CH 28

༺ Nemea’s Cat (4) ༻  

“Meow, Meaow.”

It has been a while since Luna started producing these weird cries from her mouth.

“Oh, I was just wondering who was calling me, from some time ago, so it was you, brother!”

I turned around feeling a presence behind me, and all I could see was a conical hat. For a moment, I was engulfed in a deep fear that the witch might have overheard us and then followed us here to take her vengeance. But, after I noticed the big nose under it, the fear was replaced by a seething feeling of anger.

“Buzz me a tooter before you just pop out, you creep.” 1

“What’s a tooter? Anyway, I just came because I heard a pleasant voice calling for me. It seems that Lord Mercury, the great god of encounters, is looking after us.”

Clap- Clap- 

Marco raised his hands while holding what looked like dentures and began making weird noises while clapping them between his palms.

“Ah, this is my new instrument, Castanets. I have no choice but to use this since my Lyre got destroyed while fighting the hateful goblins. When you clap them like this a sound will be produced from the groove insi-“

“I didn’t ask, you bastard. What the hell are you doing here? And… Who called you, again?”

“Were you guys not calling for Whitey? That was my nickname as a kid.”

Luna, who had been silently listening to our bickering until now, beat me to it and answered instead.

“Whitey is a cat.”

“It’s a cat? Damn, I thought you guys came to see my underground performance.”

“You’re performing underground now, big nose?”

“My name is Marco, not big nose, alright. And yeah, I perform every week on the streets and the undergrounds. Didn’t I tell you during the drinking party?”

“Did you, now?”

Luna stared in my direction while narrowing her eyes thinly. Her eyes seemed to be asking me if I could remember what he was talking about. But the memories of that day were completely shut out from my mind and I couldn’t remember much even if I tried my hardest to recall them.

“You don’t seem to remember anything, do you? Anyway, are you guys going down the underground waterways to search for a cat? To meet here despite coming to this place for different reasons can only be said to be a fateful meeting.”

I didn’t interact with this Marco guy a lot but the minuscule time we did was enough for me to notice he liked to attribute all kinds of things to the power of fate. I guess that’s how most street musicians are.

I don’t know if being a bard can be considered to be a good fortune or a tragedy. After all, bards were sensitive folks that staked their lives around their ability to overdramatize every tale they could get their hands on.

To put it bluntly, these were the type of people that placed the fulfillment of their artistic needs over their need to satiate their hunger.

To put it even more bluntly, they were just poor souls that were completely disconnected from the reality of their situation and the world they live in.

“You said you often perform in the underground, big nose. You should probably know the way around here, right?”

“Yeah, sis. Do you need any guidance? You said you were looking for a cat, didn’t you?”

Marco, the big-nosed musician, was a better person than I had initially thought. Well, he was still a guy that lived in a dangerous world and made a living only wielding a single instrument. So, it would be weird if he didn’t have a few tricks up his sleeves.

Although he was completely useless in a battle, the fact that we got one additional helper was somewhat reassuring in itself.

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In this world where battle tactics were still primitive, numbers were the mightiest force that could topple over everything else.

But then again, that probably means we’ll have to split the reward with him.

One silver has already been spent on this quest, and the back of my head was running all kinds of selfish calculations till then. An additional take on the reward pool wasn’t something my mind was going to allow right now. What should I do now?

“You won’t get any share of the reward though, big nose.”

“Sigh, do you think this Marco is a person that is only driven by money, sister?”

“Yes.”

“Ideope’s people indeed have a good eye for people! Money rocks! In accordance with the laws set by Lord Mercury himself, I’ll only take 10% of the commission.”

10%? Increasing our manpower for a measly 10% doesn’t sound too bad to me.

“Marco, you’re a corrupted and half-baked artist. Okay, you win. You’re getting that 10%.”

“Artist? Did you just call this Marco an artist? I’ve heard people call me an entertainer or a clown but this is the first time I’ve heard someone call me an artist. What’s this warm feeling welling up in my chest? Anyway, let’s get going!”

We slowly went down the hole leading to the underground aqueduct.

As I descended the ladder, the first thing I noticed was the dark and damp floor along with the red eyes of rats, infesting the underground sewers, that were as big as my fists.

Blaze-

Even with our torches lit, the rats showed no signs of fear or running away. I felt a shiver run down my back at this horrifying realization.

Squeak- Squeak- 

Having attentively listened to my liberal art classes, I was well aware of how these rat bastards carried all kinds of germs and illnesses and caused overwhelming and unrestrained chaos in the middle ages.

