Evelyn, who had locked Ian up and slipped out leisurely, headed toward the mercenary corps office with light steps.
Because she felt thoroughly refreshed inside.
The fact that she’d gotten revenge on that pretty-faced, big-chested bitch made her feel like all her pent-up frustration was finally washing away.
That’s right—if someone got you, you got them back. That was the mercenary’s code.
Having successfully completed her mission, Evelyn flung open the office door like a general returning in triumph.
“I’m back!”
Grace, the mercenary corps commander, who had been sitting at her desk organizing documents, looked at her adjutant with suspicious eyes.
“You resolved it properly, I trust?”
“Yes. Don’t you worry. I finished talking things through with him.”
“Really?”
“Yep!”
Grace knew Evelyn’s personality better than anyone.
She hated to lose, and she couldn’t stand by while taking a beating. Thanks to that fiery spirit, she had secured the position of adjutant at a young age, but it also meant she frequently got into scuffles with the other mercenaries.
Most of those incidents had been internal matters, so Grace hadn’t made a big deal out of them.
But this time, it was a conflict with an outsider.
Grace had scolded Evelyn harshly.
Then she ordered her to apologize at dawn and to not return until she had been forgiven.
She had given that order and sent Evelyn away, yet...
“Understood. Be more careful next time.”
Why, then?
Why did she feel this vague stuffiness lodged in her chest, as if something were caught there?
‘Don’t tell me she caused another incident...?’
She stared intently at Evelyn, who was grinning from ear to ear, for quite a long while.
***
“Good grief. To think I’d fall for something like this... Am I really an idiot?”
I looked at the firmly shut door.
I understood it wouldn’t be easy to get out.
And behind me, gray furry creatures were baring their fangs.
[Lv 22. Waterway Rat]
A horde of giant sewer rats with red eyes.
At that moment, a system window appeared before my eyes.
[Quest Received]
[Evelyn’s Trap]
You have fallen into a trap designed by Evelyn. Find a way to escape from this place.
[Quest Accepted]
“So I don’t get a say in the matter?”
A system that arbitrarily accepts quests without asking my opinion. But in my current situation, it was practically the same as having no choice anyway.
The moment the window vanished, the sewer rats that had been waiting for an opening lunged at me.
—Sshing.
I drew my sword from my waist and slashed diagonally at the approaching rat, following the same arc it had taken leaving the scabbard.
Two-hit combo, Double Axel.
—Crack!
My sword, having shattered the rat’s fangs into pieces, immediately rose again and claimed its life.
Five more rats charged in right after.
Having dodged their fangs, I kicked off the ground hard and threw myself into the swarm.
I pulled my sword taut behind my waist.
AoE skill, Top Blade.
The blade spun like a top, ripping the rats’ hides to shreds.
The rest of the battle wasn’t very difficult.
Their movements, dulled by injuries, weren’t very threatening.
Moreover, I had already quickly adapted to the darkness—a potential variable thanks to my experience in Area 2.
And so my sword slaughtered every monster that rushed me.
Shaking off the blood and sheathing my blade, I lightly touched the firmly shut door.
The sensation of a solid steel plate met my fingertips.
I tried pushing against it and knocking, but the door didn’t budge an inch.
“Can I break it down?”
I wasn’t confident, but I had to try. Instead of my sword, I summoned a spear from my inventory.
It wasn’t a rare weapon like Tyr’s Will, but when it came to piercing power, the spear held the advantage.
I pulled it back far over my shoulder.
“Spear!”
A red trajectory extended from the spear tip and struck the door.
—Screech!
Sparks flew, and a grating metallic sound echoed out.
But...
“As expected, it won’t break through.”
It had only left slight scratches; the spear couldn’t break the door.
I tried a few more times after that, but the result was the same.
If I had a skill with the piercing power of that massive lance the Dark Elf Magic Commander, Damar, had used, I might have gotten through, but I possessed nothing of the sort.
I let out a sigh.
“This isn’t how I wanted to avoid drawing people’s attention.”
I hadn’t even made a wish to a monkey’s paw, so why had I gotten tangled up in something like this? At this point, I seriously suspected that Arca, that crazy AI, was intentionally trying to torment me.
It was then.
—Babble...
A faint sound of water reached me from the darkness.
My body instinctively sprang up like a coil.
“If I can hear water...”
That meant there was a passage somewhere that water flowed through.
And if I used that passage, escape wouldn’t be impossible.
“Right. There’s no way the system would hand out an impossible quest.”
