It's a funny thing walking in near-complete darkness, even though the two of them had torches with them, they both had their eyes wide open as they tried to see any movement that shouldn't be present.
Every step they took echoed and the shadows around them either danced, elongated, or seemed to become darker as they walked, before vanishing as the light they carried abandoned whatever objects it touched to make those shadows.
As they walked they soon found the extra touches that the guild had told them about and unsurprisingly they were burned out.
The guild hadn't given them any spares, so it wasn't their job to relight them, but having more light didn't hurt so as they walked they began to replace the torches before lighting them.
Kirito and Asuna both had night vision, but it was limited and only lasted for a few minutes, it wasn't something meant to be used for long term like what they were doing right now.
No, it was meant to give them an extra edge during a fight or when they had to search for something, but after the time ran out they would have to wait for their eyes to cool off and they would be forced to stand in complete darkness at the mercy of whatever was inside the sewers with them.
Kirito and Asuna walked in complete silence replacing any torches they found, the items were something so common that every player had more than enough to spare and in all honesty wanted to get rid of them.
They repeated this action until they reached the point where the tunnel split itself into three different paths, normally splitting up would be the stupidest thing they could do, but they both were high-level players and they had the maps that showed them where they were at the moment.
So without any words, Kirito went left, while Asuna went right, the only thing that the two of them did was simply give each other a look before nodding and walking down the tunnel.
If there were monsters inside the sewers, then they either had already seen the light of the torches they carried or of the torches they had left behind.
If it was the latter then that meant that they would eventually attack the two.
If it attacked Asuna, then Kirito could run back and help her, if it attacked Kirito then Asuna would run back and help him.
If the two of them were attacked then the enemy must be pretty strong for it to have enough guts to do something so stupid.
If the enemy was stronger than the two of them, then as players it was their job to kill ut and brag about it, if it wasn't and it was just a bunch of low-level monsters trying to swarm them.
Then their number better be something comparable to a flood.
Asuna walked deeper and deeper into the sewer and with every torch she replaced she noticed that the walls of the tunnels were covered with slime.
Not the actual monster but the pieces of the monster that were left behind then it moved.
She lifted her torch and used it to see if any slim was on the ceiling and she was lucky to notice that a drop of slime had fallen from the ceiling.
She moved her head slightly and to her surprise, she soon noticed the scent of acid, she didn't scream, nor did she allow her emotions to get the better of her.
No, she had more than enough experience to know, that any sound she made would be carried and she would alert anything that was in the sewers with her.
Asuna lifted her hand and opened her help screen, she looked through her items and found her helmet, she hardly ever used it, but if she was going to be in a place where acid fell from the ceiling then she wouldn't be walking around with her head unprotected.
The last thing she did was send what she had discovered to Kirito and the rest of the players, as she warned them about the threat that the slimes posed to them.
The creature's acid wasn't strong enough to eat through her armor, but any exposed part of her body wouldn't be so lucky.
Kirito picked up another bone and just like the ones before it, this one crumbled as soon as he was standing up straight.
There were bones of giant rats everywhere, but they were hollow and it looked as if something had eaten them from the inside.
Bones weren't supposed to just break when a person held them, especially if the entire skeleton was still in the shape of whatever it was before it died.
The sound of something dragging itself just out of sight caught his attention, but he didn't chase it instead he just walked and continued to look for any clues that he could find while replacing whatever torches needed to be replaced.
Whatever was dragging itself was starting to leave a trail as the bones scattered around the tunnel he was in, were beginning to only show up on the edges of the tunnel, while the center of it was completely clean.
Every time he replaced a torch he was careful to keep the touch he held towards the darkness, whatever was in the tunnel with him seemed to shy away from the light.
He had dealt with creatures like this one before, things that didn't like being near any light.
It would wait until he either walked past a corner and attack or continue to hide until it either ran out of places to hide and it was forced to attack or this was nothing but an act it was putting up, to put him in a false sense of safety.
Meaning that if it attacked, it expected Kirito to run back into the light and when Kirito thought he was safe the creature would strike as it took advantage of the fact that his guard was down.
Kirito walked until he found the end of the tunnel and h was thankful that Asuna had warned him earlier as he laid eyes on what was covering the entire ceiling- wall, and floor in front of him.
Hundreds of thousands of cockroaches varying in size clung to the walls looking at him with hungry eyes.
Asuna stopped walking, running away would be pointless, she knew that she would have to walk into a place covered with slimes, but she didn't expect it to be true, normally things like this were just a figure of speech.
Both Kirito and Asuna opened their help screens and found iron masks and put them on as an extra layer of protection.
It was as if an alarm had been set of nd beth the slimes and cockroaches charged at them.
