Every new adventurer starts the same way, doing the trash quests nobody else wants. Pest extermination, postal work, helping cats from the trees, fetch quests, harvesting, and so on.

  Boasting a population of over five hundred thousand, Adamantine Bastion had an expansive sewer network and everything that came with it— sewer rats, slimes born from alchemical reagents illegally dumped in, lost pets— so it was inevitable that a Bronze-rank Warrior would find himself ankle deep in water filled with... chunks. One of the unspoken rules of adventurers was that you never said out loud what those chunks were.

  "Ahh, shit," Amos swore as he lifted his ruined boots.

  Some were yet to learn the said rule.

  The water was unusually high, and the system was almost dangerously backed up. A new open quest had appeared on the Guild's notice board last week: find out what has caused the blockage. The twenty gold price and an actual mystery to solve drove the lower-rank newbie adventurers to the urban dungeon in droves.

  Amos was one of the smart ones who had started from the upriver, working down while checking the changes in the flow and water depth. The sewers were mainly large enough to stand, and wide enough to have room for walking on both sides of the groove where the water streamed. Amos had been careful to slowly place his feet and secure his footing before taking another step.

  If he slipped now, he could lose his torch or mace he was holding— gods forbid if he lost both of them. Usually, he opted for a shield, but there wasn't any light in the damp and dark sewers, and as a human, the torch was a must for Amos. He was saving up for a proper waterproof lantern for deeper ventures into the sewers.

  One rat was two coppers, and slimes were four. With fifteen copper, he could pay his daily lodging and replenish his torches. Everything above that was saved for new gear.

  "If only there were enough rats to hunt," Amos mumbled and spat on the wall.

  Even before the quest was posted, the rat population had dropped immensely during the week. The theory was that a monster had made a nest somewhere below the Market District, feasting on the rat population and causing the blockage with uneaten bones.

  Most of the adventurers were checking that area, but Amos had opted to check out the Western Lip district. It was a poorer, badly maintained section of the sewer system, but it was a fraction higher than the heavily flooded sections, making it a prime candidate for his search.

  If Amos came out empty-handed today, he would have to trek tomorrow all the way to the eastern cisterns to hunt for slimes. He absolutely hated slimes for their ability to camouflage themselves. The brainless things would attack anywhere, anytime, at anyone, even if it meant death to themselves.

  That wasn't the worst thing, oh no. The worst thing was that they were made of chunky water. Amos' daily spending would skyrocket with bath and laundry cost when he hunted slimes. It was more work with the same pay— not worth the hassle.

  A familiar faint scratching sound drew the man's attention from his careful footwork and economical thoughts. He had been here long enough, he knew the sound: a rat was hiding in front of him, inside one of the smaller pipes running from the walls and connecting to the main channel.

  Listening closely, Amos could track the creature into the second channel on the left, the one with the green glow.

  Wait, green glow? That's not—

  His thoughts are interrupted as a fat rat poked its head out. Nothing out of the ordinary, the sewer was full of rats size of starving cats, and Amos had heard it coming. But this rat had a puncture wound through its neck, clearly visible on the green light emanating from the fist-sized hovering ball above it.

  Amos felt his jaw slacken as he stared dumbfoundedly at the sight. The ball looked like... a hovering eye? There was a faint iris visible, slowly turning to meet Amos' stare.

  The rat rose to its hind legs and waved at him.

  Waved.

  At him.

  Then it spoke with a whisper right next to his ear, "Greeting! Please be not afraid, for I am Swift-Foot, a controlled undead minion under the servitude of the Great Necromancer of the Sewers! I am currently tasked to find the cause for the blockage. I believe you are here at the same task?"

  Amos automatically nodded, limply. Nobody had talked about...this! Is that really an undead? It uses magic to speak?

  "Capital! Am I to believe you have scoured the sewers on this side? Nothing noteworthy to report?"

  Amos shook his head. His ears started to ring, and his mouth was suddenly dry.

  "I need you to communicate better, good boy! Is that a no to the scouring part, or the reporting part?"

  "Eyahgh... I... have searched this part of the sewer. Nothing to report— sir," Amos said. He felt his tongue resting uncomfortably in his mouth. He tried to lick his lips. It didn't help at all.

  "Grandstanding! I'll leave you to your grand quest! The Master will be pleased!" the rat magically whispered into Amos' ear, and vanished back to the pipe.

