Dawn- An age of Darkness

"It just had to be sewers." I sighed. "I guess sooner or later this was bound to happen. Whatever you do, don\'t even think about lighting a pyre." Every single RPG I played had at least one or two scenes regarding this, but now that I finally found myself in the sewers, I really, really didn\'t want to be here. 

The smell compelled my stomach to empty itself, but I persevered. I had no idea how long I could keep this up though. 

I talked like normal, though I couldn\'t see anything.

My companions were rather silent though. 

Did they hurt their head and pass out?

This water was at least deep enough to reach my shin.. 

So with another sigh, I made a ball of light. \'Is something crawling?\'

I felt like something just climbed my back. The feeling was nostalgic and I was tempted to run away but I controlled myself. 

Light illuminated everything and well- I now wanted to scream, very loudly that is. 

Both Alisa and Viola were in front of me, covered in stuff to their knees. But that wasn\'t the worst part. The actual worst part was the things that were literally crawling on their bodies and them not moving slightly. There were some things on her bodies and they were definitely not comfortable with it, I wasn\'t either. 

Both were shivering and sweating. They were looking very intently towards me, or perhaps behind me. Yeah, I had a very bad feeling about all this. 

The smell was the least of our problems. 

I formed small icicles- very carefully- small enough to be called bullets but a bit thinner. "Don\'t move." They just stared at me, and a second later I fired. 

Three large centipedes fell on the water. 

"Thanks," Alisa finally managed as she caught her breath. Though she was just trying her best to not puke. 

I fired some more and two more fell from Viola\'s body. 

"Can you now do that to me?" I smiled and turned.

"Eek!" Viola screamed. 

"Let\'s get out of here." Alisa threw a shard of ice at my back and another centipede fell on the water: cold!

  All six were dead and there were hundreds more coming this way. 

They were as big as my arm and definitely poisonous. Those things were not happy to see us. 

"Are you sure, we can\'t use fire in here?" Viola said, clearly concerned. Survival mattered more than her sadness. 

"Actually, it doesn\'t seem like that bad of an idea, does it?" It really didn\'t. But if we light this place up. We\'d have to dive into the water to survive. Or maybe Alisa could have made a dome of ice. But then we\'d be taking the whole city with us. 

So, it wasn\'t a viable option. 

Alisa took a deep breath and created a half dome of ice, enough to prevent the shitty water from touching but also not enough for the little critters to not come at us. All three of us climbed on but the water wasn\'t deep enough to float and there wasn\'t any place to walk either, at least not here. 

But this dome was definitely enough to ease my mind a little. 

"Do you have any idea how this sewer works or where it leads?" I was cutting down all the little critters heading our way. 

More and more were coming. 

"NO, but Maye taught me some secret passages out of the castle in case something happened."

"Couldn\'t you have learned some more?" Because we were about to be poisoned to death. 

There were no answers. 

I sighed. 

I cut more stuff. These things were coming from all sides. 

They were mostly coming at us in pairs. Definitely manageable but there were hundreds more, if not thousands. 

"It\'s strange, these things shouldn\'t have been this violent," Alisa pondered. 

"Stop talking and start killing!"

I had enough of her wisdom. We needed all the firepower we could get!

I couldn\'t keep this up forever!

"Look those things are starting to combine themselves!" Viola squirmed. 

"No, they\'re actually mating. Could it be?" Alisa still was just busy thinking.

"Mating? Just by rubbing their bodies?" Was this girl in kindergarten or something?

"Well, we might not be seeing it but the guy probably entered the girl anyway. But we don\'t have time to worry about that!" Like seriously, were we having a conversation about centipede sex? Like, now?

Actually, I didn\'t know either. So, that did pique my curiosity. 

I so wanted to punch myself right now. 

"Huh? What do you mean guys enter girls?" Viola glared at me. 

The hell was this girl saying?

"I think we disturbed them while they were in the middle of something. This is their nest, let\'s go the opposite way and they should leave us alone," Alisa sighed, chuckling awkwardly. 

"Yeah, you tell me that after I kill one-fourth of their entire population."

