Chapter 15
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 15: Party (2)
A dark cave with no end in sight.
Even after discovering it herself, Baek Yeon made a bewildered expression.
"This is..."
"W-wow! To think there'd be a hidden place in a spot like this!"
"I-indeed. To discover a hidden passage. That's amazing."
We were equally flustered that she suddenly knocked on the wall and discovered a hidden passage.
When we clapped, praised, and flattered Baek Yeon with awkward acting, she felt bashful without any suspicion.
"T-this too is all thanks to the power I received from Lord Nidhogg. So please do not praise me too much."
"No. We just came to lightly coordinate our teamwork, but to discover such a serendipitous encounter thanks to you, Ms. Baek Yeon. You are truly amazing."
As we were attributing all the credit to Baek Yeon, the sound of something crawling skitter, skitter- was heard from inside the wide-open cave.
"Since it said Arachne's Hideout. Might there be spiders?"
"Judging by the sound of multiple small lifeforms walking around, I think spiders is correct."
It was the moment we made a rough guess about what monsters were inside and were about to go in.
Thump.
Thump, thump-
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump-
Not the footsteps of small lifeforms heard a moment ago, but the sound of something massive gradually getting closer made both Shin Su-ah and Baek Yeon grip their weapons and prepare to face the monster.
-Kiiiiieeeek!
What revealed itself from the dark inside of the cave was an Arachne, possessing the upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a gross spider.
A situation where the boss monster, which should have been waiting in the hideout at the very back of the cave, had popped out.
The Arachne that came outside looked down at the two with eyes glistening with appetite and spoke.
"Kishit. I don't know who you are, but thanks for breaking the seal. As a reward, I'll eat you painlessly."
The Arachne, preparing to pounce on the two at any moment, stopped her gaze at me, who was flying low behind the two.
And her pupils instantly dilated.
"...Kiiiiiieeeek!? A-a-a-a dragon?!"
"??"
"C-could you perhaps be Lord Dragon's slaves! O Great Dragon, my words just now were a mistake blinded by appetite. Please forgive me! I have no intention of being hostile to you!"
The Arachne, bending her eight legs and lowering her body, trembled violently and begged.
To think she'd be terrified when I hadn't even done anything yet.
Has she seen a dragon similar to me before?
"I have no intention of doing anything, so raise your head first."
"T-thank you..."
"I have one thing I'm curious about."
"Y-yes! Please ask anything."
"Have you seen another dragon besides me in the past?"
"Yeees. In the distant past, I saw a Lord Dragon possessing a hundred heads..."
Is that so.
100 heads, huh.
Since she said she saw a dragon, I wondered if she saw a guy I knew, but it seems that's not the case.
The guys I know are either larger than me or have golden bodies; they aren't guys with 100 heads.
"So. That dragon's name and other features?"
"I-I do not know the name. However, some of the heads were sleeping..."
"Useless."
Seeing as there seemed to be no more information to gain, I gave a signal with my eyes to the two who were waiting while listening to the conversation between the Arachne and me.
As soon as the two, understanding the signal I sent, prepared to attack, the Arachne noticed and jumped up.
"Kishiit! L-Lord Dragon! I have no intention of being hostile to Lord Dragon! Please do not attack!"
"Sorry, but what we need is your inner core, you see."
"O-oh no! My children!"
Realizing there was no intention to spare her, the Arachne shouted loudly, and a massive number of spiders crawled out from inside the cave, but that only bought a brief moment of time.
The two, having filled their sword and spear with magical energy, slashed and pierced, killing over ten spiders in a single strike.
"Now that it's come to this! I won't go easy just because you're a dragon!"
Dropping the honorifics, the Arachne spewed out purple silk using the opening the small spiders bought.
When a part of the spider web, spread wide in a grid pattern, touched the ground, the contact point melted away with a sizzle-.
Does the silk itself have poison?
However, the poisonous spider web, which approached melting everything it touched, did not inflict any damage on the two.
The standard Valkyrie armor wasn't soft enough to succumb to a mere Arachne's poison, and Baek Yeon, having accepted my power, had obtained a body that ordinary poison couldn't affect.
"M-my poison so easily?"
"Let's wrap this up."
"There's no need to spend any more time, right."
The two kicked off the ground and dashed simultaneously, clearing away the spiders blocking their path like bulldozers, and quickly reached in front of the Arachne.
In the meantime, the Arachne clumped spider webs like bullets and fired them at the two, but this time too, the two deflected them all too easily.
And following that, Shin Su-ah's sword swung like a flash of light, slashing the Arachne's legs, and Baek Yeon's spear pierced through its neck.
"Kiik... Keurk..."
"Just die. Monster."
To the Arachne struggling to live while grabbing and pushing away the spear, Baek Yeon coldly declared and twisted and swung the spear lodged in its neck sideways, and the Arachne's neck dangled as its body lost strength and slumped.