  The young adventurer stared at the pipe until the green glow vanished entirely, leaving only his torch to light the sewers. Amos slowly turned around and headed towards the east. There might be slimes, but there weren't any bloody talking undead rats, that was sure.

  ───?───

  Through the twisting maze of pipes, waterways, sluices, and cisterns, Seventh Seven snickered as he unfocused from the Wandering Eye and sketched on his wax tablet the route he had scouted with his minion.

  It was he who had spoken to the youngling, not the rat. It didn't really have a name, Seventh just pulled ratkinesque name from a hat and improvised the Great Necromancer part. It was harmless fun, something to ease the creeping boredom of getting boots and foot wraps wet from sewerwater.

  Seventh checked his tablet and made some additional notes, mainly marking the other adventurer's side as a possible dead end. He was currently at a three-way-crossroads looking for a new tunnels to search.

  Like everybody else, he was also looking for the blockage, but the sewers didn't have any decently recent maps. He had checked the Archives— perks of his guild— and came out empty. He did have a bunch of older maps, but they were decades, if not centuries, old, marking the ghosts of the old tunnels. The sewer workers mainly passed the underground knowledge orally and kept the knowledge to themselves so adventurers wouldn't start to step on their toes and compete for assignments.

  Guildmaster Caleb Garth had been a man of his word, and Seventh had been earmarked for sewer duty in the Adventurer's Guild. It meant that until every single quest and request concerning the underground rookie “dungeon” had been finished in full, Seventh was sent in daily. It was usually a punishment detail— which it was in spirit for Seventh— but Garth had marketed it as “basic training”.

  That was four days ago, marking the end of this Marketday as his first full work-week as an adventurer. Of course, as an independent contractor, Seventh didn't have such luxuries as 'weekends' or 'holidays', but he had planned two slightly less taxing days of sewer diving and magic learning.

  It had been a delightfully eventless week. Seventh's problems were more like “earning money for lodging and food” than “dying in a temple, broken”.

  First two days Seventh had gone to the guild early in the morning to gain some basic Necromancer instructions for minion control and basic spell theory. While he studied, Garth had taken some measurements from Fang-Knife and tried to find out how the ratkin maintained its advanced undead status, and in his own words, “a brazenly cheeky amount of mana.”

  While Fang had been prodded and measured, Seventh learned his first trained spell: Whisper Wind. It was a simple spell that sent his speech far away in a whisper that only his target could hear. Perfect for sending orders to his minions, especially when combined with Wandering Eye. Learning the spell was covered by the exorbitant joining fee of Corpse Flower, and Garth had suggested that Seventh learned it instead of Light, the go-to spell of humans and other races without Darkvision.

  Fang hadn't minded the tests. All he wanted was a piece of cheese for every test, and he had been happily munching on Seventh's emergency rations away. The ratkin was currently keeping watch next to Seventh, scanning the edges of Seventh's lanternlight.

  Looking at the Death Mana flowing inside Fang, Seventh couldn't stop his mind wandering around and wondered why the ratkin was like that. It was clear he had done something extraordinary when he had reanimated the ratkin. While his knowledge of mana and spell theory was still in its infancy, he had gleaned some interesting nuggets.

  Firstly, he had used ambient mana and Meditate while channeling more mana than was usually necessary for Raise Dead to create advanced undead. Only twice the usual mana cost was needed, and rarely more was used, but Seventh had dumped four times his total mana pool into Fang. He hadn't told the exact figure to Garth since the only reason he was able to do such a feat was his biggest secret: his undead nature.

  That was the second nugget. Undead spellcasters were feared because their connection to their minions was much stronger due to their comparable natures, both were undead. Undead also had natural resistance to manaburn and could power their spells way beyond what they had achieved in life. It wasn't a real resistance, per se, but dead flesh was unfeeling and could handle the discomfort of channeling better.

  Unfeeling flesh, riiight. I can vividly remember the arrows jutting from me, scraping on bone.

  Sadly, Seventh couldn't tell his full theory to Garth. He'd have to reveal his former nature of undead minion and current one of a Wraith. Something that would not go well. He had seen the bounties of the undead on the Guild's notice board. Like demihumans, there was an open season for undead all year round.

  A quiet squeak alerted Seventh. Fang had noticed something beyond Seventh's lanternlight. It was one of the purchases he had made during the week, along with the equipment belt the lantern was hanging on, light brown padded gambeson, and light leather armor in a deeper brow for extra layer of protection. His trusty satchel was secured to the belt, main strap going over his left shoulder.

