Transmigrated as a Ghost

"So, who wants to go first?" Inten asked, breaking the silence.

Currently Marcus' and Novak's parties were standing around a manhole that was sealed tightly.

Within the vicinity of the area where Houten's army had established its forward base within the city, this was the closest entrance to the sewer system.

"I suppose that we will go first. If something happens, please rush down to assist us." Novak said, a look of resignation on his face.

He and clay then bent down and removed the cover sealing the manhole.

The putrid smell of decay erupted from the now unsealed entrance, and everyone instinctively took a step back.

"Yeah, there is no way that is just from normal waste. Not after this place has been abandoned by the living for three centuries." Miguel said, his nose wrinkling in disgust.

Thankfully the magic tools Marcus had made for everyone in his party were helping to alleviate some of the rancid smell.

Novak and his party members though, were having to face the full brunt of the awful scent.

In the end, before going down, they each affixed a perfumed cloth around their mouths and noses.

"Faire Lights."

As Novak took the lead down into the sewers, Marcus cast a light magic spell to illuminate the pitch-black space.

Dozens of softly glowing spheres of light flew off of his hands like dandelion seeds on the wind.

Slowly they descended with Novak and his party. Giving them more than enough light to see for around thirty meters in every direction.

"It's all clear down here. At the very least there aren't any monsters within this chamber of the adjoining hallways." Novak called up once he and his party reached the bottom.

Having received the message, Marcus began heading down with the rest of his party following behind him.

When he reached the bottom of the shaft, Marcus found himself in a small square shaped room that had four pathways leading out.

"Looks like where in some sort of junction. I'd guess that through these corridors that anyone that needed to do maintenance could reach just about anywhere done here." Novak said.

Of course, they weren't down here for any routine checks, and there was undoubtedly something a lot worse than a clog or damaged piping waiting for them.

Marcus looked down each of the different paths and listened carefully, but even his heightened senses could not detect anything.

He tried focusing on his life sense skill, but as he expected he did not pick up anything. Even if there were undead within the range, they would not be picked up by the skill.

"Honestly, from the reports that no one has ever come back from exploring this place, I was expecting there to be hundreds of zombies or skeletons lurking down here." Marcus said, a look of suspicion on his face.

Despite being able to feel the deadly energy all throughout the city, he had yet to see a single undead monster. Sure, Houten's army had secured the area before moving in any adventurers or sell swords, but he had not even caught a glimpse of a single shambling corpse.

'It's like every single undead has simply run away. But for what reason? Something must be giving them commands, since any unintelligent low level undead monster should single-mindedly be rushing towards the hundreds of thousands of living people that just infiltrated the city.'

Marcus pondered what the objective of the monsters in the city might be. He had a few theories but the most plausible one he could come up with was that the undead were amassing and waiting for night. They would have the overwhelming advantage in the dead of night. Still, he could not help but wonder if there was something more sinister afoot.

Except, as he was deep in thought, Marcus suddenly felt a slap against the back of his head.

"I can see that you're trying to think things through, but you're not going to glean any masterful insights standing around here. We've prepared the best we can, so we'll find out more by jumping in and looking for things ourselves. Overtly worrying about stuff we don't know about and can't control is only going to slow us down." Mrazivý said.

Now that they had entered into hostile territory, her eyes had a serious glint in them, and she was carefully looking around.

"Yeah, you are right. Let's get started." Marcus replied.

He then conferred with Novak, and they decided to split up into four different groups. It would be impossible for the sixteen of them to effectively fight together in such confided spaces and they had four paths that needed to be covered.

In the end it was decided that Novak's party of five would handle the corridor heading south. Marcus, Blitz, and Inten would go east. Mrazivý, Eirwen, Miguel, and Roxene would go north. And finally, Lilia, Alaric, Aurelia, and Zareen would head south.

"Are you sure that this is the best to send one of your parties without a mithril rank with them?" Novak asked, casting a concerned glance towards Lilia's group.

From what he could see, all of them looked like young adults that had only recently come of age, and their adventurer ranks were the lowest. Two platinum and two gold ranks would in most places be considered quite the force, but down here there was no telling what sort of danger they might encounter.

"Yeah, I trust their skills. Plus, they are heading south which is towards the edge of the city, I expect there to be less enemies in that direction. Everything should be fine." Marcus said confidently.

However, Lilia's party's composition was pretty much set in stone even if he wanted to change it. Aurelia and Zareen would only follow Lilia, so they had to go with her. As for Alaric, he would probably do what Marcus asked, but his performance would definitely drop if he was away from Lilia. Especially if Marcus replaced him with Miguel to balance out the groups based on rank.

After bringing up his worries, Novak did not make another comment and instead focused on his own party's task.

"Okay, we will meet back here an hour before sunset. If something goes wrong, don't be afraid to retreat." Marcus said, before each group went down their own path.

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