We got back on water and started going backward. Alisa was in charge of creating our footing and we just carefully walked on ice. I sure didn\'t want to slip.

"They can always make more." Alisa made a smug grin. For a moment I\'d forgotten that this girl was a few thousand-year-old hag. "OH and I\'m poisoned. They bit me three times, so give me a potion."

Yeah, I wasn\'t going to open my ring in a place like this, at least not while there was still water around. 

The centipedes were still following us but after roughly ten meters or so, they stopped. 

This whole place was a round sewer. And there were pipes all around us. it was almost as though it was raining shit- which it was. Alisa prevented all the shit rain with a thin layer of oval-shaped ice over our heads. But it was hard to maintain and that was clear. 

We just kept on going and before long, finally, finally saw some footpaths!

And soon, we got on drylands. Very dirty drylands. But still drylands. At least it wasn\'t raining here!

And that\'s where I remembered. This world didn\'t have much of shower facilities. 

"We are so screwed." I stared at the distant darkness. Just getting rid of the smell of my sweat was a chore, so what the hell was I going to do about this? 

Soaps weren\'t a thing in most of the countries. People tended to use charcoal or mud. But seriously, what was I going to do?

Alisa sighed. "Potion!"

"Fine." I brought out a potion and threw it at her. My upper body was relatively safe, but I didn\'t know how long this\'ll last. 

With a grumble, she caught it and drank it. She also rubbed the potion on the three places she got bit. Ironically all three bites were on her hands. Actually, she also had a semi-bite on her knee. 

Viola however was quiet. 

"You got bit too?"

She was still quiet. I didn\'t get bitten but I had a feeling it was probably painful so I brought out another potion and gave it to her. She just held it and lifted up the hem of her dress to her thigs, still silent. Apparently, she was bitten on her thigs. And on two spots too. 

They\'d already turned purple: Very painful.

I sighed and turned around. 

After a while, we started walking. 

Viola made sure to drown all three of us severely before we went any further. The water she used on me, was a bit too cold, freezing even. Her grudge was justified though. 

***

I was in charge of lighting while Viola and Alisa were scouting for monsters. 

"What did you mean guys enter girls?" Viola whispered, clearly embarrassed. 

Well, she was a princess, and her father kind of pampered her too much. So it was natural he never let anyone tell that to her.

I didn\'t see any reason to ruin her innocence so I just strolled forward, not a word.

A bat headed my way and I blasted it with a holy ball. Lately, I got a bit too used to having way more capacity than I could use. \'How the hell do I still have mana left?\'

"Oh basically-" It sure didn\'t stop Alisa from saying it aloud though. Was this girl always this shameless? I really wanted to give her a lecture. 

Apparently, her details were a bit too detailed. It almost made my little buddy grow. Unfortunately, I had a thing called self-control. 

Sigh. 

"That goes in there?" Viola asked, visibly red. And a bit scared too. 

This was the second time I saw her blush this bad. 

I sighed again.  Why the hell was I sighing too much? "Well, you\'re not a kid, so don\'t worry about it. One day, you\'ll fall in love and will want to do it with your loved one. Till that day, be patient I guess? You don\'t have to be afraid: it\'s a natural process." I was again reminded of the fact that I really didn\'t know how to console people. 

And why was sounding like the doctor telling his patient \'it won\'t hurt one bit.\'

"I\'m not a kid! I\'m fourteen!"

"Excuse me?" I turned around. All three of us stopped. "You\'re fourteen?" No matter how I looked at her, she was clearly eighteen or above. A decent chest, almost as tall as Ve, thin and curvy, and she was fourteen?

Maybe the definition of twelve was different for demi-humans? "You\'ve been alive for 168 months then?"

She blushed slightly, counted her fingers. "Yes."

\'I should have seen this coming.\' 

This world was weird, and so was age in this world. I should have seen this coming!

The hell had we done? I turned to Alisa and she just looked at the ground, sweating. 

"Remember, this was your fault." I pointed at her. 

She grumbled. "Okay, I\'m sorry." It didn\'t feel like she meant it though.