Chapter 7 - The Sewer Floor Plan
Beowulf, with whom we had arranged to meet for lunch, joined us.
Immediately, Beatrix spread a copy she had made of the sewer floor plan on the table. The size was about a quarter of the original.
"This is well done."
"Isn't it? It was quite a hassle to copy it to this size."
Beatrix puffed out her ample chest at Beowulf's praise.
"But it's a bit different from the one I saw at the Guard station."
"Eh, really? Where, where?"
"Here."
Beowulf pointed to a square section adjacent to the northeast corner of the rectangular sewer network that stretched long from east to west, extending north.
Being in the priestly profession, I know what that square section is.
"That's the catacombs."
The town of Nakanohara was built about sixty years ago on a plateau that forms the bend of the Nakanohara River. According to town history, the original town was apparently along the river. They leveled the rugged plateau, which was a step higher and continued from the ridge of the northern mountain to the west of the town, built the new town, and moved.
The church was built on a projection at the eastern end of the plateau as if looking down on the town, and it used to be at the western end of the town. Now it's at the eastern end of the town. Below the cliff on the north side of that church is a cemetery, and beneath it, the catacombs spread out. That shouldn't have changed since the old days.
"Since it's the catacombs, maybe it's not on the Guard's floor plan because it's outside their jurisdiction?"
Beatrix said, but Beowulf said something unexpected.
"According to this floor plan, the sewers and the catacombs are connected by this passage, allowing passage back and forth. Isn't this mark a door? We've passed through here many times, and the three of us passed through here yesterday too, but there was no door anywhere. Also, this door over here seems to be for a small room, but that wasn't there either."
Indeed, there were no doors on the sewer walls.
"I was curious about this place. We didn't see any doors when we went in yesterday."
"Maybe they removed the door and sealed it up."
"Why would they do such a thing?"
I can't think of a reason to seal the door as Beowulf suggests.
"Look here. They must have wanted to make this passage unusable."
Beatrix pointed to the suspicious underground passage. That passage extends east from the mark that looks like a door to the sewers, turns north, and continues to the catacombs. And from that turn, a passage extending south continues to the area where the church is.
"To prevent intrusion into the church?"
"I can't think of anything else. You don't have to go through the sewers to get to the catacombs, right?"
Anyone can enter the catacombs by going down to the site of the old town. The entrance door is locked, but if you ask the gravedigger, while they might stop children, they shouldn't stop adults. I remember being told that when we went on a social studies field trip from the orphanage.
"Well, I don't know."
"Shall we take a good look next time we go?"
Two days later, when I went to the Guard station for the second rat extermination, Beowulf was waiting. While waiting for Beatrix, who had overslept, the two of us decided to make torches.
"Hey, Beowulf. Do you think it'll go well?"
"Who knows. We defeated seven last time. We might defeat ten today, or it might be a bust. We won't know until we try."
"I hate busts. I won't be able to make a living."
"Aren't you being pessimistic? Did you give up during yesterday's training?"
"It's not that. The people who helped with the training yesterday said it, right? That there are times when they struggle with rats. Even though they're so strong."
"It's just that you don't know anything until you try."
Yesterday, following Beowulf's advice, I went for the trial training. The people in the Guard all knew we were doing rat extermination and taught us enthusiastically. After all, we've taken on the number one unpopular Guard mission. More than that, though, they were worried about someone who hadn't received proper training facing monsters.
"When the Guard goes for monster extermination, are there times when it's a bust?"
"Of course, there are times like that."
"Do you get scolded?"
Beowulf's eyes went wide.
Ah? Did I ask something that strange?
"When I first joined the Guard and was assigned to rat extermination, I asked a senior the same thing."
She was chuckling.
"And the words that came back were: 'Next time, next time!'"
"What does that mean?"
"It means even if you don't get results, you just have to work hard next time. If you come back safe without injury, they'll say that to you, so don't worry."
She said so and laughed.
Beatrix joined us, and the three of us were assembled. Having completed our preparations, we went to tell Hans-san we were departing.
"What's with that black thing?"
He suddenly pointed a finger.
"It's not black. It's black-purple."
"...What's with that black-purple?"
Hans-san spread his hands and exaggeratedly shrugged his shoulders, but he still corrected himself properly.
