Chapter 104
Chapter 104
Chapter 104: Platinum Promotion Match (4)
Translation: godtl
"Uh... so."
A slightly dazed voice.
The protagonist of this situation, Si-mun, spoke for the first time since the Promotion Match began.
"You're giving this to me?"
[That is correct.]
He felt something he could only describe as bewilderment.
And for good reason.
'Weren't we supposed to be hostile toward each other?'
Though it was because of the Arena.
Just moments ago, Si-mun had slaughtered hundreds, thousands of Ents.
Yet now, this being who had pursued him deep into these tunnels was suddenly offering him something instead?
'Judging by its appearance, it seems to be a high-ranking Insector...'
Generally, the higher an Insector's rank, the more advanced their communication skills.
At a glance, it might sound like they're using language.
But in reality, it's closer to conveying intent through the unique echolocation inherent to Insectors.
Naturally, the higher the species rank, the clearer and more precise their communication becomes—like refined vocabulary.
Thus, there was no doubt that the Insector before him was a high-ranking Ent, as its appearance suggested.
'But why is it using honorifics with me?'
Since their communication relied on echolocation to convey intent,
the high-ranking Ent's emotions were also transmitted in full.
Benevolence, respect, and reverence, to be exact.
Fortunately.
[I sense doubt in your esteemed eyes, noble one.]
Si-mun's confusion was quickly resolved.
"Noble one"—that was an honorific he had heard just moments before.
[And understandably so. The lowly ones lacked the discernment to recognize the Companion of the Sacred Tree, attacking without thought.]
The trait "World Tree."
Or the title "Companion of the World Tree."
Whichever it was.
'Since it even mentioned the Companion of the Sacred Tree, it's certain now.'
The high-ranking Ent's respectful tone and goodwill were undeniably influenced by the World Tree.
[Allow me to apologize on their behalf. Please, show them your understanding.]
Prince Ents gestured with his mandibles toward the two guard Ents who had been on alert.
At this, the hesitant guards lowered their sharp mandibles and deeply bowed their helmet-like heads.
'So unless it's a high-ranking Insector like this one, they wouldn't recognize me as the Companion of the World Tree?'
Having roughly grasped the situation, Si-mun also relaxed.
"Uh... it's fine."
He let the Transmutation Power he had been gathering settle and loosened the tension in his fingers.
Meanwhile.
—What the hell is going on now?
—They look like they know each other?
—F*ck! This is so frustrating!
Just as Si-mun had been bewildered,
the viewers watching this peaceful exchange with the Insectors were naturally going wild.
What drove them even crazier was the fact that...
—This is the problem with Insectors. We can't hear sh*t lol.
—Insectors communicate through echolocation, so unless you're directly receiving their signals, you're out of luck.
—Fr? What a weird-ass species.
—That's odd? The Insectors I've met didn't have that.
—Only mid-to-high-ranking Insectors can communicate. Anything below that is just a big-ass bug.
...they couldn't hear the conversation between Si-mun and Prince Ents.
To be more precise, only Si-mun seemed to be hearing and responding to it unilaterally.
[As expected of the Companion of the Sacred Tree, your mercy knows no bounds.]
Prince Ents nodded approvingly at Si-mun's response.
[With reinforcements arriving at an unknown time... At this rate, we may fall into their grasp...]
Click.
Prince Ents' body suddenly twisted mid-sentence.
It wasn't so much shrinking as compressing, if that made sense.
The ornate exoskeleton remained, but the once-massive form of Prince Ents gradually grew smaller.
[Please, noble Companion of the Sacred Tree, accept this.]
Before he knew it, Prince Ents had transformed into a three-meter-tall humanoid ant, respectfully offering a white bead.
Si-mun's eyes widened slightly.
Not because the white bead he had been pursuing was now being handed to him.
'For its Metamorphosis to be this flawless... It's not just a high-ranking species, but a top-tier one.'
Metamorphosis.
A combat form in which high-ranking Insectors reach their peak strength.
The smoother and faster the Metamorphosis process, the higher the Insector's rank was considered to be.
Indeed, the aura radiating from Prince Ents now was on an entirely different level from before.
'At this rate, it's at least Diamond-tier.'
Just as the gap between Gold and Platinum was vast,
so too was the gap between Platinum and Diamond.
No—
It was beyond comparison.
Thanks to the Galaxy Arena's unique Correction system, one could scrape by up to Platinum.
But Diamond was purely the domain of raw talent.
Thus, the resplendent Ent before him was a being of that caliber.
"Since you're offering, I'll take it for now."
