Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Part 9

“Oh, right! Brother, may I ask you something?”

Mincheol cautiously spoke up beside Yugeon.

“Yeah.”

“I saw on the news yesterday that a level 88 Fragment of the Abyss appeared on Floor 4 of Area 1.”

Mincheol lowered his voice slightly.

“They said someone presumed to be a Colossus appeared and killed it in a single blow. Apparently, he even left all the by-products behind and simply disappeared...”

“...”

Yugeon kept looking straight ahead.

There was no change in his expression.

“Was that you, Brother?”

“...”

“Ah, if I asked something I shouldn’t have...”

“That’s right. I happened to have some business on the fourth floor, and a Fragment of the Abyss appeared while I was there, so I killed it. I didn’t have enough space to take the by-products, so I just left them behind.”

“As I thought... it was you, Brother.”

Mincheol smiled, his eyes sparkling.

He had wondered while watching the news yesterday whether it could possibly be him.

And indeed.

‘Just how strong is Brother?’

He had wondered the same thing when Yugeon killed Drogas in one blow.

But he had never expected him to be strong enough to kill even a Fragment of the Abyss in one blow.

‘Surely... he can’t kill even a level 100 monster in one blow, right?’

However, Mincheol could not help feeling that even if it were a level 100 boss monster.

It would still die in a single blow before Yugeon.

_____________

Floor 20 [Black Spider Castle].

When Yugeon and Mincheol arrived at the Black Spider Castle on the twentieth floor, damp moisture clung to their bodies.

A ruined castle covered in blue moss.

White spiderwebs covered everything from the rooftops to the outer walls.

“This is actually my first time here.”

“Looks like you skipped clearing the twentieth floor with an item.”

“Yes, that’s right. At the time, our party leader had business on another floor, so he used an item that let us go straight to the next floor.”

“He used something that valuable on such a low floor. He’ll regret it later.”

“What is this place like? Are there a lot of monsters?”

“There aren’t many monsters, but the boss is the problem.”

The boss of the twentieth floor, 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 spotted a human, she lost all reason and charged.

Most importantly, anyone caught by the queen would immediately fall under her control.

Because of that, the more party members there were, the difficulty increased exponentially.

“Hmm, I can see why. But why did we come here?”

“The Legendary item I’m giving Hwang Mungi is here.”

“A Legendary item?!”

At the word Legendary, Mincheol jumped in surprise.

On the way here, Yugeon had told him that he had made a deal with someone named Hwang Mungi, so he roughly understood the situation.

But he had not known that the payment for the deal was a Legendary item.

“A-Are you really going to give him a Legendary item??”

“It’s a Legendary item that isn’t particularly useful anyway.”

“...”

“Why? You want it? Want me to give it to you?”

“No. If it were an item I needed, you would’ve given it to me first, Brother.”

Mincheol laughed heartily, and Yugeon gave a faint smile as well.

They had not known each other for long, yet Mincheol already understood him quite well.

As they continued moving.

“...”

Swoosh.

Yugeon turned his head slightly.

Behind a collapsed wall.

An extremely faint killing intent was leaking out from there.

“Mincheol.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“Raise your shield.”

“?”

Clang!

Mincheol reflexively pulled the shield from his back.

It was a sudden order, but Brother was not someone who gave pointless commands.

“There are people here from the group I hate most.”

Rustle.

Yugeon indicated the direction with only his eyes.

Mincheol turned his gaze that way and lowered his stance.

“Don’t tell me...”

“That’s right. They’re raiders.”

Scum worse than insects who killed fellow Awakened and stole their items.

The kind of people he hated most.

Above all, he despised raiders encountered on the twentieth floor even more.

“They’re probably not only after our items. They likely intend to kill me as a way of calming the queen.”

“Pardon? Calming the queen?”

For Mincheol, who had never cleared the twentieth floor, Yugeon explained.

The Arachne Queen went berserk the moment she encountered humans.

However, there was a way to calm such a boss.

By offering a human as a sacrifice for her to eat.

After eating a human sacrifice, the Arachne Queen entered a dazed state.

And in that state, her attack and defense were reduced to a certain degree.

“They hunt humans for the boss. And while they’re at it, they take their items too.”

Grit.

Hearing Yugeon’s words, Mincheol ground his teeth in intense disgust.

Offering humans as sacrifices.

Swoosh.

Wooooong!

“Damn it! We’ve been spotted!”

Swoosh!

The moment Mincheol raised his hammer, the raiders hiding behind the wall immediately jumped out.

There were six of them in total.

They thrust their weapons forward and openly released blatant killing intent.

“Looks like we’re unlucky today. Of all people, we had to run into someone sharp.”

The man who appeared to be their leader clicked his tongue.

