090 – Attending the Alumni Reunion with a Nymph! #1
The rift was crawling with all manner of insect-shaped monsters.
Their defining traits were poison, sharp horns or pincers, or a hard chitinous exoskeleton — usually some combination of the three.
By that standard, this giant centipede had the whole package: venom, horns, and pincers alike.
━KAAAAAAAH…!!!
The centipede spread its venom-dripping fangs and let out a shriek that made the very air tremble.
Unwilling to be outdone by that cry, Ang-ang-i stepped forward.
━Zzji…!!!
What a thunderous roar. Truly a paragon worthy of the crown — born emperor of the honey ants.
Pop-!
Ang-ang-i the Emperor Ant lunged at the centipede.
━Zzji…!!!
Climbing onto the creature's massive body, the ant drove his horns into its carapace with a CRACK, tearing open a huge wound.
The centipede thrashed in agony, and even its thrashing alone was enough to split the ground and crumble the walls. If this went on, even Ang-ang-i might take serious damage.
I wanted to quickly form a mana zone and buff him, but for some strange reason my body simply wouldn't respond. My thigh especially felt like it was being seared over a flame.
"Uh oh. Made a mistake there."
As fatigue began to claim my body, Doctor Ari spoke up.
"Senior! Stay still! I have to suck the poison out with my mouth! Please understand that I have absolutely no impure intentions! That is not a lie! This is a medical procedure!"
Ari pressed her lips against my thigh, and with a firm sucking sensation, drew out a considerable amount of venom and spat it onto the floor — ptooey!
It was, surprisingly, ticklish.
"Hee-hee-hee!"
"Senior, are you all right now?"
"Oh, thanks to you I feel much better, Ari. You're amazing. Sucking out poison can't have been easy. Weren't you scared?"
"I WAS scared! Especially of that centipede! It's so huge and terrifying! I, um, I actually quit rift-clearing duty because I had no confidence fighting monsters!"
Brrr-.
Ari was trembling as if terrified out of her wits. Apparently this was her honest heart, laid bare by the Truth Flower.
"I look so pathetic, don't I! An awakener who's afraid of monsters! Whenever I see one, my hands and feet shake and my heart pounds so hard I can't stand it! I'm even embarrassed to confess this!"
Ari had always struggled against monsters. So that was it — she'd been counted among the promising up-and-comers alongside Seo Yerim, and then she'd quit and become a doctor.
I spoke to her as if to console her.
"Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Not every awakener has to fight monsters. You're helping people in a different way, and that matters just as much."
Pop-.
I tucked Ari safely behind me and shouted toward Lee Jina.
"Hey! Can you lock down its movements like you did with the Troll King?"
"Five to ten seconds!"
Her binding of Kurish the Troll King had lasted only an instant. That she could pin a giant centipede of comparable strength for five to ten full seconds was remarkable.
"Have you been secretly training without me knowing?"
"It's only natural to want to get better at the things you can do. Need I say more? Here I go. When I give the signal, charge in and attack! Okay — now!"
Pop-.
Lee Jina pressed her thumb against her own temple.
And with that, the giant centipede froze in place.
Vwoom-.
I drew my Beam Saber and charged at the centipede with everything I had, then swung the blade at full force toward its apparent weak point — the antennae.
"Gale First Strike!"
Zuuuuung-.
The sabre, sweeping in a great crescent arc, met the centipede's antennae —
SHAAAAK-!
— and carved a deep wound.
━Zzieeeeeeeek…!
"Its carapace is harder than I thought! I meant to cut clean through, but all I did was wound it!"
Apparently my B-rank mana output simply couldn't project enough firepower to bisect the thing.
The real problem was that the centipede, enraged at having its antennae sliced, ignored Jina's control entirely and coiled itself around my body, knot by knot.
━KAAAAAAH-!
Is this what it feels like for people who die strangled in a mass of snakes?
"Ugh—!"
Creak, creak-creeeeak-.
My body was being squeezed tighter and tighter as the centipede wound around it.
"Uuuuugh!"
