Chapter 111

It splished and splashed.

With every step the four of us took, sewage water splashed.

Darkness that made it hard to see ahead, a stench that seeped in even when you held your nose and a gloom that felt like something could leap out at any moment were not just abundant, but dense.

It was a dampness that made us check under our clothes for no reason, even though the protective suits were protecting us.

Four of us walked through the sewer.

The head of the technical department of the Bururade Canal Company, Meh.

Del Conti's two retainers, Pneuve Freira and Onseu Om and then there was me (I had ditched the name Viscount Rampo).

Four men meant eight feet.

The sewage water splashed and splashed quite a bit.

“The scent of mana is certainly thick.”

Pneuve Freira realized a strange dissonance was mixed in with the stench.

He was a Two-Star Mage, and he knew how to smell things that were not physical.

“It's thick, but unpleasant…….”

Just as the stagnant air held and settled with foul things, so did mana.

A magical beast born from such mana would be more ferocious and twisted.

I also wrinkled my nose.

I couldn't wield magic, but I could at least smell it.

After all, I was the one and only disciple of the Great Witch of the North, Beluchian Pollinglight (also Sen Sorti).

“Were other cities like this, Meh?”

“Not to this extent, Shion.”

Oh, Mushat.

Having squashed a rat's corpse, Meh unknowingly sought the grace of god.

He stomped his foot to shake off the rat's remains that had stuck to it.

Still, there was no helping the unpleasant feeling he had already experienced.

We walked.

Along the waterway, caked in filth, dark and unseen, but occasionally, when the light shone upon it, it was smeared with an indescribable black and deep green.

Filth and filth and filth.

Excrement and moss and animal carcasses.

The sight of all the dirty things one could imagine gathered together and rotting was quite repulsive.

Still, if we were careful not to step in the dirty water, we wouldn't be able to take a single step, so we walked on with a splish and a splash.

Filth splashed with every step.

Occasionally, the squishing sound of stepping on a rat carcass, occasionally, the sound of an "Oh, Mushat" from stepping on some lump mixed in the filth, and occasionally, the sound of Onseu Om's grumbled curses.

Amidst it all, I was quiet. My blue eyes were deeply still.

“Still, there's nothing strange yet.”

Onseu Om snorted.

He hadn't taken the thick cigarette from his mouth from the moment he entered the sewer until now.

Even with all his puffing, the smell of the cigarette didn't spread.

The sewer's stench was so vile that it buried the smell of the cigarette.

“At this rate, did we really all need to come down here?”

“Nothing strange?”

I picked up on his words.

“Do you really think so, Brass Arm?”

“…What is it, kid?”

Onseu Om swept back his messy hair.

“You haven't said a word back to me all this time, and now you're suddenly speaking to me.”

“What you're saying is just so frustrating.”

“…Do you really want to be cut into pieces?”

“What a petty threat. Think about it. There's something obviously strange.”

A thick vein bulged on Onseu Om's forehead. He barely suppressed the anger that was welling up.

“What's so strange?”

Brass Arm Onseu Om was once a high-ranking officer of the great nation of Maesh.

He had been through well over fifty battles, as he always volunteered to be at the forefront for the title of Master.

Now, having lost an arm and his position, he had also lost his dignity and lived with cigarettes and hard liquor, but he hadn't lost his senses.

While grumbling, he had never stopped carefully observing the Merion sewer.

Therefore, he voiced a question before his anger.

“There’s nothing special. Besides a few rats, what else is there.”

“That's what's strange.”

I shook my head.

“There are dead rats and dirty water. With all this moss and decay, aren't the things that should be here missing?”

“…Ah.”

Only then did Onseu Om let out a gasp.

“…Come to think of it, I haven't seen a single one. Why aren't they here……?”

“It's simple. It's one of two things.”

I held up my index and middle fingers.

“Either they're all dead.”

A crunching sound was heard.

