Fayette poked one of the rats over with her broom, and saw that while the top of the rat-thing was whole, its underside had begun to dissolve. “Hey, Mireille, are you done?”

“Soon! Is something wrong?”

“It’s these rat... creatures. There’s something wrong with them.”

Fayette waited for Mireille to finish, and when pointed out her finding when the woman joined her.

“Look, it’s like, half-dissolved or something. Is that a thing? Half-monster or whatever?”

Mireille frowned, and sent out her needle to prod at the corpse. “Strange... I haven’t heard of anything like this before. Could it be— oh.”

Fayette turned to her. “Did you find something?”

The [Seamstress] frowned in concentration. “There’s something... hard in here. Wait just a moment.”

Fayette turned back to the rat-creature and saw Mireille dig at it more with her needle. Eventually, after a bit more digging, she looped her thread around something and pulled it out.

At first, Fayette thought it was a monster core. However, that thought was quickly dispelled as she saw the living matter melded with the gem-like stone. At some point, Elise had joined them in their examination. She was staring at the creature with fascination.

“Is that its heart? Look how its melded with this— no, is it turning into the gemstone?”

Fayette frowned. That seemed to be what was happening, but everyone knew that monsters were spat out from hell, deep underground to torment the world above. She had never heard of anything like this—creatures turning into monsters.

“Fayette, you have some monster cores, right?” Mireille asked. “Can you bring one out? Let’s compare.”

That seemed an alright idea, so Fayette brought out one from her pouch. It was a red-brown gemstone, small enough to fit snugly into her hand. She placed it next to the heart-gem thing, and examined the two.

Everyone spent some time poking, prodding and looking hard at the things, but the conclusion was unmistakeable.

“So, I think it’s pretty clear that something here is slowly turning ordinary rats into monsters” Mireille said at last.

Fayette slowly nodded, accepting the idea. It might go against common sense, but there was no denying what she saw in front of her eyes. She gripped her broom tighter. “This job might be trickier than we expected.”

A silence fell over them, and the three women stared warily into the corridors that opened from their first room. They seemed more foreboding now. Dangerous. Something truly wrong was going on down here. The silence lingered for quite a while, as they all brooded on the situation.

“Are you sure we should be continuing with this?” Mireille eventually said, looking at Fayette. “We could leave and alert people about what’s going on.”

The [Maid] thought for a moment. True, it was much more than she had signed up for. A higher level of danger. She might have agreed to leave—if she was a normal hunter. She only had the junior license, and she didn’t think the guild would be too pleased about hearing what she had been doing here.

Besides, even if she managed to get away with it, it would be back to slime extermination or something equally dull. She made her decision. No, I’m finishing what I started.

“I think we should at least find out what’s causing this” She eventually said, turning to the other two. “Do you have any idea on how we could track the source down?”

Elise frowned for a moment, before shaking her head. “This place is pretty expansive—we might just have to do it the long way.”

Mireille waited for her to finish, looking proud of herself. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a solution for us.” She announced.

“Oh, really?” Fayette gestured at her. “Do tell.”

“I’ve had the foresight to keep one of my free skill slots, well, free. I’ve been keeping a throwaway skill on it, just for situations like this. I’ve just swapped in [Basic Tracking] for it.”

Elise looked at her, surprised. “You keep a slot open like that? Doesn’t it feel really bad if you swap skills like that? And you’ll never be able to get the previous skill back, doesn’t that worry you?”

The [Seamstress] brushed her off. “It’s only painful if you let the skill integrate too much—as long as you don’t use it much, don’t hold it for long and don’t put any skill points in it, the process isn’t too bad. At least once you get used to it.”

“But what about the lost potential? You’ll never get the first skill back.”

Mireille waved the concern away. “Not really a problem, most people stick to only one skill anyway, leaving all the others off. There are so many free skills, it doesn’t really matter if you lock out a few every now and then. Selections can be pretty versatile if you really get to it—I can think of three skills that I could use to locate these rats. Selecting one now and then switching it away isn’t too bad.”

“Really?” Elise responded, eyes wide with a new type of respect. “But how do you get so many different ones? My selections didn’t feel that versatile.”

The [Seamstress] seemed to puff up, delighted to extoll her wisdoms. “It’s simple really—just ask people how they think they unlocked theirs. People are all hush-hush about class skills, but strangely, well, free about their free skills. Ask loads of people how its done, then try to get the requirements. Works surprisingly well.”

Fayette rolled her eyes as Elise and Mireille kept at it, falling deeper into the conversation. She wasn’t too impressed with tricks like those. Might as well just get a proper good skill right away. Being skittish like that is bound to be trouble eventually. She clacked her broom on the floor twice, taking back the stage.

“Alright, you’ve got your new skill. Get to tracking now, would you? We’ve rats to catch.”

“I will, I will. It’s just—” Mireille closed her eyes for a moment. “I need to get used to using this. It takes a bit of practice, ok?”

“Fine, you do that.” Fayette said, then looked through the room.

Her spice-dust mix had been sent all over, and it would be a waste to just leave it all behind. A proper [Maid] was economical with things. She started gathering up all the dust in the room into one big pile. Mireille was muttering to herself, staring at one of the corpses. Elise looked a bit lost for a moment, but eventually went to stand guard over the entrance.

It didn’t take long for Fayette to gather up all the dust on the floor, and it really made a difference. Elaborate stonework had been hiding under the dust, and now revealed, it really brightened up the place. Fayette took up a lantern and turned to examining the walls.

This was only an entrance room, so it held no sarcophagi or skulls as the proper catacomb rooms no doubt did. The light from the lantern revealed worn walls, dirty with grime. A shame, this place could really look nice if someone actually maintained it.

Fayette took out a rag and started polishing up the walls. It really was a shame that a place that had once been built with lots of effort had eventually been left to rot. Why, it wouldn’t take me too much effort to really get this place down. I’ll need some more water, maybe a bit of [All Purpose Cleaner], and then—

“Fayette. We are not cleaning up the catacombs, do you hear?”

The [Maid] turned to Mireille, frowning. “Why not? It would only be a bit. Besides, you needed some time right, I’ll just fetch some—”

“No, I’m done. I figured out the general direction they were moving in. We’re not getting paid to clean this stuff up, so we’re not doing it. Take it up with the [Lord] or something.”

Hm, I guess that is true. I would be overstepping if I began to really clean up here. If I see that [Lord], I’ll have to give him a piece of my mind about the state he’s left things in. He should really hire some catacomb-[Maids] to keep this place in order. I wonder, is there a [Catacomb Maid] class? That could be cool.

She sighed. “Fine, we’re not doing it. Which way is our target?”

Mireille pointed to the leftmost corridor from the entrance. “Those creatures were moving mainly from that direction. Elise, do you know what’s down there?”

The [Labourer] thought for a moment. “That takes us upriver, out of this district. I don’t think the catacombs extend that far over there—it just becomes a tangle of abandoned mineshafts.”

Fayette slowly walked to the corridor, sweeping her pile of dust along with her. Mireille went forward to clear the wires she had set up over the entrance, and Elise brought in the lantern. The three moved forward, now practiced and ready with their formation.