I didn’t exactly fail to understand her feelings… but the real problem was that there was no clear way to prove it.
It wasn’t like the guild ranking exam, where I had a suitable opponent right in front of me to showcase my strength.
And in the first place, displaying enough power to convince that girl in a place like this was incredibly difficult.
It seemed Riel had reached the same conclusion, as she also wore a troubled expression, agonizing over how to resolve this unexpected variable.
As I mentioned before, her spirit had no combat abilities, and on top of that, summoning it was difficult in this place.
In reality, she had no viable options at the moment.
And yet, just as Riel was about to open her mouth in an attempt to create a breakthrough—
That was when I sensed a chilling and sinister malice.
It was a pure, raw bloodlust, close to an animal’s primal instinct—dangerous beyond words.
But that killing intent was not directed at me.
To be precise, it was aimed at the human girl standing in front of us, arms crossed, watching us with suspicious eyes.
And the very next moment, from the shadowed blind spot of the sewer ceiling, the owner of that murderous intent slowly revealed its grotesque form.
Moving as if sliding along the ceiling, the monster rapidly closed the distance and lunged at the girl from behind.
The girl, sensing the presence too late, turned her head just in time for her eyes to widen in shock.
At the same time, Riel also realized what was happening and, with an expression of horror, tried to shout something.
But it was far too late to prevent the disaster.
At this point, saving the human girl before me was practically impossible.
And yet—
At that very instant, the overwhelming determination that I had to save her took control of my entire being.
In a flash, my body pushed its physical functions to near 100%, and I instinctively leaped into that impossible attempt.
***
!!!—
Kwaang!!!
A gray world where everything seemed frozen in place.
In the midst of it, I gathered all my strength into my legs, breaking through that stagnation with a force powerful enough to shatter the ground beneath me.
With that momentum, I surged forward in a straight line.
In the blink of an eye, I knocked the girl aside just as the grotesque creature’s gaping, razor-sharp maw was about to snap shut.
At the same time, I delivered a full-force punch in her place.
The very moment that sequence of events reached its conclusion, my senses snapped back to normal, and the frozen flow of time resumed its natural course.
And with it, the monster that had taken my full-powered punch head-on didn’t even have time to let out a scream before its entire body exploded, scattering in all directions.
‘The most decisive part of all this?’ It had all happened within mere seconds.
“…? Huh?”
A series of actions so instinctive, so unconscious, that even I was shocked.
So much so that it took me a moment to realize what had happened—only when I finally noticed the fresh, red blood smeared on my hand did I grasp the situation.
Naturally, the reactions of the two who had witnessed it were even more dramatic.
And in the end, this unbelievable sequence of events had another effect—it served as undeniable proof of my power to the skeptical girl.
We could now move forward without further trouble.
Well… Riel had a look that said she had believed in me all along, while the girl’s face—once filled with suspicion—had undergone a complete 180, now brimming with curiosity and admiration.
***
As we advanced further, we gradually gained a better understanding of the monster I had obliterated.
A grotesque amalgamation of different beasts—dog, centipede, crocodile, and wolf.
These abominable creatures, with various animal features mashed together like crude clay figures, were unmistakably unnatural.
Moreover, as we progressed deeper into the sewer, an increasingly unsettling sight unfolded before us—disturbing chunks of flesh scattered everywhere, accompanied by a stench so putrid it far exceeded the usual sewer odor.
Just as the old man had said, this place was undeniably different from the other sewer zones.
The sickening and alien atmosphere of this place was so overwhelming that merely standing here was enough to make one nauseous.
Riel, seemingly experienced with such incidents, endured it through sheer mental fortitude.
But the girl named Purin, having no such resistance, was visibly struggling.
‘So, what about me?’
Surprisingly, while everyone else was suffering, I felt little to no effect.
I did feel a surge of disgust, but that was all.
It wasn’t enough to hinder my progress.
Instead, my mind was dominated by a single emotion.
An ever-growing, indescribable sense of revulsion.
And an uncontrollable, seething rage toward the situation unfolding around us.
I didn’t know why.
I just knew that I was so angry that maintaining my composure was nearly impossible.
‘Would I be able to maintain my sanity if the very being responsible for this horrific scene were to appear before me right now…?’
That question lingered in my mind, a testament to the sheer intensity of my rage toward this situation.
No, to be more precise, it wasn’t me who was furious—it was the uncontrollable storm raging within me that served as the source of this endless fury.
But this was not an explosive, fiery rage.
Instead, it was a cold, chilling anger—a quiet wrath.
It was an emotion that far surpassed what I had felt when facing the basilisk during my previous ranking exam.
A surging tide of fury swept through my body, an overwhelming sensation that I instinctively knew would never subside until the foreign presence engulfing this entire area was completely eradicated.
It felt as if my body were wrapped in a bone-chilling blue flame, burning with an unyielding, frozen rage.
***
“We… we’re here. Hah, I really thought I was going to die back there.”
“…I can feel an overwhelming presence up ahead, something far beyond anything we’ve encountered so far. Do you happen to know what’s beyond that point?”
“That area is a massive, square-shaped chamber where multiple sewer routes from different directions converge. When there’s heavy rainfall, the water level rises high enough that you can swim across to the other side, but right now… I have no idea what could be there.”
A primal sense of unease that no living being could ignore.
Even though the thick darkness ahead obscured our vision, preventing us from seeing what lay beyond, the oppressive presence at the end of the passage was enough to fill the girl with terror.
Her face had gone completely pale, her expression making it painfully clear that she wanted to run away from here as soon as possible.
But she wasn’t a fool—she understood her situation all too well.
Having come this far into the depths of the sewers, turning back to return to Stern alone would only make her easy prey for the very monsters we had encountered along the way.
Ironically, the safest place for her at this moment was right beside Riel and me.
Whether we succeeded or failed, she had no choice but to stay with us until the end.
With our destination just ahead, I took the lead, cautiously stepping forward through the sewer tunnels, which were now coated in grotesque, unidentifiable chunks of flesh.
It wasn’t long before we arrived at the vast chamber the girl had mentioned.
A massive, square-shaped void where the sewage from multiple directions converged.
Given the current dry conditions, the water level was low, leaving the chamber’s floor empty—just as expected.
However, the bright torches illuminating the walls made it impossible to ignore just how wrong the scene before us truly was.
Where the receding water should have left an empty space, an intricate, web-like structure of unknown flesh had taken its place.
A vast network of interwoven, crisscrossing layers of flesh formed an eerie, lattice-like construction, sprawling across the chamber.
It was an utterly horrifying sight, one that left us all speechless.
Compared to this, everything we had seen in the sewers so far had been nothing more than a mere prelude—a glimpse of the horrors yet to come.
This grotesque, unnatural creation was the very embodiment of something that should not exist in this world.
As I struggled to grasp the sheer scale of the monstrosity before me, unable to figure out where to even begin processing it—
That was when a voice rang out from the far end of the sewer.
“So, it was you again… You leech of a cat. Just how long do you plan on interfering with us before you’re satisfied?”
A man’s voice, echoing from our blind spot while our attention was fixated on the gruesome sight ahead.
Immediately snapping into alertness, I turned toward the source of the voice—
And there he was.
A figure clad in a black mask and hood, sitting atop the upper layers of the fleshy web, glaring down at us.
At a glance, his overall appearance wasn’t all that different from mine.
But unlike me, there was nothing unnatural attached to his body—his very form confirmed that he was human.
And with his posture, as if he had been waiting for us, along with the way he addressed Riel so familiarly—
At this point, the truth was all too clear.
There was no longer any doubt.
That man was the mastermind behind this entire atrocity.