adventurers to gather at.

The ratlings could be found commonly around the fifth floor of the ruined city seeking out adventurers to promote their services or scourging for abandoned equipments and trinkets to resell them back to the humans for other goods.

While the langguage they mostly used in the past were incoherent and disjointed that varied across tribes in the past. But overtime, they eventually started to use human langguage as their main form of communication among humans and themselves.

"Oh look! It'z the shady individual in his shady cloak again! I will alwayz see more of him walk by in a good every thirty secondz. How shady!"

"Rak! You always say that when you see an adventurer wearing a cloak!" Pacon pointed instead.

"Well, I don't trustz them, I have seen more and more of those cloak wearing humanz lately like them owned the place."

While walking through the crowd, Rak was now talking casually with Pacon while Deralst was following them from behind.

"You just worry too much, Rak. You don't even trust any humans."

"Grrr...."

Rak was sulking now as they walked on the sewer streets until they had eventually reached the front of a food stall. A bigger ratling that looked familiar to Rak could seen standing behind the stand.

“Hi, Ma….here’s the amount from my work.”

It greeted its presumed mother as it passed on packages that were wrapped in cloth to its mother.

"Oh Ranrak! You got back quite early today!"

"Ma! I got into some trouble with the spiderz there, besidez I have to other thing to do. So I had to give up on some potz."

“You younglings sure have it easy these days! You know back before the five tribes were united, I was just a wee lass! It was a tough time….”

“Argh, ma I had heard that a thouzand timez already!”

“Now, now. Ranrak, you shouldn't talk like that, you should also get your buck tooth filed soon too."

“.....I had talked with uncle ritz, herez the invoice and message he toldz me to pass to you....”

Deralst was not listening much to what Rak was saying right now and he wished that they would just bring him to the entrance already instead of just wandering around with them here.

"Psst, hey!"

When Deralst was in contemplating boredly, he was interrupted by a voice he heard calling for him. So he turned around saw a small rat that looked even smaller than Rak when he looked down at it.

"Hey, wanna buy some mushrooms?" It spoke in a soft voice that was even more squeaky sounding than Rak while holding a brown mushroom as big as it in two of its small paws.

"What? No, I am not interest." Deralst simply dismissed.

"Awww."

The small ratling slumped his shoulders.

"Do you sell any food instead"

He was a person who did not bring much along with him everywhere he goes, even into another community on his own. But at least he was self sustainable. He had carried with him his own food but since it was getting near lunch time, he wanted buy some meals around here to eat instead to save up on rations.

"Well, I got baked moths, fried maggots on sticks, and we even sell ma's homemade raisin cookies!"

That last one sounded pretty normal to Deralst....

"Do you accept human coins?"

He was a person who was quite mindful of his own finances but Deralst was still willing to pay for something fruity to eat right now. He actually wanted to see if he could buy some fruits from the stall merchants, he hoped that he could buy it with coins....if not, maybe trade it with his own fruit instead.

"Pafrok! I thoughtz I told yer not sell weird things to the humanz!"

Rak came shouting at its younger sibling after it noticed that Pafrok was bartering with Deralst

"H-hey, brother!" The younger ratling spoke in a nervous voice.

"Weren't you supposed to be tending to the garden?"

"Yes, I have! There's a new batch of mushrooms that was already ripe enough to be harvested already!"

"That does not mean that you can run off to do something else!"

“B-But Wait! There's more!”

"What?"

"I have also finished harvesting the pink shrooms too!"

"You what, Paft!?

Rak was visibly shocked of what it had just heard, but its eyes had widen with interest as it licked its lips.

"Let me show you my collections! I have more of them in the back of my base!" Pafrok seemed to be trying to convince Rak now, as it whispered softly to Rak's ears. What they were talking sounded dubious to Deralst too, were they even allowed to talk in front of him?

"You know that I am very busy right?"

"I also got Hia and the other girls to come too! And with you, we will be set for a party!"

"How did you do it!?"

"I just told her that I got a bucket of mushrooms, and ask if she wants to do it?”

Pafrok was smiling innocently as it spread its paws widely right now.

"I had enough of you and your honeyed wordz, and I smell a rat in this...." Rak shakes his head.

"How did you even think of thiz, my imagination iz that of which a potato...."

Deralst was simply standing further behind them now, trying to look somewhere else. While the topic was interesting, what they were talking in secret was none of his business right now. It seemed some like something that he should not be hearing, so he simply acted like he had heard nothing.

“But Rak! You still have a job to guide the other adventurers!” Pacon shouted out to Rak from behind. But it just simply put an arm on Pacon's shoulders while smiling widely.

“Well, you are old enough now, I will let you guide the adventurers all by yourself now!”