Chapter 80: Chapter 79 - A Real Sewage Rat

The boss gestured for them to leave, and Marek showed Teclos to another room filled with weapons.

He handed him a belt.

It was plain leather, worn from use, with several small loops and pouches stitched along its length. The sort of thing a laborer might wear, if one ignored the faint smell of oil, metal, and old blood still clinging to it.

"Here," Marek said.

Teclos looked at it.

Then at the table.

Several items had been laid out before him.

A small gray vial filled with a thick, metallic liquid. Beside it was a folded cloak made of dull black fabric, a set of thin lockpicks wrapped in the same cloth, and a plain knife with a simple wooden handle.

Nothing ornate or impressive.

Marek pointed at the vial first. "This stuff is the most useful tool for breaking into an enchanted door or room. It’s a rune-dissolver. Works on weak to moderate wards and enchanted metals. Pour it, wait for a few seconds, and don’t touch the liquid if you value your fingers."

Then he pointed at the cloak.

"It’s made from a shadow fox and is useful for masking your mana. Won’t make you invisible, but it’ll keep you safe from any detection enchantments."

He tapped the lockpicks next.

"These are enchanted. Any lock with an alarm should be disabled for a few seconds, so you still have to be quick."

Finally, his finger stopped on the knife.

"Just a plain knife. Should be useful if or when everything goes wrong."

Teclos stared at it, wondering if he was prepared to kill an actual person.

Marek just continued explaining.

"If someone sees you, or if you kill someone, it’s going to be a mess and not exactly ideal, but it will be manageable. On the other hand, if they capture you, consider yourself dead, since we’ll send an assassin to silence you before you’re tortured and spill everything about us."

The room seemed to grow quieter around them.

Teclos sighed and reached for the knife, but he did not put it on the belt. His fingers closed around the handle, and a black void opened beside him like a wound in the fabric of space. It was small, a pitch-black hole.

He placed the knife inside it, and the blade disappeared.

Marek’s brows rose.

Teclos picked up the vial next and placed it into the same darkness. Then the cloak. Then the lockpicks, and lastly the belt. Each item vanished without a trace.

"Hah," Marek said, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Neat power, kid."

"Yeah..." Teclos let out a short, self-deprecating laugh. "All it took to learn it was reaching the end of my sanity."

Marek’s grin faded slightly, and he tapped Teclos on the shoulder.

"Useful things usually cost something."

When Teclos closed the void, Marek stepped closer and handed him a folded map.

"The church records office is attached to the eastern wing. It’s a relatively small building. Still, it won’t be that easy. Good luck, kiddo."

With that, Marek left him alone and returned to bartending.

After half an hour of breaking his head over how to get inside the church, Teclos finally had a plausible idea.

He discarded ideas like breaking in through a window or dressing up as clergy. He had no talent for disguises, and forcing his way inside would only get him surrounded quickly because of the noise or detection runes.

No.

The simplest and most cliché way in was through the sewers.

They would not pay much attention to a sewage worker because of the smell. Maybe at first, but after a while, they would keep their distance and leave him alone. And according to the map, one of the sewage drains ran close to the records office.

He headed home quickly and climbed in through a window so Saldia would not notice him. Then he put on an old, filthy coat and gathered a few dirty rags, along with a bucket and brush.

He also took a few herbs that had been ground into a pale, sharp-smelling paste, the kind Saldia sometimes used to scrub jars clean. It smelled strongly of bitter soap and crushed leaves—unpleasant enough to pass for cleaning paste, but not strange enough to draw attention.

The church district at the edge of the slums was quiet by the time he reached it.

The streets were cleaner here, the road better maintained and illuminated by evenly spaced oil lamps.

Teclos stood beneath the shadow of a narrow alley and observed the slum church for a moment.

As usual, two temple guards stood near the entrance. They were church-affiliated warriors of the lowest rank, and usually bad-tempered assholes.

Several clergy still moved about as well, carrying parchments, books, and coin pouches. There were no believers in sight anymore, as the church had closed its doors for the day.

After observing for a while and making sure he did not recognize anyone, Teclos walked toward the entrance, where the two temple guards were chatting leisurely. A pair of junior clergy came through a side gate, laughing softly as they carried baskets of fresh bread and milk that smelled warm enough to make his hungry stomach twist.

One of the temple guards saw him before he reached the door.

"You there."

Teclos stopped, bucket in one hand.

The guard lifted his lantern. "What are you doing here?"

Teclos lowered his head slightly, letting exhaustion settle over his shoulders, pretending he had endured a rough day with too little food.

Which was true.

"Cleaning job," he muttered. "Drain’s clogged again."

The guard’s face twisted. "At this hour?"

"Priests complained about the smell near morning prayer last time." Teclos lifted the bucket a little. "Said if it happened again, they’d have someone whipped for it."