  His merciless butchery of the ratkin and sale of the umbrefel pelt had given him a nice nest egg for good, quality gear, and Seventh just went on a little shopping spree. His voidspace and belt were piled with odds and ends which a certain dwarven merchant swore up and down he would need during his adventures. What did you even do with a ten-foot pole anyway?

  Fang sniffed the air and twitched his ears, slowly rotating his head to pinpoint the origin of the noise. Seventh observed as the ratkin slowly changed the grip on his favorite dagger, pinching the tip on a throwing grip. No other signal was needed. Seventh stored his tablet and secured his grip on his halberd.

  Patiently waiting for Fang, Seventh slowly placed his hand on his magical lantern hanging on his belt. Best purchase he had made this week. Cold to the touch, watertight, and most importantly, the light volume could be changed with a small amount of mana.

  He heard a faint scraping sound coming from the darkness. Something Seventh wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't staying still and listening for it. Fang threw his knife into the shadows, causing a wet thunk of a hitting dagger and a hissing screech. Seventh filled the tunnel with bright light from his lantern.

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  Fang had aimed too high for a rat to be his target, and Seventh saw a chitinous mass writhe in pain as it fell down from the wall and twitched into a ball as it tried to remove the knife with its multitude of limbs, tail splashing water as it struggled.

  A veltid, scourge of Zhe'xatal, the Devouring Wild. Unholy centipede with a dash of spider and other insects. Nimble limbs, mandibles capable of slicing through steel, and a magically hastened evolutionary curve had made these things one of the most spread out monsters in the whole world. Over five feet long, they were truly a horrifying sight in the magical light.

  Around half a dozen of them had slowly approached Seventh and Fang in the shadows, climbing on the walls and ceiling in the hope of a drop-down-ambush. One of them was already seriously wounded, and a second one split open with Seventh's Shadowbolt.

  That was all Seventh and Fang had time to do before the rest of the veltids abandoned stealth, rushing towards them with a hiss, clattering of mandibles, and a flash of rushing dark colored chitin.

  Seventh calmly walked backwards, blasting away with his magic. The bugs zipped around his aim, bucking and weaving with stomach-churning speed stemming from the tiny legs under their natural armor.

  Focusing far back, Seventh opened portals to his voidspace, dropping a trio of ratkin behind the veltids. The creepy-crawlies didn't seem to notice and leapt to melee with Seventh and Fang.

  The first one was pierced with a well-aimed Thrust by Seventh and got stuck to the point. Nonplussed, Seventh used it as a weight for bug-killing Cleave. He had aimed for a smooth arc intercepting three veltids, but one of them was smarter than the others, slowing down and dodging to the side, closer to Fang.

  The two others suffered heavy wounds as the axehead hacked through them, but were still in the fight. Even the pierced one was trying to stab Seventh with its tail pincer.

  Huh, that wasn't in the bestiary, Seventh absently thought as the pincer snapped right next to his ear, echoing in the bricked tunnel.

  Fang kept watch at the knee-level and focused on the two other veltids flanking Seventh. The ratkin quickly stabbed his first victim masterfully between chitin plating and twisted, creating an oozing crevice of a wound.

  Blocking with his other knife, twisting and interlocking it with the mandibles, Fang could lead the veltid to block his other opponent. It was rising high, snapping its pincer and waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  The natural armor of veltids looked deceptively soft and rubbery when wet, only after a failed slash or stab, the reality would sink in— but not for Fang. He had a knack for spotting natural weaknesses in the monsters. His hand sank in, elbow deep, as he carved a way in with his knife.

  He hissed at his other bug, smiled with all of his yellowing teeth, and yanked a fistful of veltid insides outside.

  Yellow spurts of whatever these things used as a substitute for blood stained the floor, and a dirty violet Death Mana rose from the corpse. Fang's smile widened as he spun his knives and gestured for the next opponent to come closer.

  Seventh was too busy for spells as he was slamming the annoying bug still stuck to his halberd to the wall. Masonry crumbled as the stubborn centipede refused to die— and Seventh's weapon, as it was repeatedly connected with the sewer wall.

  He kept the other two at bay with backswings and furious cursing. On a lucky strike, Seventh smashed one of the veltid's front open with the halberd's counterweight. The half-fist-sized lump of cheap iron did a good job as previously slashed natural plate cracked open, revealing the gooey insides.

  Seeing an opportunity, Seventh promptly stomped down to the goo. The centipede horror screeched as Seventh's boot severed the spine.

