The Ant Nest? (6)
The sound of ragged breathing echoed through the darkness.
“Kuhk… huff… haaahk…”
It had been an hour since Zeke abandoned Monaca and fled. Even while running, he had crossed paths with scattered groups of small spiders several times. Each encounter forced him to change direction and sprint even faster. He ran until his lungs burned, without a single thought for a swordsman’s honor.
The confidence he once held as a veteran C-rank adventurer had vanished long ago—ever since he ran into a swarm of big spiders while carrying Monaca on his back.
“Fuck! Why… why the hell is this shit only happening to me?!”
No matter how far he looked, all he saw was an endless stretch of cavern passages and suffocating darkness. Zeke finally staggered to a halt, thinking he couldn’t run any farther, and tried to catch his breath.
“Huff… huff…”
His heart felt like it was about to explode. He drew in harsh, desperate gulps of air. That was when it happened.
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps echoed from the passage ahead—the very direction he had been running toward.
“Damn it! Another monster?! Son of a bitch!”
Zeke gathered what little strength he had left and prepared to run again. Just as he spun around to flee—
“…! Zeke, is that you?!”
“……!”
A familiar voice reached his ears. Deep, masculine, with a slight metallic rasp. It was unmistakably Victor’s voice.
“V-Victor—?!”
“It really is you!”
Relief flooded Zeke’s face. He broke into a twisted, childlike grin—like a baby who had just found his parents—and rushed toward Victor.
“Victor! You’re… you’re alive?!”
“Kahaha! Dying in a place like this? My pride would never allow it!”
Victor’s usual overflowing confidence brought Zeke a sense of psychological relief.
“By the way, Zeke. Are you alone? What about the others?”
“Uh…”
For a split second, the image of Monaca left behind with the swarm of big spiders flashed through Zeke’s mind.
“I… don’t know. When I got transferred, I was by myself.”
Zeke rolled his eyes to the side and answered after a deliberate pause. Victor seemed to accept the answer without a shred of suspicion.
“Hmm, that’s troublesome. Then we’ll have to search for them one by one…”
“……”
“Let’s find everyone quickly and get out of here. The longer we take, the more uncertain Monaca and Cian’s survival becomes.”
“—?! There’s a way out?!”
Zeke’s eyes widened as he stared at Victor.
“Kahaha! Of course there is! Who do you think I am? On my way here, I found another transition marble.”
“R-Really?!”
“Why would I lie? It’s on the wall of the passage I just came from.”
“……!”
Zeke’s heart pounded at the thought of escape. That was how horrifying this labyrinth had become to him. A place with no sound, endless darkness, damp air, and deadly monsters waiting to pounce if you took one wrong step. To Zeke, this labyrinth was hell itself.
“I didn’t see anyone in the direction I came from, so it’d be best if we retrace your path. Let’s move before it’s too late.”
“R-Right.”
Victor walked past Zeke and took the lead. Zeke followed after him in a daze.
Thud. Thud.
Only the footsteps of the two men echoed inside the cave. They walked in complete silence. It was a sign of just how tense they both were.
After what felt like a long time—
“Hm?”
“……?”
Victor suddenly raised a hand, signaling Zeke to stop.
“Hold on. I sense something.”
“S-Sense…?”
Zeke immediately thought of the terrifying swarm of big spiders from earlier. Not long after Victor stopped him, just as he feared, something emerged from the darkness.
“Ssssss.”
“Sss, sss.”
“Ssssssss.”
Three big spiders—the cleaners of this labyrinth—appeared in a group.
“Ugh, what a pain. Three of them is gonna be tough… Zeke! Get beside me and provide support!”
“G-Got it!”
Victor drew the long greatsword from the sheath on his back and took a stance. Zeke, still half-dazed, raised his own sword and stood beside him.
Victor swung his greatsword down at the two big spiders charging at him, continuing the fight. In contrast, Zeke was nearly out of stamina and could barely block the attacks of a single spider.
“Kuh! Handling two at once is a bit much! Hey, Ze—!”
But at that moment—
Shiiiing!
Thwack!
“Aaargh!”
An arrow flew in and struck Victor’s arm with perfect accuracy as he swung his greatsword. Victor groaned in pain and looked toward where the arrow had come from.
“What the—!”
“Kiiieek.”
“Kiek. Kiiieek.”
There stood several goblin archers, bows aimed directly at Victor.
“Goblins…? Why are there goblins here…?”
Victor was stunned. He had never expected goblins to appear in a cavern-type labyrinth. Goblins were humanoid monsters that lived in forests. No matter how experienced an adventurer Victor was, he could never have predicted encountering them in a place like this.
“Kiiieek!”
The goblin archers drew their bows at Victor once again. Growing desperate, Victor shouted.
“Hey, Zeke! Take care of those goblins first!”
“Y-You want me to handle those goblins?! There’s too many…! The big spiders are surrounding us from the front…!”
“Then what do you suggest?! That we both die here?!”
“……”
During their exchange, one of the big spiders lunged at Victor. He forced his injured, arrow-pierced arm to move and barely blocked the attack with his greatsword. Immediately after, the goblin archers fired another volley at him.