Beatrix and I are wearing hemp sacks, but since we were reported last time, we dyed them black-purple with dye bought at the tool shop and even made sleeves. I made one for Beowulf too, but she's wearing her Guard leather armor since she's on duty. I got the idea from Angelica-san's magic.
"Ho, you thought about it. It's quite good, isn't it?"
We were praised!
I was happy, so I spun around to show him my back, asking "How is it?"
On the back, 'Class of 175' was embroidered.
For some reason, he burst out laughing.
I worked hard until late at night to make it in time for today, so he didn't have to laugh...
I felt like I'd already been dealt a finishing blow even before departure.
After getting about three chicken carcasses for bait at the Bird's Head Tavern, we arrived at a building no larger than a shed.
The sewers are built with two underground levels, and you can go down from the ground to the second underground level by stairs. Or rather, there's nothing but stairs beyond the door. The first underground level apparently has pipes for 'business' passing through, so people can't enter. Not that I'd want to, anyway.
After going down the stairs and opening a heavy locked door a short distance away, there's a room. What opens up on the floor of that room is the entrance to the second underground level, commonly known as the vertical shaft. The vertical shaft is not a staircase. It's just a square hole about as wide as one can spread their arms.
Since they knew the rats would grow large when they became monsters, they apparently made it a vertical shaft so they wouldn't come up to the surface. So, you go down into the sewers by lowering a ladder placed on the floor.
Since two sides of the hole are the walls themselves, it's easy to set up the ladder.
After setting up a little contraption, we hung all the chicken carcasses, tied securely with rope, one by one along the corners of the walls.
We wait for a while above the hole, which only has the light of the torches set below.
They're here!
The ropes hanging the chicken carcasses are moving.
I fit a hand mirror into my palm, gently poke it into the hole, and observe the situation. I could see about five rats that had stood up on their hind legs trying to gnaw on the suspended chicken carcasses. Three were barely gnawing on the swinging carcasses. The other two were pushing and shoving to steal a spot where they could gnaw.
Now!
With a silent signal, the three of us released the ropes we held in our hands at the same time.
CLANG!
Grates the same size as the hole fell along the walls, surrounding the rats.
Beowulf threw fist-sized stones one after another. Beatrix and I, having finished our incantations, unleashed magic toward the panicked rats.
The results of the new method are excellent. Beatrix and I got three with magic, and Beowulf finished off two with thrown stones.
"Amazing, Jeanne. You thought of this well."
"All five wiped out. And the bait is safe. Quite a feat."
You can praise me more. This is a triumph for me as the brains of the operation, isn't it?
If it's like this with one hole, if we do all five holes, twenty-five... well, my magic probably won't last that long. But fifteen is a sure thing. Definitely.
Checking the grates I made from wire, they're quite distorted, but they seem usable enough if I bend them back by hand. Since we only need to stall them for a short while, we don't need anything that sturdy. The bags of stones placed on the floor beforehand acted as weights, and we managed to prevent the rats inside from dragging the grates and escaping.
Two of them have their heads stuck in the grates and are entangled. Since vertical bars alone were unreliable, I put in several horizontal ones too. That's probably why their stuck legs wouldn't come out.
Beatrix is poking at the chest-high grate.
"Not bad. How did you think of this?"
"It just came to me suddenly. Maybe the Goddess saved us."
"You, if you keep saying things like that, you'll get divine punishment."
For a priest who considers humility a virtue, it's natural to thank the Goddess's grace for good things, but it seems a free-spirited mage doesn't understand that.
"I went shopping at the tool shop yesterday, and they have a cat there, right? I remembered that cat trying to get a small bird in a birdcage from on top of a shelf several years ago. I thought I could do the same thing, so I tried it."
"I wondered what you were going to do when you suddenly brought wire."
I had the two of them help me make the grates with wire.
We don't need top and bottom surfaces. We just make four sides and tie them together with string, so they're easy to carry. I had to buy another roll of wire, but it'll pay for itself.
"They were pushing and shoving in a narrow space, so they couldn't move sufficiently. None of them jumped over, either."
As expected of an active soldier. She says exactly what I want to hear most.
"What's important is the distance, the distance."
"You, who whacked me on the head with a spear, are saying that?"
When I swung a spear during yesterday's training, the handle part hit Beatrix's head. It didn't become a lump, but she got quite angry with me.
"It's a good thing to reflect on failures and apply them to the next time. Making the rats stand up and gathering them in the corners was the right move."
Right? Right? Praise me more!