A noticeable scar and a vicious smile.

He had the typical look of a hyena.

“Hey, pal. How about we make this easy? Drop your weapon and come over here. Then we’ll put you to sleep with magic before you get eaten, so it won’t hurt.”

“That’s right. Getting eaten alive is horribly painful. So don’t spill blood for nothing and sacrifice yourself for humanity.”

The raiders snickered as they tightened the encirclement.

To them, the men before them were nothing more than meat to throw to the Arachne Queen.

They acted completely relaxed, as if resistance would be pointless.

However, Yugeon was not looking at them as human beings.

Trash who killed people climbing the tower and even threw them to monsters as food.

“For humanity, huh.”

Yugeon let out a faint laugh.

“I think humanity would be better served if vermin like you died instead.”

“What? Vermin? This bastard still doesn’t understand the situation...!”

The leader’s face flushed red.

At his gesture, the subordinates on either side charged simultaneously.

“Cut the tendons in their legs first.”

Whoosh!

A dagger and an axe flew toward Yugeon’s thighs.

But Yugeon stood rooted to the spot without moving.

“Trash like you have no right to live.”

Mincheol, who had been standing still with his weapon, swung his hammer down toward the charging raiders.

Earth Shatter.

KRAAAAAANG!

Mincheol spread the impact in every direction.

When Earth Shatter was spread through the entire ground, it created an earthquake and taunted opponents.

But when detonated before it touched the ground, the shockwave spread sideways.

KABOOM!

BANG!

“Aaagh!”

“Gghk...”

“?!”

When the bodies of the two charging men burst apart in an instant.

The leader and the remaining raiders’ eyes widened so much they nearly popped out.

What had just happened?

Their bodies had exploded from nothing more than the shockwave of a hammer.

And every one of them had been level 40.

“D-Don’t tell me... you’re over level 50...?”

The leader stammered as he looked at Yugeon and Mincheol.

Usually, the people who came up to the twentieth floor were either members of a party or mediocre nobodies.

But if they were monsters like that, they had to be above level 50.

“F-Fifty?! Spare— Aagh!”

The moment the others heard level 50, they stepped backward and tried to flee.

But with killing intent glinting in his eyes, Mincheol charged forward at tremendous speed and crushed the heads of the fleeing enemies.

Crush!

Bang!

“Eek...!”

Seeing his comrades’ heads crushed in an instant, the leader collapsed and crawled across the floor.

His pants were wet, as though he had even pissed himself.

“I-I was wrong! Please, just spare my life! I’ll do anything you say! Money? Items? I’ll give you everything!”

“You said your goal was to calm the boss?”

Yugeon looked down at him coldly with an expressionless gaze.

“I was out of my mind! If you just let me go...”

“Normally, I should throw you to it as food... but my goal isn’t to calm the boss.”

“Th-Then you’re sparing me? Since you don’t need bait... you’ll just let me go, right?”

A faint glimmer of hope appeared in the leader’s eyes.

If they had no need to calm the boss, there would be no reason to drag him to the spider den.

Yugeon shook his head expressionlessly.

“The fact that you have no value as bait means there’s no value in keeping you alive either.”

“...What?”

“What would be the point of letting people who rob and kill their fellow humans live? You’d just go out and create more victims.”

In his previous life, he would not have killed all people like these.

Humanity had been dying every day, and he had not wanted to add to that number with his own hands.

But after regressing, he understood.

People like these simply had to die.

Only then would there be no more victims.

“Wait! Aaaagh!”

The leader recoiled in terror, but Yugeon’s hand was faster.

Slash!

Thud.

Roll.

Ding-!

[Accumulated growth has been reflected in your attributes.]

Strength　　　+1

Agility　　　+1

Stamina　　　+1

Senses　　　+2

Thump.

After disposing of the last piece of trash, Yugeon shook the blood from his sword.

“What should we do with these guys?”

“Burn them all. It’ll cause trouble if there are corpses here.”

“Should I burn all their items too?”

“Burn them.”

Whoosh!

At Yugeon’s words, Mincheol immediately poured oil over the raiders’ corpses without hesitation and burned them.

“But why would corpses here cause trouble?”

“Once we start fighting the queen, the spider humans nearby will come to the castle. And if there are corpses here, they’ll lay eggs inside them.”

The problem was that spiders born inside human corpses multiplied exponentially.

Roughly one hundred million per corpse.

That was why burning them away was safest.

“Let’s go see the queen.”

Without hesitation, Yugeon walked through the entrance of the Black Spider Castle.

____________

Creeeeak.

The inside of the castle was damp and dark.

The ceiling, walls, and even the floor were completely covered in white spiderwebs, making it feel as though they had entered an enormous cocoon.