Thud!
“Kuhk!”
Victor moved quickly and barely dodged the arrows. Realizing that continuing the fight while bleeding from his wound would put him at a severe disadvantage, he turned his head.
“Damn it! What are you doing?! Ze—!”
Victor called out urgently as he looked back. But something was wrong.
Zeke was gone.
Stunned, Victor stared down the passage they had just come from. And then he froze.
“Z-Zeke…?”
Zeke was running away. His figure was already growing smaller and smaller, becoming a distant dot in the darkness.
“Zeeeeeke—!”
Victor roared, trying to call him back. But Zeke never looked back. He simply kept running.
*
“Huff… huff… huff…”
He was on the verge of total exhaustion. The moment the goblin archers appeared and Victor was injured, Zeke knew. There was no chance of winning.
Of course, if he had stayed to support Victor, the outcome might have been different. But Zeke didn’t care about that possibility at all. From the very beginning, he had planned to run at the first opportunity.
Monaca was probably dead. After all, he had left her behind with a swarm of monsters. There was no way she had miraculously survived like something out of a movie. If that hadn’t been the case, he might have followed Victor to look for her. But now that he knew Monaca was dead, there was no point in searching for more comrades.
Andrei was already dead, and the only one left would be that damn brat Cian. Zeke had absolutely no reason to risk his life looking for Cian.
…In fact, Zeke had grown to loathe Cian. He had always hated the filthy rich nobles in this society plagued by extreme wealth gaps. To him, Cian was just another spoiled young master born into a wealthy aristocratic family, showered with money and love, who had joined the party on a whim just to earn some pocket money.
Sure, the kid seemed to have some skill… but Zeke hated how arrogant he acted. He figured even that skill was nothing more than cheap tricks learned while slacking off at some fancy academy for rich kids.
“That damn brat…! That fucking pig of a brat!!”
And most decisively, Zeke believed that despite his plain looks, Cian had used his face to seduce his Monaca.
“This is all because of that damn brat! It’s his fault I couldn’t save Monaca! Fuck! God damn it all!!”
Zeke ground his teeth as he ran. Before long, he arrived at a narrow space.
“It should be around here…!”
He felt along the wall as he moved forward. Then he felt a texture different from ordinary stone.
“Found it!”
When he pulled his hand away, there it was—a colorless marble embedded in the cavern wall. Zeke’s face twisted into a grotesque smile as he hurried toward it.
“Activate… activate…”
He frantically rubbed the marble with both hands.
“……”
But the marble showed no reaction.
“What?! Activate! Activate, damn it! Fuck!!”
He slammed his fists against the marble in a fit of rage. Still, there was no response.
“Ugh… why isn’t it… huh?”
Then Zeke remembered. He had overheard something while drinking at the adventurers’ guild. There were two types of transition marbles—one that activated on touch, and another that required mana to be injected.
“Mana…?”
But Zeke didn’t know how to handle mana. He couldn’t use it, and he never thought he would need to. That had always been Andrei’s job.
“……”
Zeke slowly let go of the marble and muttered.
“That brat… I have to find that damn brat…”
He had overheard Monaca say that Cian claimed to be at the 3-star level. He didn’t know if it was a bluff, but right now, he had no choice but to cling to that tiny possibility.
Zeke leaned one hand against the wall, clutched his badly strained, limping leg, and began trudging back the way he had come.
***
“…Where are they going?”
While walking through the cavern passages, I had spotted another group of big spiders. I hadn’t run into them directly. I had seen them from afar. Since I had just finished a battle and was still recovering, and because their movements seemed strange, I decided to follow them.
It really was strange. Not only were there goblins in this underground labyrinth, but they were working together with the big spiders… It could only be described as artificial.
“Sss? Sss.”
“Sssss.”
The group of big spiders moved busily, as if communicating with one another. I continued to trail after them.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. I had no idea where they were headed, and keeping my presence hidden while following them was exhausting.
Eventually, the group of big spiders entered a cave.
…Is that their destination?
I silenced my footsteps and waited until every last spider had gone inside. Just as I was about to press myself against the wall and continue tracking them—
“Huk…!”
“……!”
I was startled. As I moved toward the entrance, I came face to face with someone.
…It wasn’t a monster. It was a human. A girl around my age.
Why was someone my age in a place like this? No, that wasn’t the important part right now.
“……”
“……”
Our eyes met. She had been hiding just inside the entrance.
“Delinquent boss…? What are you doing here?”
She recognized me too. Her eyes widened as she spoke.
The situation was so bewildering that I couldn’t find my voice right away. Why was she in a place like this? Seeing her made me relax for a moment and almost forget that we were inside an underground labyrinth.
“I asked why you’re here.”
She was someone who, in my memory, only existed in comfortable, safe places. Shoulder-length navy-blue hair, sharp purple eyes with a cat-like glint…
“Did you follow me? No, that doesn’t make sense…”
…By now, you’ve probably figured it out.
It was Hedy Marigold.