Having already defeated two Nagas in his Gold Promotion Match, Si-mun accepted the white bead without showing any particular reaction.
He immediately tried to check the white bead's information window, but—
'Huh? Nothing's showing up?'
No information window appeared over the white bead.
Normally, even unidentified items would at least display a window with obscured details—so why was nothing appearing at all?
Of course, this wasn't entirely unheard of.
'Ah, I see. It's an item I can't take out.'
An item that couldn't be taken out.
While it might be usable within the Arena, items that couldn't be brought outside almost never provided an information window.
Honestly, it made sense.
If there were no such system in place, players would neglect the Arena entirely, swarming in just to hoard rare materials instead.
Si-mun let out a disappointed sigh.
'I chased all the way here for nothing.'
If a high-ranking Insectia was guarding it, it must have been something valuable—yet he couldn't even take it with him?
If that was the case, there was no point in pursuing it all the way down into these depths.
Then—
Thud. Thunk!
A series of heavy impacts echoed through the tunnel.
Finding the source wasn't difficult.
Whoosh.
"Kkh—!"
From the ceiling Si-mun had broken through earlier—
A person came crashing down.
"You...."
Si-mun's brow twitched slightly as he looked at the man.
Not because of his bloodied, battered state.
"You're that guy from the White Tiger Guild... Chang-min, was it?"
Chang-min of the White Tiger Guild.
The very same man who had immediately tried to incite others against Si-mun the moment their Promotion Match began.
'I thought he got left behind by the main group. Guess he was hiding nearby.'
Assassin Class, huh?
Somehow, he had managed to conceal his presence and lurk in the shadows.
But now—
"Ugh... Ugh!"
He seemed unable to even speak.
Gasping, he turned his head toward Si-mun.
Then—
"S-Save...."
Chang-min's labored attempt at speech abruptly stopped.
Si-mun's gaze swept over his body in an instant.
Though the fall into the deep underground had left fractures all over—
'The actual cause of death is the puncture wound in his abdomen.'
Something long and sharp had skewered straight through his stomach, leaving a gaping hole.
And—
'Wait. There's poison too?'
A faint green mist was rising from the wound.
Just then.
[As expected, they've arrived....]
Prince Ents, standing behind him, stared grimly at the hole in the ceiling.
Then—
[Noble one, you must flee at once.]
He pointed straight down the tunnel and continued.
[If you follow this path, you will reach a tunnel connected to the Scarab territory. If you can reach them, they will aid you.]
'Scarabs... those beetle-like Insectia?'
Si-mun tilted his head in confusion.
And for good reason.
'Since when were Ents and Scarabs allies?'
Wasn't Insectia itself a dimension where endless territorial disputes raged under the rule of the Queen?
Yet now he was supposed to seek help from another Insectia faction?
But there was no time to dwell on it.
[We will buy you as much time as we can. Please, stay safe.]
Two Ents guards, having already completed their Metamorphosis, took their places beside Prince Ents.
Then—
Bzzzzzt!
With an eerie buzz, they unfurled wings from who-knows-where and shot straight up through the hole in the ceiling.
As Si-mun alternated between staring at the now-empty hole and Chang-min's corpse, he scratched his head.
"Under normal circumstances, this would be a jackpot...."
Hadn't he come to Insectia in the first place for his Platinum Promotion Match?
Moreover, since it was a Survival mode event—
If he followed the escape route the Ents had pointed out, he could easily hold out until the time limit.
And if things got dire, he could even get help from the Scarabs, those beetle-like Insectia.
But.
'If I take this path, I feel like the only reward I'll get is the promotion itself.'
Having been tempered by the Arena's relentless cruelty, Si-mun instinctively sensed it.
If he took the easy way out, he'd miss out on something greater.
'I already need a ton of Achievement Points for the Heavenly Demon Divine Art and the Homunculus....'
Just like last time.
Weren't Promotion Match rewards usually stingy?
Had the Philosopher's Stone picked up on his thoughts?
-To be this greedy even in a real Promotion Match... that's our Oppa for you.
The grumbling of the Philosopher's Stone continued.
"They're coming again!"
"I'm out of Mana! Someone save me!"
Screams erupted in unison.
Above the panicked players—
Bzzzzzzzzzz!
A horrifying sound descended upon them.
It felt like a hornet had just grazed past their ears.
No—it wasn't just a feeling.
"Chirrrrrrr!"
Multi-colored exoskeletons and elongated bodies towering over two meters tall—
And wings that moved so fast, their afterimages couldn't even be properly seen.
They were nothing more than oversized versions.
