Shade had originally thought that if the enemy they were pursuing had left bloodstains in the sewers, his [Blood Echo] could help track them. But after seeing the sewers' current condition, he completely abandoned that idea.
Fortunately, the place where they had entered was probably the foulest-smelling area in the nearby sewers. After Mr. Bernhardt led them onward for more than ten minutes, the stench still lingered around them, but at least everyone was willing to speak to one another again.
"If the Bubble Head Charm didn't interfere with perception, and if I weren't worried enemies might appear in the darkness, I would have cast a spell long ago."
Mr. Finch said this while the three stood at the center of a "crossroads" in the sewers. Behind them lay the direction they had come from. The path ahead-left sloped downward into greater depths, the path on the right was a dead end visible at a glance, and the path on the left curved away into an unknown direction.
The scent Mr. Bernhardt had picked up extended ahead, yet all three of them had distinctly heard sounds from the right. Shade's Stone Heart had also heard human heartbeats.
After stopping to discuss it, they decided to investigate the "wrong route" on the right first. Even Mr. Bernhardt, the weakest among them, could use his racial talent to sense that the sounds on the right came from ordinary humans.
And when they found the source of the noise, it truly was a family of five. They lived in a shack built from old tents and discarded construction materials. They were clearly refugees from the Outer City District, except they had chosen to live underground.
They had cleverly found a spot in the sewers directly beneath a manhole cover, ensuring both convenient access