Floor 13, The Forest of Insects (2)

"This hidden mission info about the Insect Queen came from the community," Ha Heijeong said. "The people who posted it just said to head right. There was no mention of a key at all."

Ah, so she'd only heard about it secondhand, never done it herself.

If things had gone even slightly wrong, we could have discovered the hidden mission and then been locked out of it entirely. Even now, if it weren't for that strange feeling I'd had earlier, I never would have found the key — though what that feeling even was, I still couldn't say.

Ha Heijeong murmured as if something had just clicked. "Right, that's it. The Shelter needed a key too, so of course killing the Insect Queen would need one as well."

"Now that you mention it, yeah. Good thing we found it."

"Ah, damn. Sorry. If it weren't for you, we'd have been training like beaten dogs in there."

"Huh? No, what do you have to be sorry for? They're the ones who lied — nothing you could do about it. But Heijeong, that's not the important thing right now—"

There had definitely been seven minutes left just a little while ago. I hadn't checked again, but surely the time was nearly up by now…

Almost before I could finish saying it, a notification window popped up right before my eyes.

At the same instant, the whirring of insect wings began to rise from every direction.

Where they'd suddenly come from, I had no idea — the sky all around us was staining black. Swarms streaked with red and swarms streaked with blue, each individual insect already the size of Dobby's face.

Hundreds of them at a time came pouring in, looking for all the world like a dark crimson and indigo fog racing toward us at breakneck speed.

I felt like I'd seen something like this somewhere before…

Oh, right. A locust swarm!

The scale was bigger here, but the shape of it was just like the disaster they called a locust plague.

"Haa…"

My face scrunched up on its own, and an involuntary sigh escaped me. It wasn't fear, exactly — closer to a visceral, physiological revulsion.

Do we run?

"Should we run?"

"No, let's push through like before. We've got the key, and all we have to do is go one direction — what's the problem? I'll take the rear. You just watch the front."

"The front? Got it."

I turned my head forward again. The insects ahead still had some distance to close.

Hmm, so how am I supposed to use the Essence of Lightning?

Kill insects with lightning, huh.

The first thing that came to mind was an electric fly swatter.

If I want to use it like one of those, I'd need to spread it out thin and wide…

While I was thinking it through, I felt light and heat flare up behind me. Ha Heijeong — clearing away the ones that had gotten close, apparently.

Crack-crack— With the sound of sparks spitting, the wing-beats I'd been hearing at my back fell silent in an instant.

Now the only wing-beats I could hear clearly were coming from ahead.

The instant I began drawing up my mana to use the Essence of Lightning, Ha Heijeong shouted.

"Don't make your lightning too weak!"

Not too weak, huh?

Fair enough — these were things that showed up on the 13th floor of the Tower of Trials. Ordinary electricity probably wouldn't so much as singe them.

It seemed I'd have to push the intensity far higher than I'd planned. I concentrated lightning into my arm.

I had to cover the entire 180 degrees in front of me.

Simply scattering it wide, or throwing up a curtain of lightning across the whole front, was inefficient. Factor in the densely packed trees obstructing every path, and…

Strong, and chain it.

I had to respond with raw speed to whatever came first. I compressed the Essence of Lightning I'd drawn up.

So the instant it struck, it would spread far and wide.

The Essence of Lightning carried conductivity in its very nature, but I needed to push that conductivity even further.

At some point it had reached level 8, and its power had grown by an entire tier.

Ahead of me, a powerful bolt of lightning fired toward the first swarm.

It stretched out in the blink of an eye and reached the first cluster of insects.

The moment lightning struck the first insect dead-on, it raced through the swarm in a chain.

Tatatatang— With the sound of insects bursting one after another, the swarm scattered and came raining down like flying sparks.

The blue blood the insects sprayed into the air as they burst painted a fresh blue mist across the sky.

One more.

Behind that blue haze, a second swarm was closing in.

The second bolt fired.

Inside the mist, hundreds of tiny sparks flickered briefly, and the oncoming swarm turned into a mist of red.

Right again.

The third, fourth, and fifth bolts fired, and the crackling never stopped.

The swarms died bursting apart without ever managing to get ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠close.

The smell of burning protein came riding in on the wind.

Huh, it really does feel like using a long-range electric fly swatter?

It seemed a little cruel, but it was weirdly fun.

Who knows how many insects I'd killed — even killing them from range, my drained mana was refilling in an instant.

It was thanks to the Mana Accumulation Gauntlet — kill an enemy, gain mana.

In the brief respite, I reviewed the fight. Though "fight" was generous — it had been closer to a slaughter…

That last one might have been a bit much.

Heijeong's advice and the trees had pushed me to raise the intensity, but looking at the results, I'd clearly overdone it.

Next time, I should ease up a little…

I had plenty of mana coming in, but I needed to learn to control it. You should give your all even against a weak opponent.

There was no reason to build the bad habit of splashing mana around like water.

Just as I was about to push forward again through the gap left by the dead swarms, Ha Heijeong called out a warning to Dobby.

"Dobby, hold your breath when you're inside those colored mists."

"Kkiik? Human! What mean?"

"All of that stuff is poison. Don't waste your strength casting Detoxification spells— don't waste your strength on antidote magic, just hold your breath."

That mist is poison?

Wait, then why wasn't she saying any of this to me?

She tended to Dobby and left me to my own devices… something like hurt crept into my chest.

