"Let's go back home."
I have no idea how much the rats understand about what we are talking or how they get the orders from Pinky, but after Hayley said that but they started to move as if guiding us back. I'll ask Dante later about it.
I wasn't entirely sure that we weren't going to be followed, but it was unlikely for them to do that, mainly because they don't know where we are, and we have killed their two principal inter gatherers, and at least 4 scout/sense types Espers.
They should know by now that we have a way for the rats to help us, and the rat's distraction from last time was caused by us… or at least some suspicions, this was the reason they sealed the sewers caps too. This was enough for me to think that they will not go into the sewers to follow.
We followed the rats for a while in the dark using the flashlight, we had just one now since mine was broken during the explosion, I had to also turn off the enhanced smell.
The travel back was peaceful. After a while, we get to the place where the boat was waiting for us, and the rats carried us back to Pinky's city… I wonder if it has a name, but I'm a little scared of asking, so I prefer to leave it like that.
As the boat advance on the small tunnel, Milo suddenly talked.
"How did that happened?"
He seemed serious, I didn't explain too much, but it should be pretty obvious or at least that's what I thought.
"When I was fighting I noticed that the acid mist was a kind of acid that was highly flammable. Also, the guy that was fighting Hayley wasn't fully focused on her and constantly looked at the snake guy. I threw the fuel, and as expected they made the mist explode, that ignited the fuel I threw and enhanced the explosion more than expected. About the fuel, I brought it in the case we needed to burn the corpse there."
"I get that part… but when we catch up, Chambers was already on the floor. How did that happen?"
Oh… that was trickier to explain because I'm not sure either. I held the dive knife that I recovered from the battlefield and looked at it for a few seconds.
"With this…"
As I showed them the dive knife since it was too dark to see it well Mark lighted the flashlight. Milo was the first to ask followed by Hayley.
"You used that knife?"
"I didn't know that you still carried that knife."
Hayley recognized the knife, and she knew that I traded all my weapons for better ones as soon as we arrived at Green Shelter.
"It wasn't me, I don't carry it anymore…"
"Then how it appeared on Chambers' chest?"
"It was Rose."
The next moment silence filled the place, they know that Rose is my girlfriend and was the one scouting around thanks to a weird power, but that was all they know about her.
"I'm not sure about the details either, but she managed to use this on Chambers, it was taxing on her, so told her to go back. I will ask her more about it later, but the most important is that she managed to stop them and we completed our mission."
They stayed in silence for a second but Milo was the one that finally talked.
"There I no use to think about it now. I get why Harting agreed with your terms, when I heard it I found it odd but after this, I get the value that all of you bring here. Happy to have you as allies."
I thanked him for his words. I was grateful that he didn't try to pry further about Rose new power either.
After that, we didn't talk much more. Hayley fell asleep the same as Milo. Mark was turning the flashlight on and off playing with it trying to figure out how much time was left I didn't want him to damage our only remaining light source, so I had to make him stop reminding him that his flashlight was the only one we had left.
After a while, we finally arrive at the end of the boat ride.
The advancement on the Snake Goddess Temple was beautiful and imposing, the place Pink chose was big enough to have this building and nothing else. The sacred scale… I mean Cai-Cai's skin was now on the top of a pyramid, it was made of golden a white stuff, it had stairs in one side and statues of Cai-Cai were all around. At the sides they were building two giant Statues of Cai-Cai with her original colors.
I think we should try to hire them to build a complete external wall. As I thought about it, a white lab rat ran to us.
'Oh, Hero! How was the task? did you manage to end the lives of the Blood Demon's lieutenants?'
'It's all done Lord Pinky, thank you for your support in this noble crusade.'
'Nothing to thank me, I'm just doing what is right according to the Snake Goddess teachings as his humble and loyal follower.'
'I will certainly tell her about your good deeds.'
'There is no need, great hero. I hope you can stay a little longer until we finish the temple.'
Crap. I just made a quick excuse to leave.
'I would love that, but unfortunately, I have to talk with the snake goddess about the mission, and I shouldn't make her wait.'
'Of course, of course. I hope you come when the temple is finished.'
'I'll do my best, now if you excuse I have to go back.'
'Have a good travel noble hero, Dohum and Reik will guide you back.'
'Thank you, Pinky.'
'You are welcome, Hero. I'll see you in the future.'
…
I was happy to leave that place fast, following his game was a little tiring and I wanted to see Rose soon.
It didn't take that much time for us to get back to Green Shelter, to be honest everything looked the same on the sewers so when the rats finally halted their steps in front of the stairs, that I assume where the ones we descended, I thought that I have already passed by this place before.
The sun was up in the middle of the sky, the clean air filled my lungs. Some people were scared when the saw that the sewer cap suddenly was lifted, but when one of the hunting teams arrived because of the crowd, they recognized us as a part of them.
They escorted us back to the HQ, where Blake was talking with some people.
He smiled with relief as he saw us and walked toward us.
"I'm glad you all came back, are you hurt?"
Only Mark had minor wounds that I wasn't on time to heal. He was escorted to the clinic for a checkup while we reported the situation.
When he heard the details about the number of casualties that the NDR sustained he was shocked. 20 Espers were already a massive strike, but the most surprising was that two of them were highly ranked members of the NDR.
When I described one of the jumpers and mentioned the weapon he held, I could see in his eyes that he was thinking the same that I thought when I saw him. This was most likely was the one that left Ines on a coma. We finished by telling that besides the deaths they were also some of them that where heavily injured on the explosion.
He nodded deep in thought and told us to go rest, and he was going to report back to Harting.
I was glad to go back.
Dante told me that Rose is sleeping with Hope and that she seems to be just tired. We arrived home, and Hayley went to clean herself right away before resting.
I went into the room and saw my girlfriend in the center of the bed, at her side Hope was peacefully sleeping while holding her hand… she is drooling on my pillow, but I'll forgive her just because she stayed with Rose all the time.
I grabbed some clean clothes and went to clean myself too. When I saw the state of the clothes, I recalled that the Armory was going to start charging me for clothes…