10 Years After – 72
The Aftermath of the Demon Rat Hunt
I checked to make sure that Grulf wasn’t injured after dragging him out of the water.
It looked like he had only suffered some light scratches.
“Grulf, are you alright?”
“Grrrff.”
He whimpered.
Serulis, Josh and Ario also looked to see if he was hurt.
And they were relieved.
“Nothing too bad then.”
“But we should still wash his wounds.”
“That’s true. Locke. You should leave the rest to us and go and wash him.”
I myself was not hurt. However, I was definitely very filthy.
And while they were just scratches, Grulf had still been injured.
And sewage water was especially dangerous. He could get infected.
It wasn’t too likely since he was a spirit beast, but I was still worried.
I was also worried about the fact that he had bitten into many of the demon rats. The rats usually carried diseases.
“Sorry. Serulis, can you take Grulf out and wash him?”
“I don’t mind…but what about you?”
“I have something to do here. I want to investigate the center where the rats were gathering.”
“I understand. Let’s go then, Grulf.”
“Grrrfff…”
Grulf rubbed against me with his sewage soaked fur.
Of course, I was already soaked, so I didn’t mind.
“Grulf? You coming?”
“…Grrfff…”
Grulf was making a show of not wanting to go without me.
Serulis saw this and said,
“…Maybe you should just take him yourself, Mister Locke?”
“I want to check this immediately…”
“But don’t you think you should wash him quickly?”
There was no use arguing, so I handed Serulis the magic bag.
“Serulis. Take this for now. I want you to throw all of the demon rat corpses into it.”
“So you will take out the stones later?”
We could do that back in the garden of the mansion.
Then we could burn them right after.
“Sorry. I’ll leave the rest to you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Take your time.”
And with that, Grulf and I ran outside.
We saw a few demon rats feeding on the corpses on our way back.
I killed the ones that we saw. But I was starting to feel uneasy about how many were still left.
Then we got out of the sewers and ran to a nearby river.
It wasn’t the most filthy river, but it wasn’t particularly clean either. That kind of river. But it did go up to my waist.
Grulf and I went inside of it. And it didn’t take much encouragement to get him to go in.
“Grrr.”
“So you can swim.”
“Groof!”
It wasn’t so deep that his legs couldn’t reach the floor. And so he was swimming quite adeptly in the water. Even Gerberga jumped out of my breastplate and started splashing in the water.
Grulf had probably jumped into the sewer water because he could swim.
However, it was harder to fight when in the water. And then he was attacked by demon rats and nearly drowned.
“It really is harder to fight like that. You should be more careful.”
“Groof.”
I started to scrub his fur.
His wounds were mostly healed now. I guess that was because he was a spirit beast.
Grulf continued to stick close to me and occasionally whimper.
He must have been very scared when he was attacked and almost drowned.
After getting most of the filth out his fur, I pulled him out of the water.
Gerberga had also seemed to be enjoying his swim until I put him back in my breastplate.
Koko wa Ore ni Makasete Saki ni Ike to Itte kara 10 Nen ga Tattara Densetsu ni Natteita