I gritted my teeth, forced my hand to move, and pulled the shotgun from my waistband. Then I squeezed the trigger!
BOOM-!
A deafening report, the acrid smell of gunpowder and mana rounds. Hit point-blank by a mana shell, the centipede seemed thoroughly startled and flung my body far away.
"How's that? Stings a little, doesn't it, when someone shoots back? Turns out the guy you looked down on has a thick spit of his own!"
━Zzuuuuuu….
Drip, drip-.
The giant centipede glared at us, violet fluid dripping from its wounded antenna.
━Zzzzzzzz….
Just as its crimson eyes were looking truly terrifying —
FLASH-!
— Kalinoi the Tiger Owl, who had been circling high above, crashed down onto the centipede's body!
━Hoo, hooo…!
Flap-flap, flap-flap-.
GURDUNG, KURAK-!
The sight of two massive beasts rolling and grappling was ferocious. Kalinoi raked at the centipede's head with talons sharp as blades — relentless, vicious strikes — and I found myself staring at the spectacle, forgetting the battle around me.
Soon, Illinoi gave her trademark mfufufu snicker.
"Birds are the natural predators of bugs, that is the fact, da…!"
At last, Kalinoi crushed the insect's antennae and fangs with her beak and tore its body apart with her talons. My Beam Saber had barely managed a wound on that same carapace — watching her shatter it outright, I was genuinely astonished.
━Kkieeeeeeeek…!
Shhhhhhhh, KUUUUNG-!
Finally, the centipede let out a death cry and collapsed to the ground, shaking the earth itself.
Tap-.
Kalinoi stood atop its corpse and spread her wings.
━Hoooou…!
Perhaps toppling her opponent put her in a good mood — it was a magnificent, unbound roar.
And it was at that exact moment.
"Having our lives threatened by a giant centipede…! I, Illinoi, cannot forgive this unjust treatment, that is the case…! I am therefore enacting private sanctions, da…! Let's do it…!"
RATATATATATATA-!
The nymph Illinoi proceeded to beat the fallen centipede one-sidedly.
"This portion is mine, Illinoi's…! And this portion belongs to Oinoi and Coris…! And this portion is for Illinoi, who had to wake up early this morning and missed her precious sleep, that is the fact, da…!"
Sssssss-.
Then something astonishing happened. The centipede's body gradually shrank until it was no bigger than my palm.
━Zzzzzz….
Small enough now that it didn't look threatening in the slightest.
Maybe I could tame it at this size — no sooner had that thought crossed my mind than the centipede leapt toward the back of my neck. Pop-!
"Oh, come on, you."
I didn't even need to react. Kwang-kwangi, who had been lurking nearby in hiding, sprang up with a pop and pounced directly onto the centipede.
━Hio-ong…!
Wrapping the centipede up in silk, round and round — the Ghost Spider had it fully cocooned in seconds.
The centipede's containment, complete.
Goooooooh-.
At the same time, the rift began to collapse. Apparently, that centipede had been the rift's core.
"So in the end we didn't get to keep any of that gold."
Lee Jina gazed mournfully at the sealed rift. She was no doubt recalling the mountains of treasure that had been piled up inside.
"The important thing is nobody was badly hurt."
The only casualty had been me.
"And I barely got hurt at all."
"Senior, you mustn't die! There could still be centipede venom in you! I need to suck out more!"
Yu Ari looked like she was about to cry. It seemed the sight of me being attacked by that horrifying centipede had been a real shock to her.
Was Ari always such an emotionally expressive person?
"Jina, how long does the flower we smelled earlier last?"
"Ten minutes. Process it, and the effect weakens but the duration stretches a bit longer."
So Ari wasn't emotionally unsteady because of the Truth Flower right now. She was just genuinely upset that I'd been hurt.
My venom-struck thigh still throbbed a little, but honestly? That was well within acceptable losses.
Anyway.
The anomaly rift, Dragon's Nest, was cleared.
Though frankly, Centipede's Nest would have been a more fitting name.
And as for what became of the centipede —
━Zzzz-.
