14.4

Drip…

“There goes my walkway,” John said in a strained voice as he stood at the very edge of the walking path. He had been following the sewerage flow for the past hour or so—by his own estimate, since he had no timekeeping device with him—but he had yet to reach the exit nor see any signs that the sewerage system would soon end.

And now, the pavement that allowed him to stay dry instead of trudging through the waste waters have ended, leaving him only one choice if he wished to proceed.

Staring deep into the dark waters that were flowing forwards before him, John raised his left foot in midair.

“I think...this is for the best,” he uttered, doing his best to convince himself to go down into the water.

He did not know where he was, what the layout of the underground sewerage system looked like. He was worrying that if this kept up, he would eventually run out of strength and became lost in this stink hole.

He had to press on, to find the exit.

“Ah whatever.”

Reluctantly he lowered his left leg into the sticky water, then the right before dropping his full body into the water. It was not until the waste waters reached his waists that his feet found footing.

“This sucks,”

Gritting his teeth, he continued on forwards, taking strenuous heavy steps, taking care to not slip and fall from the slightly forwards incline of the sewerage.

Splash, splash, splash…

The further he moved forward, the steeper the downwards incline became. Instead of backing off cautiously from the rising waters, John hastened his footsteps as cautiously as he could with a smile.

A steep incline meant that the water was close to their drainage point.

I am nearing the exit!

In his excitement, his foot stepped on a slippery substance in the sewerage, causing him to lose his balance.

“Oh, shit—” feeling his body being dragged on by the oncoming current and the downwards slope, John immediately covered his face as the water pushed him with substantial force.

Splosh, blop, plosh!

He tried regaining his footing but the ground beneath him had disappeared, all John could do was to propel his body and swim upwards along the waste waters to maintain his breath.

This is a bad idea. I should definitely have stayed—

At the thought of swimming back against the impossible current entered his mind, gravity consumed him.

And the sewerage that he was swimming above brought him plummeting downwards by gravity.

“!!!”

Wind soared against his clammy skin, the stench filled his lungs as flat concrete zoomed in his view.

“[Heal]!”

John collided against the flat ground stomach first, causing him to cough out the breath that he had been holding and a few drops of blood.

“Ack… I...am never doing...that again…” flipping to his back, John looked at where he fell from as he cast [Heal] on himself once more.

From fifteen meters above him, an immense stream of sewage waste fell from a 5-meter-wide outlet.

The sight itself was akin to an artificial waterfall, but instead of a drinkable stream, it was sticky liquid with putrid sludge. The stream poured into a large aqueduct in this lower layer, all of which rained down on John, constantly showering him with splashes of putrid liquids.

Not wanting to taste the bitterly disgusting water anymore than he had, John crawled away from the sewage channels and opted for the drier parts of the place, drying his body yet again as he tediously cleaned himself from filth that was on him.

Inside the spacious lower layer that he found himself in, there existed no windows. Dim lighting shone from the ceiling, highlighting the various human sized metal pipes protruding from the grounds and connected into the thick brick walls.

Riveted with strong connections, the metal pipes were laced with countless freshly weaved cobwebs, and atop the silky webs were fist-sized spiders that crawled about with their eight legs.

John scrunched a brow as he watched the spiders moved about in their webs.

“If there're spiders, there must be something that led them in here…”

A spider’s diet comprised of insects like flies, mosquitoes and moths alike. But those insects are only drawn to places with lush plants or animal activities as they feed on the decaying particles that are found in those places.

“...that means, an exit is nearby!”

Like an excited animal, John’s eyes darted around his surroundings in search of a way out of this sewer chamber.

But all that surrounded him were rusty pipes and stony walls, this was an enclosed chamber that seemed to have no path that led to his exit.

His elation dissipated when he was reminded of his circumstance.

“If only I can speak to you guys, maybe I’ll know where all of you came from, hahaha.”

While he chuckled at his idiotic wish to communicate with spiders, the spider closest to John leaped from the webs and flew straight at his face causing him to jump as quickly as the arachnid.

“Woah, woah, woah!!!” keeping his distance from the spider, he raised his two hands before him.

