Chapter 25
Si-hyun glanced at the tunnel of spiderwebs he’d already passed through and pressed himself flat against the cold rock wall behind him.
“This way.”
Before long, the ten Awakers who had moved past Suhyuk came to a halt at a massive fork in the path.
“Fuck... There are bugs absolutely everywhere.”
When someone spat out the curse in disgust, the man who seemed to be their leader spoke with a stiff expression.
“We have to pick one route and push through it.”
At that, one of the party members jumped in protest, sounding thoroughly appalled.
“Wait, you mean we have to clear all of this? Cha Seonhu, you said you’d already raided a Giant Spider Nest a few times. Didn’t you say you basically knew the way to the boss room?”
The man called Cha Seonhu shook his head firmly.
“Unlike other Gates, the boss’s location changes every time a Giant Spider Nest is generated. You can’t find the way by experience alone. We’ll focus on one path and force our way through it.”
He pointed with his chin toward the far-right tunnel, the one that seemed to have slightly fewer giant spiders than the others.
“If we’re lucky and find the entrance to the boss room, then our job as the advance party is done. If not, we leave it to the follow-up team to punch through another route. That’s what an advance party is for.”
“Come on. If we’re going to go to the trouble of opening a path, why not find the boss and kill it too? The reward difference is huge. And honestly, those spiders don’t look that strong.”
A warrior-type Awaker licked his lips greedily.
Cha Seonhu answered by pointing deeper into the tunnel instead of speaking.
“Even if we get lucky and find the boss room, as you can see, we’ll run out of mana and stamina before we finish clearing the way.”
“Tch...”
Inside the tunnel, hundreds of crimson eyes and sticky webs crowded together, blocking the way completely.
The Awaker who had been insisting on killing the boss swallowed his words at the sight of that overwhelming mass.
Realistically, it would be difficult for ten people to butcher that many monsters all at once.
Maybe in a low-grade Gate, but this was an upper-grade one. One lapse in judgment here, and they wouldn’t even keep their bones.
“Enough chatter. Let’s start.”
Suhyuk watched them from the shadows as they tightened their grips on their weapons and formed up.
Through the eye of the reaper, he could see sin hanging over the heads of three of the ten.
— Betrayal
— Covered-up murder
— Killing a comrade
— Deception
— Corruption
— Bribery
— Habitual rape
— Murder
They were a motley assortment of human trash.
The urge to draw the Reaper’s Scythe at once and separate those three heads from their necks surged hotly through him.
I’ll watch them a little longer, then kill them when the time is right.
Suhyuk loosened his grip on the scythe and steadied his breathing.
If he cut down those three right now, the party’s formation would collapse in an instant.
If the balance broke, he couldn’t guarantee the lives of the remaining seven.
He didn’t want to create any pointless, innocent casualties.
Besides, he was genuinely curious to see with his own eyes exactly how Awakers hunted inside Gates.
“First squad, move in! Second squad, hold position and guard the rear!”
At Cha Seonhu’s command, the ten Awakers split into two teams of five.
At first, they looked a little clumsy, but once the real fighting began, their coordination sharpened quickly and their combat grew precise.
“I’ll open the way!”
The agile warrior at the front of First Squad surged into the tunnel.
He wrapped mana around his sword and swung it hard, slicing clean through the dense layer of webs blocking the way.
Then he retreated without hesitation.
Shaaaaak—!
“Incoming! Defend!”
Three giant spiders clinging to the walls and ceiling launched themselves toward the warrior’s former position, spraying venomous acid webs like a sudden downpour.
“Block it!”
That was when the tank with the enormous shield stepped forward and deflected the falling acid perfectly.
Chiiiiik—!
The acid splattered across the shield’s surface, and black smoke began to rise.
“Now! Dealers, strike!”
At Cha Seonhu’s shout, the Awakers waiting behind them sprang into counterattack all at once.
Bang!
Thwack!
“Kiaaaack!”
Their powerful skills shattered the spiders’ hard carapaces and splashed green bodily fluid everywhere.
Decoy, tank, then dealer—the cycle repeated.
As First Squad slowly pushed forward and began to tire from the strain on stamina and mana, Second Squad, which had been waiting behind them, naturally took over like a passing baton.
“Second Squad, rotate in! First Squad, fall back and recover your mana!”
Having watched the proper rhythm of hunting while conserving strength, Second Squad repeated the exact same pattern without any trouble and advanced steadily.
Watching that disciplined battle unfold from the darkness, Suhyuk’s eyes gleamed with interest.
Hm... They’re not forcing it nearly as recklessly as I expected.
Rather than relying on individual strength and rampaging like idiots, they seemed to be using the textbook hunting method: budgeting stamina carefully and inching forward, one step at a time, wearing the monsters down.
Suhyuk leaned against the wall and quietly weighed the timing for harvesting those three necks.
* * *
The sticky spiderweb tunnel seemed endless.
