This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 906: Chapter 906: Into a new kind of ’Abyss’

“Are you sure this is it?” Kain asked, his voice flat with disbelief and a touch of desperation.

He turned to his right.

The boy—now gnawing on an entire chocolate bar like a starved forest animal—looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. His cheeks and mouth were smeared in brown like he’d face-planted into a cocoa fountain. He nodded enthusiastically, chocolate-coated teeth on proud display.

Kain stared at him.

Then stared down.

At the sewer entrance.

A round iron grate, half-buried in frost, exhaled a putrid, swamp-thick stench that curled into the air like something alive trying to escape. It was the accumulated waste of an entire military fortress—thousands of people, thousands of contracts, and whatever unholy toxic substances a 9-star tamer and their entourage expelled.

Kain’s eye twitched.

“…You’re kidding me.”

The boy just happily chewed.

Kain pinched the bridge of his nose. ’I really don’t want to go down… but it looks like I’ll have to…’

Even Queen hummed in discomfort through their link, clearly not looking forward to whatever horror show waited below.

He tried to think of alternatives—having only the vespid guards go down, tunneling around it using Aegis, using Bea to control a creature to go down instead, anything—but the kid had led him here, twist after turn, alley after alley, until this was the undisputed endpoint of the faint, maddening voices only he could track. And for him to continue tracking it, he needed to go personally…

So. Sewer.

Fantastic.

Kain summoned Aegis with a thought.

An obsidian stone giant emerged from a ripple of earth energy, towering behind Kain like a guardian statue come to life. Aegis’s presence alone made the boy flinch, shrinking behind Kain’s coat like a terrified rabbit.

Aegis was far more intimidating in stature than the giant wasp with a gentle presence and teeny ball of fluff he called ’Chewy’.

“Relax,” Kain muttered. “He’s friendlier than he looks.”

Aegis rumbled and then the stones on his ’face’ shifted as if trying to reaffirm Kain’s words and give a ’friendly smile’—unfortunately the resulting ’face’ that looked like a hannya mask was even more terrifying.

Kain almost face palmed.

’Note to self. Aegis is not suitable for babysitting kids’

Kain raised a hand, and six Vespid guards materialized beside Queen—tall, wasp warriors with angular wings and giant stingers that glinted like spears. Two of them were the result of the random mutations that may randomly strike some of Queen’s progeny—One had dual stingers, while the other had an additional set of wings.

Upon being summoned, their mandibles clicked in crisp salute and also tried to put on their most friendly demeanour.

The boy almost dropped his chocolate bar.

’Yeah these guys aren’t suitable for kids either…’

“Relax these guys are harmless—” Kain said. Before Kain could even finish, the mutant with two stingers got spooked by a loud explosion on the city wall, firing one of its stinger in that direction…where it struck and instantly crumbled a nearby building wall. Thankfully it see,ed to just be for a small warehouse and nobody was inside.

’Seriously! Can you guys please work with me!’

He changed his words. “Ahem. They are harmless to you.”

Then he gestured at the guards and Aegis and described his plan.

Aegis grunted, then slammed both hands into the ground. Segments of his own terraformed body peeled off and flowed upward like melted stone, encasing Kain and the boy in a thick sphere of earth. It sealed around them with a dull thud, leaving only a small round window—a fist-sized opening Kain had requested so he could see.

Six protruding stone handles grew from the outside.

“Grab on,” Kain ordered.

The Vespid guards each took a handle, lifted the sphere with a flutter of their wings, and descended into the sewer.

——————————-

Kain had expected the smell to be bad.

He had not expected it to be at the level of a spiritual attack.

The moment the sphere descended far enough for air to seep in through the viewing hole, a wave of odor hit him so hard his soul recoiled.

“Oh—oh by all that is Holy—that is vile!” Kain slapped a hand over his face and immediately sealed the opening shut using Aegis’s earth. “Aegis—plug that! Seal it! NOW!”

The stone snapped shut.

Blessed silence.

Blessed darkness.

Blessed lack of smell.

But now he couldn’t see.

And the boy couldn’t give directions.

Kain opened his mouth to complain—

—and Bea calmly projected a full mental image of the sewer tunnel into everyone’s minds like she was streaming a nature documentary.

“You’re welcome,” she said dryly.