  They fought silently, but upon dying, a high-pitched scream was usually released. This individual also curled its body and aimed its tail pincer at Seventh's heart as a final defiance. He dodged the deadly attack, but the serrated blade sliced his shoulder open through armor.

  The last one of Seventh's veltids tried to use his wounding for advantage and charged, but was interrupted by Fang throwing a knife clean through its right eyesocket from the side. Stopping its movement, the monstrous centipede rose up, trying to shake the knife off. Finally, the trio of ratkin arrived by grabbing it from behind and rushing on top of it.

  Fang had already disposed of his other prey and joined his brethren to the stabbing party while Seventh continued to struggle with his weapon. The trio fought cruder than Fang, missing the small spark of intellect that told Fang not to just hack and slash mindlessly, but to stab and desecrate with purpose. Preferably to weak spots.

  The chitinous crawler fought back valiantly. Mandibles punctured lungs, tore flesh, and severed major arteries.

  Already dead, the undead didn't care and continued their grim task of killing enemies to completion. The yellow blood mixed with the running water and painted the grim sewer with color. Only Seventh could see the violet light of Death Mana.

  Deciding that the halberd was a lost cause, Seventh dipped the thing— veltid included— into the channel. There was a surprise he had saved just in case they were overrun or needed a distraction to escape.

  The water boiled in motion as the final multi-limbed horror was devoured alive by a horde of undead rats hiding in the murky water. Death Mana marked its demise swiftly. Seventh lifted his gaze, scanning for the next enemy.

  "Huh," Seventh said when the enemy failed to appear. They had already won the battle. The lone veltid suffering from the knife throw had succumbed to its wound and joined its kin to emanate Death Mana.

  Seventh slowly blew the air out of his lungs. He could feel his heart beating fast. "Well, that was easy."

  A grin rose to his face as he slowed his breathing and relaxed his tensed body. His shoulder throbbed, making him wince and groan. Checking the damage, Seventh figured the wound was severe enough for a potion, not a healing kit.

  Pulling a genuine Common Healing potion from his belt, he splashed the wound with a small amount. The wound closed in Seventh's eyes, leaving a throb and slightly drained Healthbar. A sip of the potion finished the healing, leaving only a sliced-open armor, drying blood, and a memory of torn flesh.

  Fang made himself busy by retrieving his thrown knives and dragging the veltid corpses for his master's inspection. This time, he didn't need to jump to the channel to retrieve a rodent of unusual size that Seventh had wanted to reanimate.

  Seventh had never raised veltids as undead minions before, it was actually a very exciting new experience for him. After a week of rat killing, he had a literal horde of fat sewer rats in his command, and a new species to his roster would open new tactical opportunities.

  As he was raising his halberd out of the water and kicking the corpse off his weapon, the System decided that the combat was over, they were in relative safety, and bestowed its gifts.

  Giddy glee filled Seventh as he closed the window with a flourishing sweep. FINALLY! A second week of this and I would have drunk the water and gone to a hospice! Seventh though as he raised a victorious fist.

  Fang curiously tilted his head and copied the gesture with a yellow goo-stained hand.

  “Got some Skills finally ranking up! Shame that Cleave didn't, but it's hard to swing weapons properly in here.”

  He needed Cleave to rank up to double-E so his Might would also rank up, giving him a new Skill. Garth had warned him that it would probably be Agility-based since Seventh only had one Skill with it as a primary attribute, Light Armor Proficiency. He currently needed three Skills to rank Attributes.

  Seventh could just grind all his Skills with Agility as a secondary Attribute and do some training exercises to push his body to the next rank, but that would take longer. Using Skills to rank up was the way adventurers gained power quickly, and was considered the smart way to rank. He had majorly hindered his progress by not using his Soldier Class and Skills properly, making his Might and Agility lag behind.

  It wasn't his fault, honestly. Who would listen to the weird information flowing inside your brain from gods knew where?

  For a spellcaster, they didn't seem important, but those two Attributes strengthened the body, making channeling mana more safe. As a safety mechanism, the System had halted Seventh's Focus, Essence, and Necromancer rank-ups until he had a proper body or he had gained some insight to cast his spells more efficiently without making him explode in uncontrolled arcane might.

  Fang noticed Seventh was slipping into deep thought, and rolling his eyes, washed the yellow out of his hands. After checking his weapons for damage, they were washed too. Seventh had bought the ratkin some oil and cloth for weapon maintenance. Fang probably possessed the most well-maintained weapons in the whole undead community. Well, at least in this sewer and excluding Seventh.

