Chapter 37 The Dungeon Beneath the City Wall (Part 1)

Alaisse's cunning was truly immense. After swearing me an oath of loyalty, the dark elf managed to twist the situation in such a way that I was considered her assistant everywhere: by adventurers as a newcomer who had entered the service of an experienced warrior, and by local rebels as a tamed monster.

But she did not abuse her power and, having made sure that there was no danger from the locals, she went about her business, promising to come to me in the evening.

The brigands she had recruited were friendly and eager to answer questions after she had shown them my real appearance. One of them even volunteered to give me a little tour.

There wasn't much to see, though - the whole house consisted of only a few rooms of purely domestic use, and a small cellar, so it wasn't very interesting.

From the basement opened the entrance to a network of underground corridors, one of which, according to my guide, led to the surface outside the city walls. But my guide was in no hurry to get inside, nor did he advise me to do so.

"Where do the other underground corridors lead to?" I asked.

"I don't know exactly. But our main told us not to go there. And, considering the fact that from there periodically there are giant rats, or something else evil, there is no special desire and not. Unlike the arrogant bitches and their lackeys, we have no spare lives... That's why we go down only in large armed groups. That's why we don't take any casualties."

In some anime or manga, the protagonist, having heard such a thing, would definitely immediately go underground and, passing through a lot of local monsters, would be pumped up to incredible coolness or acquired cool artifacts.

Or even find an attractive and powerful female creature to serve him. I was actually planning to do the same, but I remembered about the tentacle monsters - they were going to escape from the city anyway, so why not help them explore the dungeon?

I turned back into a human and went to the tentacle monsters. I had to wander around the city, as I did not remember the location of the right alley, but I was lucky and found the right place.

In the dungeon waited for me upset and nervous elder monsters - they managed to overhear that the battle with demonic armies will be very soon and, in anticipation of it, showy massacres of prisoners stopped to organize.

However, I quickly lifted his spirits, telling him that now there are those who will take the monsters out of the city and even do it bypassing the guards at the gate.

 In return, the monsters willingly agreed to help me explore the new dungeon and attach ropes near the hatches leading to the torture chambers - I had an idea to try to open them with the help of Alaisse or one of her subordinates.

Then I had to buy a dozen leather sacks and a skein of rope, take it all to the monsters, and finally get the rebels to drag the sacks from one dungeon to another.

The latter, however, flatly refused to go into the dungeon to tentacle monsters - in the city about its inhabitants were quite sinister rumors. So I had to personally pull the packed monsters out of the dungeon and hand them over to my allies.

Alaisse had recruited some of the worst of humanity, and they almost panicked in the middle of a city street when they discovered that the contents of the bags were moving. Luckily, however, all was well and soon the packed tentacle monsters were in a new dungeon.

I had to go down the dungeon myself, and I warned them to stay out of it until I returned. And then I returned to the form of an orc and began to release their new allies, starting with the most important (it was easy to determine by the largest size). I didn't bother with the lighting issues, opting for "night vision".

While I was helping an elder of the tentacle monsters to free himself from the sack, the first local inhabitant found me. It was a large rat that crept up silently and clawed at my leg.

With a cry of pain, I slashed it with my sword. The foe immediately gave out, quickly disappearing and leaving behind a crystal of essence, as I had recently joined the Adventurer's Guild.

At my shout, a dozen aggressive rats jumped out of the neighboring corridors. But by this time several of my allies had already left the bags and instantly strangled the attackers with their tentacles.

I, with some delay, realized that on the rats could be a good way to raise the skill of close combat and asked not to kill them, and just hold them. But it was too late - the new rats, seeing the massacre of their comrades, did not come to us.

The elder of the tentacle monsters willingly went to meet me and, after instructing his subordinates, divided them into three trios and sent them to explore the dungeon.

They were supposed to just grab all the opponents they encountered and call out to me so that I could finish them off. But alas - the rats turned out to be very clever and in the dungeon we did not meet any of them - they hid in inaccessible burrows. There were no other animals here.