He smiled and bowed to the guard, pretending to be harmless.

The guard stared at him for a long second.

Then he stepped back like he smelled trash and did not want to touch this filthy rat.

"Get it done, then. And don’t make a mess."

"Yes, sir."

The guard showed him the waste trap at the back of the church and left quickly, clearly eager to be anywhere else.

Teclos waited until the footsteps faded, then hurried to the drain and crouched near it.

Iron bars blocked the entrance, each one etched with faint runes.

He summoned the black void and pulled out the gray vial.

The moment he uncorked it, a sharp, metallic scent bit into his nose, making him recoil. He poured the liquid across the bars and stepped back.

The reaction was immediate.

Gray foam spread over the iron, hissing as it sank into both metal and rune lines. The runes flared once, bright enough to make him nervous for a second, but then dimmed. The bars softened, sagged, and began to dissolve.

Within moments, the entrance was open.

And just as he was about to enter, the smell hit him even harder than the vial had.

Teclos turned aside and vomited before he even climbed in.

The drain reeked of rot, waste, mold, shit, and things that had probably died down there. Brown-green water crawled beneath the entrance in a slow current, thick with filth. Something pale floated past—a dead rat, half-decomposed, its ribs showing through patches of fur.

Teclos wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Hol—holy shit... ugh... this better be worth it."

Then he climbed inside.

The water reached his knees.

He froze for a second as it soaked through his trousers, warm in some places and cold in others. It was not fully liquid either. There were proper chunks of... something floating in it. His whole body shuddered at the sensation.

The tunnel was narrow and low, forcing him to crouch in places. The bucket became useless almost immediately, so he left it behind and pressed forward, following the direction of the church. The air grew more toxic the deeper he went, each breath tasting like decay.

Eventually, he found the first drainage grate above him.

It was not the right one, but he wanted out of this hellhole.

He braced one shoulder beneath it and tried to push.

Nothing.

Something heavy sat on top of it. A crate, perhaps. Whatever it was, it did not budge even by the slightest millimeter.

Teclos cursed quietly and moved on.

The second grate offered a view into a lit courtyard.

No chance.

He would be spotted immediately there.

By the time he found the third entrance, he had emptied his stomach twice more and nearly fainted from the fumes once.

Luckily, this one was the right grate.

He could finally escape this hell.

He pushed it open carefully.

Teclos pulled himself up and rolled onto cold stone. For several seconds, he did not move and just tried to suck in fresh air.

He was in a dark corridor somewhere beneath the church. The lanterns along the walls had been extinguished.

Before he moved onward, he summoned his pocket void and pulled out the mana-masking cloak.

The fabric settled over his shoulders like cold, dark smoke, masking his mana completely until the feeling itself seemed eerie to him.

With help from the map, he knew he was not far from the records room.

He passed a library with books stacked two stories high, bound in leather and arranged along polished shelves that climbed nearly to the ceiling. Green-glass lamps cast soft light over the reading tables.

After a brief look, he moved on.

Farther ahead, he passed the kitchen.

And stopped dead in his tracks.

Hunger was gnawing at him.

The door was partly open, and beyond it were counters covered with food. Real food. Roasted meat glazed in herbs and spices. Fresh bread cooling on racks. Bowls of fruit. Thick sauces. Cheese. Wine.

It was enough for a goddamn feast.

’These bastards! I see how it is... and we’re left to starve...’

His stomach growled loudly, and Teclos stepped back at once.

A chef looked toward the corridor. "Hello?"

Teclos pressed himself against the wall and hid himself in the darkness with his mana.

The chef stepped out.

Then recoiled.

"Ugh. That damn drainage is leaking again."

He muttered something about useless maintenance workers before retreating into the kitchen and closing the door behind him.

Teclos remained there for another moment, jaw clenched, knife in hand.

Then he exhaled and moved on.

He finally found the records room near the eastern wing.

The lock was alarmed.

He pulled out the enchanted picks and slid one into the lock.

He was nervous that somebody would come at that exact moment, and it took him longer than he liked.

Then the lock finally turned, and he was in.

Inside, the room was full of coin, potions, and documents.

Teclos stood frozen in the doorway.

Why were people starving outside?

The slums were full of children with hollow cheeks and old men coughing blood into rags. His mother cut portions shorter every month. Refugees begged outside a prayer shed.

He shook off his anger and went to the desk.

Most of the ledgers were useless. But then he finally found some useful documents. Storage counts. Acquisition notes. Temple accounts. He read through them quickly, but left them scattered exactly as he found them.

Then he sensed someone approaching and hid.

He slipped behind a stack of crates just as the door opened.

"I swear to Aurelion, those fat pigs don’t deserve an ounce of food," a clergy member grumbled as he entered. "Eat everything, work not a single day in their lives. Slum scum. Refugee filth. Bah. World would smell cleaner if they all disappeared."