  Snapping out of status checking and hypothetical builds, Seventh also dipped his leg in the water and sloshed it around to get the sticky veltid residue off. His boot came out... well, 'clean' was a lie, but there wasn't any goo— not yellow goo.

  Sighing at the sorry state of his legwear, Seventh finally focused on the bodies. The one he had stomped, and split open with Shadowbolt were in a rough shape and stored in his voidspace for later examination and as emergency bodies.

  Seventh pointed to the one Fang had practically disassembled and chanted a spell. “Raise Dead.”

  With a cacophony of snaps and cracks, the reanimation finished, and a new kind of minion stared at Seventh with its dull bug eyes. The Necromancer noticed its health was lower than expected, around twenty percent was greyed out.

  ”Really, Fang? You couldn't leave the brain alone?” He failed to see the hypocrisy of breaking bodies.

  Reanimation fixed some of the structural problems— bones were fused, muscles repaired, and so on— but damage to the spine and brain drastically lowered the quality of the magic. Repeat reanimation also had the same effect to the point that the spell simply failed to cast. Decapitated bodies were straight out of the question.

  The ratkin raised his hands up in exaggerated annoyance, and his ears rose high. Kill the enemy, don't kill the enemy. Make up your mind.

  “These were the first ones! I wanted to check them out properly, see what I can do with them. Having one half centipede, half spider, half vegetable hardly gives good information.”

  Fang confusedly counted with his fingers and gave Seventh a questioning look.

  He sighed in defeat. “You know what I mean... Okay, just go to the brains if you want to. Getting out of the fight alive is our main priority. Everything else comes second.”

  After giving Seventh a double thumbs up, Fang pointed at the other corpses. Seventh had to wait for the second casting as the cost had risen to seventy percent of his mana— the next cast would probably be around eighty percent. Rats were cheap, consecutive casts raised their Raise Dead mana price only by two percent, but veltids were a different story.

  Their larger mass, natural armor, and magical origin made them excellent attack undead, but pricey. Seventh considered a cull within his rat horde to lower the mana cost, but decided against it. You never knew when you needed a swarm of sewer piranhas again.

  All of his minions were taken into account when the System counted a cost for Raise Dead. Seventh had seen a complicated table to estimate how much a reanimation would cost. The number of minions, their mass, type, current spell rank, Focus, Essence, other skills, and multitude of other factors made Seventh's head spin. He had opted just to check if he could cast the spell and leave it at that. When a minion was killed, he just flopped a body out of his voidspace and made a new one.

  While waiting, Seventh ordered the ratkin to guard the tunnels in case of more bugs, and ran the first veltid through a series of simple field tests. It ran through the tunnels on the walls and ceiling, took a quick dip in the channel, and showcased its natural weapons to a wall. All in all, it was terrifyingly fast, even faster in the water, and could tear up brick and mortar at ease.

  Seventh smiled. He had a new favorite frontline minion. Fang didn't count since he was special to him. A companion or a partymember, much more than just a ballista fodder minion.

  After a while, the fourth and final veltid rose with a click of its mandibles. They had understood Seventh's orders even without visible ears or any language capabilities. The rats were the same, easy to order around.

  The last intact veltid corpse was stored with the more damaged ones. Seventh didn't have mana or time to keep channeling Raise Dead. They were now on a schedule and a new mission. Like all pests, veltids followed the natural law of “where is one, there are many”, and a nest was somewhere nearby.

  Seventh wanted to clear it out.

  For the safety of the city, of course. The fact that veltids paid way more than rats and he could stock up proper minion material was secondary— maybe even tertiary if Seventh worked out another excuse.

  Just before leaving, Seventh realized he had missed a golden opportunity to advance another of his less-used Skills. A purple portal and a wet smack later, Seventh touched a veltid copse to cast Identify.

  Slender? JUVENILE?!? Seventh looked at the fat body of the unmoving bug with rising horror. He hoped that he wouldn't have to visit the north-western jungle continent if this was considered as juvenile and slender with veltid standards.

  Still pleased, Seventh stored the corpse and looked towards the dark tunnel where the veltids had come from.

  Vulnerable to fire, eh? Good thing I came prepared, Seventh thought as a smile rose slowly to his face and his hand patted a hardened leather pouch on his belt. It felt good to be the hunter for once.