Episode 35 - Pied Piper 2

With Whispermere's help, he had located the secret passage connecting to the Underground.

He was about to head out, leaving Conquere behind once again, when Whispermere suddenly stopped him.

"Um..."
"Hm? What now?"
"...Can you come back quickly?"
"...Obviously I'll handle my business and come straight back. Staying down there too long is asking for trouble."

The Underground unsettled even Kaftin, in its own way.
But that wasn't quite what she was trying to say.

"Ever since the Gang Lords went into hiding, the order on this street has completely broken down. The City Guard has suspended operations while they deal with rebuilding the station... if this keeps up..."
"...I know. That's why I'm going to get myself some people. Even I can't handle an entire district on my own."
"......"
"I'll be back within a day or two. In the meantime, don't go wandering around — stay put and wait. This inn is still under your management, isn't it?"
"That's true, but..."

How long the Cheshire Cat would continue covering for them was another uncertainty entirely.
When she had left the organization, she had pleaded — multiple times — to have this place left untouched.

And not purely for Conquere's sake. She genuinely had no idea what would happen if this unstable man was provoked any further.

This was someone who had wiped out the City Guard simply because they might get in the way of an attack on the temple — someone who had ringed the district in fire and planned to slaughter everyone inside on the grounds that survivors were witnesses.

If the wrong trigger got pulled and that monstrous side of him surfaced again, this time —

"...Understood."
"Don't worry. Once I've brought this one back, I already have some idea about the next one."
"Pardon?"
"...If you're really that anxious, after I've got this one we can move to the royal capital."
"The royal capital? But that area is..."

The cost of living in the royal capital was nearly double what it was on this street. Taxes on the shops there ran three or four times higher as a matter of course, which meant lodging came in at roughly triple the price — and anywhere halfway decent would charge five times over without blinking.

Even with the funds he had stripped from the Gang Lords' operations, staying there for any length of time was not sustainable.

"What, is that all?"
"Yes... it's a different world from here."
"...Tch."

He didn't show it, but Kaftin was serious when it came to the safety of these two.

Conquere — not entirely by his own choosing, but having committed to taking responsibility for her — he intended to protect to the end.
And Whispermere was someone he had brought in of his own will.

He scratched his head briefly, then nodded.

"Fine. I'll be back as fast as I can — stay careful while I'm gone. After I'm back, I suppose you'll just have to come with me."
"...Yes."

He said his goodbyes to both of them, then walked out of the inn at a brisk pace.

The only official route into the Underground was through the royal dungeon — but those with enough experience in the underworld, Pink Rose Street included, generally shared a set of unofficial alternate routes they called fox holes.

The one Kaftin had been given was one of the few such fox holes located within Pink Rose Street itself.

"Tch..."

The location turned out to be deep in the part of the slums the locals called the Bottom — a stretch where drug-addled destitutes lay sprawled across every surface. Kaftin's expression soured before he even got close.

He walked past them at a quick pace, pushed open an iron door set into a building in the alley, and stepped inside.

The thick haze of pipe smoke made him frown again — but sure enough, just as Whispermere had described, a cramped illegal gambling den had been squeezed into the narrow interior.

A broad-shouldered worker, a full head taller than Kaftin, came ambling over.

"You don't look like you belong here... what's your business?"
"...I'm not here for the gambling. Don't concern yourself."
"...Mind if I take a look at your face?"

Standard procedure — checking who was walking in.
But Kaftin swatted the hand away without ceremony and pulled his hood further down.

He was carrying a bounty of four hundred gold on his head.
Getting his face seen in a place like this was the last thing he needed.

"Now hold on, friend. I said let me have a look—!"
"...How old are you?"
"...What's that got to do with anything?"
"If you want the rest of your life to go as smoothly as today, you'll let me through."
"......!"

The worker immediately recognized this as someone with something to hide and started weighing his options.
Was this an inspector from the royal capital's intelligence bureau? Some other kind of dangerous figure? Getting that assessment wrong could cost him his job.

"That's not making you less suspicious, friend..."
"Hm. I'm telling you I'm not here for your gambling den — that's all."
"...Then what are you here for?"
"Knowing would make things awkward for you."
"......"

He clearly wasn't going to back down. Kaftin let out a small sigh and spoke.

"I'm going to see the bottom of hell."
"......!"

The bottom of hell.

The name those on the surface who knew of the Underground's existence used when they had to refer to it indirectly.

The worker swallowed and stepped back.
Anyone trying to enter that place was one of two things.

A complete idiot with no regard for their own life — or someone far too significant to be stopped by a man in his position, someone whose interference could cost him far more than his job.
Either way, getting involved was not worth it.

"R-right! I don't need to hear any more — get out of here!"
"...Much obliged."

Kaftin disappeared, and the worker exhaled, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
What he didn't know was that the man would be walking back through this same door a day or two later.

