Hunting the Queen Ant (2)
Crunch!
The Staff of the Ice Dragon crashed down through the Queen Ant Maw's skull. The problem was the sheer size of the thing. If one swing doesn't kill it... then he would simply keep pounding until it did.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Seizing one of the Queen Ant Maw's antennae in a single hand, Jin-soo hammered it with the staff in a relentless chain of blows.
"Kieeeek!"
The Queen Ant Maw convulsed and let out a wretched scream. For all its enormous bulk, it offered no resistance whatsoever—its body had swollen so grotesquely that even moving was a struggle.
Just die already!
Jin-soo swung the Staff of the Ice Dragon even faster. Mana surged back into him with every strike, and in equal measure the Giant Soldier Ant Maws drew steadily closer.
Then a cooldown finished turning, and the stacks filled. He was a breath away from unleashing an attack skill on the Queen Ant Maw when—
Crack!
"Kieeeeeek!"
The Queen Ant Maw shrieked its death cry and died.
A skill book has been granted.
Rewards poured in by the heap.
His level rose as well.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
—and the rest followed—
The blessings grew, too.
Knew it. This really was a jackpot. But there was no time to stand around admiring the spoils.
"Kieeeek!"
A tide of enraged Giant Soldier Ant Maws was already surging toward him.
"Ice Storm!"
The cooldown had passed and the stacks were full again. Jin-soo fired the magic attack skill at once.
Thwack!
In the same motion he launched himself forward and brought the Staff of the Ice Dragon around.
Thud! Crack!
"Kyik!"
He slipped the Giant Soldier Ant Maws' attacks, caved in their skulls with the staff, and drank the mana back as it returned.
"Ice Piercing Arrow! Ice Explosion!"
The recovered mana went straight into more attack skills.
Whoosh! Thud! Crack!
He flowed around the Giant Soldier Ant Maws' strikes like water—less a mage than a seasoned warrior. Dodge, smash, dodge, smash, then a magic attack skill driven home for a critical hit.
"Summon Dragon Tooth Soldiers."
Even in the middle of it he kept fishing lizardman teeth from his inventory, replacing every Dragon Tooth Soldier that had been destroyed. While Jin-soo fought in a blur, the number of Giant Soldier Ant Maws began, slowly, to fall.
It did not come without a price.
Three Dragon Tooth Soldiers forged from White Drake teeth—teeth he had no way to replace on the spot—were destroyed and reverted to broken fangs. The remaining nine were hanging on by a thread.
If they all shatter, I'm finished.
There was another problem: the vast army of Ant Maws thrashing to tear down the ice barrier. Ever since the Queen Ant Maw had died, they had stopped sparing their own bodies, gnawing at the wall with their upper jaws.
There's still a long time left that I have to hold.
Status Window Switch was out of the question. The cooldown meant he couldn't call his Shadow Summons either, and the Blood Demon Swordsman's skills had no hope of sealing an entrance already seething with Ant Maws.
What skill book can I actually use right now?
With the Giant Soldier Ant Maws thinning and a little room to breathe, Jin-soo checked the loot he could put to work at once.
The Ant Maw Colony Summon skill book.
Fortunately it was a universal skill book—usable by anyone, holy affinity or dark, regardless of class.
It looked serviceable.
The catch was that, just like summoning Dragon Tooth Soldiers, it required materials.
Ant Maw carapace. And unlike the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, it's single-use.
Where a dismissed Dragon Tooth Soldier returned to a tooth, these simply ceased to exist.
A little disappointing.
Still, he was in no danger of running out of materials. The ground was carpeted with Ant Maw carapaces.
And the inventory's packed with them, too.
Jin-soo immediately learned the Ant Maw Colony Summon skill he had been saving. He even burned the Skill Level Lock he had been hoarding. It stung to spend it, but he had no choice.
Better than dying because I was too stingy to use it.
He cast Ant Maw Colony Summon. His mana plunged.
Creak! Creak!
The Ant Maw carapaces knit themselves into whole Ant Maws.
This one's all about the materials, too.
Carapaces of Giant Soldier Ant Maws became Giant Soldier Ant Maw summons. Soldier Ant Maw carapaces became Soldier Ant Maws. Worker Ant Maw carapaces became Worker Ant Maws.
They look exactly the same.
By appearance alone, it was impossible to tell monster from summon.
Kill them.
At Jin-soo's command, the Ant Maw summons hurled themselves at the monster Ant Maws.
Crack! Crack!
A savage melee erupted—upper jaws crushing skulls and shearing bodies in half at the waist.
A little stronger than ordinary Ant Maws, maybe.
Disappointment followed close behind.
For a skill he had forced to level 122 with a Skill Level Lock, their combat power was decidedly lacking. But unlike the Dragon Tooth Soldier skill, it had one clear advantage.
The cost-efficiency is excellent.
The carapaces used as material were consumed, yes—but measured against the mana spent, the number of Ant Maws that appeared was staggering.
And just like the Dragon Tooth Soldier skill, Ant Maw Colony Summon had no cooldown at all.
Which means that so long as I have materials and mana, I can summon without limit.
Setting aside only what it took to maintain the ice barrier, Jin-soo poured every drop of mana into summoning Ant Maws.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
And to claw back even a little more mana, he scraped his stamina raw, swinging the Staff of the Ice Dragon without pause.
The headcount cap is absurdly generous.
It was the same level 122 as the Dragon Tooth Soldier summon, yet even after he had called more than a thousand Ant Maws, there was no unit limit whatsoever.
Now I've got some breathing room.
Once the Ant Maw summons passed a thousand, he was able to finish off every Giant Soldier Ant Maw still inside the queen's chamber. All that remained was holding the single entrance, where enraged Ant Maws kept charging in without end.