These Vespa insectoids were practically no different from Earth's wasps.
"I-I can't die like this!"
From the tightly clustered formation of players, someone finally broke ranks.
It wasn't hard to understand why.
A wasp larger than a human.
No—facing hundreds of even more grotesque and deadly giant wasps was terrifying enough just by standing before them.
"Hey! You! Get back here!"
"That bastard's running off alone!"
Curses rained down on the deserter's back.
"Shut up! We're dead either way, so why should I, with my speed specialty—"
Before the deserter could even finish his retort—
Bzzzzzzzt.
"Uwaaaah!"
With a deafening buzz, the fleeing player was suddenly yanked into the air.
A giant wasp-shaped insectoid.
The Vespa had snatched him.
Then—
Squelch.
A fountain of blood sprayed out alongside the sound of tearing flesh.
Scarlet blood and mutilated body parts fell like discarded trash.
The morale of the main force plummeted even further.
Out of the original fifty participants, their numbers had already been halved to barely twenty.
And even then—
[Come forth! Filthy trash of the sky!]
[For Ents!]
The high-ranking Ents that had emerged from the underground where Si-mun disappeared were putting up a desperate fight, but that was all.
Though the three of them had already slaughtered nearly half of the Vespa swarm, which had originally numbered over a thousand.
[Grrk!]
[Your Highness!]
Even the high-ranking Ents were gradually being pushed back.
'If they die, we're finished.'
'We're already losing people as it is...'
'What the hell can we even do?'
It was no exaggeration to say the high-ranking Ents were handling 80% of the Vespa swarm.
Yet, the main force of players had already been halved.
If those Ents fell, forget escaping—they wouldn't last even a minute before being wiped out.
In that case...
'We have to run while they're still holding out!'
'We need to survive first. There's not much time left anyway!'
The best option was to find a way to save their own skins while they still could.
Unlike before, the main force fell eerily silent.
Did they all realize they were thinking the same thing?
"Over there! Head for the hole Kim Si-mun disappeared into!"
Someone finally spoke up and broke into a run.
"Underground! Those wasp bastards won't be able to follow us there!"
"Damn it! Stop pushing!"
The once-solid formation crumbled instantly as players stampeded toward the hole Si-mun had vanished into.
But right in front of them—
Sssssssss—
A thick, viscous green liquid poured down.
"Gyaaaaah!"
"An—antidote! Someone—!"
The ones leading the charge were instantly drenched in the toxic fluid.
"Shit! We can't even heal them!"
"What kind of poison is this strong?!"
Players melted away before the healers could even lift a finger.
And before their eyes—
[A specific Ent has been continuously exposed to the Vespa swarm.]
[Special conditions met. Hidden Boss 'Squadron Commander Verpark' has appeared.]
An even more despairing message surfaced.
"W-what?!"
"What the hell does that mean?!"
"We're already drowning in this mess, and now a hidden boss?! Are you fucking kidding me?!"
A hidden boss.
The final nail in the coffin of this already hopeless Promotion Match.
But the players' lamentations didn't last long.
Splaaaaash—
"They're coming again!"
The same toxic deluge that had wiped out the vanguard.
It came crashing down on the players once more.
But this time, fitting for those aiming for Platinum—
"Barrier!"
"Light, protect us!"
The players didn't just stand still.
Shields from the Magic and Support Classes flared to life.
The Combat Classes raised their own defenses overhead.
Pitter-patter-patter-patter!
The sound of popping beans echoed as the poison rained down on the layered defenses.
"The shields are breaking!"
"Damn it! We can't hold out! Everyone, move!"
Players scrambled out of the dissolving barrier, desperate to escape the poison's reach.
Only then could they finally see the source of this deadly onslaught.
[How amusing. For such lowly creatures to withstand my venom.]
A deep, razor-sharp voice carrying perfect articulation and emotion.
And a size several times larger than any other Vespa.
Squadron Commander Verpark.
The hidden boss the system had announced.
[Still, you're nothing more than insects. Deal with them, my underlings. I have a more... distinguished guest to attend to.]
As if they weren't even worth his time.
With a dismissive wave to his subordinates, he turned toward the metamorphosed Ents.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!
The furious buzzing of hundreds of Vespa wings closed in from all directions.
With Verpark's poison blocking their escape route, they were trapped.
"Ugh!"
"We're... we're screwed..."
The Players' faces instantly drained of color.
And then.
"I knew this would happen."
Into their ears—
"To think a Hidden Boss would appear—we would've totally missed out if we'd just left."
A familiar, honeyed voice reached them.