What kind of place is the most hidden? Is it a place that goes unseen? or a place that goes unnoticed? The answer to this question was only known when Austin was led to the so-called hidden spot with the same curiosity as everyone else. Of course, if there is a choice, he is not willing to come, this place... It's disgusting!
Speaking of which, this sewer is full of feces, there are rats with red eyes everywhere, and worms crawling everywhere, and Austin should have gotten used to it. But when he saw the sea of dung, and looked at the saprophytes roaming freely in the sea of dung, and the guide asked them to swim over, his legs were a little uncontrollable.
"Right in front of here," Mandington told them, "there was a fairly dry cave that I had spent a few days resting in the sewer expansion. Don't worry, the feces here are not deep, at most chest-deep, but be careful not to trip over the debris underneath, you can imagine the results. "
As the captain, Ritter frowned when he looked at this magnificent sea of dung, "How far do you have to swim to get there?"
Because the range that the torch can shine on is limited, and the sewers are also being built, he can't judge the scope of this sea of dung.
"It's about a mile away. Mandington snapped his fingers and thought for a moment.
"One mile! so far!" Before Rhett could speak, Pete in the team let out an astonishing exclamation, and the others nodded in agreement. Mandington, on the other hand, smiled disdainfully, and said no more. When he first found this place, there were hounds chasing after him, and there were a few people with torches chasing him in the back, so he had no chance to choose, so he jumped straight in, and swam forward without knowing whether there was a road in front of him or a place to rest.
"Then if we want to come out later, do we need to go back the way we came?" Ritter didn't seem very happy with the place.
"It doesn't have to be, continue in this direction from the cave where you can hide, and you will be able to return to the normal passage for another hundred or so meters. "
"A hundred meters, then why don't you take us in from the other side?" asked Berner, the old hunter who had been silent along the way.
"That's it, do you want to toss us a little more, tell you, hurry up and put away your careful thoughts, Brother Ritter is as wise as a torch, you dare to use your brains to try!" Pete's skill in snatching the words is really unusual, and Berner can't wait to go on after speaking.
Austin glanced at Pete secretly beside him, and felt a little resentful in his heart, because of this Pete along the way, he didn't even have a chance to speak, how could he behave in front of Big Brother Ritter? It seemed that feeling Austin's gaze, Pete smiled at him quite proudly, as hateful as he wanted.
"Do you know where you need to go on the other side of the detour? How far do you have to go? How many forks do you have to go through?" Mandington, who was questioned, immediately became excited, and even lowered his voice a little higher. "Seven forks! Seven forks! What if the thief was hiding in one of the roads? How many swords can you go up to? Now that we're guilty of a little more, maybe we'll be able to avoid that wicked man, and we'll be able to live, you know?"
It was obvious that this was not just for Pete alone, and Austin noticed that Mandington still looked at Ritter from time to time when he spoke, after all, Ritter was the leader of this team, no matter how good he said, no matter how good the reason was, only Whett's head could do it.
And Ritter's heart is of course also entangled, compared to the rest of the team, he has naturally suffered the least sins, although he is an illegitimate child, there is no maid to serve, but he also wears fine linen clothes, eats fragrant white bread, and lives a happy life without wine and meat. Today, he went down to this stinking sewer, and in order to establish the image of a leader, he endured the difficult conditions.
But walking on feces and smelling the stench is the same as being in feces, and it is very likely that you will eat these filth in your stomach?
"Are there any other places to hide?" asked Ritter solemnly after calming down.
"Yes, there is, but there is a nest of mutated and ferocious man-eating rats near another good place to hide, and last year there were not too many of them, only twenty or thirty, and this year, it's hard to say, you know, the rats' reproductive ability is terrifying. "
Mandington's words undoubtedly had another wave of impact on everyone, they all know that every year the city lord is a lot of headaches for these damn rats, and the task bar of the adventurer's guild in the city is a perennial task to eliminate the man-eating rats, and each has a bounty of one silver coin. Of course, except for the poor and crazy adventurers, they usually don't want to go down here and play with those horrible numbers of guys.
"Forget it, I don't want to go with those crazy rats. "
After the comparison, Ritter looked at the ordinary rats around him with red eyes and the size of a fist. Their mutated relatives, however, are the size of adult heads, and when they attack, they are called dead.
