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chapter 73




I used Search magic one more time to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything.
After that, I took the mysterious fragment with me and got out of the water.
Ario looked serious as he asked me,
“Did you find something?”
“I found this.”
And then I showed the mysterious object to all of them.
Serulis looked at with an intent expression.
“But what is it?”
“It’s a part of something…”
Josh looked like he had no idea.
“Sniff-sniff-sniff.”
Grulf sniffed at it earnestly.
“You don’t know what it is, Mister Locke?”
“I don’t. I’ll have to investigate this later.”
And if I still couldn’t figure it out, I would have to ask the Alchemist Association to look into it.
And then I said to Grulf,
“Grulf. Can you tell if there are any other demon rats around here?”
“Groof!”
Grulf wagged his tail boldly. He probably did know.
“This place is quite big. I don’t think it will be possible to kill them all, but we should at least hunt all of the ones that are in this area.”
“Grr.”
“Grulf. We’re counting on you.”
Groof-groof!”
Grulf went bounding off and then stopped. He started to sniff the ground.
The stench of the sewers was quite harsh, which made things difficult for him.
Grulf would sometimes mark his territory as he walked.
“Groof!”
He barked once before bounding off again.
“Are there demon rats over there?”
“Groof-groof!”
I followed after Grulf and encountered two demon rats.
They were just about to try and escape when Josh’s arrow caught one of them.
Serulis ran quickly and killed the other one.
“Grulf, that was great! You can become a hunting dog.”
Josh said as he petted him. Josh was a former hunter.
“Groof!”
Grulf wagged his tail proudly. And then he looked at me.
I guess he wanted to be praised.
“Good, Grulf!”
“Groof-groof!”
After that, Grulf happily discovered twenty demon rats that had been hiding.
We took all of the corpses with us and left the sewers.
“We’ll deal with the corpses in my garden.”
“Are you sure?”
Ario looked a little worried.
The garden would become very dirty if we were opening rats on the grass.
He probably didn’t want to inconvenience me.
“Of course, it’s fine.”
“If you say so, Locke…”
Ario did not look too convinced.
When we arrived at the mansion, Luchila was waiting by the door.
I had asked Luchila to buy food supplies.
“Luchila. Thank you for going shopping.”
“Were you able to buy everything?”
Luchila looked a little surprised when he saw us.
Well, it was not too surprising, since we were covered in sewage water.
“I-I was able to buy everything…but what happened to all of you?”
“We just went down into the sewers to kill a few rats.”
“Oh…”
Luchila frowned.
“Cluck!”
Gerberga flew out and went over to Luchila.
Perhaps he didn’t like the smell.
“Thank you, Lord Gerberga.”
“Cluck!”
I left Gerberga to Luchila and the rest of started work on the rats.
We had to take the corpses out of the bag.
“So many!”
Serulis said excitedly.
However, Ario and Josh seemed a little worn out.
“So we have to open all of these and take out the magic stones…”
“Not too exciting.”
Still, they went about the work quickly and with precision.
Of course, I also helped them.
As I had just taught Serulis how to do it, she also did her best in helping us.
“Serulis. You’re very good at this.”
“Do you think so?”
“You only just learned how to do it, but you move just like an experienced Adventurer.”
“Heheh.”
Serulis chuckled bashfully.
But she really was good at it. And so quickly.
The whole process went smoothly.
When the sun had started to go down, we finished taking all of the stones out.
Josh counted all of them and said,
“If we count the magic stones, we can see that we killed two hundred of them…”
“So many…”
Even I was surprised.
It was more than just a horde.
“So many in the sewers of the royal capital. Don’t you think that this would have become a horrible incident if we had been delayed in dealing with it?”
Ario looked pale.
Rats multiplied very quickly. Like rabbits.
Besides, demon rats multiplied even faster than normal rats.
If we had waited until tomorrow, then maybe we would have had to kill five hundred of them.
“And also, what is this?”
Serulis held up the mysterious fragment.
It was the fragment that I had found that the rats had gathered around.
Similar fragments had been found in some of the other rat carcasses.
There were thirty in all.
Josh looked grim as he said,
“They were mostly found in the largest demon rats.”
“Perhaps it causes them to grow larger? I sensed some magic inside of them…”
Ario said as he looked at the fragments.
“Well, we could try putting them together…”
“You can put them together?”
“I don’t know, but it is worth trying.”
“That’s true.”
I poured oil over the demon rats and burned them.
It smelled horrible. The bodies were soaked in sewage water, after all.
“Ggherr…”
Grulf barfed.
“Grulf. You should stay in the house.”
I said as I patted his back.