“Or they've been hiding all along.”

Crunch, crunch, what could it be?

Wondering if I’d misheard, I raised my head, and there was a loud rustle, pasasasasat.

“This sound is…….”

Onseu Om slowly took the cigarette from his mouth.

The pasasasat sound was familiar.

He had never heard it at such a loud volume, but he had definitely heard it before.

That's why he was anxious.

“Don't tell me…….”

The hand holding the cigarette trembled.

He prayed inwardly.

Please, let it not be so.

Let it not be that thing I never want to face.

Praying so, he carefully threw the still-lit cigarette.

The ember left a tail as it flew away.

But what else could it be?

In this dark and damp place, there's only one thing that would pop out making a pasasasat sound.

Onseu Om saw it.

He saw it at the place where the cigarette had been thrown.

Black, shiny, and incredibly fast, with six hairy legs squirming…….

“Ugh…….”

I saw the black shininess.

What I had thought was just the wall surface was entirely black and shiny, writhing as one.

Here and there, antennae or legs protruded, waving about.

In the end, Brass Arm let out a scream.

“…U-aaaaaaagh!”

Cockroaches.

A swarm of an immense number of cockroaches.

Just imagining it was horrific and even saying the word felt ominous, but there was something even more horrific.

They were huge. Incredibly big.

Each one was half the size of Onseu Om.

Because they were so large, they were paradoxically unseen.

It was impossible to think of them as cockroaches, so I had mistaken it for a black wall.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh-!”

The sight of antennae sticking out from between the black walls and waving around was horrifying.

Onseu Om didn't hold back his disgust and screamed his heart out.

“Stop it, Brass Arm. We're already surrounded.”

I suddenly whipped the mana lamp in my hand around.

The shadow was lifted from the path we had walked.

To be precise, the things that looked like shadows due to their black, shiny appearance retreated all at once to avoid the mana lamp.

Onseu Om trembled with disgust.

“---Ugh, ughhh! Damn it all!”

No one laughed at the screaming Onseu Om.

Pneuve, Meh and even I felt the same way. We were just barely holding back our own screams.

How many could there be?

Thousands, no, tens of thousands?

And each one was half the size of a person.

Sometimes, a waving antenna would be thrust right in front of our noses.

I looked at the black shininess surrounding us.

A sigh escaped on its own at the sight of the living, squirming black abominations.

Even for me, the regressor Shion Pollinglight, who had seen all sorts of things, I had witnessed such a horrific sight less than twenty times.

“…Merion's mana leak is certainly severe.”

Meh said, trying his best to feign composure.

Even for him, who had crossed over from Horm and endured all sorts of hardships in the West for twenty years, the sight before him was by no means easy.

But he had a duty, so he caught his breath.

“For insects to turn into magical beasts. We may have to revise the plan.”

“It wasn't like this in other places?”

“No, at most, stray dogs or rats turned into magical beasts.”

The more complex an organism, the more easily it accepts mana.

This means that the more advanced it is, the easier it is for it to become a magical beast.

Therefore, the occurrence of insect magical beasts is very rare, and as rare as it is, it is dangerous.

Pneuve carefully examined one of the closest cockroaches.

It was a disgusting sight, but he didn't look away and estimated the thickness of its carapace.

It seemed hundreds of times larger than its original size, so would its carapace also be thousands of times thicker, and if so, could he slice it in one go?

Pneuve, who had been pondering such things, shot his eyes open.

“They're not attacking?”

“Their habits must be the same. Cockroaches don't originally attack people.”

“…Then can we just pass by?”

Phew. Onseu Om clutched his chest.

“Alright, let's just pass through! Then!”

Brass Arm was in a hurry.

“…Kukulo, I told you I didn't want to go into the sewer so badly……!”

Even a ruffian who befriended hard liquor and cigarettes was bound to have a thing or two he loathed.

