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Chapter 257: From Fleeing to Arriving

As Loren glanced back over his shoulder to check behind him, he saw that the swarm of black centipedes chasing them continued to grow in number, covering the floor of the sewer passage like a black carpet.

Fortunately for Loren’s party, the centipedes were slowing down, probably due to the insecticide effect of the pills Lapis had thrown into the sewage, and together with the slow-moving undead, they showed no sign of catching up with the party, which was rather jogging than running. However, their party was not fast enough to break away. The centipedes and undead were following them at a certain distance, and it was not difficult to imagine that they would be swallowed by the wave as soon as they stopped.

“Still no sight of a ruin?! Do we have to climb up somewhere?!”

They arrived at the ruin that Ivy said she would lead them to.

Loren thought that the quickest way to escape from the underground passage would be to find a way to the surface, but there was no guarantee that the centipedes would give up their pursuit.

Still, if they could get away from the sewers, they would be able to fight them off with fire, which would give them a better chance of survival than just running through the sewer.

“We should be almost there, but there is one problem!”

Ivy, who was leading their group, said, and Loren was almost at his wits’ end that there was still a problem cropping up at this point. He did not want to hear it, but he knew that if he didn’t, he would be in trouble when facing it.

“What the hell is it?!”

“There is a door to the ruin, but it takes a little while to open!”

Ivy said that the door to enter the ruin from the canal was not the kind that opened as soon as you grabbed the handle and pulled, but the kind that opened slowly when you operated the device to open and close them. Normally, this would not be a problem, but with the horde of centipedes chasing them from behind, the smallest amount of time could be fatal.

“You open it beforehand then!”

“Asking me to run through that stink… You’re evil, Loren.”

“I mean, it’s a matter of life and death!”

Loren roughened his voice, asking if this was the time to think about stink and such. Ivy looked resigned to that truth, but she suddenly pointed ahead and shouted.

“Oh, that’s the entrance.”

“We’ve already arrived?!”

At this distance, where the door was already within sight, there was no way to gain any time when Ivy was ahead of them. Loren wished she had talked about this earlier, but those thoughts disappeared from his mind the moment he looked in the direction Ivy was pointing. It was because part of the sewer wall had already been opened.

“This way! Hurry up!”

A figure shouting from within, beckoning to them. Loren shouted in surprise as he saw who it was.

“Mills! What are you doing there…?”

“Just hurry up!”

Loren, thinking that this was certainly not the time to be checking on the situation, immediately quickened his pace and picked up Gula and Lapis, who were running ahead of him.

“Hold on to my neck!”

“Thank you for your help.”

Loren called out to Ivy, who was leading their party, as he overtook her, and with a word of gratitude, she clung to his neck with both arms and hanging onto his back.

Loren had to carry the weight of three people by himself, but he managed to support them with all his strength. At the same time, he gritted his teeth and endured the stench that assaulted him once he passed the range of Lapis’ pills, even though he was almost rendered unconscious. He ran as fast as he could and entered the entrance where Mills was leaning out, and immediately looked back toward the door.

“They’re almost there! Close it!”

Ivy, who had been holding onto Loren’s neck, immediately jumped off Loren’s back and ran to the wall, quickly operating a device that seemed to be there. The wall slowly closed with a creaking sound.

“They’re getting through!”

But as Ivy had said beforehand, the closing speed was quite slow. Moreover, the centipedes that had been chasing them began to increase their speed, perhaps because they saw that their preys were about to escape. Ivy screamed when she saw this, but Loren had already expected as much. He lowered Lapis and Gula, whom he had been carrying in his arms, to the floor, and immediately drew the greatsword on his back, sent the heads of the group of centipedes that were diving into the entrance flying, then cut off the heads of the zombies that were being pushed inside by the centipedes and kicked their bodies away.

“Burn! Fiamma Unggia!”

Loren poured magic into his greatsword, and the flames gushing from the blade struck the oncoming horde of centipedes. The last time Loren used it, he was nearly drained of all his strength, but from that experience he had learned to save some while letting magic flow into the greatsword. The fire released this time was controlled, and as it hit the leading group of centipedes, they recoiled from the heat.

The flame had been released behind the closing door, and Loren expected that even if it had ignited some kind of flammable gas, the damage would be contained. But luck was on his side this time: and the flames did not burn excessively, and the centipedes at the front were discouraged. He decided to use the sword to exude more flame, which completely stopped the centipedes that were coming through the entrance.

Meanwhile, the wall slowly but surely closed, and Loren used his greatsword and the soles of his feet to dispose of the centipedes that had made their way into this side of the wall.

“You’re Loren, aren’t you?…”

Mills, who had sat down and leaned his back against the wall, muttered to himself. A dying torch was beside him, somewhat illuminating the space where Loren and the others were with its scant light.

