Queen Hunt
It had been less than a year since Hans died. Spring had come even to the north. The weather was mild, if only for a moment. But inside Isaac, it was the season of unrelenting blizzards. Tormented by nightmares every single day, he devoted himself solely to the study of magic, day and night.
One day, shouts from adults echoed in the courtyard right beneath the window of his chambers.
“What the hell have you been doing while things got this bad?!”
“Watch your words. His Excellency is present.”
“Who here doesn't know he's the count? I'm demanding answers from the lord of this territory—why didn't you protect your people? Why did you let those precious lives be thrown away like trash?!”
Three men stood in the courtyard. His father, the Goethe Count. The steward, Schrader. And a priest in clerical robes. The count had kept his mouth shut from start to finish; only Schrader and the priest were heatedly arguing.
The gist was that all the children of Black Goose Village had died of pneumonia.
Isaac didn't think much of it. No, he had no time to care about such things. His mind was filled only with anxiety and fear that those he cherished might keep dying from mana explosions in the future.
So he didn't know. Why the nanny hadn't come to the manor for months. Why she sometimes looked at him with such profound sadness. Why she occasionally sobbed quietly in the kitchen.
Isaac didn't know. He was young. Foolish.
Months later, only when the nanny, having shaken off her grief, calmly told him herself about Hinder's death did he learn the truth. That the village where the children died was Black Goose Village, where she lived. That her last remaining son, Hinder, had succumbed to pneumonia.
Isaac couldn't even picture Hinder's face. He'd seen him only a handful of times, after all. He wasn't sad. Just bewildered. He never even considered the nanny's feelings.
Only when she lay dying did he realize.
—By now, my boy would be about your age, young master. When he left first, my heart tore apart. This time, I'm going first. Thank goodness.
Too late, he understood how she'd barely survived, day by day, carrying her tattered heart.
Years passed after that. He heard that Black Goose Village had been utterly reduced to ruins by an attack from winter spiders. No survivors.
But Isaac paid it no mind. It was already after Hans, the nanny, and two maids had died from mana explosions. Black Goose Village without the nanny meant nothing to him.
That's not the case anymore.
Isaac opened his eyes. He straightened his knees from meditative kneeling and stretched. The spiders still surrounded him, but their movements were nothing like before. Some had even flipped onto their backs, convulsing.
They hadn't detected the Frost Belladonna hidden in the acrid smoke. The book-lung respiratory systems of these so-called beasts were primitive, like gills, with no ability to filter airborne toxins. Gradually, their bodies paralyzed, their breathing organs relaxed, and they suffocated.
In contrast, Isaac had focused on the changes within his body during meditation. He purified the toxins in the air—already filtered once through his wet handkerchief and nose—with mana inside him. At the same time, he didn't stop maintaining a ring of fireballs around him as a barrier.
The advantage of multiple circulation paths. He could handle purification, fire magic, and phase shifts simultaneously, buying time for the spiders' status ailments.
Besides the main shaft, there are two more passages.
Isaac gauged the paths connecting to the cavern from the smoke's flow. Feeling the wind alone had its limits, but this confirmed the cavern's layout.
He finished his mental calculations and stood.
“Farewell.”
Whoosh!
The fireballs orbiting him flew toward the nearest winter spider.
Kieeeek—!
The winter spider wreathed in flames shrieked and thrashed. It burned fiercely, like dry tinder. The flames spread to the one beside it—thanks to the oil they secreted over their fur for insulation.
In moments, all the spiders encircling Isaac were engulfed. The burning spiders all lurched in the same direction.
Water that way, I suppose.
Isaac nodded. One of the two passages he'd gauged from the smoke. Beasts or monsters, all living things needed drinking water. And in a monster nest...
Something crucial would be nearby.
Kieeeek—!
Isaac generously gifted fire to the remaining unburned spiders. The eggs on the ceiling met the same fate. As they crackled and popped, hundreds of startled spiderlings burst out—only to be swallowed by the ravenous flames.
“Burns nicely.”
For a brief moment, the cavern blazed like daylight from the spreading fires.
At this rate, I'll suffocate on the smoke too.
Leaving the roaring inferno behind, Isaac followed the passage where the spiders had fled. It was a narrow, downward-sloping natural tunnel, lower than the cavern, so no smoke entered. Breathing was easier, but the air was still thin. His head throbbed. He judged he couldn't stay long.
Got to finish this quick.
Isaac shed his cumbersome fur cloak. Far from cold, he was sweating profusely. He pressed on without rest. The tunnel was littered with spider corpses that hadn't reached their destination before burning.
As the end neared, he heard water droplets plinking on the surface.
Close to an underground aquifer, as expected.
A light spell at his fingertips reflected off the water. Countless stalactites and stalagmites jutted from ceiling and floor, with knee-deep water pooling at the bottom. It was a sizable space, though not as vast as the cavern.
Isaac regretted ditching his cloak; the temperature plummeted deeper in. The splashing water at his feet had frozen solid into ice.
The bone-chilling cold made him shiver. This wasn't natural. Reluctantly, he switched from light to fire magic. The warmth eased it somewhat, but it wasn't a real fix.