The spider landed on the ground before John, with its tiny eight-legged body, it reared its head towards John, and pounced at in his direction once more.

John retreated further, “I mean no harm,” he raised his hands further up in the air.

Out of habit, he spoke to the spider as he often did to the tiny jumping spiders that he found in the corners of his living space to the point where sometimes he’d even find them in his shoes for some odd reason—perhaps his shoes had something the spiders desired?

He was used to spiders, as long as they did not bother d him, he would allow the arachnids to help with the mosquitoes and moths. Spiders were predators, but unlike pesky mosquitoes that had a compulsive desire to suck his blood or the moths that destroyed many of his books and clothing, spiders only generated the cobwebs every now and then.

The spider must have noticed how reactive John had become, because the moment John spoke, the spider rose its two front legs, rubbed its fangs as though it was trying to convey something to the human that stood before it.

“?”

The spider pounced.

“!!!”

This time it landed on John’s arm despite his best efforts to dodge it, latching onto John with its hairy legs as its eight spherical eyes looked into John’s black ones.

“Gah! Get off me!” panicked to what the spider was trying to do despite him having retreated from it continuously, John jerked his back a little too hard, causing him to fall on his back.

“Ow…”

Rubbing the back of his head with the spider-free arm he used his magic on himself.

“[Heal].”

He moved then moved his middle finger underneath his thumb, ready to flick the spider that was on him—

Only to discover the spider was no longer on his arm but instead on the ground in front of him.

It must had jumped off him when he panicked and fell.

“Seriously, I don’t know what it is, but I keep falling today,” John complained as he kept his eyes on the spider that was in front of him, weary of the arachnid’s movements.

Still looking at John, the spider rose it’s two front legs as it did before pouncing on to him earlier.

“Oh no, you’re not going to fuck with me…”

John move to the spider with his feet raised, ready to squash it for the unnecessary panic that it caused him.

But he stopped himself when a breath of cold still air entered his lungs.

It was then did he realize the continuous splashing of the sewage waste had disappeared from his ears.

The pungent smell that clogged his nose, the sticky air that clung on his skin.

They were all gone.

Yet, the view of the sewage waste falling from above in a constant stream was still within his sight.

“Oh…”

It was then he realized he had entered a different space that extended from the sewage chambers had, a passage that separated both smell and sound the moment he entered it.

A hidden passage.

Exiting the hidden passage, John approached the aqueduct where the spider and jumped at him earlier, and sure enough, the moment he stepped foot back to where the sewage chambers were, the sounds of water splashing returned to him along with the foul stench.

The passage behind him, however, was immediately covered up with an illusion of the same brick wall façade that was in this sewerage chamber.

Unfazed by what he saw, John thrust his hands at where the passage was. Sure enough, his hands passed through the walls and the illusion fizzled away, revealing the hidden passage once more.

“Huh… Even Meastes has a trick or two in their structures.”

No longer wanting to bother with the spider—which had returned to the silk webs where its other brethren were, after it had its fill of terrorizing John—he entered the hidden passage after rolling his eyes at the arachnid that showed him the exit.

The passage spanned in a straight path as John traveled through it, though the brickwork differed vastly from the ones back in Prishine’s hideout earlier, the still dusty air gnawed his gut as he made his way through.

He had escaped Prishine the succubus, but her horrible intentions towards still lingered at the back of his mind.

What would happen after I return? Would Team Rectiser suffer because I escaped her ‘grasp’?

Prishine had people, connections, power than spanned across Moxnet Academy, Dezarith Empire, and perhaps even outside the academy. Not only John had directly rejected her, he also directly manipulated her into allowing his escape.

He, who was a mere human male outsmarted a succubus, a temptress of males, the seductress of all.

It was the highest form of insult to someone of her nature.

“Where do you think is he now?” a familiar voice echoed at the end of the hidden passage, immediately capturing John’s attention.

“Your buddy?” a snarky one replied. John recognized this voice too, but there was a heavy tinge of disappointment in the voice. “He must have abandoned us and went to whoever given him the mission sphere

“He isn’t that kind of person...”

