Part 9
“Oh, right! Boss, may I ask you something?”
Walking beside Yugeon, Mincheol cautiously spoke up.
“Sure.”
“I saw on the news yesterday that a Level 88 Fragment of the Abyss appeared on Zone 1, Floor 4.”
Mincheol lowered his voice slightly.
“They said someone believed to be a Great Star appeared and killed it in one blow. Apparently, he even left all the monster materials behind and simply disappeared…”
“……”
Yugeon continued looking straight ahead.
His expression didn’t change.
“Was that you, Boss?”
“……”
“Ah, if I asked something I shouldn’t have—”
“It was me. I happened to have business on Floor 4, and a Fragment of the Abyss appeared while I was there, so I killed it. I didn’t have enough room to carry the materials, so I left them behind.”
“As I thought… It was you.”
Mincheol smiled, his eyes sparkling.
He had suspected it while watching the news yesterday.
His suspicions had been correct.
Just how powerful is Boss?
He had wondered the same thing when Yugeon killed Drogas in one blow.
However, he hadn’t expected Yugeon to be powerful enough to kill a Fragment of the Abyss just as easily.
Surely he couldn’t kill even a Level 100 Boss Monster in one blow… could he?
Yet Mincheol couldn’t shake the feeling that even a Level 100 Boss Monster would still die in a single strike before Yugeon.
***
Floor 20, [Black Spider Castle].
As Yugeon and Mincheol arrived at the Black Spider Castle, damp air clung to their bodies.
The ruined castle was covered in blue moss.
White spiderwebs blanketed everything from its roof to its outer walls.
“This is my first time coming here.”
“You must have used an item to bypass the Floor 20 clearing condition.”
“Yes, that’s right. Our party leader had business on another floor, so he used an item that allowed us to proceed directly to the next floor.”
“He used something that was valuable on such a low floor? He’ll regret that later.”
“What is this place like? Are there many monsters?”
“There aren’t many monsters, but the Boss is troublesome.”
The Boss of Floor 20 was the Arachne Queen.
Her upper body resembled a pale woman, while her lower body was that of a spider as large as a house.
The moment she discovered a human, she lost all reason and charged at them.
Worse still, anyone captured by the Queen immediately fell under her control.
Because of that, the difficulty increased exponentially with the number of party members.
“Hmm. I can see why she’d be troublesome. But why have we come here?”
“The Legendary item I’m giving Hwang Mungi is here.”
“A Legendary item?!”
Mincheol jumped upon hearing the word “Legendary.”
On their way here, Yugeon had told him about the deal he had made with a man named Hwang Mungi, so Mincheol understood the general situation.
However, he hadn’t known the payment was a Legendary item.
“A-are you really planning to give him a Legendary item?”
“It’s a Legendary item that isn’t particularly useful to me anyway.”
“……”
“What? Do you want it? Should I give it to you?”
“No. If it were an item I needed, you would’ve taken care of me first.”
Mincheol laughed heartily, causing Yugeon to grin.
They hadn’t known each other for long, yet Mincheol already understood him well.
As they continued onward—
“……”
SWOOSH.
Yugeon turned his head slightly.
Behind a collapsed wall, he sensed an extremely faint trace of killing intent.
“Mincheol.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Raise your shield.”
“?”
CLANG!
Mincheol instinctively pulled the shield from his back.
The command had come without warning, but he knew Yugeon wasn’t someone who issued pointless orders.
“The kind of people I hate most are here.”
RUSTLE.
Yugeon indicated the direction with his eyes.
Mincheol lowered his stance and turned his gaze toward it.
“Don’t tell me…”
“That’s right. Raiders.”
They were scum worse than insects who murdered other Awakened and stole their items.
Yugeon despised their kind more than anything.
Above all, he felt particular contempt for Raiders encountered on Floor 20.
“They’re probably after more than our items. They intend to kill me to pacify the Queen.”
“Pardon? Pacify the Queen?”
Yugeon explained for Mincheol, who had never cleared Floor 20.
The Arachne Queen went berserk the moment she encountered a human.
However, there was a way to pacify her.
A human had to be offered to her as a sacrifice.
After devouring the sacrifice, the Arachne Queen entered a dazed state.
While in that state, her attack and defense decreased to a certain degree.
“They hunt humans to feed the Boss—and take their items while they’re at it.”
GRIND.
After hearing Yugeon’s explanation, Mincheol ground his teeth in disgust.
They sacrificed humans as food?
SWOOSH.
HMMMM—!
“Damn it! They spotted us!”
SHRAAAK!
The moment Mincheol raised his hammer, the Raiders hiding behind the wall rushed out.
There were six of them in total.
They leveled their weapons forward and openly unleashed their killing intent.
“Looks like we’re unlucky today. Of all people, we ran into someone sharp.”
The man who appeared to be their leader clicked his tongue.
He had a prominent scar and a sinister smile.
