188 Chapter 188: Underground (1/2)

Even as we walked along the underground tunnel, Anastasia placed her hand against the rocky wall.

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”I knew it,” she murmured. ”There are traces of magic left on the walls. Someone has definitely been down here.”

”Obviously.” I rolled my eyes at her statement of the obvious. ”This tunnel is artificial. Someone had to come down here and build it. The question is who was down here and for what purposes?”

”Ah…” Anastasia looked embarrassed. ”My bad. I should have been more specific. This feels like dark magic…the type of magic that the Dark Church uses, to confound senses and disrupt communication.” She smiled when she saw me recall her earlier conversation with the fallen priest. ”Yes, exactly the kind of things I was looking for.”

”Then the people who cast the spell are most likely the Dark Church…” I conceded and glanced around nervously. ”And the Goblins they were gathering must be around here somewhere.”

Anastasia nodded gloomily. I closed my eyes, remembering the other information I had read in the holographic screen. We had copied the data and downloaded it into a thumb drive as well as uploaded it to the cloud just in case, so that the authorities could conduct further investigations. The Azpire City Council had requested that we help track down the Goblins' nest while the police began evacuations.

But all of us were aware that if what the information we had obtained was true, we wouldn't be able to evacuate all of the civilians in time.

”They triggered an Emergence event to summon all the Goblins underground,” I muttered. Then I brightened up. ”At least they didn't summon a Crastrate this time…or the city will already be doomed.”

I didn't want to think about the consequences if Azpire City had an entire hive of Crastrates infesting their underground area. There would be a queen of sorts, and they would be able to wipe out an entire colony…uh, city.

”Goblins are bad enough,” Anastasia snapped, her eyes piercing. ”The amount of damage they can do when unleashed on the city will still be catastrophic.”

”I'm not denying that,” I assured her. ”Just thanking the Heavens for small miracles, that's all. But no matter what, we've to stop the Goblins from reaching the surface…as best as we can.”

”Agreed.”

Then I suddenly stopped when I caught a whiff of something terrible. Wrinkling my nose, I fought my reflexive desire to gag.

”Good lord, what the hell is that…?”

Unlike me, Anastasia wasn't affected. She was merely staring ahead at a bunch of…what looked like carrion.

”Seems like they were feeding the Goblins something,” she said frostily. I grimaced as I caught sight of putrid bones sticking out of rotting flesh, doing my best to suppress the nausea that had risen in my gut.

”Maybe the Goblins will die from food poisoning and we won't have to deal with them,” I suggested hopefully. Anastasia tried to smack my head, but I effortlessly dodge her.

”Don't be naïve. Goblins won't die from eating such things. They have much tougher digestive systems than humans.”

All monsters did, but that wasn't the point. Trying to avoid staring at the carcasses, I glanced elsewhere and remembered something.

”Wait…where are the Goblins that fed on those poor beasts?”

”Not here?” Anastasia answered with a shrug. ”I guess they moved on somewhere.”

”…to where?”

”That's what we're here for…to find out their exact location. Best to keep moving.”

Without any hesitation, Anastasia continued walking forward. I rubbed my cheek and followed her, gingerly making my way through the underground graveyard of rotting carrion. Doing my best not to accidentally step on them, I proceeded toward the end of the corridor. My shoe squelched against something, making me flinch, but I didn't complain.

Anastasia must have nerves of steel, to walk through this damned, foul place without any emotion. Once again I was reminded that she was an Assassin. She must be very used to death. Such a gruesome scene didn't affect her anymore.

In some ways I found that pitiful. Looking at Anastasia, she appeared to be an ordinary girl. Extremely beautiful, yes, but other than that she didn't seem very different from most girls her age. Alicia came to mind, for some reason. If Anastasia wasn't an Assassin, she would be attending school like us, hanging out with female friends, gossiping about romance and maybe admiring guys from afar. She wouldn't be involved in this dark business of death and violence.

I was aware that I was being super-naïve and unnecessarily idealistic. What happened had already happened. There was no changing Anastasia's past, no matter how much I wished for it. Nor could she could simply forget the assassination skills she had mastered and suddenly switch to a new vocation.

For now, we should focus on the present. Once we saved Azpire from a Goblin Apocalypse, then only could we worry about Anastasia's future.

Fortunately, we didn't have to spend too much time traversing the field of carrion. It terminated abruptly, and after putting a good distance between ourselves and the revolting place, I found myself able to breathe properly again.

”The trail of magic leads that way,” Anastasia pointed out when we reached a fork. She had been unaffected the entire time and was coolly leading the way. However, I raised an eyebrow skeptically when I realized the implications of what she was saying.

”Do you think the human mages…the Dark Church dudes are herding the Goblins, using magic?” That was a disturbing thought. If so, that it meant that the Dark Church had perfected their technology to the point where they could control low-ranked monsters at least.

Anastasia considered the possibility for a moment, and then shook her head.

”This sort of magic is usually used to disrupt and confound the senses, to conceal the user from others,” she explained. I nodded. The only reason why Anastasia could detect the spells was because she was trained to do so…probably to locate her assassination targets despite their best attempts to hide from her. ”I think it's more likely that the Dark Church mages concealed their presence from the Goblins and observed them from a distance. If necessary, they'll take steps to influence the Goblins or nudge them in the direction they want the creatures to go, using the technology that you were talking about earlier. But I doubt they were actively commanding the monsters.”

That was a relief. It meant that the enemy wasn't omnipotent.

”The trail seems to be ending soon. I think we're close.”