The ten A-class Awakers were advancing slowly, killing monsters by steadily grinding them down through strict rotation.
“Let’s rest for a bit. First Squad, fall back and recover mana. Second Squad, watch the front.”
At Cha Seonhu’s instructions, the members who had been breathing hard slumped against the cave wall and sat down.
Suhyuk, still braced against the cold rock, watched their dull resting period in silence.
Then his gaze sharpened on one point.
In the back line stood Lee Si-hyun, quietly doing her part as a dealer while she steadily cast magic skills.
She seemed to be the type who kept to herself, introverted and unwilling to stand out.
Even though she was beautiful, she avoided unnecessary eye contact and made a deliberate effort to blend into the party’s shadows.
But she wasn’t the one grinding his nerves.
It was the man staring at the back of her neck with greasy, hungry eyes.
Park Cheol-min, who had taken the role of sub-tank in the vanguard.
On his retina, a grotesquely warped text displayed his sins.
— Habitual rape
— Murder
The pitch-black sin hovering above Park Cheol-min’s head.
Those filthy words made the meaning of that beastly stare painfully clear.
Park Cheol-min, who had been sitting on the ground drinking water, brushed off the dust and stood up, then walked over to Lee Si-hyun.
“Hey, you’re from Beyond Guild, right? Your face looks familiar.”
The rude, casual tone landed between them with no pretense of familiarity.
Lee Si-hyun had been about to drink a mana potion, but she paused, glanced at him, and gave a brief nod.
Then she immediately turned her eyes away again.
It was a plain refusal—she didn’t want to be involved.
But garbage with its brain full of filth didn’t bother with common sense.
“Hah. Come on now. If someone asks you a question, you answer it. What kind of guild etiquette is that, just nodding like that and being rude?”
He had been the one to act rudely first, speaking down to her, yet now he was the one barking at her as if he’d been wronged.
Lee Si-hyun frowned, clearly not even seeing him as worth answering, and turned away to put some distance between them.
That reaction irritated Park Cheol-min’s pride, and a slimy venom crept into his eyes.
“Where do you think you’re going? I’m not finished talking.”
He was just about to reach out with a rough hand and grab her shoulder when—
Swish.
A shadow holding a giant shield cut between them.
It was Cha Seonhu.
“We’re inside a Gate. Keep your guard up. We’ll be rotating with Second Squad soon.”
The warning was dry, stripped of emotion.
Under the pressure radiating from a core fighter of one of Korea’s five major guilds, Park Cheol-min’s facial muscles twitched.
“Hah, fuck. Fine. Fine.”
He spat irritably on the floor and stepped back.
Once the situation had settled, Lee Si-hyun gave Cha Seonhu a small, grateful bow and moved away.
At first glance, it was nothing more than a trivial bit of friction within the party.
But watching the whole thing, Suhyuk’s mouth twisted faintly.
He’s not giving up.
Suhyuk saw it clearly.
Even after stepping back, Park Cheol-min’s gaze kept licking greedily over Lee Si-hyun’s retreating figure.
That wasn’t disappointment. It was the look of a beast waiting for a more private, more perfect chance.
The inside of a Gate was a lawless zone.
As battles grew harsher and dragged on, exhaustion was inevitable.
That bastard would absolutely try to satisfy his appetite with Lee Si-hyun.
I was going to keep watching, but this won’t do.
Suhyuk drew a light breath.
It was too early for the break anyway.
As expected, the answer was to clean up trash before the smell started to rise.
“All right, break’s over! First Squad, return to the front. Second Squad, fall back! We’re pushing in again!”
Cha Seonhu’s command echoed through the cave.
In the disordered moment as the Awakers clattered to their feet and picked up their weapons, Suhyuk drove a cold stare into the back of Park Cheol-min’s neck and murmured inwardly,
Retribution of Karma.
When Retribution of Karma is used on an Awaker, the activation rate decreases. The reduction rate varies depending on the target.
This too?
Whether it was luck or something else, even against an A-class Awaker, the skill landed on Park Cheol-min in one shot.
Swish.
An invisible aura of hell coiled around Park Cheol-min’s head like a snake.
“First squad, mov— huh?”
Park Cheol-min’s steps toward the front suddenly froze.
The shield he should have been gripping firmly as a sub-tank slipped from his hands and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
“Mr. Park Cheol-min? What’s wrong?”
Cha Seonhu asked in confusion, but Park Cheol-min didn’t answer.
No, he couldn’t answer.
Right now, his vision held none of the cave’s dense webs or the other Awakers around him.
All he could see were figures crawling out of pitch-black darkness, their bodies dripping blood as they dragged themselves forward.
— Why... why did you do it...?
— You told me to save you...
The women he had trampled, violated, and strangled to death.
Those horrific vengeful spirits were now crawling out from the ceiling and floor of the cave, multiplied into dozens and hundreds, where the spiders had been.
---