Kirito used his sword and his speed to cut up any roach big enough, and he either stepped on or crushed anything small enough, Asuna for her part was forced to use her speed to strike at every core she could see.
It was thanks to her speed that any of the slimes that did manage to land on her flew off before it could do any harm.
Regardless had the two of them been any weaker then the enemy would have overwhelmed them.
Finally, when it was all done they just collected the proof they needed and burned whatever traces were left of their prey.
Before they left the sewer, they walked back and explored the last of the tunnels, even though the enemies they fought were weak, they were both thankful that they didn't find anything.
As they walked out of the tunnels, they were slightly surprised to see that it was already daytime and the townspeople were going about their day.
Asuna and Kirito noticed that people soon beg to stop walking and looked at the two of them with fearful expressions.
Asuna remembered that she was wearing her mask and her helmet before taking them off.
She turned to look at Kirito and gave him a warm smile when she finally saw his face.
"Let's go get paid, I need a bath," she said to Kirito before leading the way back to the adventurers guild.
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Guild Girl laid her head on the counter, things had been interesting and from the looks of it, they were going to be interesting for a while.
Her boss had called everyone for an emergency meeting.
A messenger had arrived last night and had brought him n order from the capital, old plans had been dug up and were now being put to use.
Unfortunately, the guild and by extension, everyone that worked in it would be made responsible for those plans if they failed.
Because so many villages were recovered, the capital believed that the moment those towns were successfully running again, then it was time to expand deeper into the frontier.
Unfortunately for the capital, a successful village only meant one that didn't die after a weak, not one that had survived for more than a year.
They were doing this to both force the knights into obedience, by distracting them with constant monster attacks that they would be forced to deal with.
It didn't make sense until a person realized that the capital planned on forcing the knights to be on constant guard of the border.
Knowing them they would use the guild to force the knights to give pointless reports of what was going on until doing so became so common that it was natural for the knight to do so.
Even if the knights rebelled and stopped reporting back, the people in the frontier would be so dependent on them, that any rebellion would be instantly crushed by a combination of constant monster attacks, that either came from a village being attacked or monsters that the knights ran into.
Guild Girl took a deep breath, for the first time in a long time the guild was opening late, but it had to the meeting took that long after all.
Her boss talked to them about what they should do in case something needed the knight's intervention and how to separate those events with things that needed the attention of the entire guild.
Adventurers are nothing more than mercenaries and the knights are knights, so they both have to be dealt with in different ways.
For example, the knights would be called upon if an invasion of the town was about to happen, but the guild would be the one to act if a village was under attack.
In the frontier the differences between a village and a town were so small that they didn't matter, so the way the guild would handle it would be in a different way.
The knight would be called if either a truly strong monster was found or if an entire army was approaching, other than that then there was no point in calling them for help.
Guild Girl too in the smell of hot coffee and let out another breath.
It had only been a month, but things had already changed so much, villagers use to only travel from town to town or village to village when they had to as the risk was too high.
Now, however, they were using the newly created roads to travel from place to place, unsurprisingly the villagers were only using the roads they knew that the adventurers and knights were seen using.
It wasn't that she didn't like the changes, it was that things were changing too quickly, but why wouldn't they.
Guild Girl knew that just by having the knights nearby meant that if anything major happened then the people in the frontier had somewhere to run to if they needed help.
That alone was a major deterrent for any bandits that might attack, and when word reached the knights that something was out there that was too dangerous, then the knights would have no choice but to move and deal with it.
Guild Girl could feel herself unwillingly smiling, but she didn't care, she let her face show her relief.
She had heard about so many villages dying and if this was what it took for them to stop vanishing then she couldn't help but feel relieved.
he sat up straight and watched as one of her coworkers opened the door and all of the adventurers poured in, some complained about the guild being closed, most didn't care.
Many went to go and look for work while others just wanted something to eat.
Guild Girl watched as the youngest of the adventurers searched for low-level missions, and she smiled as they soon found what they were looking for.
The gild didn't give all of its missions to the knights, after all, the knights just asked for the jobs no one wanted to do, so that was exactly what they had given them
All of the low-level missions that remained were the ones, adventurers that were just starting did.
Guild Girl smiled as a man approached her coworker and handed her the corps of an Iron Snake, the man smiled as he received his payment.
As the man left a group of adventurers bought their kills and cheered when they received their reward, she was used to seeing this every day, soon it would be her turn.
The moment people started to leave they would need her to sign off on their missions so she had time to enjoy her coffee.
She soon noticed a group of knights all carrying several sacs filled with.
No, it couldn't be, those missions were meant to teach new adventurers how to handle monsters, but if what she was looking at was real, then, the guild would be in trouble financially.
