UH CH 9 Part 1 (Patreon)

Cleaning felt like shit. It has been a few hours now and I had to admit that I underestimated this work.


“You need to use the cleaning solution. Don’t just rub at it like an idiot.” Richard said. 


“Oh…”


He walked to me and took the mop from my hand.


“Look here. This is human blood, and this is monster blood. If both are mixed, you can’t clean them the same way. Use a mop for one and fire to burn away the other. Got it?”


“Yes, I understand.”


“This sticky stuff here is monster flesh. Using a solution to remove it would waste too much. Scrape it gently with a knife instead. Collect the scraps in one place. And after you use the knife, make sure to wipe it immediately. Monster blood can corrode the blade.”


“…Yes.”


“What’s with that face? You don’t want to do this? Well, it’s true that this kind of work is a bit much. Maybe you should just quit and go back—”


“No, it’s just… Cleaning is more intricate than I thought.”


“…”


I was serious. Cleaners had an extremely negative reputation. Vulture, Hyena, death sniffers, and so much more. Many saw them as the dregs of society, doing an easy job. 


I honestly wasn’t so much different. But now, if there was one thing I could say after just barely starting this work, It was that cleaning needed far more knowledge and was more tiring than I had initially expected. 


My stats may have been low for an awakened, but I was still equal to top human athletes. Yet I felt nearly as tired as if I had hunted down a few goblins. 


The reputation of cleaners was quite literally in the gutter but this did not mean that it was something anyone could do if they tried. 


The constant nagging of Richard from beside me was a clear reminder of this fact and while I would love nothing more than to swing a punch at him with how tiresome he was, I could only begrudgingly accept his words as I was indeed out of my depth. I could see I was somewhat slowing them down and I hated this feeling of being a dead weight. 


What kind of liquids to use to erase blood of monsters or or blood of humans, how to dissolve the trash that some hunters or trespasser left on the way. How to clean and dispose of the remains we found on the day.


I had seen a few bodies when I was younger. Charred bodies for the most part. As hunter we also had to study anatomy because many creatures were humanoid and some of the monsters that came out of high level dungeons were basically humanlike. 


But having to search through the half discomposed body of a young woman barely my age with her innards spilling and her chest being used as nest by slimes was a whole new of level of trauma inducing. 


I must have looked green because of the way Richard, Jana and even Iron Fist snickered but I couldn’t help myself. 


Still, I could somehow understand why Cleaners got such a bad reputation. 


In just two hours of work we already dealt with three bodies and the callous way they handled them was quite eye opening. 


Even Jana, a cleric, would just nudge away some of those remains with her foot and use her holy light to cleanse the ground. The others were even worse somehow. Checking the body to make sure there was some object of values or at least some ID. From what they explained, there was a prime for this.


“This is strange…” As we were taking another pause, I muttered. 


“What is?” Iron Fist asked while checking his ammunition. 


“This is the first time I cleaned a dungeon so excuse me if I am wrong but, the unnatural high number of slimes aside, there are too many bodies. But worst is, there are too much blood. Some bodies are clearly missing.” The Ranger sub class gave me many interesting little advantages beyond skills that were visible on a screen and my intuition was screaming at me that there were too many wrong things in this place.


“They might have gotten dissolved by the slimes?” Jana said, looking around. 


“No. The sludge that result from such actions are lacking. Some of the hunters here also died from wounds on their backs and those wounds are not monsters made. They were clearly backstabbed.”


I continued to expose all the little things I noticed. But the most damnable thing of all was,


“I wasn’t sure at first. But after coming this far, I can say with certainty that there are traces of people erasing their footsteps and those traces are still relatively new. Whoever did this killing might still be in the dungeon.” I brought my conclusion while making sure to look at all of them. 


“Man, is the newbie going crazy from stress already?” Marques joked around nervously but I ignored him. I needed to make one thing clear. I did not want them to think I just wanted to skip work but,


“I am pulling out. I need to be alive to enjoy money after all. What about you?” This might seems cowardly but rushing head on in lair with zero information about the number of enemies was just asking for death. 


It was one thing to risk my life to protect civilians. It was another to die stupidly in a dungeons because I ignored obvious sign. 


Iron Fist was already working on cleaning his gun and Jana’s grip on her staff tightened.


Richard gritted his teeth for a few seconds before shaking his head.


“This is enough. Let’s pull back. We cannot ignore the signs anymore.” He was clearly unhappy but he was rational enough to see that I was making the right decision.


“Richard! That can’t be! What about me!? We cannot leave now.” Marques shouted.


“Please Marques. There is clearly something wrong going on. We need to leave asap. Though we failed to clean the entire dungeon we should still have enough for now if we use all our funds.”


Marques expression twisted at the soft rebuke and looked down, his fist clenching. In the end he sighed and rose his hand in surrender. 


“Just one more room. We clean one more, no need to even enter the boss room. If we clean that room that would make 80% of the dungeon cleaned. We won’t be hit with a big penalty by the association then.” 


His words seemed reasonable. Truly reasonable but something was nagging at me and I was clearly not the only one feeling that way.


“Marques…” Richard muttered.


Click~! 


“Get down!” I shouted while pushing down Jana down.


This small almost imperceptible sound was all the warning we received. Because less than one second later.


Bang~! Bang~! Bang~!


Bullets started raining down.