For ‘Brass Arm’ Onseu Om, it was bugs, especially the black, shiny cockroaches right in front of him.

“…What are you doing!? Let's go! Qui… ck… ly… uh.”

Thud.

Something definitely went thud on his head.

Onseu Om squeezed his eyes shut.

“…Ah, please…….”

Pasasasat.

Something wriggled on his head with a pasasasat sound.

“Oh god…….”

For the third time in his life, Onseu Om sought God.

He absolutely could not open his eyes.

But he knew without having to see.

It must have fallen.

One of those black, shiny things fell and is now waving its antennae and hairy legs on his body!

“…Ugh, uwaaaaaah!”

The cockroach was split in two.

Being half the size of a person, the amount of bodily fluid it sprayed was enormous.

As one died, the others were provoked and swarmed in.

But they were all soon sliced apart, spraying a slimy fluid.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it-! I can't take it anymore!”

In the hands of Onseu Om, who was feeling the greatest disgust of his life, a sword of light had already appeared.

He furiously began to dismember the surrounding cockroaches.

He didn't care that their bodily fluids were splattering on him.

I watched the enraged Onseu Om with a pleased look on my face.

Why would a cockroach that had been still suddenly fall on Onseu Om?

Onseu Om had no way of knowing that it was I who had personally delivered it with ‘Fantasy Finger’.

Feeling the old grudge from before my regression being resolved, I smiled even more deeply.

“Hey, Department Head Meh!”

Onseu Om yelled.

Meh took a step back from him.

It was because Onseu Om's entire body was filthy with cockroach fluids and severed legs.

“Since we're just going straight ahead anyway, it should be fine to just blast a path through, right!”

“…Is that possible?”

It wasn't a simple swarm of cockroaches.

Each and every one was a magical beast.

Not small, but medium-sized and with a mana-infused, shiny carapace.

To wipe out thousands of such cockroaches at once would require high-level magic of at least three stars.

“That's an unpleasant question.”

Onseu Om took off his dirtied protective suit.

The stench seeped in, but he didn't care.

Damn it, I'll have to scrub this clean when I get back……. He also took off the old, navy frock coat underneath and thrust it at Pneuve.

It seemed to be a coat he treasured dearly, but why he wore it into the sewer was a mystery.

His right arm, made of brass, was revealed.

A military weapon from the Silver Dragon Magic Kingdom.

Instead of his lost arm, three 16-unit mana reactors were attached, creating an indescribable surge of mana.

The current Onseu Om was even stronger than when he was a Master in Maesh.

“I am, Onseu Om-!!!”

A transparent, deep blue mana erupted.

The light filled the sewer and spread.

It filled the space from Onseu Om to the far end of the path, instantly burning away everything in between.

Not even ash remained, let alone antennae or bodily fluids.

“Cleared a path.”

Onseu Om shouted irritably.

“Let's go!”

‘As expected of Onseu Om.’

My eyes gleamed with a strange light.

His temper was short, but his skills were the real deal.

The words 'as expected' came out on their own.

A swarm of thousands of cockroaches instantly vanished, turning into a slight stench and yet, there was not a single bit of damage to the sewer.

It seemed like he had mindlessly blasted his mana, but it was because he had controlled it with incredible precision.

To unleash the firepower of dozens of mana cannons without damaging the sewer walls in the slightest.

‘Thanks to that, I'm more certain.’

My lips curled upwards.

‘You despise bugs. Yet the Del Conti family insisted on sending you here.’

My eyes followed Pneuve Freira and Onseu Om.

I knew Del Conti's retainers would come to the sewer.

No, I accepted Meh's request because they would be coming to the sewer.

‘Go on a rampage, Brass Arm.’

A man who was once even fearsome.

But for me, it was an event from over 20 years ago.

So much had happened in those 20 years.

So I had no choice but to smile.

I smiled, looking down on a past fear that now felt so light.

‘The more you do, the easier things will get for me.’

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