“Aurelius? Kirk?” John called out to them.

There was a moment of silence before the two voices reacted to him.

“John? Is that you???” Aurelius said with great vigor.

“Shh, quiet down, you mutt, they might overhear us.”

John made no reply, instead he quickened his pace and moved along the hidden passage until the very end.

“What the— How’d you make the wall disappear!?”

“It is you!” Aurelius brimmed with joy when John popped out from passage, disrupting the identical illusion that was found at its entrance earlier.

Inside a thick cell, Aurelius and Kirk sat on the dirty ground as their eyes focused on him.

“What are you two doing here? Where’s the rest of the team—” John paused himself when he saw a third figure along with Aurelius and Kirk.

“No…”

Kirk’s eyes instantly met with John, just like him, the tall guy’s was ridden with dark circles underneath his eyes, “Dude, hurry, B-Bran needs your help… My [Lesser Recovery] can’t undo what the monsters did to him.”

To say that Bran was battered was probably inaccurate.

When, in fact, the leader of Team Rectiser had his arm muscles dug out from his body, exposed to the thin air. His legs, in similar fashion sliced and turned inside out as though he was poultry ready to be sold off. On Bran’s torso, a huge chunk of flesh was missing and around his neck were holes that seemed to be the result of thick needles entering his body. His skull bent into an irregular shape, eyeballs buldge from their sockets from a…

Unable to witness what has transpired to Bran any longer, using his mythril sword, John sliced at the hinges of the steel cell door, and made his way through.

Hurriedly, he crouched to the ground and lifted Bran to his arms, “[Heal], [Heal], [Heal]…” all the while looked to Aurelius and Kirk for an explanation as his healing aura restored the color on Bran’s battered face, undoing the brutality that was done upon Team Rectiser’s leader.

“We were ambushed, it’s my fault,” Aurelius admitted. “I brought them to where the mission’s location was. These people are monsters, John.”

“They’ve got Matilda and Cacti…” Kirk interjected with a palm on his head, “I…” his voice faded as he succumbed to the pull of gravity.

“Kirk!”

Aurelius caught a Kirk just before his body hit the ground, “It’s alright, he isn’t as badly injured as Bran.”

John directed one of his hands and used his magic on Kirk who fainted, casting two [Heal]s simultaneously.

“Kirksten has been using his magic on Bran ever since he returned with those injuries.”

“W-what is going on?” John said in a small voice, “Ambush? Monsters? Cell? Who took Matilda and Cacti? W-why...”

“Monsters. Only Bran has ever seen their faces or knows what they are. We must have trespassed their territory while retrieving the tuning fork for our second mission. They want to bring Mathilda and Cacti to a place called Pardlorn and sell them. As for us, the guards mentioned we might get ‘converted’.”

“Converted— What does that even mean…?”

John squinted at Aurelius before he stopped his magic on Kirk and continued his full attention on Bran’s wounds.

Bran’s deformed head gradually returned to normal, the flesh on his torso returned, the punctured holes on neck sealed, the cut on his arms disappeared in his view.

“B-Bran said… It means become o-one like them…” Kirk gave out a groggy explanation before his eyelids became shut and he started snoring. “Zzz…zzz…”

Aurelius was about to open his mouth and shake Kirk from slumbering, but John stopped the wolfkin before he could.

“He needs rest, his mana reserves are emptied. Kirk doesn’t use healing magic...trying to recover Bran...it cost him a lot. But Bran…”

John clenched his teeth for the healing process on Bran moved at a snail’s pace due the severe trauma that Bran was subjected to. Unlike the normal brutal injuries he had seen and recovered in A’vetheas, the ones inflicted upon Bran took John more time and energy than he expected.

On the surface, [Heal] had restored Bran completely, his leader no longer had any visible injuries but John could still the flow of his healing magic swirled and surged into Bran, feeling the intricate parts of Bran’s internal organs rearranging themselves.

This is a different kind of torture...w-who in their right mind did this?

His hands drew to a tight clench.

“Aurelius, who are these people? The ones who attacked Team Rectiser?”

