Chapter 14

The joint force, stunned senseless by the devastating power of the attack, stood frozen with their weapons still in hand.

“Get it together! It’s not over yet! Hold formation!”

The heavy shout that shattered the battlefield’s silence came from Yoo Cheolmin of Aegis Guild. The joint force, which had been frozen in shock, snapped back to their senses and tightened their grips on their weapons.

The only monsters swept away by the lightning spear were those that had been caught in its path. Mutated centipedes and spiders were still pouring out from deeper within the nest, accompanied by revolting screeches and skittering noises.

But the joint force’s momentum was completely different from when they had been driven onto the defensive moments ago. The sheer power of Eunseong’s skill, with him standing firm in the rear, was more than enough to erase their fear. Zenith’s guild members, in particular, charged into the heart of the battlefield like mad dogs unleashed from their chains, tearing through everything in their path.

At their head was Zenith’s assault captain, Cha Taekyung.

Every time Cha Taekyung’s greatsword, accompanied by his crazed grin, cut through the air, the monsters charging toward them were cleaved in two.

As Cha Taekyung continued swinging his greatsword without pause and rampaging across the battlefield, one particular movement caught the elite hunter’s attention.

Kang Mujin.

The low-ranking hunter Eunseong had supposedly been watching with interest.

But those movements could not possibly belong to a C-Rank hunter. They were on an entirely different level from the flashy swordsmanship and skills relied upon by inexperienced rookies.

Mujin slipped into the monsters’ blind spots like a shadow, using the bare minimum of movement and focusing solely on killing them. The sheer experience behind his movements was impossible to overlook.

Interesting. He’s wasted in the rear.

Like a hunting dog that had caught the scent of blood, Cha Taekyung ran his tongue over his dry lips and rested the greatsword across one shoulder before changing direction.

His heavy combat boots, dripping with monster fluids, crushed the ground with every long stride toward Kang Mujin.

“Hey. You’re Kang Mujin, right?”

Feeling a cold shadow fall over his back, Kang Mujin slowly turned around.

There was no reason for Cha Taekyung to seek him out personally, so Mujin kept his guard up and lowered the tip of his sword at an angle.

Before he could even speak, Cha Taekyung’s thick hand suddenly shot toward the back of his neck.

It was not a casual touch. It was the kind of grip meant to subdue someone by force.

Killing intent flashed through Mujin’s previously indifferent eyes.

He violently knocked Cha Taekyung’s wrist aside.

Then, as though realizing what he had just done, he froze for an instant.

Cha Taekyung rubbed his stinging wrist and grinned.

“Wow. You’re interesting. Come with me.”

“What is this all of a sudden…?”

Mujin followed the direction of Cha Taekyung’s chin.

The rear of the battlefield.

Where Eunseong was standing.

Breathing roughly, Mujin glanced at the hand that had just tried to seize his neck.

“I can walk on my own.”

Kang Mujin and Cha Taekyung arrived in front of Eunseong.

Eunseong had been watching them ever since they started approaching, and he was screaming internally.

What? Why? Why are they coming over here?

He was already struggling with an unfamiliar weakness that made him want to collapse flat onto the ground. Seeing Mujin draw closer only made him tense up for no good reason.

Did he figure out what I was trying to do? Did he catch me sneaking looks at him?

Oblivious to Eunseong’s thoughts, Cha Taekyung slammed his greatsword into the ground with a boom and twisted into a grin.

“Guild Leader. Give me this hunter.”

“…What?”

“I’m taking him onto my team. I watched him fight. He’s too good to waste in the rear.”

This lunatic.

Eunseong knew all too well that Cha Taekyung was reckless and impossible to reason with. He had read the original novel dozens of times.

But even he had never imagined that Cha Taekyung would stand in the middle of a battlefield flooded with monsters and openly demand Kang Mujin like someone bargaining over a prize.

“No, at a time like this…”

In the brief moment when Eunseong was too dumbfounded to continue, Kang Mujin, who had been staring quietly at the ground, stepped forward.

It was a stride that completely disregarded Cha Taekyung’s existence.

Mujin’s large frame half-blocked Cha Taekyung from view as he approached until he was standing directly in front of Eunseong.

The stench of monsters clinging to him from the recent fighting immediately assaulted Eunseong’s nose.

At that suffocatingly close distance, Mujin slowly lowered his head.

Beyond Eunseong’s sunglasses, Mujin’s eyes seemed to bore straight through him, filled with unmistakable hostility and vigilance.

Eunseong’s panicked mind spun out of control.

It was true that Mujin eventually joined Cha Taekyung’s team in the original story.

But not now.

That happened later, during an incident in another dungeon.

Why is Cha Taekyung suddenly trying to take Mujin? What changed…? Ah. Is it because I gave him that weapon?

Eunseong had watched Mujin’s performance whenever he had a spare moment while keeping an eye on Han Jia.

He had found it a little strange that Mujin was no longer hiding his strength completely, but he had never expected it to produce this kind of result.

Wait… wouldn’t it actually be good for me if he joins sooner?

Mujin needed to grow quickly before Eunseong would have a plausible reason to hand Zenith over to him.

