Koko wa Ore ni Makasete Saki ni Ike to Itte kara 10 Nen ga Tattara Densetsu ni Natteita

The Aftermath of the Demon Rat Hunt

I checked to make sure that Grulf wasn't injured after dragging him out of the water.

It looked like he had only suffered some light scratches.

"Grulf, are you alright?"

"Grrrff."

He whimpered.

Serulis, Josh and Ario also looked to see if he was hurt.

And they were relieved.

"Nothing too bad then."

"But we should still wash his wounds."

"That's true. Locke. You should leave the rest to us and go and wash him."

I myself was not hurt. However, I was definitely very filthy.

And while they were just scratches, Grulf had still been injured.

And sewage water was especially dangerous. He could get infected.

It wasn't too likely since he was a spirit beast, but I was still worried.

I was also worried about the fact that he had bitten into many of the demon rats. The rats usually carried diseases.

"Sorry. Serulis, can you take Grulf out and wash him?"

"I don't mind…but what about you?"

"I have something to do here. I want to investigate the center where the rats were gathering."

"I understand. Let's go then, Grulf."

"Grrrfff…"

Grulf rubbed against me with his sewage soaked fur.

Of course, I was already soaked, so I didn't mind.

"Grulf? You coming?"

"…Grrfff…"

Grulf was making a show of not wanting to go without me.

Serulis saw this and said,

"…Maybe you should just take him yourself, Mister Locke?"

"I want to check this immediately…"

"But don't you think you should wash him quickly?"

There was no use arguing, so I handed Serulis the magic bag.

"Serulis. Take this for now. I want you to throw all of the demon rat corpses into it."

"So you will take out the stones later?"

We could do that back in the garden of the mansion.

Then we could burn them right after.

"Sorry. I'll leave the rest to you. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Take your time."

And with that, Grulf and I ran outside.

We saw a few demon rats feeding on the corpses on our way back.

I killed the ones that we saw. But I was starting to feel uneasy about how many were still left.

Then we got out of the sewers and ran to a nearby river.

It wasn't the most filthy river, but it wasn't particularly clean either. That kind of river. But it did go up to my waist.

Grulf and I went inside of it. And it didn't take much encouragement to get him to go in.

"Grrr."

"So you can swim."

"Groof!"

It wasn't so deep that his legs couldn't reach the floor. And so he was swimming quite adeptly in the water. Even Gerberga jumped out of my breastplate and started splashing in the water.

Grulf had probably jumped into the sewer water because he could swim.

However, it was harder to fight when in the water. And then he was attacked by demon rats and nearly drowned.

"It really is harder to fight like that. You should be more careful."

"Groof."

I started to scrub his fur.

His wounds were mostly healed now. I guess that was because he was a spirit beast.

Grulf continued to stick close to me and occasionally whimper.

He must have been very scared when he was attacked and almost drowned.

After getting most of the filth out his fur, I pulled him out of the water.

Gerberga had also seemed to be enjoying his swim until I put him back in my breastplate.

"Now, drink some of this."

"Groof? Groof!"

It was an antidote, just in case.

Grulf smelled it and then turned his nose away. Medicine generally had disagreeable smells.

"Don't be like that."

"Grrrrr."

I pulled Grulf's mouth open and poured the drink down his throat.

He didn't like it, but I managed to make him drink it anyway.

"Now, everyone's waiting for us. Let's go back."

"…grrr…"

Grulf looked at me sulkily and then proceeded to ignore me.

I suppose he was mad that I had forced him to drink something that smelled and tasted bad.

"That was an antidote. Do you want to get sick later on?"

"…Grrr…"

"…Your wounds might have become infected."

"Groof!"

"You wouldn't like that, would you?"

"Groof."

It seemed like he understood it.

Now that he was satisfied, I took Grulf and we ran back to Serulis.

When we arrived at the scene, Serulis and the others had just finished storing all of the demon rat corpses in the bag.

"Everything alright?"

"We were attacked a few times, but there were so few of them that it was no problem."

Ario said with a laugh.

Josh sounded worried as asked,

"Is Grulf alright?"

"Yes, he's fine."

"Groof!"

Grulf wagged his tail excitedly.

Serulis gave me my bag back and asked,

"Mister Locke. What were you going to search for?"

"I want to know why the demon rats were gathered here. There might be something."

And so I went into the sewage water again.

Grulf was hitting the surface of the water with his front paws.

"Grulf, don't come in here again."

"Groof!"

He barked.

And then I checked the area that the rats had gathered to.

There was something strange about this place. Suspicious magical energy.

I used Search magic. It detected traces of magic in the area.

It detected the demon rat corpses that had sunk to the bottom. Maybe it was just detecting the magic stones?

I threw it into the magic bag.

When there were no more corpses in the area, I used the Search magic again.

There was something below the water that had faint magic power in it.

I picked it up.

"What is this…"

It was a fragment of something that had a metallic glow and was the size of a dog's paw.