With the last charge secured against a damp wall, Hans sat up with a slight creak in his back. He took a deep breath. He had finished planting the explosives at all the marked points, and all that remained was to get out before he was buried.

  He straightened his coat, checked his weapons—the pistol still loaded, the side-blade in its holster—and began to move down one of the narrow corridors that would take him back to the rendezvous point. Unlike the outward journey, the air was more tense now. Silent, but full of eyes.

  The Skaven were not long in appearing.

  First, a pair emerged from a side tunnel. Too annoyed or stupid to coordinate. Hans shot the nearest one without pausing, and hit the second with the barrel of his pistol before plunging the blade under his arm. He fell with a dry squeal.

  Hans moved forward without running; nothing was more unreliable than the Skaven's traps. If he rushed without thinking, he could end up in an ambush. Instead, he stayed close to the wall, his eyes alert to the tunnels and crevices that dotted the rock.

  A dozen more gathered in a large room, probably attracted by the smell of gunpowder, the bodies of their comrades, or worse, the constantly blaring alarm. Hans didn't think twice. He took out one of the small charges he had set aside and tossed it unceremoniously into the center.

  The explosion was swift and sharp. Pieces of improvised metal flew, and shrieks filled the cave. Some Skaven fell, others were stunned, and Hans took advantage of the chaos to move among them, finishing them off without missing a beat.

  A larger one, with incomplete armor and a rusty weapon, launched itself from a side ledge. Hans dodged it by inches and spun on his heel, firing instantly. The bullet caught him in the neck. The body fell heavily beside him, raising a cloud of dry dust and rocks.

  Hans didn't stop. The corridors were beginning to narrow, but they were also becoming more familiar. He'd been through there before. He was close to the exit. Just as he crossed a stretch covered in roots and damp, a larger group, this time at least twenty, blocked the corridor. He couldn't go back.

  —Tsk. —Hans took a deep breath and prepared himself.

  He fired his last rounds without hesitation, aiming for the legs first, seeking to break the formation rather than kill. Then he launched into a short, efficient fight. He used the narrow corridors to his advantage, where the Skaven couldn't easily surround him. He pushed with his shoulder, slashed with the buttstock, slashed quickly.

  It was direct, without pauses. It wasn't an elegant fight; it was dirty, exhausting, and full of practical moves that spoke of experience, and that was how they dealt with the plague, weak but numerous creatures that didn't allow for technique.

  As the last Skaven fell, shrieking through a broken throat, Hans stood for a moment, breathing heavily. There was a cut on his forearm, shallow but painful. He wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, felt his side for another wound, and took a quick look around.

  No movement. No sound, except his own.

  The corridor narrowed ahead, forcing him to duck for a moment as he passed under a worn stone archway. At some point, the walls stopped looking like Skaven-hewn structures and became something older. Something constructed. Broken columns, sunken slabs, and markings of a lost language adorned the walls. But this was no time to pause and study.

  In the distance, he heard a scream. High-pitched. A rat.

  They were not long in appearing.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A small group emerged from a side gallery. Four in front, others behind. They were better armed, more disciplined. They weren't mere tunnel rats. Elite warriors, perhaps the true guards of the place.

  Hans didn't let them organize. He picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at the rotten wooden roof that overhung them. The impact was minimal, but it was enough to send dust and some debris raining down on the first few Skaven, sparking confusion, something Hans didn't waste.

  He leaped at them like a shadow. Kneeling on one, he pinned him to the ground. He spun with momentum and broke the neck of the next with a sharp blow from his heavily clothed forearm. The others tried to react, but chaos played out for Hans. In corridors like these, numbers were a disadvantage.

  He blocked a spear with his shielded forearm, pushed the spear-wielder against the wall, and impaled him with his own weapon. The last one tried to run. Hans let him. Not out of mercy, but because he didn't want to waste time. It wasn't worth the time or the risk.

  The ground shook beneath their feet. The explosions were doing their work.

  A few minutes later, as he rounded the bend marking the final stretch of the road, he heard footsteps. He instinctively lowered his pistol when he saw it was a figure much taller than a rat-man, Yang.

  "Everything ready?" the swordsman asked, his breathing labored but with no wounds visible.

  Hans nodded, still without speaking. He approached the main fuse, hidden among a pile of rubble, and lit it with his spark snuffer. The rope began to burn slowly, the spark traveling down the tunnels. They looked at each other for only a second.

  "Let's go," said Hans.

  The fire traveled along the rope with constant speed, and they had barely advanced a few meters when a dull buzzing began to spread through the corridors. The sound of the alarm had been drowned out by the sound of thousands of rats running towards them. They had had enough of the intruders and had gathered enough information to know that there were enough of them to finish them off.

  Hans and Yang ran steadily, without speaking. They didn't need words. They knew the way. They had gone over it mentally before separating. They just needed to reach the tunnel marked as safe, the one the local miners had reinforced with beams and held together with a mixture of tar and stone to withstand the shock of the explosion.

  From the ceiling, from cracks in the walls, even from piles of bones, more appeared. Small, some unarmed, others carrying rusty blades or bone spears. These weren't trained troops. They were slaves filled with pure despair.

  Yang didn't stop. He swung his sword with swift, clean movements, dispatching those who came too close. Hans, out of ammunition, relied on his short blade and his fists. He didn't need precision, just space to advance.

  "One hundred meters to go!" Hans shouted, without looking back.

  Yang nodded silently, her back covering him as they crossed a partially collapsed gallery. Hans had to climb over a pile of rubble to avoid being trapped between two Skaven trying to surround him. One managed to rip his trousers with a broken spear, but it was the last thing he did.

  The roar came from deep within the burrow. First a tremor, barely perceptible, then a firmer shake that made the air vibrate. The rope had reached its target.

  "Run!" Yang shouted, and they both launched themselves into the final tunnel, the reinforced one.

  The world behind them shattered.

  The explosion was a compressed thunderclap. The air pressure pushed them forward with force, and a cloud of dust and rocks caught up with them as they tumbled to the ground. The roar didn't stop: one after another, the charges placed there exploded in a chain reaction, and the tunnels began to collapse.

  Hans coughed, covering his face as he stood up. The sound of the collapse was deafening, but it was fading. Yang sat up beside him, dust covering his face and the sword still in his hand.

  —Did we make it?

  Hans didn't respond immediately. He approached the edge of the tunnel and watched as the entrance was blocked by tons of stone and smoke, and the notification appeared on his screen.

  [SIDE MISSION COMPLETED]

  >> Ritual interrupted.

  You have successfully sabotaged the core of the Skaven burrow.

  The collapsed structure has prevented the completion of the summoning ritual.

  Target Entity: Verminlord – Neutralized.

  Reward available.

  Partial access to a fragment of a damaged Skaven grimoire.

  —Yes. We did.

  They stared at each other for a few seconds, their breathing heavy and their bodies tense with adrenaline. Then, without another word, they began walking back to the surface.