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Underworld, Foxteeth

Rats as large as cats, cockroaches with the length of a loaf of bread with dozens of legs, spiders who could kill puppies with a jump at speeds barely they could see, and many other oversized and dangerous vermin ran through the sewers as one fox-kin and two coyote-kin girls with two dozen soldiers marched through their territory, making the native population hide in fright.

In the beginning, they had more than fifty soldiers with them, but after multiple intersections, they split up for a more thorough search, like they were about to do again.

They walked onto a stone bridge that connected two junctions. Under them flew a literal river made out of thinned-out excrements. Nobody found it pleasant there, especially the canine-kin, whose sense of smell became their most annoying attribute. Thus, many used different kinds of creams and oils to kill their sense of smell by rubbing them on their noses frequently while being down in the sewers. Otherwise, some would start to get sick.

The one at the front suddenly halted and turned towards the soldiers, who immediately straightened up. She directed them, "You six go to the mercenary guild Set Sail To Fail..." She needed to suppress a cringe after saying the name. After a quick moment, she pointed at the other group, "...you go in the opposite direction to the small auction house Doris Daunting Dresses while we go to where the assassin guild named Dark Mouse was situated. We meet in eight hours, here again. Like always, if someone is uncooperative, execute them, understood?"

They saluted and confirmed, "Yes, Ms. Nila!" After that, they quickly dispersed to their designated directions.

When they were gone, Nila turned to her sisters and nodded towards them to follow her. They weren't exactly motivated, but she didn't care and started walking towards their destination with them following.

Even though she acted as professionally as possible, she was as unmotivated as her sisters. Her stress became too much over the last few days, which could be seen by everyone how she dressed and acted.

At the beginning of the operation, Nila wore her usual equipment, ready for battle because she thought she could end it quickly. She would then proudly offer her brother's head to her parents while dressed in her best attire, looking like she took the order seriously. Her approach was not superficial, though, as she took the command earnestly and directed hundreds of soldiers as efficiently as possible through the underworld, which needed stringent coordination as it was built like a maze.

Nila did all this to impress her parents with the achievements she imagined she could attain. Now, though, besides not wearing her leather armor made out of resistant monster skin, which could endure her demonic energy, or her yellow mithril rapier, which wouldn't crumble to pieces when she used her energy or skills, she looked like a mercenary greenhorn—adorned with a simple leather armor that looked cheap even for newbies and a rapier made out of cheap pig iron, which she usually used for training.

Besides her sloppy attire, her command also suffered massively. Earlier today, she threw a soldier into the sewage water for asking a dumb question. Thus, they all looked much happier when they left, as the atmosphere around her was also heavy and restrictive, which she understood.

She had an excellent reason for this: It was a literal shit show trying to find her brother, Fiorello. After the letter from the Leonandra household arrived, they immediately raided the underworld, with her taking the role of the commander.

Her Mother advised her to execute everyone and ask later. She decided against it, thinking a gentle and reasonable approach would bear better results. Information in the underworld was scarce, and many were tight-lipped, so she hoped that her method would show them that they weren't out for blood and that there was a way for everyone to be happy. The underworld answered in a way she couldn't comprehend: They tried to assassinate or disrupt them at every step.

Some days ago, Nila snapped after being bombarded with bags full of fecal matter because they went into a particular district known for privacy. After that debacle, she started following her Mother's advice, going scorched-earth on everyone. After that, she only wore clothes that could be dirtied, as it broke her heart to see her favorite armor smeared in feces.

However, the other approach also didn't help, as all that happened was that the underworld became increasingly empty by the day. Every broker or guild leader, the one with the information she needed, tried to flee as fast as possible after her command to kill everyone unwilling to cooperate.

After every day with no results, the pressure slowly piled up. Nila was the oldest of her siblings and the most likely heir, besides Patricia, who showed tremendous potential. So she hoped that the success here would reinforce her position as her parents were too skittish to decide on someone.

However, this was not all that tugged her nerves day in and day out as little things started to annoy her from weeks ago, even though she thought that she was over them.

First, her other sister begged Scarlett and her to visit the Leonandra household. Both agreed. At first, she didn't know why Linuel asked her to withdraw. Still, after some investigation, she found out that it was the one boy whom Clara was bent on marrying in the past because he was incredibly charismatic, friendly, beautiful, and talented. Apparently, her sisters talked with each other, and now she felt betrayed by Linuel.

Regardless, should Linuel return, Nila would be ready to mutilate the little vixen for her underhandedness and immediately visit the boy and find out if what Clara said was true, maybe trying to woo him if he was to her liking.

Second, after her outburst and hundreds of dead crooks, she got reliable information that their brother was in Foxteeth. While it was something she was happy about, it also meant that she would need to look for him and could only stop after dissembling every corner of the underworld or if information came out that he left.

While Nila wanted to scream in frustration at the long road ahead, she held herself together on the outside. Her sisters, though, who were following her, were very different.

Yvonne was dressed as her, in her training attire, and looked bored out of her mind. She was only here because their Mother commanded it. Thus, she walked behind her while twirling her spear around. In Nila's mind, she wanted to be as annoying as possible, but she had a challenging competition.

