Chapter 11: The Crowned King of the Sewer
Part 1: I ran out of funny idea to make up titles.
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(((Jaune Arc)))
To initiate our apprenticeship, Soren has given me and Ruby a beginner quest of sorts.
"Oh! Oh! Are we going to take down a vampire? Maybe a troll?! Oh, I know! How about a Saberclaw?!", she asked Soren as she jumps in excitement.
Like Soren, my eyes are glued to Ruby's well developing chest. She really needs to stop jumping around whenever she gets excited, coz her bouncing chest is really attractive. I should really tell her that she's now too big to jump around like a kid.
However, I opted to feign ignorance because I don't want to make things awkward. Surely Ruby will notice it on her own when she grow bigger. Yep, that's it, let future Ruby deal with that.
I try to get the image of even more bustier Ruby out of my head. Now's not the time to make things hard, Jaune Junior!
"Huh? You think you're ready to hunt vampires? Let alone a troll and saberclaw? Keep dreaming, maybe you'll caught a sandman while wide awake.", Soren shoot her down.
"Aww…."
"Now like every loser beginners, you start with a Skeever Quest.", Soren then pointed us to a manhole cover.
"Aww man!", Ruby then moan in exasperation. "Not the sewers!"
"Yes the sewers! If you can't handle a mere sewer then count yourself out from the business. There's no room for fragrance in this line of work."
Soren then open the manhole cover and the stench of raw sewage escapes to surface. I gagged as I can taste it on my tongue.
"Now, you are to take out the feral overpopulated oversized rats in there. You get like 30 cents a head, so if you take out a hundred you get 30 Lien! That's a steal if you ask me."
"Okay boss…" says Ruby disappointedly but she was halted by Soren.
"What kind of weapon are you going to use?"
"Err… my baby, Crescent.Rose obviously."
Soren facepalmed. " It's the sewer and you want to swing around your huge ass grass cutter? Sure, that might be a pretty good choice to cut down large swaths of rats, but it's the sewers. You won't have the space to do that ideally. Now, because I anticipated this, I brought along these sets."
Soren then give the both of us a collapsible spear that switch between spear and dagger mode, a short sword, four healing potions and two general antidotes.
Also he give us two jumpsuits and two pairs of boots.
"Boss, you want us to fight with this?", Ruby pointed at the grey jumpsuits.
"Do you really want to bring your fancy cloak into the sewers?", Soren asked back with a deadpan face.
"N-no! Of course not!"
"Yea, that's what I thought. Fucking Beaconites with your beauty pageant crap. Anyway here's a free tip.", Soren then bring out a spray can from his bagpack. "A Gore Repellent Spray. The problem with using bladed weapons to cut down living things is that fat and blood will start to stick on your blade and make it dull. This spray apply a layer of coating that repel the gores from sticking, keeping your blades sharp."
Soren then toss it up to me and I catch it.
"Now go and prep yourself up. This time I wont be hanging around to serve as backup if you somehow screwed up even against giant rats. There is no Mr Coldforge watching over from the shadows to rescue his young padawans from their silly mistakes this time. If you die from fucking skeevers of all things, then you deserve it."
Soren then walk off leaving us.
I looked over to Ruby.
"Well then, partner. Let's do this."
Ruby gives me a mock salute. "Team ARR reporting for duty! Arr you ready sir?", she said in mock pirate voice.
"Aye aye, captain.", I salute back.
Do pirates salute each other? I think we're getting the culture wrong here.
))))))))))))
I really, really, really hate skeevers!
It's been three hours and we're still busy getting rid of them! God, why is there so many giant rats in the sewers?!
The job starts out fairly well enough. Skeevers are rats that's as big as dogs but I think their brain remains as small as their regular-sized cousins. Ruby take a bit of time to get used with using a spear but once she did she makes quick thrust to the heart every single time. I am much more clumsier as I am still learning to use weapons, so I missed the heart several times. I do get used to it eventually and as long as I aim well, I can do it too.
When slimes came to the skeever carcasses that we piled up, I panicked at the start. However, Ruby calms me down and said that the cities keep specially bred slimes to eat up the sewage and whatever dies in it to clean up the water. The slimes will eat up the carcasses and prevent an outbreak of disease.
I whistled to that ingenuity. You can use slimes to clean up your trash? I didn't know that!
By our count, I think we had killed off over 100 skeevers. We got into pretty deep into the sewers.
"Hey Ruby, is there really this many skeevers in the sewers all the time?"
Ruby shook her head as she wiped her eyebrows. The sewers are rather warm with the many steam pipes running across the sewer wall.
