Silent Slaughter

Sewers were proportional to the size of a city—the larger the city, the larger its sewers.

Moreover, cities were not built all at once. The blueprints from successive expansions and the construction techniques used were not necessarily the same either. As a result, the sewers of larger cities became all the more complicated.

With absolutely no preparation, Pei Renli and the other three had rashly entered the sewers. It was practically no different from stepping into a foul-smelling maze, so getting lost was perfectly normal.

But having local creatures lead the way was another matter.

The kobolds had lived here for a very long time. Perhaps they had been around since Curtain Star City was first established. They knew every detail of this place like the back of their hands, including, but not limited to, the exact location of every rat nest. They even knew where and when food would fall down...

Pei Renli had no intention of looking too deeply into what they considered food.

So although they took a roundabout route, it did not take long for the group to find the place: a T-junction faintly lit from somewhere beyond.

Incidentally, the kobolds who had called themselves Shasha went back after leading them there. They were extremely timid creatures. Unless their home was threatened, they generally would not show themselves easily, much less help in a fight.

Koura took responsibility for scouting ahead, walking more than ten meters in front of the others. She quietly peeked around the other side of the junction, then turned and gave the group a hand signal.

Adventurers often encountered situations where they had to make as little noise as possible, so communicating with simple hand signals was a required skill. The academy instructors had already begun teaching it as well.

Pei Renli and Eve, farther back, understood at once. They extinguished the Light spell and Dancing Lights, plunging the surroundings back into darkness. Then, with one hand against the wall to keep from accidentally stepping into the sewage, the three moved toward Koura.

Before long, all four reunited at the junction and poked their heads out to look toward the light source.

Beyond the junction was a gently curving waterway. About twenty meters away, however, someone had brutally smashed a hole through the wall. It certainly had not been approved by the city construction department, and heaps of shattered bricks and stones still lay scattered across the passage exactly where they had fallen.

A burly man sat in a chair before the opening, eyes closed and head slightly lowered. It was impossible to tell whether he was asleep or merely dozing.

Being able to sleep in such a stinking environment was a godlike feat in itself.

A glass oil lamp hung above his head, the light they had seen coming from it. Behind him, a crude wooden door blocked the hole.

That was roughly the situation. After taking one look, the group quickly ducked back behind the wall.

Kaya raised the sword in her hand and drew it across her throat in a gesture. Beside her, Koura held her shortbow, checked her dagger and the arrows in her quiver, then the two looked at Eve. Almost at the same time, they pointed their thumbs at the man beneath the oil lamp, then raised a finger to their lips.

Seeing this, Eve nodded to show she understood. A plan for a surprise attack was formed without the slightest sound being made.

Once they were ready, Eve was the first to lean most of her body out from behind the wall. Her hands continuously shifted through casting gestures, and she murmured an obscure incantation, though she kept her voice low enough that only she could hear it and the sound of the flowing water would conceal it.

The spell Eve was preparing seemed difficult. She maintained the chant and gestures for a full seven or eight seconds before raising a hand and pointing.

A sapphire-blue orb flew along the ceiling in the direction she indicated, landing right beside the man over twenty meters away.

But it was not an attack spell. The instant the orb touched down, it shattered and spread outward, becoming a blue ring roughly five meters in radius.

Almost at the same instant Eve cast her spell, Kaya charged the target, while Koura set an arrow to her bow and began taking aim.

Perhaps he saw the magical glow, or perhaps he was sensitive to magic. The man sitting before the door sensed the threat and abruptly opened his eyes, just in time to see Kaya charging at him.

His first reaction was to open his mouth and try to shout, but strangely, not a single sound came out. From a distance, it looked as though he were performing a pantomime by himself.

He immediately noticed the anomaly as well, but before he could react further, Koura's arrow was already before his eyes.

In that critical instant, the man had no time to draw the weapon at his waist and could only hastily raise an arm to block the arrow aimed at his throat.

The triangular arrowhead pierced through his arm without surprise, and blood immediately ran down its blood groove. But that was all the effect one arrow could achieve. A shortbow was not a longbow, after all; it lacked the necessary force.

After blocking the arrow, the man did not try to deal with the ever-closer Kaya. Instead, he hurriedly turned around and raised his fist to smash the door behind him.

But just as his hand was about to touch the door panel, a Magic Missile blazing with arcane energy arrived after being launched later. It nimbly curved around Kaya's back, drawing a bright arc through the dimness as it struck the left side of the man's face dead-on.

Magic Missile was a beginner's spell, after all. Its power was not high—roughly equivalent to being punched hard in the face.