The boy shivered. The voices were getting even louder as they continued their descent into the sewer.

Bea tried her best to intensify the dampening field on his mind, but it only seemes somewhat effective and the boy was growing noticeably paler by the second. Queen, in the ball of earth with the,, continuously transferred pure life energy to him.

With their dual support, the relentless whispering faded from a clawing shriek to a distant hum—still present, but survivable.

Kain exhaled. “Alright, kid. You tell us where to go.”

The boy, clutching the last third of his chocolate bar, winced but listened for the voices. Slowly, he lifted a trembling finger and pointed forward.

Kain relayed the direction. The Vespids turned.

The sphere jolted as they moved.

It was a miserable journey.

The sound of sloshing liquid echoed outside—thick, syrupy, bubbling. Bea’s mental projection helpfully zoomed in on it once where he could see an innumerable number of floating brown lumps.

“Disgusting! What the hell is that?!”

Kain ordered her to stop focusing there immediately.

Aegis’s mental voice helpfully rumbled: ’I believe that was a sludge of rotting marrow, ruptured organ tissue, and bile-saturated fat. The black streaks appear to be decayed intestinal walls.’

“Thank you for sharing,” Kain muttered. “I definitely wanted to know that.”

’You are most welcome’

The tunnels twisted and narrowed. They went deeper, the air growing cooler and the pressure changing as they descended through the earth. Kain had the distinct sensation that they’d passed the normal sewer system and entered older, half-forgotten maintenance channels.

The boy gave another direction.

They turned.

Another.

Left.

Right.

Down a vertical chute.

Kain felt the Vespids’ wingbeats grow strained. Even the insectoid warriors were suffering; their minds lightly pinged him with how awful this environment was.

“Endure,” Kain said. “We’re close.”

He wasn’t sure how he knew.

He just did.

Then—

The stench began to fade.

Kain blinked.

“We’re… getting fresh air?”

Bea projected the image—

And Kain saw why.

Ahead, the waste stream plunged off a massive cliff into an underground ravine. The waterfall was the width of a battlefield, and the sludge transformed mid-fall—purified by a sigil based system carved into the rock wall, converting the filth into clean, shimmering water by the time it hit the river below and then continuing onwards to what, Kain presumed, was the nearest river.

“Thank the stars,” Kain exhaled. “Finally.”

The Vespids beat their wings harder, emerging into the cavernous space. The roar of falling water thundered everywhere.

“Aegis,” Kain said. “Retract the sphere.”

The stone peeled away like flower petals opening, forming a flat platform instead. The Vespids continued to carry it steady.

Kain stood.

The boy scrambled to his feet, clutching his chocolate bar remnants.

Then they both saw it.

In the center of the cavern surrounded 360 degrees by waterfalls carrying purified water—just beyond the spray of the waterfall—hovered a structure.

The gate..

The actual gate from the boy’s vision.

It stood on nothing. It was attached to nothing.

Pale-blue sigils spiraled upward, weaving themselves into an arch that floated above the river without so much as a ripple beneath it. Every rune rotated slowly around the next, gears of light meshing in seamless patterns. The inner space of the gate was filled with a shimmering veil—like a sheet of polished ice reflecting colors that didn’t belong to this world.

It was beautiful.

And yet painful to look at.

Kain felt his vision blur the longer he looked.

The boy cried out and squeezed his eyes shut, face contorted in pain.

Kain turned away, blinking rapidly. “Okay—nope—can’t look directly. Got it.”

Queen, atop the platform with them, gazed steadily without issue. The Vespids too seemed unfazed.

Aegis lifted an arm and extended a hand of earth toward it.

Kain felt tension spike across their link.

“Aegis—careful—”

The earth-hand touched the outermost ring of runes.

The gate reacted.

Click.

The runes shifted.

The gears aligned.

A low, harmonic groan rippled through the cavern, making the river vibrate.

Then—

The veil parted.

The gate opened.

A corridor of bluish light stretched beyond it—calm, steady, cold.

Kain stared.

He swallowed.

He could feel it.

A pull.

A calling at him.

“Master,” Queen said, her voice steady. “Orders?”

Kain took a breath.

He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

The kid trembled, but stayed close.

Kain straightened his coat.

“…We’re going in.”