"Not really. I read it up after getting scolded by Soren for not knowing basic beastiary, I so read a lot of books to patch up my knowledge. When it's winter, skeevers will migrate to somewhere warmer, like a cave or in this case, the sewer system. Skeevers in fact doesn't usually live in sewers. There's not enough food in here."
I nodded. " So this is like a winter specific pest problem."
"pretty much. If the skeevers just stay in the sewers for a while it wouldn't be so much of a problem. However, skeevers are predatory animal. If they're not being kept in check, it will climb up into the city and start hunting down people."
Another skeever came rushing to us wanting to eat us. With a practiced thrust, Ruby kills another one of the blasted thing.
"Can't the city management find a better way to deal with these creatures? I was nervous at first but now it's kinda annoying."
Ruby snorted. "You tell me. No one in the city want to do something as menial as cleaning up the rat population. And the pay is too cheap for the hassle."
Before I can add another retort, I saw an odd visage just a few meters away from us. It looked like a man, but when I faced it with the flashlight o my forehead illuminated it, I was stunned.
"W-what is that?!", Ruby exclaimed.
It's a skeever, but not the same, no. It stood on its hind legs and its posture is like a standing human. It's as tall as Ruby, and saliva dripped from its open maw. It's eyes looks like it is full of malice and hunger. Black vines pulsates at the partially shed fur of its body, exposing its bare skin.
"Jaune… it's turning into a Grimm!"
The hair on my neck stood up. Grimm, the name of the type of creature most dreaded on Remnant. The Grimm I heard off was said to be born from animals that has absorbed the sin of mankind. It sounds rather religious to me so I didn't put much stock on it.
The Grimm Seed simply make the consequences of our sins to be more literal, I think Soren said something along that line. I don't know how animals turn into Grimm since Soren never elaborate in it. In his own words, Grimms are rare, and knowing how they came to be is not really that important right now.
"Ruby, what should we do? Soren said he really wont stay around as backup."
"We need to get out of here, Jaune. Grimms are very strong, even for a partially turned one like this. It's turning into the Piperat. Thank goodness it hasn't fully turned yet or it would have controlled all the rats in the city and massacre everyone. Just step back slowly, Jaune. As soon as we get under the manhole, we're jumping out."
I nodded and stepped back slowly. The partially turned Piperat follow us step by step, it fidgets and shaking like a drug addict on withdrawals. However, I stepped on a slime and slipped into the sewage water.
"JAUNE!!"
Ruby throw her spear and that managed to intercepts the lunging Piperat. I ignore the taste of sewage in my mouth, frantic to get up to the floor of the sidewalk. Ruby pulled out her Crescent Rose and shifted it to its gun form, and she shoot the rat repeatedly. None of it hit the marks as the Piperat swiftly evaded it.
Then, the partially-turned Piperat shed more fur. More and more of those black vines cover its body. It shrieked, and the noise of many more skeevers comes to our way.
"Craps!", you know its serious when even Ruby had cursed. "It's turning fast, Jaune! I need to take it out now! Can you protect yourself?!"
I nodded. I still have a sword with me. I hastily activates Sword Aura and enter a stance. Ruby nods wordlessly and against Soren's advice earlier, she unfurled Crescent Rose to its full form.
Ruby vs the Piperat, and me vs scores of skeevers. As unglamorous as it sounds, this is the fight for our lives!
((((A/N))))
Was just about to copy this into the fanfic docs when I saw the newest AI bot in the review. I sighed.
Well, the ads text sure looks new this time. I wasn't even sure if its really a bot text. Nah, maybe it is some new automated crap.
Anyway, I don't think any of these "artist bots" owners actually read any of my fics as well as others, but in case somehow one you bozos actually read this, then let me declare this.
I can fucking draw.
I'm not the best, but I really am can fucking draw. Just look at my profile pic. I draw it myself. Do you really think I need your silly offers to make me comics and illustrations and stuff?
No, I have a superpower and its called being actually know how to draw.
I know you bozos may never actually read this crap and the bots is probably automated, but you can take your "generous offers" for someone that "better" appreciate your... Work. I want none of your stuff. I'm not a big name fanfictioner like Coeur al Aran so I doubt I'll get actual fanarts and like hell I'll pay for a damn fanfic arts when I can just do it myself.
Anyway, for actual readers, once I finish this mininarc, I'm going back to Surviving as a Nobody in Naruto. Sorry if you guys found this beginning chapters to be boring. I'm generally not good at starting up a story. I honestly don't know if I want to continue the Danmachi fic since I had much more enjoyment with Drifting Legacy and Nobody to write. I do at least want to finish all my stories, as I always hated dead fics. I will at least make a summary if I decide to drop a story or just quit fanfic, okay.
Laters, then.