Kalli took over the watch as the rat demons became more active later in the evening.

They weren’t dragging corpses underground anymore, they were scavenging and getting set up again for the morning. But this time, Kalli had more data to work with. She could see where they were coming from, where they were avoiding setting up, and what paths were used the most often.

Of course, that was only for what was closest to the Academy on her side, but it was data.

Then, Kalli saw something that changed everything.

The creature that she saw moving through the alley was larger than any of the humans, but still bipedal, and when the light of the red moons shone on it, she could see that it was a massive rat demon, wearing armour and carrying a sword.

{New Quest Available} Eliminate the Rat King. Difficulty: Hard. Maximum 10 members.

{Quest Accepted}

Kalli heard movement among the students as she accepted the quest. The earliest to rise were already awake, and they had seen the mission appear. But the situation had just gotten even better. Because Kalli could see the boss when she accepted the quest, they had a location marker for where to start the search.

Or, that was what she assumed. It might have appeared either way, but she could see that the location was the door where the Rat King had gone underground, and the quest appeared the moment she identified it.

The students were already making plans, and guessing what the mission would require. The consensus was that they were going to need lights, likely some sort of cleansing spell or antibiotic, as they were fighting rats, and then two shield users.

If they were going into buildings, or the tunnels under the city, they would need a shield user at both sides of the group.

They weren’t short on warriors, so the last part should be easy.

The issue was that the healers they had didn’t have magic specifically for poison effects. They had healing, but they had only just gained a cleansing spell, and it wasn’t tested yet.

Presumably, it would work on nearly anything, the system skills were pretty powerful.

But knowing that it should be powerful and knowing that it would certainly save your life if you were infected by whatever diseases Rat Demons carried were two different things.

However, it was also a hard mode quest for ten people, and that meant they were going to have to take more precautions than usual. The first hard quest had been when the Academy was surrounded and under attack. That had been extremely close to becoming a disaster, so the assumption was that this time would be the same.

Nobody wanted to rush into a bad situation, especially when it was underground.

As a wise man once said "You don’t have to be a tactical genius to know that you don’t want to fight in a basement."

That was just common sense.

But as she thought about it, Kalli realized that the threat might be higher than she had expected. There was an access point from the dorm building to the tunnels, which meant that there was a chance that the whole Academy could be accessed from underground by the rat demons.

She needed to tell Yara.

Really, any of the students should work though, right? She could hear the Student Council President talking in the courtyard, and he should know as much about the Academy as anyone.

Probably more, as he was a senior.

The moment that the day shift replacement came up, Kalli rushed down to the courtyard and called Niall over.

"President, I believe we may have an issue. You are aware that there are tunnels under the Academy, right? Ones that lead out into the city."

Niall nodded. "Of course. Every student who has been here long enough knows of at least one."

"And the rat demons are building nests underground."

Niall cussed silently for a few seconds, then nodded. "Which means they might not be in that building’s basement, but in the tunnel system under the city. So, we’ll need to dig them out and reinforce the tunnels under the school before we are invaded from below."

"I’m glad that you grasped the issue so quickly. I will leave it up to you how you deal with that. We know where the starting point for the quest is, but if there is a tunnel that leads toward that region, you might be able to get at it from another angle."

Niall considered that, then ran his hand through his short blonde hair and nodded to himself.

"I will lead the team through the tunnel system. I know it better than anyone, and I’ve even got a map. If we need to, I can block most of it off. The tunnels might be a secret, but they’re not an accident. They are designed to be able to lock down in case of invasion.

Now, it wasn’t designed to keep out rat demons, but if human police couldn’t find the entrances after they were sealed, the demons shouldn’t find them either.

Once we find the enemy, that so-called Rat King, we will come back and lock everything down."

Kalli nodded. "Alright, keep in mind, it’s larger than the average human, but still built like a rat demon. So, it’s going to be unnaturally strong, and likely fast as well. The rats are all highly agile. Be sure that they can’t get near the healers."

"Got it. Don’t worry, we have the skills, and we will bring the Sergeant with us. He’s got to know more about it than we do, even if his class isn’t well suited to fighting underground."

"True, he is a sniper, but he’s also been teaching our students how to use their blades, so he’s not totally out of his element. Plus, he’s special forces. They train for breaching buildings and indoor assaults, I’m pretty sure."

Niall laughed. They definitely did, the heroics of the teams made national news every time that they took down a high-profile target.

It might only be once every few years, but there were surely many more operations that didn’t make the news.