The office of the village head was relatively big considering the size of the village and also housed a few more officials in it. It was an important location and would be center of a lot of quests for the players.
Right now though, it was mostly empty with only a few NPCs present here.
Two guards patrolled the corridor from the entrance and two more were standing at the sides of a door way. On top of the door way hung a board that read: Village Head Eneba.
Unlike the guards at the entrance of the office though, Arthur wasn't stopped. The guards actually opened the doors for him, allowing him to enter freely. Though they didn't forget to wrinkle their noses at him due to the stench coming from his body.
And upon entering, Arthur heard a voice filled with disgust.
"What's that smell?" Village Head Eneba said out loud before spotting Arthur. "Did you just walk out of a sewer or something? Why did you come to my office smelling like shit!?" The old man didn't hold back at all.
Arthur couldn't help but smile wryly in response.
"I actually did walk out of the sewers, Village head." Arthur replied.
"Huh?" The old man wasn't expecting such an answer at all.
While he had indeed asked that, it was a mere rhetorical question.
"And why would you do that?" The old man asked breathing through his mouth.
"I have something of grave importance to report." Arthur said before opening his bag and pulling out the rat tails he had collected.
"This…" The village head took a look at the tails, recognizing them to be rat tails.
But the size of them was a bit surprising to him.
"The Kestrel Village Sewers were infested with Dire Sewer Rats." Arthur explained. "I've killed them and also taken care of a Giant Dire Sewer Rat that was boring holes though the structures." He added.
"What?!" The village head was surprised but Arthur only showed him the proof of it all.
Counting all the tails in total, there were over fifty that Arthur had killed. But the most shocking was none other than the Giant Dire Sewer Rat that had been slain.
"You really killed a Giant Dire Sewer Rat alone?" The village head was surprised.
"Yes, I also have the Monster core to prove it." Arthur showed the glowing red crystal to the man.
The old man snatched it from Arthur's hands before closely observing it.
"It really is that… how can this be?" it was evident that the village head was quite shocked by this.
He slumped into his chair and scratched his head.
"How did I not know about this? There were no reports either…" The old man wondered to himself.
'Of course there were no reports. I killed them before they grew too many in numbers…' Arthur thought to himself.
Originally, this quest was supposed to have been initiated at a latter time. But Arthur had directly skipped that and entered the sewers, killing the Dire Sewer rats and finishing the quest early on.
But the shock from it was still something that the Village head couldn't get above.
The reason for it was also significant though.
"How… how bad was it?" the Village head asked.
"From my exploration I determined that the Dire Sewer Rats had come from the borders of the sewers. They had dug in from the outside and there are holes in the rock walls that can prove this.
Though from the size of the holes, I can tell that they weren't exactly this big. They should have been normal sized rats that had turned into Dire rats." Arthur answered in an expert tone.
"Hmm…" The village head stroked his beard, deep in thought.
Only after a couple minutes of thinking did he speak again.
"Considering that these rats managed to turn into Dire Sewer Rats, there must have been something behind it. They won't just turn into them normally." The Village head spoke.
"Of course not, Village Head Eneba." Arthur shook his head, and took out his second quest item. "Please take a look at this." He showed the skull.
The old man's eyes went wide as he saw the skull in Arthur's hands.
"Who does this belong to?" The village head asked, trying to keep his calm.
"It belongs to a certain skeleton that is left behind in the sewer reservoir. And if I may add, the sluice gate was also closed when I got there." Arthur replied.
Hearing this, it didn't take the old man long to put two and two together and come to a conclusion.
"So you're thinking whoever this person was, might be behind the Dire Sewer rats?" Village Head Eneba stated.
"Quite likely. Otherwise, it would not be possible for the rats to become like this." Arthur spoke. "I also found this short sword upon the remains of that person. It is the only other thing that was left intact. Its clothes and everything else had rotted away." He added.
"Let me take a look." The Village Head took the Black Tear Short Sword from Arthur.
He closely observed the blade, finding the black tear marking on its hilt.
"This is certainly not something that would be found in our village. Our blacksmiths don't make weapons like this." The old man spoke.
"I thought the same. Whoever this sword belonged to was an outsider." Arthur replied in agreement.
The expression of the old man turned a bit serious as he furrowed his brows.
"Looks like there is something sinister underway… someone is looking to threaten the safety of our village." The Village head spoke. "If the Dire Sewer rats were left as it is, they might have damaged the sewers and made the ceilings collapse. This would have led to a part of the village sinking and perhaps flooding in the rains.
You have saved us from that. And for that I am grateful." He said with gratitude.