“Remarkable speed, superior strength. Bran had to use his avatar magic to defeat them. But then, there was someone who was stronger than all five of us… And the one who did that...defeated all of us in a flash.”

“…”

Stronger than Bran’s avatar magic? How is that even possible? The average Dezarithian magic user can use up to tier three magic, and that’s those who have talent…mine is around five or six according to them… So, does that mean these people are as strong as the elves—

“Never thought I’d be greeted with your sour face after you’ve vanished on us…” Bran’s voice resounded like the bell in John’s ears. “Glad...you’ve come...”

“Wait, don’t speak, your organs are still being arranged—”

“It’s alright John, I’m a way better than earlier,” placing one of his hands on John’s shoulders for support, Bran gradually shifted his feet attempting to stand. “I…” whilst doing his best to plant two feet on the ground, Bran’s knees buckled.

“It’s alright, Bran. I am here. Just give it a few more moments for [Heal] to finish. Kirk also isn’t in the condition to do something. You can spare a few minutes...”

The gleam on Bran’s face disappeared when John consoled Bran. It was though his very words had sent a pike into their leader heart.

“How can I…how can I rest...a-after I sold out the empire…”

John raised a brow. He wanted to look to Aurelius for answers, but Bran spoke again.

“I’m sorry, John… I w-wasn’t strong enough… T-the captain, I t-tried to resist his torture. I kept my lips sealed. B-but when he brought Cacti a-and slammed her head against the wall before me… I…told him all about us...a-about where we came from, who we are, why we are here...everything I know about the empire.”

Bran trembled in John’s arms.

Anytime now, Bran was about to break into tears.

John, who was plagued by the death of the Harvests, understood the feeling completely.

The guy had endured a peculiar of bodily torture, where even with [Heal] took a few minutes to fully recover, yet Bran kept his wits together despite the gruesome pain that he suffered.

“It wasn’t your fault, Bran…” Aurelius said, placing the sleeping Kirk on the ground. “All of us heard your screams...if it weren’t you...they might target me or Kirk until one of us breaks.”

John kept his silence as Aurelius consoled Bran who had calmed down after his confession to him. Ceasing his magic as he felt the last of Bran’s body recovered.

“Tell me Bran...do you know where Matilda and Cacti are?” John’s voice became unusually stoic.

“I am unsure… But I have heard that they kept the girls a floor above us.”

Picking up on what John’s intentions, Aurelius perked, “I have their scent, John.” The wolfkin’s nose then twitched in the air, “Actually, I can locate where they have kept our weapons. They are closer to us than the other two are.”

John placed a hand under his chin, stroking it as he darted his eyes from the sleeping Kirk to Bran, who was under great duress.

Bran is in no condition to fight. His body might have recovered but his blood loss is still great. We can wake Kirk up, but I don’t think he can do anything after attempting to cast recovery magic on Bran…

“Alright, then let’s do it, Aurelius. You and I, we go find the girls and get back all of your weapons. Bran, you and Kirk stay hidden in the secret passage.” John nudged his chin towards the wall that he appeared from. “There’s a hidden passage pass the wall, it connects to a sewage system. Follow the waters, it should bring us outside. Once we retrieved the weapons, we’ll make our way out.”

Though I am not sure how far out and where...but anywhere is safer than here at this point.

“No!!! John, you shouldn’t…” Bran grabbed at John’s black coat, stopping him in his tracks. “Putting the captain aside, If you get caught by any of them, you’re still facing against very, very, very dangerous people…” Bran’s eyes trembled as he looked at John, his grip tightening as time passed.

“Just leave the worrying to me for now. You and Kirk regain your energy for our escape while I get Matilda and Cacti back, okay?”

Placing one of Bran’s arms around his shoulders, John lifted Bran as his friend trudged his way into the hidden passage.

“Aurelius, help me with Kirk.”

“On it,” carrying Kirk in his arms, Aurelius left the cell and entered the secret passage before placing Kirk against the ground.

With one step after the other, Bran and John made their way towards the secret passage. It was only once they were inside here, John gently let go of Bran who leaned against the passage walls.