“...Damn. Nothing ever strays from prediction.”
Isaac clicked his tongue. Sticking to predictions was good, but sometimes you'd prefer it went off-script.
The ceiling was packed with eggs. Hundreds, by rough count. Winter spider females laid only two or three per month at most. Especially not in the harsh northern winter—they didn't lay before growing fur and bio-oil to protect against freezing.
Given the numbers Isaac had seen, filling the ceiling with eggs was impossible. Only one answer fit, and he prayed it was wrong.
The winter spider queen.
Adult winter spider corpses littered the ice. Not ones Isaac had burned—these were males, judging by their thick, angular chelicerae, unscarred by fire. Their bodies had shrunk to half size, drained of fluids as the queen's fodder.
Right. They said the numbers were huge before the subjugation.
A queen wouldn't appear in a colony of mere dozens—no need, and they couldn't sustain her. But at hundreds, one emerged to maintain the nest. This queen had survived the subjugation two months ago. To rapidly rebuild, she'd supplemented with beasts, then turned to males.
Thud. Thud. Something heavy approached.
Tssrrrr—
The queen entered the firelight's range. Two or three times larger than any Isaac had seen, her eight eyes fixed on him. She showed no wariness or fear of his fire magic.
Whoosh—Crack.
Isaac hurled a fireball, but it fizzled harmlessly.
Wish this was one thing that didn't match what I knew.
He sighed. Monsters. Mana-bearing beings. More viscerally, mana-infused horrors. Ordinary winter spiders inherited abnormal size and strength from Demon Realm ancestors, but the queen was closer to a true monster's essence. Her chill aura and flame resistance proved it—more akin to magic.
She was the origin of the "winter" in winter spider.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Isaac's sole comfort: despite her bulk, the queen wasn't agile. Her purpose was mass reproduction, not combat.
Whoosh!
He launched a fireball from as far from the ice as possible.
Kieeeek!
A slight phase miscalculation. Aimed for the head, it hit the torso-leg joint. Still effective—the leg wilted like a dead leaf, dangling uselessly.
“Hah... hah...”
No time to celebrate. Unlike lesser spiders, the queen didn't ignite fully. Worse, dizziness assailed Isaac. He was nearing his limit.
This is my cap for now. Two more at best.
With no real combat experience, Isaac now grasped how vital mental stamina and endurance were. Mana surged fiercely in his circuits, but controlling it was another matter. Overextending brought backlash: lethargy, clumsiness, irritation, emptiness. His body ached fiercely.
Just twelve years old, he'd burned dozens of spiders and hundreds of eggs in an abandoned mine's depths—after an all-nighter.
“What a mess.”
Isaac muttered irritably. Too hasty? Should've prepared more? Better way? Weakness nagged at him.
Thud. Thud. The queen advanced steadily.
“Hoo.”
Isaac deep-breathed. He pictured what he craved most. Surprisingly mundane: the wheat bread Hans had given him yesterday. Too rushed to savor, but now... delicious.
Back home, I'll have the nanny make heaps. With fresh apple jam.
His mouth watered. Mood lifted. From his pouch, he drew a trowel.
The queen loomed, fangs poised.
Queen or not, still an arachnid.
As fangs neared, Isaac blocked with the pouch. It froze instantly, shattering like glass. Gap secured, he stabbed an eye with the trowel.
KIIIIEEEK—!!!
She reared, shrieking. Isaac dove under her. Her thrashing pinned and battered him repeatedly. Good thing no stinger on her abdomen—else, suicide.
Focused on his goal. Decades of past-life meditation paid off. Scraping his dregs of concentration, he devised the optimal move. No precision on a moving target; no spare shots for barrages. Even lucky hits wouldn't critically wound her flame-resistant hide.
Then.
He gathered his drained spirit, igniting an ember at his fingertips. Not a simple fireball. Previous ones: generation, compression, phase shift. This: generation, compression—then compress again.
A crimson-no-more, azure-glowing fireball formed in his hand. Something he'd never considered, let alone tried. Far from a mage's ranged style.
“Die, damn you!!!”
With all his might, Isaac plunged it into her underbelly. Piercing ovaries and glands, it tore through intestines to her heart.
Whoosh—
Azure flames erupted inside her abdomen.
KIIIIEEEEEEK—!!!
She convulsed, screaming in agony. Thud-thud-thud—then bolted to unfrozen water.
“Guh.”
Arm still embedded, Isaac was dragged. Shoulder, arm slammed into stalagmites and rocks. Luck held—until her final spasm cracked his head on the ice.
Darkness.
“...Ugh, my head.”
Pain throbbed; Isaac opened his eyes. Time lost. Every bone screamed.
“Arm's gonna rip off.”
Still lodged in her gut. Blue flames long gone; only charred remains.
Crackle—
Withdrawing, her body crumbled to ash.
“...?”
A faint glow inside the ruins. Reaching instinctively, he touched something solid. A stone.
“Hot—wait, cold? A cold stone?”
A chill-emitting stone. Isaac remembered: frost magic stone. Rare, from books only.