In the middle of both of them was her other sister, Clara, who dressed in her best half-plate armor but also wore her accessories, which were impractical at best and dangerous at worst.

Clara walked carefully, not trying to step into anything that looked like it came from behind an animal or person, "I can't believe that I need to search for this pest inside the sewers..." Suddenly, an enormous rat ran beside them and hissed as if saying they should leave their territory, only to run away after threatening them. This scared Clara, "Ahhhh!"

Clara suddenly stopped and stomped her foot, "I hate it! This is all stupid!..." She glared at Nila, "...why did you drag me to..."

Before she could ramble on, Nila snapped, "Shut up!..." She walked slowly toward her, "...if you keep rambling on, I will pierce your damn throat with one of your hair needles! Do you get me?!"

Like Yvonne, Clara was also forced to follow her. However, she wasn't a fighter even though she had excellent [Mystic Skills], so all she did was nag and annoy everyone to let her leave. At first, Nila could endure it, but now it became too much for her to tolerate such behavior.

Clara stepped back and became frightened. However, Yvonne came from behind and wrapped her arm around her scared sister. She obviously tried to de-escalate the situation, but it irritated Nila more for some reason, "What is the big deal, Ni? It's not like we have anything to do with him. Wasn't he anyway..."

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Yvonne stopped speaking as Clara's nose suddenly started to lighten up slightly. Nila also stopped and became expectant, "Did you get something, Clara?"

Clara nodded while scrunching her face. Nila knew of her [Mystic Skills] as they were rare and powerful. She had skills that increased her senses, especially her sense of smell, to insane degrees. At the estate, as a test, she could smell out anyone at a maximum of one kilometer (~0.6 miles) if she used a lot of stamina.

However, while down here, all Clara got was the disgusting smell. She could barely smell Fiorello, so much so that Nila almost sent her back. She thought the skills weren't strong enough since her sister hadn't trained them, but it seemed not to be the case entirely. Since it worked, Nila patted herself on the back for the excellent decision to ask her Mother to send her down here.

Clara looked towards the front at a particular wall. Nila and Yvonne followed her gaze and saw that the wall seemed slightly different. After examining it, it became more evident that someone had dug a space inside the wall and concealed it with some mana artifact that could produce an illusion.

It was actually a forbidden practice as it could come to collapses and other catastrophes since most of those spaces weren't structurally secure. However, it didn't mean that they wouldn't do it.

There were hundreds of such secret areas around Foxteeth, and every time they found one, they would try and persecute the main culprit, but that was impossible in most cases. Diggers usually excavated some space free and sold it as fast as possible, only to disappear afterward, impossible to track.

However, after discovering such areas, her parents didn't fill those places up again. They would send someone to spy on the group occupying the space and the location itself. If no notorious underworld guild inhabited the area and it was structurally secure, they would let them alone, only to remember the spot should they need to look for the specific group. Usually, only some harmless black markets were inside with nothing much to worry about.

Going through every secret space and arresting every poor commoner who stole some goods would be a waste of time for multiple reasons. First, the costs were too much for such minimal offenses, and second, after a week at most, new spaces would be dug, endangering Foxteeth's structure even more. To avoid such scenarios, letting the current markets alone was more manageable.

Regardless, such areas were usually riddled with traps, so Nila wanted to check for it. Yet, before she could do it, Yvonne dashed into the wall and disappeared, yelling joyfully, "The faster I get his head, the faster I will be far away from this shit place! Good luck!"

Nila angrily dashed after her, screaming, "Damn it, Yvonne!"

After going through the enchanted wall, she appeared in some kind of hall. It was spacious, but everything was barebone and probably freshly dug. Before she could analyze it more, she saw how Yvonne was flying toward her.

Nila couldn't avoid it and got hit by her with a lot of force, only to be thrown out by her sister's flying body, 'This stupid bitch!'

Splash!

Nila landed squarely inside the sewer's water. She immediately tried to stand up and pulled her moronic sister out too. After throwing her on the stony path where it was dry, she jumped out, too.

She looked around angrily and moved toward the enchanted entrance again, 'I swear, whoever this was, I will kill them!'

Clara held her nose and tucked her tail between her legs. When she wanted to say something, Nila was already shushing her, "Don't. Just shut up and wait here."

She was ready to kill the one who threw her sister out. Yvonne was also standing up and looking at herself in disgust. She started to curse, "Fuck it all! Wait for me, Ni!"

Nila ignored her and only looked at the wall. However, before she entered, she suddenly stopped as some of her skills warned her, 'A trap?'

She turned around and looked at Yvonne, asking, "Hey, what did push you o... uuugh!"

Nila suddenly felt pressure, and something was ramming her. Luckily, this time, she was much more ready to take anything on so she wouldn't fly away again. Turning to the front, she saw a giant monster goat ramming his head against her stomach and chest. However, she was having none of it.

She pressed her feet into the ground and bent her knees. The stone pathway started cracking, "Come here, puppy, today I will have good meat!"