Like collecting a specimen, I'd scooped it neatly into a clear glass jar. Never mind that it was currently gnawing at the glass with its fangs — tak, tak- — as if it intended to bite the bottle to pieces.
"Mfufufu, this one's venom could be used for potion cooking by me, Illinoi, that is the fact, da…! I am therefore taking it to-go, da…! Companion centipede, it is, da…!"
Apparently Illinoi wanted to keep the fearsome thing as a pet. I had no particular plans for it myself, so I held the jar out to her.
"Very good, that is the fact, da…! Feeling very good, da…!"
"Fourth artifact discovered in Korea!"
"Believed to be the wedding ring of 'Nanna', the goddess known as the Flower Goddess—"
"With this, Korea now holds the third-largest number of artifacts among OECD nations!"
When I looked the internet news over, the world was in an uproar over yesterday's discovery. An artifact imbued with the power of the Age of Gods. How many such relics a nation possessed had become a seed of national competitiveness, every bit as important as how many S-Rank awakeners called it home.
"Ugh—."
And yet I, one of the very discoverers of that artifact, spent the entire day flat on my back in bed instead of conducting a glorious interview. I'd come down with a fever, and my whole body ached like it was melting.
"Aargh, I'm dying. I once had the flu that spiked my fever to 40 degrees. This feels exactly like that. Half in and half out of a dream."
"The centipede's venom is nothing to sneeze at, that is the case…! Oinoi did not know there existed such strong centipede venom, that is the fact…! If it had not been sucked out at once, your whole body would have gone completely limp, that is the case…!"
That was what she said. Apparently, if Ari hadn't performed emergency treatment so quickly as a doctor, I would have been in serious danger.
"Senior. I've administered the newly developed antivenom, so just tough it out one more day and you'll be right as rain. Truly. Honestly, who gets hurt shielding an owl?"
Shoop-.
Ari laid a cool, damp towel across my forehead. Her eyes then turned to the owl sitting beside me — Kalinoi.
Snore, snore-.
Kalinoi had squeezed herself into my cramped little room, tucked in right beside my bed, and fallen fast asleep.
"This girl. The moment I got close, she'd bolt. And now look at her."
Kalinoi had been glued to my side ever since we exited the rift yesterday. The very beast who had been wary of me now clinging this closely — I found it embarrassing in more ways than one, especially with my head swimming from the venom.
"Hee hee hee. I guess it looked cool when you took the centipede's attack in her place. Even I thought it was cool. But please don't be so reckless. When you get hurt, Senior, it hurts me too."
Kwuuuuk-.
Ari clenched her fist.
"I was right there, and I couldn't protect you. It's my responsibility."
"There was nothing you could do. You retired from active duty a while ago, after all. And besides, everyone's body is their own responsibility. You've got no one to blame."
Of course I should have anticipated that a centipede monster would carry venom in its legs or fangs. This fever was, in a sense, the price I owed myself.
And whether it was my imagination or not —
Beyond a fever that simply made my body burn, I also felt something strange: a sensation of power overflowing.
My body felt like a roaring, red-hot furnace. My head ached, and yet strength surged through me — saying that out loud would sound absurd, I know.
Stranger still, my blood had pooled toward one particular spot.
I found the situation extremely uncomfortable and wanted to hide it by any means necessary. If only I could move my hands, I'd have managed something — but I couldn't even roll onto my side.
What do I do about this.
"...Senior, I... the truth is... there are a lot of things I haven't been able to tell you. I..."
Brrr-. Ari was trembling. Her expression looked extremely tense.
I said to her, gently:
"It's okay. Everyone has things they want to keep hidden. And you've always been a deep thinker, going way back. Tell me whenever you're ready. I can wait."
"........"
Ari clenched her fist tight. Then, as if brimming with courage, her face brightened — and she took off her doctor's coat and draped it over the blanket covering my lower half.
Everything in front of my eyes seemed to go dizzyingly white in about a dozen different ways.
"...Aaaauoooruororouaaa—"
"Hee hee. Rest now, Senior. Oh, and I happened to glance at your phone — it says you have an alumni reunion this Friday. The first-generation students' reunion, apparently."