Loren had just noticed himself that his party had no lights to illuminate their way through the supposedly pitch-dark sewers. He was able to see around him even without lights because he borrowed Shayna’s vision, but Mills, who was a mere human, was unable to see without lights such as torches, and the fading torches that are now placed beside him were probably not enough to ensure sufficient visibility.

“It’s inconvenient to be human, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

“Absolutely.”

Leaving the non-human beings talking and nodding to each other, Loren knelt down beside Mills, who remained seated with his back against the wall and refused to move.

The smell of sewage was wafting from Mills’ body, but Loren tried to put that out of his mind, as now was not the time to worry about that.

He had been in too much of a hurry to jump in, so he couldn’t get a good look at Mills, but now when he did, he saw that the man no longer had his weapon, his leather armor was torn, he was bleeding everywhere, and his breathing was short and shallow. His eyes were somewhat vacant and it was difficult to tell where he was looking, but what was even more unusual was that his left eye was bloodshot and moving incessantly. His right eye was unaffected, only the left eye was moving on its own, which was eerie enough to make Loren frowned.

“What happened?”

Mills moved his lips to answer and immediately coughed violently. Loren could see that he probably didn’t have much longer to live.

“I don’t know. After I talked to you guys… I remember getting ready and stepping in here… But after that, my memories… before I realized, I found myself in the sewers infested with insects, and was being dragged down into the sewers by a bunch of them.”

Mills had no idea what had happened to his two party members at that point. Thinking they were probably dead, Mills resisted desperately and managed to crawl out of the sewage into the passageway, losing most of his equipment, but by that time he was already badly wounded. After that, he managed to fight off the centipedes that were relentlessly chasing him as he continued down the passage.

The entrance that he had invited Loren’s party into was opened by chance. It seemed that Mills was moving while leaning against the wall, his body caught on something in the mechanism and activated it.

“I thought I was done for, but… Seeing you at my last moment might have been the last vestiges of good luck I had.”

“All right, don’t talk too much. We have a priest here. We’ll take care of your wound.”

It probably would not help, but Loren said it anyway. Mills slowly shook his head.

“Don’t waste your time. I’m not going to make it. And… even if you manage to heal the wounds, it’s already too late for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something… inside my head.”

Mills slowly lifted his left hand and put it over his left eye. The left eye was still moving frantically, but now that it was covered by the hand, it looked as if there was no abnormality in Mills’s body.

“They also… must have been hit by this. There’s something in my head that’s telling me to… let them eat me, obediently let them eat me…”

“Mills…”

“My memories… and my ability to think, they’ve taking them all. I’m not me anymore.”

Mills’ voice began to tremble. Whether this was a response to the impending death, or to the feeling of not being oneself anymore as Mills had said, Loren did not know.

Not knowing what to do, he turned to Lapis, who was watching them, as if asking for help, and Lapis silently shook her head. Loren realized by this action of hers that there was nothing she could do.

“Having been in the mercenary business for so long… I figured I won’t die a nice death. Still… I want to die as I am.”

The remaining right eye of Mills looked at Loren. Loren could tell by the way Mills looked at him what he wanted him to do, but when he wondered whether he should really do it, to which Mills opened his mouth to state his desire clearly.

“Please, Loren. Let me die at your hands… I don’t care what you do after I die, but I don’t want to be worms’ food while I’m still alive.”

“That… Is it what you want?”

“Yeah, it is…Sorry.”

Loren stood up after seeing Mills nod.

If left alone, for reasons unknown, Mills would probably be used as bait by those centipedes. Loren tried to convince himself that it would be an act of compassion to let the man die as a human being while his consciousness still remained.

As he was about to ready his greatsword, he heard Shayna’s voice in his mind.

[‘Onii-san, I can help him pass with more comfort.’]

At the sound of her voice, Loren lowered his greatsword.

Mills’ face was colored with disappointment, but when he saw Loren’s figure stooping down and putting his index finger between his eyes, his healthy right eye stared at Loren, wondering what he was going to do to him.

“You’ve been a mercenary long enough, and you’ve had enough of all the cutting and slashing, haven’t you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“It’s a bit like cheating, but I’ll get it done gently.”

The fingertip that Loren had placed between Mills’ eyes glowed a pale white light. Mills’ expression changed to that of calmness as he saw the light.

“This is… Indeed, this is more comfortable.”

The hand that was covering his left eye relaxed and drooped. As soon as the left eye, which had been moving on its own, stopped moving, Mills closed both eyelids.

“Oh, yes,… I just remembered something. The commander… I happened to see him in the north of Justinia empire… Why did I forget it…?”

“Alright, thanks for the information. Now, get some sleep.”

There was no reply from Mills.

When Loren lightly waved his fingertip and extinguished the light that had been lit there, Mills had let out his last breath.