Nila took it by the horns, and as it started to press further, she heaved it up and held it over her head. Her muscles bulged heavily, and she smirked when she looked the abomination into its eyes, "Do you look at that! A corrupted bastard turned monster, how fun!"

Abominations were animals that couldn't endure the miasma from the east, thus turning partly into wild demons. It happened very rarely but was a common occurrence in the times of their ancestors when they settled in this region. Now, most had developed a resistance to it.

Before she could see what fun way there was to kill it, from the side came something like a shadow with a spear. It was Yvonne who pierced the goat abomination from the side.

Piercing was the wrong way to describe it, as she only poked it. However, the little wound turned and twisted where she hit it, becoming more significant. After a moment, it was half a meter in size, exploding through the goat's body, spattering blood and innards to the other side, painting the stony pathway in a blackish red. Nila lost her balance and smashed the abomination to the side. After its death throes, it stopped screaming and died.

Clara came from the side, "Is it dead? It smells really funny... I don't know why... wait, what is that?"

Clara pointed at the engravings on the horns. Nila came closer to inspect it while Yvonne strolled around, kicking pebbles out of boredom. She only peeked sometimes at the enchanted entrance to the secret area as she probably understood not to rush into everything head first.

Nila ignored her after seeing that she learned from her mistakes and started inspecting the horns. She had trouble reading them since they were weirdly engraved, but after deciphering the writing, she suddenly became angry. She stomped on the head of the abomination to hold it in place, ripping both horns out, "This damn bastard!"

Crack

Confused, her sisters looked at her, waiting for an answer, which she did after calming down, "The engraving says: This is Nila O. Nine-Fire. If found, please feed it and bring it back to the estate. Signed Fio." Her tone became increasingly angrier, and her fantasies about skinning him alive started to delight her.

Yvonne chuckled, "Hehe, Fio is truly a dead man."

However, Clara looked at the goat in worry and said, "Sis, I think we need to leave quickly..."

Nila looked at her back and yelled, "Shut up! I am not in the fucking mood for discussions! I don't care if you hate it here! Everyone hates it here! Deal with it!"

Clara flinched and tried to point at the goat, "But..."

Nila became more enraged, "No buts! Get yourself together, and this is just a dead goat..." She rammed the horns back into the body and turned to Clara, "...if you don't want me to put your damn head into the sewage water, just shut..."

Her danger senses suddenly warned her. She pulled out her rapier but couldn't sense anyone, "What is happening?..." She looked at Clara, who stared at the goat.

She turned toward it, too. It suddenly started to bloat and became overly hot, almost burning. She reacted immediately, "Run!"

Nila flashed toward Clara, taking her in her arms and surrounding her with her energy, "Hold tight!" She immediately tried to flash away, but it was too late.

Boom!

An enormous explosion occurred. It rattled the part of the sewers they were in and destroyed some columns and walls, bringing almost the whole part down.

...

An Hour Later

After the structure collapsed, the part of the sewers where the three Nine-Fire sisters were had become still, almost eerily silent. Yet, after what seemed an eternity, the rubble, which piled up in some places into small mountains, began to rumble ever so slightly.

The vibration became stronger after every moment till a hand exploded out of it and a scream, full of hate, followed by an aura of killing intent which would even frighten hardened thugs, "Fio! You are fucking dead!"

The wild demonic energy typical for the guard households followed after the scream and increased the killing intent to another level, giving it an aura of revolting disgust. Demonic energy was malicious and nasty, but Nila's was especially wrenching. She had mainly the Feather-Paw one, her Father's [Divinity Line], with the parasitic effect of the Nine-Fire, her Mother's. It was incredibly versatile but made it impossible for anyone not attuned to it to be close to her without vomiting their heart out.

As the energy invaded the rubble slowly through the parasitic effect, it also started to decay, almost like it was a living being. After some moments, it slowly crumbled, and an unimaginable stank protruded through the area—an aura of death and disease.

Nila slowly climbed out, disheveled and full of rage. After pushing herself out, she grabbed Clara and pulled her out of the rubble. Her sister was unconscious but alive. She was lucky as she was barely training her body or combat abilities, which meant she had no resilience to the explosion or all the falling debris. So, Nila needed to protect her, costing her almost all of her stamina.

Nila threw Clara casually down on the giant pile of rubble and looked around, "Yvonne? Hey, are you alive?"

A strained voice came from the side, under a more massive mountain of stone rubble, "Nila! Get me out!"

Nila wanted to say that she should just use her energy to break through but remembered that Yvonne was an internal energy user. It meant she couldn't bring any of her energy outwards but could only strengthen her body internally. Such a [Divinity Line] had many negatives, like now when she couldn't break down structures when pressured down, but on the other hand, her physical prowess and stamina were many times higher than even Nila's.

Nila slowly walked towards the mountain and assured her, "Yeah, give me a minute."

From the rubble came a distressed voice, "I can't barely hold on!"

Nila clicked her tongue, took some potions from her spatial pouch, and immediately gulped them down. She stood before the mountain and frowned at the work she would have to do, "Damn it, are you in the center?"

Yvonne's voice became angrier, "How should I know?!"

"Fine, give me five minutes," She concentrated her energy and slowly started to break down the rubble from the top.