Following Karin's directions, Lucian finally spotted the abandoned drainage tunnel she had told him about.
The entrance was a crumbling stone-and-brick arch, about a meter and a half wide and a meter tall. Moss covered the top stones, and a fallen log half-blocked the opening.
When they arrived, Karin stopped and turned around. She was already holding her five-foot iron cleaver, her wolf-gray hair tied into a messy low ponytail that swung with the motion.
"So here's the plan, Croft," she said. The amber-gold eyes that usually held a joking light were gone now, replaced by a solemn look and a tense jaw as she held his gaze. "I'll go around and enter the far end through the gate, and I'll bang on it," she explained, waving her hands in wide, exaggerated gestures, as though she wasn't sure he quite followed.
He stayed silent and nodded. She continued, "then I'll drive them out, and you-" at this point she paused, looking him over from bottom to top. He was wearing a cap, a plain dark gray woolen pullover, and dark charcoal sweatpants. He wasn't carrying anything.
"Where's your weapon?" She raised her eyebrows, narrowed her eyes, and frowned.
In response, Lucian simply picked up a fist-sized stone from the scatter on the ground and held it out to her. "This one."
Karin's frown deepened. This cripple, no, Lucian's reputation as weak and frail was well known, thanks to his fiancée, the president of the student council, and seeing him now with nothing but a random rock, she wanted to snap, "This is not j..."
Just as she was about to reprimand him, she remembered how he had casually gripped her wooden cleaver back then, and how his whole body was nothing like his reputation as a weakling and a cripple.
"Forget it. You wait at the exit and catch them when they bolt," she said. The moment she finished, she jumped away and started searching for a way around to the other side.
Lucian was finally alone. He looked at the entrance, where small, clawed paw prints, about the size of an open palm, were pressed into the mud.
"A rat, huh," he said. His gaze wandered past the log that half-blocked the opening.
Inside was a shadowed angle, a narrow channel of dark, slow-moving mineral-rich water running along the center toward the boundary wall before disappearing through a rusted iron gate, where Karin was supposed to bang.
This is just Rank 1, or so she said. Lucian looked at his fist. It was faintly trembling, his heart beating faster, his body temperature rising.
But there was a faint smile on his lips. Not because of fear, but because...
"The world beyond the text is really amazing. I wonder how the creature looks?" His ash-gray eyes flashed with light at that very moment.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
The loud echo of iron bars being struck rang out from the far end of the tunnel. The rattling of the gate after each strike sent a hiss echoing through, and Lucian, waiting at the entrance, went still.
Three shadows came into view: badger-sized creatures, hairless, with gray-pink skin, like giant naked rats but thicker-built.
"SCREECH!" A loud screech rang out the moment the first rat spotted Lucian and charged at him full speed. But fast as it was, it was still a Rank 1 beast after all, equal to his own rank.
"Huff." Lucian had already taken a deep breath and dropped into the Grounded Center Stance, feet planted and hips low. As the first rat lunged, his eyes narrowed under the cap and it slammed into his outstretched left forearm.
"Screech!" Musk, something ammonia-like, wet fur, and decay filled his nose as its teeth scraped uselessly against his hardened skin.
"Got you." The rat was stuck, unable to leave a mark on him. Lucian brought the stone down on its skull.
CRUNCH!
With his passive skill reinforced and the momentum of the swing, the rat's skull was crushed. Dark blood, almost black-crimson with a faint purple sheen, gushed out. Then Lucian noticed the second rat freeze for a brief second before trying to dart sideways.
Where are you going? Without wasting momentum, he closed the gap in a single Compression Step.
SWOOSH!
He stomped its spine with his heel.
"SCREECH!" The rat's back snapped. Its body convulsed violently, hind legs kicking and twitching for a few seconds before going still. Lucian kept his weight on it for a moment, making sure it was dead, then lifted his foot.
"That's sick, Croft!" Karin's voice rang out. He turned and saw her stepping out of the tunnel. The third rat was already skewered on the tip of her cleaver.
She flicked the carcass off the blade like trash and let it thud into the mud beside the others. She grinned broadly at the pile of rats, the way someone might look at a treasure.
Perhaps because she thought she could finally eat a good meal.
Just watching how easily Karin had killed hers dimmed the joy burning in Lucian's chest a little, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Of course, she's a Rank 3 Aura Knight after all. He glanced at the rats he had killed and nodded faintly. As expected, not only can they be used as a foundation for training, but the technique of the protagonist is really powerful!
…
By the time they got back from the hunt, it was 1:00 AM. The small, drafty room was lit only by the orange glow of a cast-iron stove. His room, of course. Room 12 at the West Annex.
Karin stepped deeper into the room. The moment she was inside, her amber-gold eyes went sharp like a wolf's, hunting every corner as she did a slow, deliberate spin, taking in the bare walls, the cobwebbed ceiling, the single barred window, and the narrow bed tucked into the corner like a coffin.
"Even as a woman who doesn't care much about appearances, I understand now, Croft." She suddenly stopped and gave him a thumbs-up. "No wonder your fiancée never visits. She'd probably trip over a ghost on the way in."
Lucian didn't look up. "She's afraid of dust. It would ruin her complexion."
Karin snorted. "Oh, so a woman who bathes in rose water is more fragile than a dead rat? Got it."
She crouched near the sack, poking a carcass. "Honestly, I'm offended, Croft. You're a noble. You should be living in a golden tower with silk sheets and a personal chef."
She looked around the drafty room again. "...This looks like the room you'd give a servant who pissed off the head maid."
Lucian sliced a liver strip and let it sizzle on the stove. "If I had silk sheets, I wouldn't be here. I'd be selling them for food."
Karin opened her mouth to joke, then paused. That line came out too honest. She watched him cook.
"Yeah... fucking survival, huh?"
Silence. The fire crackled. He shot her a glare, and she lowered her head and looked away.