"Go, Mandington, you lead the way with torches, Austin you follow him, Ral you take the food and walk with me in the middle, Pete and Berner you are on the wings, and Karen you are in charge of the rear. Everyone pay attention to their feet, don't be fast, and don't follow closely so that they can't be left behind. "
Once the decision was made, Ritter made the assignment very neatly, and then the group of seven people stepped into the disgusting sea of all kinds of filth in front of them, led by Mandington, the guide.
Austin was in second place, close behind Mandington, and he was happy with the position, but Ritter's arrangement took care of him. But walking in the sea of dung is really a very bad experience, at the beginning the depth is still shallow, can only end up the knees, and after advancing dozens of meters, it has become able to reach his waist, the feeling of sinking deeper and deeper makes him have a delusion: this disgusting thing will gradually drown the top of his head!
Fortunately, Mandington didn't lie to everyone, and when the disgusting dirt on his chest was gone, the depth didn't increase much, and Austin turned his head to look at Ritter and Ral behind him, and the feces only reached the waists of these two burly and tall warriors. It's good to be tall!, he thought silently to himself.
"It's almost there, guys!"
In a bad situation, time often passes slowly, like walking in a swamp, and the feeling of each step being extremely laborious makes people feel the meaning of a long time, when the worm crawls from the collar to the neck from time to time, and the pain from biting oneself from time to time, all become the basis for reminding yourself that you are still alive.
At this moment, Mandington's words are like salvation from Heavenly Mountain, and Austin wants to cheer for him, because this terrible journey is finally coming to an end!
It wasn't until everyone climbed out of the sea of dung and into a fairly spacious cave that everyone had the interest to speak.
"Brother Lal, our food isn't as delicious as it is here, is it?"
Pete's words managed to attract everyone's attention, and everyone's eyes focused on the package at Ral's feet, which contained two days' worth of food and water for seven people.
"Nope. "Lal cherishes words like gold, or is too lazy to take care of Pete.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, no one liked to taste the specialties of the sewers. Austen, too, began to shout praises to Motera, the goddess of luck.
"Alright, it's time to extinguish the torches. Ritter commanded at Mandington.
Mandington carried out the order well, and then the cave became pitch black, and in the darkness, Ritter lowered his voice and said to his six temporary men, "You must be wondering why I took you into hiding instead of following Old John's mission to find the thief?"
"You must also wonder why there are a few masters in the city who are good enough to fight the thief, but they still want us to come here to carry out this mission that gave us our lives for nothing, right?"
"Brother Rutt, don't sell it, we know that you have a lot of insiders, so tell us directly. Austen finally seized the moment and picked up Ritter's words before Pete.
"It's okay to tell you, but old John didn't tell you the truth, and our real task is not to catch the thief, but to find and contain the thief!
"Before I was put in my cell, I inquired how the thief had managed to escape the castle's guards, enter the Count's study with a spell trap, and break the spell lock and take it. "
"According to the advisory mage of the Haniri family, either the thief also works part-time as a mage, or is extremely skilled in the use of spell scrolls and alchemical products. But in any case, the thief cannot be treated as a mere thief. "
Hearing this, Austen remembered what old John had told them in the morning: that the thief might have taken up some other part-time job. Unexpectedly, the other party turned out to be a part-time spellcaster profession known as the most mysterious and difficult to deal with. Maybe the other party's part-time level is not high, after all, mages are notoriously difficult to advance professions, but even if they are first-level mages, they can cast all kinds of unbelievable spells.
"Think about it, a mid-level thief who is a part-time mage, or a thief with a variety of spell scrolls who is proficient in the use of alchemy items, killing us is not like chopping vegetables?"
"But don't worry, before I came in, Old John quietly told me that the weapons of all 35 of us were magically marked by a mage, and if someone had a conflict with the thief, the master would be able to locate the thief, and then Lord Eric, known as the Knight of Morning Light in Oni City, would bring someone to help. That means we're all bait, but as long as one bait works successfully, our mission is complete. "
"If we're lucky enough and those 28 people succeed in getting the thief's attention and pinning down Lord Eric, we'll be able to complete the mission unscathed, and everyone will be cleared of their crimes when we get out, and maybe a few gold coins will be used as hush money, Lord Earl is very reputation-conscious, so it's not good to spread the word about using many criminals as bait. "
So what if those 28 people fail? Austin subconsciously glanced at Ritter, who couldn't see clearly in the dark, but he didn't dare to ask this sensitive question. Everyone was surprisingly unanimous that no one said this possibility, not even Pete, who wanted to show it the most, was silent.