"Old-timer, stay closer to me. What kind of hellhole is this?" Irin whispered to the young man beside her.
They were now making their way through a dark, damp, abandoned sewer.
Besides the filthy puddles underfoot, there were moss-like plants Irin had never seen before, with an "indescribable" appearance. And echoing in her ears, from somewhere—or rather, seemingly from every direction in the sewer—came a
low, guttural growl.
It was a sound no human or animal could make. Irin had heard it twice before, and both times had left an unforgettable impression, because it was
a sound only Corrupted Corpses could make.
Irin kept her nerves on edge, shielding the young man beside her. She hadn't forgotten her duty. And the person the girl was wary of wasn't just the abandoned sewer, fraught with danger at every turn; it also included, in some small way, the nun leading them.
Maria suddenly stopped and signaled to the two behind her. Irin followed her gaze and spotted two Corrupted Corpses wandering at a fork in the tunnel. Their bodies were covered in sores, and their arms bulged with thick muscles twisted together like strands of rope, ultimately mutating into flesh pincers.
This was the only way forward. Clearly, if they wanted to get past, a fight was unavoidable.
"Don't worry about me," Liao Ji said before Irin could speak, putting her at ease.
After all, of the three of them, Irin seemed to be the only one suited to close combat. Once the girl charged ahead, only the nun would be left by his side.
Irin didn't use her gun. In a place like a sewer, even the slightest noise would be amplified several times by the echo. Corrupt Calamity spread from within the girl, eventually forming a blood-red sword in her hand.
It wasn't the same crimson greatsword she'd wielded at the Kalleva factory. It was much shorter and narrower. Clearly, Irin didn't think two Corrupted Corpses were enough to make her use her ability.
With a flash, Irin quietly crept forward. When she was about ten meters away, the two wandering Corrupted Corpses seemed to catch her scent. They turned their heads in unison, staring toward the patch of shadow where the girl stood.
Once she'd been spotted, Irin didn't hesitate. Ten meters was close enough. She stopped creeping and burst forward. In less than half a breath, she reached the first giant-pincer Corrupted Corpse and used her momentum to drive the blood-red sword straight into its neck.
Squish!
After reaching Danger Rank, the girl had grown considerably stronger. The force behind that strike was enough to slice the Corrupted Corpse's head clean off. The other one pounced from behind. Irin ducked beneath its swinging flesh pincers, kicked it off balance, then followed up with another thrust, stabbing it straight through the head. Squish!
It was a swift, clean fight—two kills in a row.
"Miss Irin, you're amazing!" Once the three of them continued deeper into the sewer, Maria, who had watched the girl fight, couldn't help but speak with admiration.
"It was nothing."
"I wonder if... if I could ask what you did before you became Corrupted?"
Perhaps the crushing victory had eased the tension of their perilous situation. In such a place, Maria seemed to have loosened up and started chatting with the girl.
Irin hadn't intended to answer, but Liao Ji beside her didn't seem to mind. If anything, he seemed to encourage them to talk more and get to know each other. After a pause, she replied:
"A scavenger."
"Oh? Then how did you become Corrupted? And how did you meet Mr. Liao Ji?"
Faced with the nun's eager questions, Irin didn't know how to answer. She stammered a little, but luckily Liao Ji spoke up.
"Irin was the best scavenger in the Black Cave, so I hired her to explore the Underground Cave ruins with me. We were lucky enough to find some treasures, but while we were escaping, the kobolds in the cave caught up with us. At the critical moment, whether it was because of the treasures or not, Irin awakened an ability and became Corrupted. That's how we managed to get out alive."
As Liao Ji spoke, the nun clenched her small hands, her face tense. Only when she heard the story's happy ending did she let out a long breath.
After that, Maria didn't say anything more, and the conversation fell quiet. As they ventured farther in and saw more and more Corrupted Corpses wandering through the narrow channels, the three stopped chatting altogether and focused on exploring.
There were many Corrupted Corpses, but fortunately, with Irin's fighting ability, the three of them weren't held up much along the way.
After they passed the next bend in the tunnel, Maria told them that Irin's mother was nearby.
The news spurred the girl into action. When she saw another horde of Corrupted Corpses blocking the way, she charged ahead, eager to clear them out, even though there were far more of them this time than before—seven or eight in all.
The first one or two were easy enough, just like the many fights before: each was killed in a single blow. But what happened next in the horde completely caught Irin off guard.
Before the girl could get close, the Corrupted Corpse at the very back, clearly larger than the rest, struck first. Its mutated, heavy-fisted arm slammed into the Corrupted Corpses around it.
Squish! Squish! Squish!
With each Corrupted Corpse it killed, the red haze of Corrupt Calamity swirling around it grew denser. The muscles beneath its rotten skin swelled abruptly, and countless spikes sprouted from its body. In the blink of an eye, its presence had risen to a whole new level.
It roared and charged at the girl. Because of the angle, Liao Ji, who had his back to the mutated Corrupted Corpse, could see two crest-like marks on its exposed back.
They weren't real crests, but the marks left behind after a crest had been used once.
Even so, the traces of the crests were glowing with an eerie light. They seemed to be the source of the Corrupted Corpse's sudden mutation.
Irin had tried to conserve her strength, so she hadn't used her ability. She continued to meet it with her ordinary blood-red sword. But when the mutated Corrupted Corpse charged, it unleashed several times the strength of the ordinary Corrupted Corpses from before. The force was completely beyond Irin's expectations. She nearly lost her grip on her sword and was about to be sent flying by the Corrupted Corpse.
Fortunately, the girl lost control of her body at the last moment.
The sword that had been about to meet the Corrupted Corpse head-on forcibly changed course, twisting into a defensive stance and blocking the next punch.
Even so, the girl was sent spinning through the air before crashing down and rolling awkwardly. She dodged the Corrupted Corpse's follow-up attack with a quick sidestep.
Boom!
The sewer wall where Irin had just been standing cracked like a spiderweb beneath the mutated Corrupted Corpse's second punch. The ground seemed to tremble as well.
Irin was shaken by the sight, a surge of fear rising in her heart. She could hardly imagine what would have happened without Liao Ji behind her, forcibly interfering in the fight and making her switch from offense to defense. Even if her sword had struck the Corrupted Corpse, it would have been a case of hurting the enemy by eight hundred and herself by a thousand.
What was going on?!
What was this Corrupted Corpse...?
Only then did Irin finally notice the two crest-like marks glowing blood-red on the Corrupted Corpse's back. Could those be...?
There was no choice. It seemed she could only...
Just as Irin was about to draw on her ability and summon the true crimson greatsword again, a short chant rang out. Then a wash of holy light covered the mutated Corrupted Corpse.
"Gaaah! Aaagh!"
The Corrupted Corpse let out a cry of pain. Its enormous body began to shrink, and its bulging muscles seemed to wither. In the blink of an eye, it had returned to the form of an ordinary Corrupted Corpse. The two marks on its back, which had been glowing blood-red, vanished completely.
"What...?"
Before Irin could react, another beam of light shot through the Corrupted Corpse's head like an arrow. The mutated Corrupted Corpse, which had even given Irin, now at Danger Rank, a hard time, had... just died that easily?
Before you continue