"We already talked outside, but we aren't doing this again, so you should send someone to clean tose places before things get so bad again," a knight said to her coworker as he handed her the sack filled with the remains of monsters.
Guild girl watched as her coworker's hands trembled as she opened the sack.
"Look, we did this because we needed to learn what we are dealing with around these parts, so if you can pay by giving us a free meal from time to time, that's fine by us," the knight said to her coworker as her boss walked up to the counter
Guild Girl watched as her boss took the sac and from her coworker and looked inside before raising both eyebrows in surprise.
"You don't have to pay us, we understand that the amount we brought with us is a lot, and we aren't asking for free food all of the time," the knight said to her boss as every knight walked up to the counter and placed a sack on the counter.
Guild Girl could feel herself trembling as she looked at the amount that the knights had brought back with them.
She suddenly realized that the guild had become completely silent and she could see everyone looking at the knights.
"You have to understand that both the amount of what you brought with you and what you just said don't make a lot of sense," Her boss said to the Knight
"It's simple, we used this overturned to see what monsters are running around, that was our payment, and you were able to get a lot of work that needs to be done, finally finished" the knight answered her boss
"However we did risk our lives, so can we get" the knight's words suddenly became harsh
"What's going on here?" Guild Girl heard a familiar voice
Guild Girl watched as the Noble Woman from yesterday walked in accompanied by the same Knight that was dressed in black armor that had accompanied her the day before.
"You whats going on and don't skip on the details," Noblewoman asked the Priestess that was a part of Goblin Slayers party.
Gild Girl watched as the girl told everything that had happened to the Noble Woman who listened to every word the Priestess said.
[][
"So they didn't threaten anyone?" Auna asked Priestess
'No' Priestess answerd Asuna
"Thak you," Asuna said to Priestess before walking to the counter
"Is there a problem?" Asuna asked the guild employees.
"No mam, it just that the amount brought by your subordinates the man behind the counter said to her
"Did they not bring back enough?" Asuna asked the man who looked like if he was in charged
"It's not the matter of the proof man, it's the matter of the amount, we simply don't have the funds to pay for all of this" the man answered her
"Which is why we said that you don't have to pay us, just give us a free meal from time to time. It's not like we want free food all of the time" the man in front of her said to the guild employee
The man was a player, but he was someone Asuna hadn't spoken to before.
"Mind if I handle this?" Asuna asked the player who signaled to her to do so
"Please pay us as if we only killed ten creatures regardless of what it is, we will sign a document saying that this was our decision and no one forced us to make it, but we won't be taking any more low-level missions like these anymore," Asuna said to the man, who didn't say anything
'why?' the man asked her
'Because we needed to know what we are dealing with around here and now we do, we already received our payment" Asuna answered the man who just closed his eyes and began to work on the document.
][][
Guild Girl had watched everything happen in front of her and to her relief the knights weren't cruel, they could have easily demanded their pay but didn't.
Her coworkers were busy pouring out the contents of the sacs and Guild Girl could see that there was so much material that the market would be flooded for a while.
"Sorry to bother you, but is there a place I can take a bath?" Noble Woman asked her
Guild Girl nearly jumped out of her e the moment Noble Woman spoke to her.
Yesterday she had spoken to the woman as if she was just another knight, but now she knew that whoever Noble Woman was, she was someone every knight respected.
The moment her voice was heard by every knight in the guild, every last one of them stood up straight and cleared a path for her.
"We have several tubs upstairs" guild Girl answered Noble Wona, and she nearly slammed her face on the counter when she felt Noble Woman's hand on her shoulder
"Calm down, we talked yesterday and the other times I came here before, please relax," Noble Woman said to her with a soft voice
Guild Girl took a deep breath and closed her eyes before counting to te.
'This is the same person, I've spoken to more than once" she thought to herself
"yes we have several tubs upstairs," Guild Girl said to Noble Woman
"Kirito she says it's upstairs!" Noble Woman said to the Knight that was with her
'Should we prepare two tubs?" Guild girl asked Noble Woman
"Yes, but in the same room" Noble Woman answered her
Guild Girl nearly widened her eyes at Noble Woman's response and it was only her experience as a receptionist that prevented her from doing so, she watched as one of her coworkers led the pair upstairs.
"Damm love birds" she heard one of the knights say
"Lucky bastard," another knight said before walking out of the guild
"I'll have a bath too, five copers right?" A knight said to her as he placed five copers in front of her
"They're married," the knight said to her, and before guild girl could say anything the knight spoke again
"I'm saying that because I noticed you kept staring at them," the knight said to her
"Sorry, I didn't mean to" she apologized but the man just waved her apology off
"Don't worry about it, now about that bath"
"Yes, please go upstairs and one of the employees will bring hot and cold water" Guild Girl answered the Knight