The dark expression on their leader’s face prompted John to speak.

“These people captured you guys in an ambush, right? Don’t worry, me and Aurelius will get in quick and leave before they notice us. Not to brag, but I’ve just escaped from a group of nasty people so you can rest—”

“No, no, that’s not it John!!!” Bran spoke so loudly as though he almost shouted.

“No one knew else but me knew what we were up against... All of them are still under the impression this is a group of strong bandits of some other race…” his voice was small, akin to a silent whisper.

John’s brows furrowed. He looked to Aurelius who shook his head in reply.

“W-what are you implying, Bran? They can’t be all that horrible can they?”

I mean, I don’t think what you will say can beat a bat shit crazy succubus who kidnapped me just to have sex with me, but sure, go ahead Bran.

Bran paused for a second, took a deep breath, then finally said in a voice loud enough for John and Aurelius to hear, “Vampires. They are vampires from the sovereign.”

“…”

Bran then looked to Aurelius who had a look of bewilderment on his face.

“That’s why they attacked us during the night, Aurelius. That’s why you can’t smell their presence...vampires, they travel by shadows, they morph into bats...they—”

“Vampires?”

“Yes, John. Creatures of the night. The blood drinkers from the ancient times,” Bran spoke regretfully.

“V-vampires? Vampires, here?”

John whispered to himself as his eyes shook in their sockets. The body bags laid before the Harvest Residence, the decapitated heads, the bloodied floorboards. The mauled bodies of Miril and Mera…

“No, no, no, how can vampires be here? Vampires? The academy sent us here because it’s safe isn’t it? B-but how can there be vampires here… H-how did they...”

His breathing increased as his breath became shallow, all the while he twitched from where he stood.

Ba-dump! Bad-dump! Ba-dump!

“Vampires? What...no...vampires...I-I… That’s…” John struggled to take in fresh air as his head trembled. “We… I-I have to do something...I need to...I have to...o-or...or…”

With his breath running out, John slowly sat on the ground as he stabilized himself from going into panic, doing his best to slow down his rapid breathing as he looked at his two concerned friends.

“I’m sorry…” he raised a hand to them shaking his head as he panted, “Give me a second…”

Placing a hand on his out of breath chest, John allowed [Heal] to surge through his body as the warm blue aura returned his breathing to normal.

No, no, no! This is no time to panic. Matilda and Cacti are still somewhere there. They need my help, I need to do something before they end up like...the Harvests.

John focused his thoughts on helping the two girls who were still captive by the vampires.

“Vampires, vampires, vampires…why, why, why are you here?”

They were the monsters who were responsible for the massacre of Parac Village, the murderers of the Harvest family… Ever since his family massacred by the hands of those monsters, there was not a day John had spent without thinking of a way to eradicate the world of these accursed monsters.

He knew what their weaknesses were, he knew what they looked like…

He understood vampires were drawn to human blood far more than any other race, he understood that the stronger ones had abilities such as charm magic or even instant cellular regeneration.

But those were just surface knowledge that he learned from the books.

Much like how vampires were said to only feed on human blood and leave their victims as they were, reality was much, much different from what the books have recorded of these monsters.

Miros and Itzella’s severed heads...their battered bodies, their flesh and bones that have become paste with just an encounter with a vampire, what happened to the Harvests were not the simple act of vampires feasting on human blood.

It was a massacre, an execution.

John’s finger’s furled and dug against his scalp before he knew it.

Bran’s devastation now made sense, he understood the sheer helplessness their leader must have felt when faced against such monstrosities.

“Arghhhh…”

Even Orichalum ranked adventurers were fearful when vampires were mentioned. What chance does the average person have? What will John do when he was faced with the very same monsters that robbed him of the Harvests, of his family?

“John, are you alright?”

Even then, he still had a responsibility towards Team Rectiser, a sense of duty towards his team’s, the very same one that he was supposed to have upheld towards the Harvests.

No one else will be hurt under my watch. No more.

Ignoring Aurelius' concern for him, John stood up with shaky legs, “L-let’s go, Aurelius. We have no time to waste, let’s get this over with quickly.”