The secret passage was, in practical terms, a hand-dug tunnel.
Iron pipes and spoons jammed into the walls at intervals made it perfectly clear how it had been built.

"Whoever made this — whatever else I might say about them, they had determination."

Fortunately, torches had been wedged into the walls at intervals along the passage, enough to see by.

Given the considerable length of the route, side chambers had been hollowed out at various points along the way — small ant-colony rooms for resting. Inside each were a table, chairs, and wooden crates of various supplies.

After walking for nearly a full day, Kaftin settled into one of the chambers.
He dug through the crates and found dried meat and other provisions.

"Lucky. No risk of going hungry at least."

The last thing he wanted was to transform into a monster down here on an empty stomach.
He pulled over three crates and sat down with them, eating through the contents on the spot.

After that, he dragged out a blanket from another crate, spread it on the ground, and went to sleep.

*

The moment he woke, he loaded up on the glass bottles of water he found, and kept going down.

By what felt like mid-afternoon, a sign appeared in front of him.

[Those who value their lives — turn around and go back to the surface.]

"Hm... value their lives..."

A humorless laugh escaped him.
Whatever else he was, he was a monster.
Anyone who valued their life couldn't become one.

"Let's see what's inside."

The moment he stepped through, he slid straight down and dropped.

"What—?!"

Even Kaftin hadn't anticipated this — he grabbed for something, anything, to stop himself, but hit the ground rolling before he could manage it.

"Ngh—!"

He dusted off the robe and looked up.
The passage he had come through sat at the top of a steep stone slope — stones broken and pieced together into a crude tunnel running up the incline.
Someone had actually climbed all the way up there to build that. Remarkable.

He was still snorting at that thought when he turned around — and found a group of people waiting for him.
Muggers, by the look of them, wearing expressions that had gone sour a long time ago, armed with sharpened iron rods, hammers, and pickaxes.

"Hey! Kid!"
"Hehehe... it's been a while since we had a visitor! Boys — strip him—!"
"......"

A deep smile settled across Kaftin's face.

He thought he might actually like it here.
Slowly, he reached into the robe and closed his hand around the handles of the Torture Martial Arts 49 Set strapped inside.

A short time later — screaming and the sound of flesh tearing — and Kaftin was holding the scrawniest of the group, a hunchback, by the scruff of the neck, pressed into service as a guide.

The hunchback had watched the rest of his crew get taken apart alive, and was now pointing out directions in a half-vacant daze.

Not that violent incidents were uncommon down here.
But never quite like this — never with someone grinning this pleasantly, tearing through everyone in sight, and then drooling with disappointment that there weren't more to kill.

After that, the man had spent a stretch of time picking up the dismembered remains of the crew and flinging them in every direction like an overjoyed child, while demanding to know if there were any associates working separately who could be brought over.

When the hunchback had asked why he'd been left alive, the man had smiled and told him not to worry — he'd be killed and stuffed into a drainage ditch once they arrived at the destination.

All he could do was shake and try to think of ways to make the route as long as possible.

"Is this the right way? It feels like we're going in circles. You're not pulling something, are you?"
"Yikes—! N-no! Absolutely not! Not in a million years!"
"Then why are you taking such a roundabout route?"

Damn it, he's sharp too.
Halfway through, and he'd already noticed the detour and called it out. He needed a reason — fast —

"Th-there's a reason! Yes! There is one!"
"What is it? If it's not convincing, I'm going to 'straighten out' that back of yours. By force."
"Heeeee—!"
"Talk."
"Th-the Underground... there are six organizations that run this place... so if we go too deep into their territory, they might... you know... come after us like those muggers earlier..."

He stammered out something that was mostly true.
The Underground was indeed governed by six organizations and one figure known as the Mayor.

Some of them — like the group the hunchback was talking around — were little more than drug-addled street gangs.
But at least three were functioning operations with real structure.

And the hunchback, being nothing more than a small-time mugger with no organizational backing, had genuinely been routing around those territories to avoid them.

But the moment he met Kaftin's eyes after saying it, he regretted opening his mouth at all.

"That sounds interesting. Fine — bonus round. Hey. Take me through one of those mugger gang territories."
"...Wh-what?!"
"I want to play with them. Take me there. Now. You won't die while they're keeping me busy. Probably."
"......!"
"Actually — wait. Never mind."
"Huh—?!"

The image of Whispermere and Conquere waiting on the surface surfaced in Kaftin's mind, and he immediately reversed course.
He needed to get back as fast as possible.

Unfortunate — but today it was business only, then back up.

"Sorry. I'll just let you go when we're done instead."
"Y-you mean it?!"
"Yes. I don't say one thing and do another. I take responsibility for my own words."
"Th-that's... thank you so much!"
"Don't thank me. My mood can change at any time."
"Yeek—!"

—To be continued—