"Heijeong, what about me?"

"Hey! You— you little—!"

Ha Heijeong whipped around to look at me with an exasperated expression.

Then, a moment later, she nodded, her face settling into understanding.

Right, I suppose you wouldn't know, she muttered quietly to herself — but with my superhuman hearing, I caught every word.

"How many elixirs have you eaten by now? This much barely registers with your liver. Besides, you should be deliberately drinking that stuff to build up your poison resistance."

"…Deliberately?"

"Yep. Every time you pass through the mist, take a nice deep breath."

"…Okay."

I nodded with a sour look on my face. Being told to deliberately inhale poison smoke was a little absurd.

Then again, it wasn't like I was maiming myself to raise a natural healing skill or anything…

Wait. Actually, that doesn't sound half bad either?

Would the Tower even recognize something like that, though?

I'll ask her about it later. For now, she told me to drink the poison, so…

I guess I have to.

Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since my Poison Resistance skill had leveled.

Ever since I got poisoned by a goblin's homemade venom back on the 1st floor, poison had never gotten the better of me.

It had only crept up by one level here and there whenever I ate an elixir.

Soon a blue mist lay ahead. I stepped into it and drew in a deep, deliberate breath.

"Khhack! Cough, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cough!"

And the poison smoke was — far more potent than I'd expected.

If you took cigarette smoke and condensed it twenty-fold, this is probably what it would feel like — and I'd long since adapted to the poison smoke.

Passing through the blue smoke made my lungs feel like they were freezing over; the red smoke made them feel warm instead.

The blue poison felt far harsher than the red. Still, the more I drank it in, the more familiar it became.

My lungs surely weren't rotting away — it must have been my Poison Resistance leveling up.

I didn't bother to check. I was moving toward the hidden mission, and staring at my status window wouldn't change anything anyway.

Heijeong raised flames, I hurled lightning. Simple, repetitive labor.

Because the attacks paused every thirty minutes, we were moving at a fast clip again now.

And that was when I got the feeling I was missing something.

…Hmm, what is it?

What was I overlooking?

I fell briefly into thought as we walked, and a moment later, something brushed across my mind.

The place we were heading was where the Insect Queen was.

There were two kinds of insect in this forest.

Fire insects, and ice insects.

But would there really be only one Insect Queen?

The fact that I'd gotten the key by killing a fire insect also nagged at me.

For some reason, I had a feeling there was an insect among the ice insects carrying a unique key of its own.

Besides, this was supposed to be a floor for two people to climb together in the first place…

From experience, the 13th floor wasn't one that strictly required two people. It was a floor where you simply had to kill the key insects within the time limit.

Well, for a solo climber, the priests might be a struggle — but the Tower had never been that kind.

And then there was the claim that the Insect Queen was to the right.

Wouldn't there be an ice insect queen on the left?

Once I started doubting, everything began to feel off.

Of course, it was possible a single queen held both the powers of ice and flame.

But my gut said otherwise. That same feeling of missing something.

And Ha Heijeong had said herself that she'd never experienced it firsthand — her info came from the community.

Worse, that info hadn't even mentioned a key for reaching the Insect Queen.

"Hey, Heijeong."

"What?"

"Is the Insect Queen really only one?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"There are two kinds of insect, right? Ice insects and fire insects. And this is a floor built for two climbers. If there's an Insect Queen on the right, wouldn't there be one on the left too?"

"…Hold on."

Ha Heijeong's eyes went wide, then her brow furrowed.

She seemed to be dredging through her memories, so I waited in silence.

Judging by her reaction, my guess is right…

"I can't be sure. Everything I know says there's one Insect Queen. But—"

"The fact that the key was never mentioned is what's bugging you, right?"

"Yeah. That, and I think you're right. Odds are there are two Insect Queens. Damn it! Why didn't I think of this? I was trapped in bad information from the very start."

Ha Heijeong ground her teeth, clearly frustrated.

It was a blind spot unique to regressors — not quite a blind spot, but close.

On floors crowded with so much information, you failed to remember things clearly and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perceived them only in fragments.

Because you deemed them unimportant, you absorbed them one-dimensionally and never looked deeper.

"Those bastards. What the hell do they even gain from lying about something in the past? Haa… no, now's not the time for this."

Ha Heijeong let out a long breath and pulled herself together.

Right — this was no time to stand around.

Now that we knew a second Insect Queen might exist, we needed to move as fast as possible.

We'd already burned far too much time.

"I'll go the other way."

"You?"

"Yeah. We've already eaten up a lot of time, and we've come a good distance from the start point. You and Dobby kill the Insect Queen on the right."

Of course, there might not be a queen on the other side at all.

But the odds favored there being two.

And I figured killing both would pay out better than killing just one.

It was a choice between a confirmed hidden mission and a perfect one — but either way, hidden missions shared the minimum achievement score.

"…Yeah, that's better. Let's do it."

Ha Heijeong agreed without argument. It was like she'd seen straight through my thinking.

"If one Insect Queen is on the right, then if there's another one, it's most likely on the left, right?"

"Yeah. Statistically, the left's the better bet. And if your gut speaks up on the way there, follow it."

"Okay, got it."

I gave a light nod and turned my body around.

I had to retrace our path, and fast. I broke into a run.

About thirty minutes passed like that.

Then a new notification window appeared before my eyes.

Probably because of Ha Heijeong… I whipped my gaze to the window.