At my current level, even if I hunted a ton of monsters here, I’d only gain a measly amount of experience anyway. A quest that had rolled in on its own in this situation? There was absolutely no way I could pass it up.
I immediately took out a torch from my inventory and moved toward the darkness where the water sound originated.
Before long, faint light began to appear up ahead, and I arrived at the source of the sound.
“This is...”
It was a massive underground waterway.
I blankly stared at the overwhelming sight for a moment.
“Amazing...”
It looked like your typical underground waterway from a game, but its size was enough to spark any man’s sense of wonder.
The width alone was roughly 200 meters. The bricks, speckled with moss, evoked a dreamy atmosphere.
Taking in the scenery, I began walking against the current. If the waterway was this large, there had to be an inlet connected to a river or lake somewhere.
And as I’d expected, I soon reached the inlet.
But...
“This is blocked too.”
Thick iron bars formed a grate over the inlet.
“Could I cut through them?”
I immediately shook my head. Maybe if I were a character focused on Strength stats, but I didn’t have the confidence to cut through those thick iron bars with my current strength.
And the gaps were far too narrow to squeeze through. Even with a woman’s body, passing through was impossible. If I somehow managed it, my chest and hips would definitely get stuck.
That meant the only option left was the outlet. I looked in the direction the current flowed.
“I’ll have to walk some more.”
I couldn’t see the end, but what could I do? I had to walk.
It wasn’t like I was going to starve to death here, and I had to get out and take revenge on that damned bitch Evelyn.
I had no time to rest.
As I was retracing my steps back...
—Grr! Grrr...
From the other side of the waterway, red eyes emerged from the darkness.
“Why are there monsters in the residential area?”
The residential area was supposed to be a place where player safety was guaranteed in this world.
This was the reason so many players still remained in Staria.
And yet, even if it was underground, to think this many monsters could exist here...
Could there be some reason I wasn’t aware of?
But I had no time to ponder. A swarm of about seven sewer rats was sprinting down the waterway, charging straight at me.
I took out a spear from my inventory.
“Might as well raise my proficiency while I’m at it.”
Originally, I had planned to grind both my spear and gauntlet mastery to 100 in the previous area, but I’d failed to reach my target because I hadn’t accounted for battle fatigue.
Of course, since this wasn’t a PvP zone, I could focus on my sword and magic, but who knew what might happen? It was better to raise my mastery as much as possible.
I thrust my spear at the first rat to reach me.
Single Strike: Spear.
The spear pierced the rat’s skull in one blow.
But because it had struck too deep, I didn’t have time to pull it out.
In that opening, another sewer rat brought its fangs down on me.
I let go of the spear and stepped back, swapping to gauntlets layered over my gloves.
And immediately followed up with a Single Strike: Punch.
—Kyeeek!
I used a charging skill to finish off the rat as it screamed and staggered backward.
Five remained.
I swung my fist again.
A sewer rat’s skull was crushed. Another’s side caved in, and fragments of fangs scattered across the waterway.
“This is pretty good.”
A primal thrill, you could call it? Addicted to the raw sensation of my fists connecting—a feeling no bladed weapon could provide—I kept pounding the sewer rats into submission.
And the last one.
Charging skill, Dash.
My fist exploded against the side of the blood-dripping rat, piercing through its hide and reaching its organs.
I wrinkled my brow at the squelching sensation.
“Not so great when it’s like this, though.”
Still, the window that appeared before my eyes soothed my frustration a little.
[Notification: Gauntlet Proficiency has reached 100!]
[Acquired two-hit strike skill: Double Attack!]
A skill unlock notification.
I still had a long road ahead, but it was a moment where I could feel I had taken another step forward.
“Then shall we get going again?”
The swarm of sewer rats continued to attack after that, but I managed to fend the monsters off without taking any serious damage.
In the process, my spear proficiency reached 100.
My sword proficiency was also on the verge of 400 when...
“Where... is this?”
A wide space appeared before me.
In the center was a pool filled with water like a lake.
“Does the water branch out from here?”
Looking closely, small waterways branched out here and there. It seemed water was delivered throughout the village via those passages.
Unfortunately, those waterways were too narrow for me to pass through, and even if I entered, I would’ve had to go underwater.
“If it’s not here either, how the hell am I supposed to clear this?”
It was while I was voicing my complaints and looking around for a possible exit that—
An unidentified shadow approached from beneath the water’s surface.
It gradually grew larger, and before I knew it, it had engulfed the entire pool.
—Splash!
A violent pillar of water erupted from the center.
And from within...
—Hiss!
[Lv 25. Way-lord Anaconda]
A giant snake revealed itself.