It’s not hard to predict what the outcome of being bitten by a rat in this world, where the art of medicine was still crude and underdeveloped, would be.

“It’s a rat! So cute! I wanna hold it!”

Luna, however, didn’t seem to be sharing my worries, as she naively knelt down and held out her palms in the direction of the dastardly rats. A few of the rats quickly came close and began rubbing their heads on her opened palm.

“Yo, what the fuck, put them down!”

“Why? They’re cute. Rats are Lady Knox’s servants, you know.”

“Shit, it doesn’t matter! Just put them down already! They’re dirty and filthy!”

“Hmm-“

Luna frowned with an expression of incomprehension at my sudden nervous shout and reluctantly released the rats back to the bottom of the gutter.

Squeak-

In a world where talks about the existence of germs and viruses would be dismissed as senseless blabbering of a buffoon, my actions may appear as nothing but an unnecessary fuss to the others. But I had no choice but to still do it as rats were a no-go.

I get mad enough to grind my teeth when I remember all the hardships I had to go through because of these filthy bunch back when I was a slave.

“Hmm, Samaritans are afraid of rats. How unexpected.”

“Sister, everyone fears at least one thing. Didn’t the great Achilles die because his heel was bitten by a rat?”

“True. But there are so many rats here, much more than the amount back in Ideope’s gutters.”

Luna’s lips curled upwards, seemingly excited at the sight of all the rats squeaking all around her. Marco on the other end was pathetically clapping with his denture-esque instrument.

“Sodomora’s gutter’s rat swarm has an interesting story behind it. It was said that a long time ago, a musician used his flute to drive the rats aw-.”

“Anyway, let’s go.”

“Let’s talk about it later then.”

I was afraid his useless chatter would go on for way too long than I was able to handle, so I decided to move on. It was also because I noticed that the raincoat was becoming increasingly wetter because of all the water falling around us.

It smelled disgusting as these were sewers where all kinds of nasty things were flowing. Probably, even a healthy country would have been ruined if it had such an abominable place, even worse was the fact that this place was also filled to the brim with filthy rats.

“There are a lot of rats around here, it’s not strange for a cat to be snooping around in this place. Do you know what that Whitey looks like?”

I remembered the appearance of the white cat, that the witch described, at Marco’s sudden question.

“Its fur is pristine white all over. You could immediately tell it apart by simply looking at it.”

“A white-furred cat huh? Definitely, something you don’t see every day in Sodomora. Anyway, mark my words, we’ll find it real quick.”

****

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So, Marco, me, and Luna continued making our way through the dark, damp, and gloomy underground road. Although our trip could be said to be going seamlessly, for now, the same couldn’t be said about our task.

I knew for a fact that looking for a cat in such a big city wasn’t easy, to begin with. It was highly likely that this quest would take us multiple days to complete.

Nemea, however, said that she would pay us more if the quest took longer.

Believing that we would get extra money for this, we quietly moved our legs and advanced through the filth-covered road.

We can’t fail or give up on this quest as it will be harder for us to rank up to the silver rank if we do.

“Meaaaow.”

“Sister, I have to say, you genuinely have a great talent for making cat noises.”

“It’s a matter of course. In Ideope, the first thing you learn to become a voodoo shaman is how to imitate animals. It’s because we have to communicate with a lot of things. We talk to each other’s soul through these cries.”

Luna and Marco were chatting nonchalantly, seemingly unaware of our serious situation.

This reminded me of the group assignments that we were assigned in the liberal arts class during college. Even then only the leader of the group would hurry the others to work while they would just mindlessly rattle like these two buffoons.

“Anyway, let’s keep going.”

“Meeeeaoww-“

Damn it.

I had been walking for a long time while listening to these strange cat sounds until…

Kareureuk-

“What the hell?! Did you guys hear that?”

I suddenly stopped when I heard a sound that was remarkably similar to what Luna was making. It was coming from a corner where the sewage was clogged, and I could see decayed garbage and dead rats floating around that place.

“You heard it? How should I say this? I was just scratching my armpits, brother.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

Luna shook her head in plain denial.

Marco, standing next to me said in a tentative tone, “Are you having hallucinations, brother? I hope you weren’t cursed by that obsidian stone we touched last time.” all that while having a regretful expression, full of pity for me, as if doubting my mental sanity.

….

It’s strange, I’m sure I heard something just now.

“Were you listening, Hassan? I told you it was me.”

“No, it was something else. It was the sound of a living being, I’m sure of it.”

Kareureuk!