Teclos went still.

The clergyman continued complaining as he crossed toward the desk, then suddenly stopped.

"Holy Mother of Aurelion... what is that foul stench?"

His eyes narrowed and he turned around, looking for the source.

Teclos saw his chance, stepped out from the shadows, and struck him with the pommel of the knife.

The blow landed cleanly at the side of his head. The clergyman was knocked out and collapsed.

For a few seconds, Teclos stood over him, knife in hand.

The urge to stab him was almost irresistible.

All this food. All this wealth. All these clean robes and polished halls, while the people outside starved and froze. And this man dared blame them for existing?

He exhaled and calmed himself down, then searched the clergyman, taking his keys. After that, he dragged him toward a large empty chest near the back wall. He bound his wrists and ankles with strips of cloth, gagged him tightly, and shoved him inside.

The lid closed with a dull thud.

The keys seemed to open something in this room, but what?

Teclos searched every part of the room until he found a safe with some really nasty documents inside... from stealing money to kidnapping orphaned kids and turning them into soldiers of "god." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

He summoned the pocket void again and took all the ledgers that looked useful.

Then, suddenly, the bells started ringing, and he heard shouting from outside.

He reached the drainage entrance faster than expected, sliding down into the filth without caring anymore. At least, not until he heard voices near the original exit.

He stopped just before the final stretch and wrapped himself in darkness mana until his presence was nonexistent.

He heard them talk.

"The bars are gone," one guard said.

"Then he came through here... Watch it. If the bastard crawls out, break his legs first."

Teclos froze now that a guard was standing watch.

’Dammit. What now?’

Behind him, distant footsteps echoed through the tunnel.

It seemed that they had entered the drainage path too.

He had only a few moments before they discovered him.

’I hate my life...’

Teclos drew in a breath and submerged himself.

The filth closed over his head, and his entire body revolted.

Waste slid across his face, into his hair, beneath his collar. He clamped his mouth shut so hard his jaw ached as something soft brushed against his cheek.

He stayed beneath the water, holding himself still as his senses and darkness mana helped him remain hidden, guiding him just enough so the guards would not step on him.

Two guards moved through the sewer tunnel, their lanternlight rippling across the filthy surface above him.

After a tense moment, they finally passed.

Teclos rose slowly and silently, just enough to breathe.

The sewer guards met with the ones outside. After a tense exchange, most of them left to search another route.

Only one stayed behind.

The man leaned against the wall beside the breached entrance and yawned.

"Damn bastard. If we catch you, I’m going to bash your head in... making me work longer," he muttered.

Teclos waited until the guard’s eyes drifted toward the street.

Then he moved.

He came out of the drain like a shadow dragged from the abyss. One hand clamped over the guard’s mouth. The other drove the knife pommel into the side of his skull.

Once.

Twice.

And the guard went limp.

Teclos lowered him carefully, then slipped into the night.

By the time he returned to the pub’s back entrance, no one wanted to stand near him.

Marek opened the door, took one breath, and stepped back.

"Ugh... Gods."

Teclos stood there dripping sewage water onto the floor.

"I got them."

"I believe you," Marek said, covering his nose. "I can smell your effort from here."

The boss refused to see him until he had bathed.

A tub was dragged into a back room. Buckets of water were brought, dumped, replaced, and dumped again. Teclos scrubbed until his skin turned red and still felt unclean. His clothes were taken away and burned. Someone tossed him a plain shirt and trousers that smelled faintly of smoke but, mercifully, nothing else.

Only then was he brought before the boss.

The fat man sat in the same chair as before, wine in hand, the woman in red beside him. His expression was irritated at first.

Then Teclos opened the pocket void.

Documents spilled onto the table.

Dirty ledgers. Letters. Shipment records. Sealed packets. Account books.

The boss’s irritation faded.

He set down his wine and reached for the nearest ledger. His eyes moved across the page. Slowly, his smile widened.

"Well now..."

The woman in red picked up one of the sealed letters, broke it open, and read silently. She frowned and looked disgusted.

The boss looked through another ledger. Then another.

"This," he said at last, "is worth far more than what I asked for."

Teclos said nothing.

The boss laughed softly.

"Ambitious little beggar, aren’t you?"

For a moment, the boss stared.

Then he laughed again and nodded happily.

Marek also grinned.

The boss reached into a drawer and tossed a small pouch onto the table. It landed heavily enough for Teclos to know there was real coin inside.

"Ten silver," the boss said. "Consider it a welcome gift."

Teclos stared at the pouch.

Ten silver... that was more than his mother could make in months.

More than enough for food. Herbs. Rent. Lamp oil... maybe even steak.

The boss raised his cup.

"Welcome to the family, kid."

Teclos looked at the coins in his hand one last time and thought, ’Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.’