Time to power-level.
Having weathered the crisis, Jin-soo felt a bright smile tug at his mouth. Only moments ago he had been sick with dread over when the Ant Maws clogging the entrance would break the ice barrier and pour through.
Not anymore.
Crunch!
He deliberately collapsed a section of the ice barrier.
"Kyik! Kyik! Kyik!"
The Ant Maws came flooding like mad things down the path he had opened for them.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Monster Ant Maws and summon Ant Maws tore into each other in a vicious bloodbath.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Jin-soo laid into the Ant Maws with gleeful swings of the Staff of the Ice Dragon, drinking mana back with every blow.
Ant Maw Colony Summon.
Then he used the carapaces the dead had left behind as material and summoned still more.
He kept the cycle going. Swing the Staff of the Ice Dragon and recover mana. Spend that mana to patch the ice barrier and call more Ant Maws.
Not a moment to rest.
Coldly speaking, this was his own greed at work. If he had held the gap in the barrier at its original size, he could have been resting at his ease by now while the Ant Maws died. He didn't. Whenever the number of summon Ant Maws grew, he widened the breach.
All so he could hunt more of them.
Growl!
His stomach snarled. He had been so busy he hadn't even found a gap for a simple meal.
I should eat something, at least.
He pulled a piece of bread from his inventory, stuffed it into his mouth, and kept swinging the staff. Level-up messages chimed without a single pause.
Title granted: Exterminator of the Ant Maw Nest
Title extinguished: Exterminator of the Ant Maw Nest
In the midst of it he gained a title—and then it vanished.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
In return, the blessings—already swollen from the Queen Ant Maw's death—devoured the levels and the achievements and grew once more.
I won't get a chance to power-level like this for a while.
Jin-soo clenched his teeth. The moment he had even a little margin, he tore down more of the ice barrier, raising the number of Ant Maws he could hunt in a single wave. How much time passed like that?
Floor 99 of the Tower — Clear
📍 Survival: You have survived for 3 days.
🌀 Transfer: Moving to Floor 100 in 99 seconds.
Regrettably, the time he had for power-leveling was over.
"Finally!"
From behind him came Shin Sua's voice, brimming with joy.
You don't look human either.
Shin Sua's condition was the worst it could be. Dried Ant Maw fluids, sweat, and hair plastered flat had mixed with layers of grime until she looked filthier than the filthiest beggar. Madness and despair sat in equal measure in her half-unfocused eyes. Her stamina was utterly spent; her arms and legs trembled without cease. That she was even standing, braced on her staff, was something of a miracle.
I'm wrecked too, so of course she is.
Even so, there had been results.
She couldn't match Jin-soo, but Shin Sua had power-leveled enormously in her own right, and she had picked up a fair number of achievements besides.
Time to finish packing.
Jin-soo opened his inventory and swept the items in. There was so much loot that even an inventory raised to level 122 strained under it. Fortunately, once he brought the goblin treasure pouch into play as well, he managed—just barely—to fit it all.
"Let's go!"
"Yeah!"
Shin Sua answered him, her voice full of joy.
Fwaaaah—
A moment later, a torrent of pure white light wrapped around Jin-soo and Shin Sua.
You have arrived at Floor 100.
Defeat the Gatekeeper and ascend to Floor 101.
Time permitted on Floor 100 — 10 years.
As the light faded, the system messages were there to greet Jin-soo and Shin Sua.
So the shortest-time achievements get handed out at the midpoint floors.
Not a bad bonus.
Unlike the unhurried Jin-soo, Shin Sua was wound tight, and she carefully took in their surroundings.
They had arrived in a small clearing, and a fairly high fence enclosed it.
"Newcomers."
"They're Asian."
"Only two of them."
"Must've been through hell. They look like a complete wreck."
"So only the two in the rear barely made it out alive?"
Beyond the fence, a motley crowd sized Jin-soo and Shin Sua up with one remark after another.
"Foreigners?"
Shin Sua stared at the people outside the fence in blank disbelief. Everyone she had met until now had been Korean. And suddenly, here were foreigners.
"Why can I understand them?"
On top of that, she could understand them. More precisely, they were speaking entirely different languages—English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Thai—and yet she grasped every word of it.
"From the way they're talking, they're Korean."
"Then would a guild with a lot of Koreans have the advantage?"
"We should look at their skill first."
The people beyond the fence studied Jin-soo and Shin Sua the way one sorts newly hatched chicks.
Footsteps.
Then a man stepped in through the fence.
"I am Kim Han-ul, a Player of the Daehan Guild. You appear to have had quite the ordeal. I'll show you to your lodgings, so wash up and get some proper rest first."
The Player who had introduced himself as Kim Han-ul said it with a smile.
"The Daehan Guild?"
Shin Sua asked, looking utterly dumbfounded.
"I'll explain in detail shortly."
At Kim Han-ul's reply, Jin-soo stepped forward.
"Yes, understood. Thank you for the consideration."
"Thank you."
Shin Sua offered her thanks almost without thinking.
"Then please follow me."
Jin-soo and Shin Sua followed Kim Han-ul.
"Oh? They're going along quietly."
"Right? I thought they'd kick up a fuss. Shame we don't get a show."
"They're backliners, and there's only two of them. Making a scene would be too much. Way too much."
"Yeah. Fair enough."
Shin Sua was rigid with tension, wholly occupied with parsing the words drifting in from all around them. Jin-soo was not.
The city on Floor 100 is where every Player from Earth, scattered every which way, gathers in one place.
Befitting that, Floor 100 was immense—large enough that one could fairly call it the size of a nation's territory.
And befitting that—
There's a great deal to be gained.
A keen expectation lit both of Jin-soo's eyes.