“Y-you’re telling the truth? Yeah, something really just made a sound over there!”

Luna, who was previously skeptical, suddenly screamed in surprise and pointed to the corner where I originally heard the sound from.

“Wow, the cat must have actually heard my soul speak! My voodoo skills must have reached a new height!”

Damn, how could a cat actually react to such a bizarre mimicry or this soul thingamajig, as Luna liked to call it… Is this the world that is in the wrong or is it just me? I was having a literal headache at that bizarre thought.

Still, I was glad to have finally gotten a clue about our task. It was now time to check the place where that sound came from.

“Brother, that place… I’d rather not go inside.”

Marco, who until now had been talking and singing with excitement lacing his every word, suddenly grabbed my shoulders and tried to dissuade me from going to that place with an unprecedented serious expression.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I-Is there a monster inside?”

“No, it’s just very dirty inside. It’s so smelly that even the vagrants wouldn’t dare to go inside there.”

Man, what can I even say? Why did you have to hold my shoulders and talk in such a serious tone just to warn me about that trivial thing, you damn bastard?

Thinking about it more deeply though, he was indeed right. Was Marco smarter and more hygienic than I thought? Marco just went a few steps higher in my hygiene ranking list with that remark.

Luna began sniffing next to me.

“I don’t think I smell anything though.”

The stench around us was so strong that it made my nose crook immediately, but Luna seemed oblivious to it and shrugged her shoulders. It seems her sense of taste and smell are completely nonexistent at this point. What a poor girl!

“Sister’s sense of smell is so amazing.”

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“I’ve been training since I was a kid! I’m not even affected by the vilest smell. But even so, I still have something good for remedying that.”

Luna suddenly shoved her hand inside her raincoat and took out a small shell from it.

“This is mint oil, you won’t smell anything bad if you rub it under your nose.”

She then dipped her fingers inside the white and thick liquid contained in the shell and smeared it in the center of both my and  Marco’s philtrum.

Smear-

It was a sensation that I couldn’t decide whether it was hot or cold, seeping through my nose and traveling directly up into my head.

This sensation reminded me of one of the punishment games we used to play in my middle school’s cafeteria, where we had to put toothpaste under our noses. It felt exactly the same actually.

It was a little bit uncomfortable but a lot better than smelling the disgusting stench of the sewers.

“Argh, it burns, I-I’m gonna die! It smells like mint.” 

“Don’t make a fuss, bastard! Lets’s go inside but be careful, we still don’t know what kind of things could be present there-“

I gave a brief warning to the party and then prepared myself to draw out my sword at any moment.

Sichik-  Sichichik-

My hair stood on its end when I noticed something akin to a black wave surging toward us. Rats. Fucking filthy rats, and a whole ass lot of them. It was a swarm of rats that congregated together so much that it looked like a literal wave of living rats.

“Oh, damn it! What the hell!”

“The rats here love mint! It’s because of the residues of the mint-flavored beers, that drop on the ground, ends up flowing here.”

“Oi, you should have told me about that earlier!”

The rats quickly encircled me, Luna, and Marco.

Not only that, they kept jumping from all directions of the surroundings as if spamming the spacebar key. They were continuously climbing our bodies and then clawing or gnawing at everything in their wake, almost tearing our bodies apart.

“This shit! Damn rats!”

I began shaking my torch and a sword in the air in a threatening manner, to get the rats away. It’s finally time for this great Hassan of the Santoryu style to shine.

“I’m gonna behead all of you like I did with the goblins, bastards”

Scratch-

“Hasagi!” 2

Squeak- Siksik-

But these little devils were fearless and kept gnawing at my raincoat with their tiny razor-like teeth, completely ignoring my sword swings.

Damn, the 110 coppers worth of raincoat that I just bought ended up being these rats’ meal.

“L-Lemme try something! Sik- Siksik-! Siksik-!”

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m making rat noises. I’ll try convincing them to leave us alone with my voodoo of soul communication. A-Argh! H-Hey guys, stop, we’re friends! Si-Sik!”

“Stop messing around! Just start swinging something away!”

This wicked wave of rats that were surrounding and swarming us was simply a bunch of evil robbers. At the current pace not only would we have to pay for new clothes but also for treatment. This is going to cost way more than just two silvers!

Just as the words, “Let’s run away” were going to get out of my mouth…

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…

A gentle melody suddenly began flowing out from somewhere in a rhythmic flux and in that instant, as if the stop button of the rat swarm had been pressed, all of the menacing rats suddenly froze in their spots.