If an opportunity had presented itself this early, he ought to take it.

And yet something dark and murky spread through one corner of Eunseong’s chest, leaving behind an inexplicable sense of irritation.

…Then why does this piss me off so much? It feels like Cha Taekyung is taking him away from me.

And then there was Mujin’s silence.

He had not even bothered responding to Cha Taekyung.

He was simply waiting for the answer that would come from Eunseong.

That gaze, as though it might peel him open and expose every hidden thought, scraped at his nerves.

Reason told him he should let Mujin go.

At the same time, the thought of someone taking Mujin away from him irritated him.

On top of that, the smell coming from Mujin was making Eunseong look progressively worse.

His bloodless lips moved faintly.

As though unwilling to miss even that brief hesitation, Mujin’s gaze dug relentlessly into Eunseong’s pale cheek and moving lips.

Unable to withstand that suffocating stare any longer, Eunseong subtly turned his head away and spoke in a dry, brittle voice.

“…Take him.”

Only two words.

Yet the moment they left his mouth, the temperature around them seemed to drop.

At the heavy permission tossed out like a shove from behind, Mujin clenched his jaw so hard it looked as though the bone might crack.

“You heard him. The Guild Leader personally approved it. You’re on my team now.”

Delighted, Cha Taekyung slapped Mujin on the shoulder hard enough to make a sharp sound.

Mujin did not so much as sway under the tremendous force.

As though Cha Taekyung’s words had never reached him, he remained rooted in place like stone, staring solely at Eunseong’s pale profile.

Then, as if shattering the suffocating silence between them, a dull, violent vibration rising from deep beneath their feet began to intensify.

Rrrrrrrrrumble!

This was not merely a tremor traveling through the soles of their feet.

It was an ominous, enormous shockwave violently shaking the entire ground beneath them.

As though mocking Eunseong’s completely drained mana, a red system window appeared.

[The master of ‘Queen’s Colony,’ the ‘Huntsman Spider Queen,’ has detected the intruders.]

[The venom concentration in this area is rapidly rising beyond survivable limits.]

“…Fuck.”

The curse slipped from Eunseong’s lips like a groan.

His mana was gone.

His body felt limp.

Mujin’s gaze refused to leave him.

And now venom was pouring out of the ground itself.

There was nowhere to escape.

A pained sound leaked helplessly through Eunseong’s clenched teeth, his face draining of color.

Ah… please. Enough already.

A deafening roar shook the air.

The next instant, hundreds of tons of rock could no longer withstand the force below and exploded upward. The ground ahead split apart like a colossal crater, jagged fissures tearing open as the earth heaved.

Broken stone rained down.

From the deep, pitch-black pit beneath it, the Huntsman Spider Queen crawled into view.

Beyond the dust filling their vision, eight horrifying red eyes gleamed ominously.

The instant those eyes swept across the area, the venom that had already weighed heavily upon the air intensified exponentially, tightening around the joint force’s throats.

A harsh, sulfurous reek stabbed into their lungs, accompanied by the revolting stench of something rotting.

Eunseong clenched both hands inside the pockets of his coat and stared up at the Huntsman Spider Queen with a bloodless face.

…If I pass out now, I’m going to die, aren’t I?

Reading about something in a book and seeing the real thing directly in front of him were worlds apart.

It was far larger than he had imagined, and a pressure unlike anything he had ever experienced crushed his entire body.

The morale the joint force had only just regained crumbled like a sandcastle before a single murky breath from the Huntsman Spider Queen.

As if by silent agreement, their desperate gazes all turned toward Eunseong.

Those heavy looks clinging to him as though he were some kind of savior, along with Kang Mujin standing beside him and watching the situation unfold, forcibly held Eunseong in place when every instinct screamed at him to run.

Under that suffocating pressure, Eunseong repeatedly swallowed back the nausea rising in his throat and forced out a dry voice.

“Cha Taekyung.”

“Yes, Guild Leader.”

“Prove your worth.”

For one brief instant, Eunseong’s gaze touched Mujin.

There was pity in that look for the man being sent straight into danger, but Eunseong hurriedly looked away before the emotion could be noticed.

“I’ll prove your judgment was right!”

“……”

Cha Taekyung raised his greatsword excitedly, like a hunting dog that had finally chosen its prey.

Mujin, on the other hand, twisted his mouth.

Prove my worth?

Mujin’s black eyes swept over Eunseong once before shifting toward the Huntsman Spider Queen.

The meaning of the word worth was already being reinterpreted inside his mind.

So he was testing whether I’m qualified to be used as one of his pieces. …That’s why he came all the way in here himself.

Even before the regression, Baek Eunseong had constantly weighed the worth of other people.

And anyone weak was discarded without mercy.

Fine. I’ll play perfectly on the board you set up. Keep those eyes wide open and see exactly how much I’m worth, Baek Eunseong.

Mujin tightened his grip around the hilt of Lord of the Black Night until it seemed ready to crack.

Cha Taekyung noticed the vicious aura coming off him and, as though he had been waiting for precisely this moment, kicked off the ground and shouted,

“Kang Mujin! Stay right behind me!”