"Phew. A mere monster struggling to live until the end. It's just ridiculous."
"Is she really okay?"
"Since she's not like that to us, shouldn't she be fine?"
I thought her temper might have died down a bit after the last incident, but not at all.
The sight of Baek Yeon sneering with cold eyes at the dead Arachne with its neck dangling was absolutely not the appearance of someone whose temper had died down.
She's not going to suddenly turn on me and strike the back of my head someday, is she?
"No way. Besides, you said a master-servant relationship or something was formed, right? Doesn't that handle it?"
"I know that, but she's quite bloodthirsty, you see."
Baek Yeon stopped sneering at the dead Arachne, split its chest open with her spear, and took out a purple inner core from inside.
And as if the sneer she had worn until a moment ago was a lie, she smiled softly and handed that inner core to Shin Su-ah.
"You said you needed the inner core, right? Here it is."
"T-thank you."
The Arachne's inner core.
The reason we chose that inner core as our first serendipitous encounter is none other than because the Arachne's inner core has the power to increase poison resistance.
Furthermore, it is said that if you eat the Arachne's inner core and just two other elixirs, you gain the ability of universal poison immunity, where no poison works on you.
I don't know if that universal poison immunity could even block my poison, but if ordinary poison doesn't work, it's an absolutely necessary ability for her.
Since increasingly stronger Gates will appear in the future and enemies using poison will also increase, for Shin Su-ah to survive, she must increase her poison resistance in advance before they appear.
Therefore, the Arachne's inner core, which increases both poison resistance and magical energy capacity at the same time, is a quite suitable option.
"Are you planning to consume it immediately?"
"Ah! No. The toxicity is strong, so preparation is needed before eating it."
"You thought well. It might be different if you had received Lord Nidhogg's power like me, but since simply eating it at your current level could cause trouble, Ms. Shin Su-ah, I was going to stop you if you said you'd just eat it. But there was no need to."
"Thank you for worrying."
Shin Su-ah stored the inner core by placing it in a special box she brought beforehand that prevents toxicity or medicinal properties from leaking out.
"Shall we head back now?"
"It's a bit regrettable, but we'll have to be satisfied with this much for today."
We swept away all the monsters inside the Gate, packed even the inner core, and slipped out.
Thanks to clearing the monsters in an instant, the sun hadn't set yet even though we came out of the Gate.
Now we just had to hand over the magic stones of the monsters we hunted today, finish the settlement, and return, so it was right when we were about to go to the settlement office operated by the Association.
"Hmm?"
Just like when she found the hidden space inside the Gate, Baek Yeon, having sensed something, raised her head toward the sky.
The Valkyrie Linnea, ordered to monitor Nidhogg by Freyja and Odin, faithfully engaged in her mission while hiding her presence high in the sky for a week.
Though it was called a mission, since Nidhogg showed no particular actions for a week, it was mostly just reporting his location.
Linnea, having continued the surveillance for a week, is currently feeling boredom and tedium at Nidhogg, who is showing no movement.
If the other Valkyries spurring on the construction work knew of Linnea's inner thoughts, they would have wanted to tear her to death, but since Linnea was the only Valkyrie assigned to this mission, that won't happen.
Linnea, who continued monitoring Nidhogg from early morning today as well, felt curiosity at the sight of Nidhogg moving to another location in earnest for the first time in a week.
'Is that... a Gate?'
Shin Su-ah, who possesses power similar to a Valkyrie. Baek Yeon, who harbors power similar to Nidhogg.
Seeing Nidhogg entering the Gate together with the two, she wanted to follow them in and see what they were doing, but the probability of getting caught was too high if she did that, so Linnea decided to wait until the three came out of the Gate.
And it wasn't long before the three came back out of the Gate.
The three who came out of the Gate were carrying bags that weren't visible before going in, and Linnea, a Valkyrie, detected the aura of an inner core leaking from the luggage Shin Su-ah held among them.
Although they placed it in a storage box that conceals the aura, it wasn't enough to fool Linnea's eyes.
"What. They went in to get something like that?"
Certainly, the poison and magical energy felt from the inner core would be helpful to a weakened Nidhogg.
Linnea, judging like that, thought perhaps with the current Nidhogg, even without Lady Freyja or Lord Odin stepping in, wouldn't they, the Valkyries, be able to catch him?
She thought so.
Because a Valkyrie is a messenger who chooses the souls of warriors and a warrior who stands on the battlefield, fighting spirit overflowed from Linnea's body the moment she thought of fighting.
The moment fighting spirit overflowed like that.
"Hm? That woman. Did she see me?"
The woman harboring an aura strangely similar to Nidhogg raised her head, and their gazes clashed.
And blinking her eyes.
"Isn't this a Valkyrie?"
Nidhogg appeared right before Linnea's eyes.