His face had the predatory look of a typical hyena.
“Listen, pal. Why don’t we make this easy? Drop your weapons and come over here. We’ll put you to sleep with magic before you’re eaten, so you won’t feel any pain.”
“That’s right. Being eaten alive is horribly painful. Don’t make us spill blood. Sacrifice yourself for humanity.”
The Raiders snickered as they tightened their encirclement.
To them, the men before them were nothing more than meat to be thrown to the Arachne Queen.
They acted completely at ease, as though resistance would be futile.
However, Yugeon no longer regarded them as human.
They murdered those climbing the Tower and even threw their victims to monsters as food.
“For humanity, you say?”
Yugeon let out a quiet laugh.
“I think humanity would benefit far more from the deaths of vermin like you.”
“What? Vermin? This bastard still doesn’t understand his situation…!”
The leader’s face flushed red.
When he gestured, the subordinates on either side of him charged simultaneously.
“Sever the tendons in their legs first.”
SWISH—!
A dagger and an axe flew toward Yugeon’s thighs.
However, Yugeon remained rooted in place.
“Trash like you has no right to live.”
Mincheol, who had been standing still with his weapon raised, brought his hammer down toward the charging Raiders.
Earth Shatter
BOOOOM—!
Mincheol released the impact in every direction.
When Earth Shatter’s force spread throughout the ground, it caused an earthquake and taunted nearby enemies.
However, if it was detonated before striking the ground, the shock wave spread horizontally.
KABOOM!
BOOM!
“Aaargh!”
“Ghrk…”
“?!”
The two charging Raiders burst apart in an instant.
The leader and his remaining men stared with eyes so wide they seemed ready to pop out of their sockets.
What had just happened?
Their bodies had exploded from nothing more than the shock wave of a hammer.
Worse still, both men had been Level 40.
“D-don’t tell me… You’re above Level 50…?”
The leader stammered as he stared at Yugeon and Mincheol.
Most people who reached Floor 20 either came to parties or were mediocre stragglers.
However, monsters like these two had to be above Level 50.
“F-fifty?! Spare— Argh!”
Upon hearing “Level 50,” the other Raiders stepped backward and attempted to flee.
However, killing intent filled Mincheol’s eyes.
He charged after the fleeing enemies with tremendous speed and crushed their heads.
CRUNCH!
BOOM!
“Eek…!”
After watching his companions’ heads get crushed in an instant, the leader collapsed and crawled across the floor.
The front of his trousers was wet. He had even urinated on himself.
“I-I was wrong! Please, just spare my life! I’ll do anything you ask! Money? Items? I’ll give you everything!”
“You said your goal was to pacify the Boss?”
Yugeon looked down at him with a cold, expressionless gaze.
“I must’ve lost my mind! If you let me leave—”
“Normally, I would throw you to her as food. Unfortunately, pacifying the Boss isn’t my objective.”
“Th-then you’ll spare me? Since you don’t need bait… you’ll let me go, right?”
A glimmer of hope entered the leader’s eyes.
If they didn’t need to pacify the Boss, there was no reason to drag him into the spider’s lair.
Yugeon shook his head without changing his expression.
“The fact that you have no value as bait means there’s no reason to keep you alive.”
“…What?”
“What would be the point of sparing people who rob and murder their fellow humans? You’d only leave and create more victims.”
In his previous life, Yugeon wouldn’t have killed every last one of them.
With humanity dying in droves every day, he hadn’t wanted to add to the death toll with his own hands.
After regressing, however, he understood.
People like these simply had to die.
Only then could their future victims be saved.
“Wait! Aaargh!”
The leader recoiled in terror, but Yugeon’s hand moved faster.
SLASH!
THUD.
ROLL, ROLL.
DING—!
[Your accumulated growth has been reflected in your attributes.]
Strength +1
Agility +1
Stamina +1
Perception +2
THUMP.
After disposing of the last piece of trash, Yugeon flicked the blood from his sword.
“What should we do with them?”
“Burn them all. Leaving corpses here would cause problems.”
“Should I burn their items too?”
“Burn everything.”
FWOOSH—!
At Yugeon’s command, Mincheol immediately poured oil over the Raiders’ bodies and burned them without hesitation.
“But why would leaving corpses here cause problems?”
“Once we begin fighting the Queen, the Spiderfolk in the surrounding area will come to the castle. If they find corpses, they’ll lay eggs inside them.”
The problem was that the number of spiders born inside human corpses increased exponentially.
Each corpse could produce approximately one hundred million spiders.
Burning the bodies was therefore the safest option.
“Let’s go meet the Queen.”
Without hesitation, Yugeon walked through the entrance of the Black Spider Castle.
***
CREEEEAK.
The interior of the castle was damp and dark.
The ceiling, walls, and floor were completely covered in white spiderwebs, making it feel as though they had entered an enormous cocoon.