Familiar Bonds

Leona and Athena spent a few minutes running away from the noise coming behind them as fast as their legs could get them from it.

"Don't tell me. Are there giant rats here as well?"

Leona gasped for air, she wasn't much for walking let alone running inside sewers filled with putrid air.

"Possibly." Athena was reloading her rifle while running in front of the tactician, to pour salt on the wound she even did so while glancing back at Leona. "Or maybe giant cockroaches."

"Perfect- ha… dammit, I'm almost out of breath. How can you keep running without tiring yourself out like that?"

"Training, what else can I say?"

They went on for another five minutes, but at the end of it Leona was barely able to walk. They stopped at another gallery which at least didn't have puddles of putrid water pooled near the walkways which allowed them to rest for a while.

"Ha… ah… I… I really need to train my endurance more…" The tactician was gasping for breaths with a piece of cloth on her mouth so she wouldn't breathe in the disgusting sewer air. "Do I really just have to run in order to do that?"

"Yeah, it's as simple as that. Though it would be smarter to not do that inside a sewer."

"Y-you tell me why we have to run… I don't know what those things following us were but I am certain that I don't want to know."

"Probably roaches, you know they scavenge for food right?"

"Are human sized meals their staple food?"

"How would I know? This is also my first time here, else if I knew about that giant spider I would've avoided it."

"Good point. At least you were lucky enough to not get bitten, those fangs could've easily crushed a fully armored knight."

"In any case, we are bound to find a ladder leading to the surface if we keep going. It shouldn't be too far now."

Leona nodded before standing up.

"Yeah, I'm worried about Phoebe and Krieg."

"My brother might be in danger too if Oliver is willing to go as far as ordering to arrest us, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to assume he'd use him as hostage."

"That's…" Leona tried to be sympathetic but in the end she knew the possibility of that happening was quite high. In fact if she had the chance to do the same to Oliver, she would without a second thought. "Yeah. We should hurry."

After picking up their things, they went deeper into the sewers and while it was less cramped than the previous tunnels, the smell didn't change even after walking for what seemed to be hours. Both the bricks on the floor and walls were covered with algae and it was very slippery in the more damp areas, forcing them to take a slow walk else they risked falling over into the putrid water.

What worried Leona the most was the fact they were underground without any real means of knowing their exact location above ground. The chance of them running into soldiers in the middle of the city wasn't low.

"Athena." The tactician called her. "Even if we do find a ladder, don't you think it'd be too dangerous for us to just, you know, pop out of nowhere in the middle of the street?"

"Oh don't you worry, remember I told you these tunnels aren't used anymore? There's a separate line of sewers that lead out the city, we are in the old system which means the odds of soldiers patrolling the area is almost non-existent."

"Okay, but what if we run into a patrol?"

"We take them out of course. Unfortunately the new type of non lethal ammunition I've made was left in the lab, but I could use this to knock someone out."

She took out the derringer from the holster.

"How exactly?"

"If I strike someone with the handle hard enough, I'm sure it would work."

'That's awfully barbarian…'

Leona thought as she tried to picture Athena attempting to do such a thing to an armed soldier.

"You can't deny it would work." She holsted the gun again and looked towards where they were supposed to go, she squinted her eyes as if something had caught her attention. "Hey Leo, can you make that flame brighter?"

"Hm? Yeah, sure."

Upon powering up the spell in her hand, the foot of a metal ladder came into view just a few meters ahead of them.

"Aha. Finally found one. Do you see it? There on the right."

Leona followed where the lieutenant was pointing towards.

"Where… ah, I see it."

They approached the ladder, on closer inspection the metal was both rusted and encrusted with grime. After a few seconds of exchanging stares, Athena sighed deeply before latching her left hand on the metal.

"Ew…" She held the instinct to let go of the ladder and instead just looked up. "Let's just get this over with…"

The lieutenant began climbing up prompting Leona to do the same, although if she were to grasp the sides with both hands the fire spell would be snuffed out so instead she transferred the flame to the left hand and grabbed the horizontal bar with her right in a reverse grip in order to slowly climb up while providing light on the way.

"Hnngh…"

Though it was tough, she was managing to make her way up the grime covered ladder. Athena reached the top and gently lifted the hatch which covered their exit. She raised it just enough for her to take a look around and only after confirming there was no one around she decided to come out of the hole.

After getting out she looked around where exactly she was as it seemed to be a part of the city she had never been in, tall buildings surrounded her in a narrow corridor between two constructions with snow gently piled up on the ground. She looked towards the tactician who was struggling to climb up with one hand and offered to help.

"Come on, grab my hand. I'll hold the hatch open so you don't need to worry."

Leona gave her a short smile before grabbing her grime covered hands in order to climb out of the hole.

"Thank you."

"Now…" The lieutenant looked around. "I'm not exactly sure where we are. The street seems too covered with snow to be the usual business area and the residential area doesn't have tall buildings like this."

The fact she could hear the whistle of the wind passing through the narrow passages between the buildings made Athena feel uncomfortable, that was certainly not somewhere she knew and the only place that fit the bill was the slums, a place she herself never went to even during her days in the military.

She made her way to the edge of the narrow passage and peeked around the wide open street.

"The slums huh…? I think we overshot our exit by quite a margin." She said as she looked back at the tactician. "Stick close to me, I only heard rumors about this place and none of them are pretty."

"Got it."

Although Leona wasn't familiar with how the slums looked even in Arcadia, just talking to the maids at the mansion was enough to give her some idea of what to expect from a place such as that. However even Londria's slums didn't seem too bad compared to the tales she heard from Arcadia's, the buildings were tall, there were no signs of litter being left on the streets and there were some shy homeless people wearing all manner of clothing warming up by a campfire built with metal sheets crudely hammered together to form a barrel.

Some of them were looking attentively at the armed duo walking in the middle of the street, though none of them had weapons, the fact they were so interested in them worried Leona.

"Back when I was in the military, they said this place had some sort of curse that it would kill people under certain circumstances." Athena bit her lower lip as she kept an eye out on the people that were eyeing them. "Most refugees come to this part of the town and without energy or heating, most of them die from the cold. I'd say this is no curse if not the kingdom's own fault for not properly addressing the problem."

Leona raised an eyebrow as she asked.

"You mentioned refugees, from where exactly?"

"Arcadia and more recently, Akrapocalis. Where the demon army was the previous reason, now it's death angels. Some even sneak into the capital knowing full well the city is on lockdown. But I suppose it's better to give a shot at living in the slums than dying outside the city walls or worse, being eaten by a death angel."

"I don't blame them, after I saw the carnage left in the wake of one… I'm not sure how I managed to fight off that winged one that appeared near the city."

"They say people who fight for others can muster an almost inhuman amount of power in order to save who is precious to them from danger. Maybe it's the same for you with Krieg."

The tactician was looking down on the snow gathering in the very tip of her boots.

"Truly, I don't know what I would've done if he died. He's basically the only family I have left."

Athena let a discreet smile curl up her face and without turning to face her she said.

"I'm glad we've met Leona. We have so much in common despite having different experiences in life. It's truly heartening to have you by my side." Her footsteps slowly came to a crawl until she stopped walking completely. "So that is why-"

Athena suddenly turned around grasping her rifle tightly, winding it up behind her as if to hit her with the weapon's stock, Leona's hand in reaction went for the derringer but the lieutenant was faster.

"-I have to protect you too!"