I was currently in the sewer system of Breufidem with Tace, the knight that was assigned as my guard. I only figured out their name by asking Friedman, since they never talk apparently. Tace was also completely covered in bronze armor with two black horns sticking out of their helmet, their armor would also fit loose on me, standing at 190 cm tall at least, so they towered over most humans.

“Hey Tace, are you also getting offered 5 silver for guarding me.” I asked while I was scrubbing the walls.

Tace shook their head and held up 1 finger.

“Damn, they’re only paying you 1 silver to stand in a sewer?”

Trace shook their head again and held up their hand in a G next to their other hand.

“1 gold?”

Tace shook their head in confirmation.

‘Lucky.’

I continued to work on cleaning the sewers as Tace stood silently on guard. I began to realize that this quest would probably take all day to clean up the part of the sewer I was assigned, but that was fine, the pay was good enough that I didn’t need to do more quests today. A few hours had passed with not much happening besides some giant rats appearing here and there, but most of them were the size of a dog, and Tace handled them with ease, slicing them in half with their sword.

But suddenly Tace perked up and stopped wiping rat blood from their blade, I also stopped cleaning wondering what had caught their interest, when I suddenly started to feel the ground vibrate and as the vibration continued it started to feel like a small earthquake was occurring.I looked to Tace for a plan of action, but instead of retreating they had their sword out in front of them ready for battle.

“WHAT’S COMING?!” I yelled over the sound of the earth shaking.

Tace heard my question and pointed the tip of their sword at a rat corpse they killed earlier as response.

Out of the darkness of the tunnel came a stampede of giant rats varying in size, ranging from the size of a dog to the size of a horse. Tace took place in front of me, blocking the incoming rat stampede from me, I also readied my weapon, which was only a broom since I didn’t have anything else on me. And as the wave of rats was just about to crash around Tace, they let out a singular slash that sliced loudly through the air tearing through the wall of rats. About half the army of rats were killed instantly but half were still attacking angrier than before, Tace held them off, slashing through multiple at a time, a few of them got around Tace and came for me, but they were only the size of dogs. I swept one of them into the sewage water below, hit one over the head as hard as I could, making it falter, and the last one I tried to also push into the sewage water, but it grabbed the broom head and splintered it off, leaving me with a crude spear that I luckily was able to jam into its eye, killing it instantly. I tried to do the same with the one that I stunned earlier but I missed it’s eye, instead hitting it’s skull, dulling my impromptu spear. I stabbed it again and was able to get it in the eye this time, killing it.

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I looked up after I finished off my battle and saw a scary sight. One of the horse sized rats had come up behind Tace and had bitten into Tace’s right arm, stopping them from swinging their sword, Tace was having to defend with just their left fist against the onslaught of remaining rats, punching them away, but some were still getting damage in, biting into Tace’s armor. I couldn’t leave Tace here to die, I needed to get that rat off them, so I tightened my grip around the makeshift staff I was holding and ran towards the giant rat on their arm. But before I took two steps the rat that I pushed into the sewage water earlier jumped out and bit into my leg. I would’ve been able to dodge it, if it had not attacked me from my blind spot. The giant rodent teeth digging into my calf were jagged and sent waves of pain up my body. The giant rat was also free hanging by my calf, stopping me from moving forward due to the weight, I wanted to knock it off, but I also looked away from the rat around my calf and saw that the situation with Tace was getting worse, more rats were starting to attack from all sides, biting dents into their armor and some were jumping up snapping at their neck.

Right now the most important thing was to get the giant rat off Tace’s right arm, I changed my grip on my makeshift staff and held it like a javelin in my right hand and I moved my right leg back, drawed my right arm back, ignoring the pain of flexing my left leg locked in the giant rats teeth, I used all my strength to launch the staff at the head of the giant rat around clasped around Tace’s arm, the spear staff flew through the air, and it hit the giant rat dead on.

But the spear was too blunt to pierce the rats skull and helplessly bounced off, luckily it was just enough force to stun the rat and make it loosen it’s grip around Tace’s arm and Tace was finally able to cleave the giant rat in two, Tace took little time to dispatch of the last remaining rats, I couldn’t read the Tace’s emotions under their helmet, but they seemed pretty fed up and done with dealing with the giant rats. Tace finally stuck their sword into the final giant rats skull, putting an end to the stampede.

“Nice, job Tace, a little help please.” I said through grunts of pain.

Tace noticed the rat around my calf and hurriedly ran back and cut it’s head off for me, releasing the strain on my left leg.

“Ah fuck that hurt, thanks.” I said whilst sitting on the sewer floor rubbing my wound.

Tace then suddenly bent down and picked me up in a princess carry.

“Uh, what’s up?” I asked Tace, confused.

Tace nudged their head towards the exit of the sewer system.

“Oh we’re going, I mean, yeah I kinda think we both deserve to take the rest of the day off after this ordeal, you can put me down though, I think I’ll be fine to walk.”

Tace stared at me, shook their head and began walking towards the exit of the sewer system.

‘Well, I guess there's no point in arguing with a mute. . .’

‘Shit, I hope we’re still getting paid.’