The man was burly to begin with, so a blow to the face would not rob him of his ability to move. But the impact knocked him sideways.

As he hurriedly tried to get back to his feet, Kaya, swift as a cheetah, had already rushed before him. Her blade flashed in a brilliant arc. Having stepped into the spell's area of effect, even the faint wind-splitting sound was completely suppressed by magic. The sword swung down swiftly and soundlessly, and a string of fine sprays of blood flung out with the blade's motion, landing right on the oil lamp's glass shade.

The lamp, which had originally cast a dim orange-yellow glow, now refracted a faint crimson hue. Thus ended a silent slaughter.

The coordination itself was simple. Eve would first use Silence to prevent the target from making any sound. Koura would launch the lethal strike with an arrow. If the arrow was blocked, Pei Renli would interfere with the target's movements, buying enough time for the swift Kaya to rush in and slit his throat with a single stroke.

The process had gone smoothly, and Pei Renli, hiding in the shadows, let out a small breath of relief. Rune magic was relatively slow to cast, and the delayed activation of Magic Missile had nearly caused them to botch the whole thing.

After delivering the killing blow, Kaya gave the corpse another stab, confirming that the man was thoroughly dead before waving for the people behind her to follow.

Come to think of it, the group of four who had gone to the dam together last time had been complete novices. The three girls with Pei Renli this time, however—none of them was wet behind the ears.

Never mind their seamless teamwork; just the fact that they had made the decision to kill someone in an instant showed that they were no inexperienced rookies who had never seen blood.

Everyone had a past, and Pei Renli had no intention of digging into theirs. They had only known one another for two weeks, after all. Asking about such things rashly seemed inappropriate, and this was not the time to discuss them anyway.

All Pei Renli could do was keep as far away from the still-bleeding corpse on the ground as possible when he approached. Killing a person was clearly different from killing a monster, and that faint, lingering scent of blood always stirred up unpleasant thoughts.

To distract himself, Pei Renli looked around.

They had been too far away to see it earlier, but up close, they found a fist-sized hole near the lower left side of the crude wooden door. A deliberately dug channel ran from beneath the doorway to the nearby waterway. It was probably a drainage outlet.

Whatever wastewater the channel had once discharged had left a faint orange crust over the dirt and stones. It also seemed not to have been used for several days, as the orange substance looked rather dry.

The others clearly did not care about the corpse. Eve casually made a gesture to dispel Silence, while Koura crept up to the door and peered through its keyhole.

Limited by the precision of mechanical processing, locks in this era could not possibly be made like those on twenty-first-century Earth. The keys were large, and so were the keyholes.

After taking a quiet look, Koura pressed her ear against the door and listened for movement inside. Then she turned around, pointed at her eyes and ears, and shook her head, indicating that she had seen no one and heard nothing.

After giving her report, she reached out and turned the doorknob. After trying twice, she found that the door was locked.

Seeing this, Kaya crouched down and, without any hesitation, began feeling through the corpse's clothes. She searched for a while but found nothing that looked like a key.

The flimsy door could easily be destroyed, but without knowing what lay beyond it, it was best not to rashly smash it down.

Koura and Kaya looked toward Eve. This time, she gently shook her head to show that she had no solution. The two then turned to Pei Renli, who stood off to one side behind the corpse, observing the water channel.

And Pei Renli did indeed have a way.

He stepped forward and stood beside the lock. His left index finger glowed with a faint magical radiance as it drew upon mana, leaving shimmering runes floating in the air.

Unlike the spells he usually cast, which only needed three or four runes to activate, this time there were eight—enough to fill two entire rows before he stopped.

The flashing runes transformed into magical power the next instant, slipping into the keyhole along the direction Pei Renli pointed. Almost at the same time, the tightly shut door silently opened a crack.

This was Knock, a spell capable of opening any non-magical lock.

Pei Renli had prioritized learning offensive and defensive spells, but magic was not limited to attack and defense. There were also countless spells for crowd control and for adapting to different environments.

That was why spellcasters were universally regarded as precious treasures among adventurers. The role they could play was far more important than a sword's.

He had prioritized offensive and defensive spells in order to improve his combat ability as quickly as possible, but no one knew what style the next Demon King Arena would take. So recently, he had also begun studying other types of magic, ensuring that he would have a way through any situation he encountered.

Although Knock was also a low-level spell, it consumed far more mana than Burning Hands. Pei Renli's mana was not limitless either, so unless necessary, it was better to conserve it.

In any case, the lock was open. Koura and Kaya exchanged a glance, then both reached out at once, placing themselves in front of the two fragile mages as they slowly pushed open the door...