"Are you sure this is it?" Kain asked, his voice flat with disbelief and a touch of desperation.
He turned to his right.
The boy—now gnawing on an entire chocolate bar like a starved forest animal—looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. His cheeks and mouth were smeared in brown like he'd face-planted into a cocoa fountain. He nodded enthusiastically, chocolate-coated teeth on proud display.
Kain stared at him.
Then stared down.
At the sewer entrance.
A round iron grate, half-buried in frost, exhaled a putrid, swamp-thick stench that curled into the air like something alive trying to escape. It was the accumulated waste of an entire military fortress—thousands of people, thousands of contracts, and whatever unholy toxic substances a 9-star tamer and their entourage expelled.
Kain's eye twitched.
"…You're kidding me."
The boy just happily chewed.
Kain pinched the bridge of his nose. 'I really don't want to go down… but it looks like I'll have to…'
