#235. That's the Worst.
A worker wasp burst out from the pile of crumbled concrete.
Just as it twisted its tail to aim its stinger at Thomas—
“Kieek?!”
A rebar rod pierced its chest.
“With worker wasps, you’ve got to watch out for their heads differently from regular bees. Their bodies are tough, so they’ll play dead and ambush you.”
An Italian female hunter speaking English with an exotic accent, Johanna, appeared on the rooftop.
Jang Deok-gu and Thomas looked down at the collapsing worker wasp as if they had no particular interest in her.
Johanna found their attitude rude.
‘At least say thanks or something? I had to run all the way up here.’
She shook her head in dissatisfaction, then her gaze suddenly caught on the skewer protruding from the back of the worker wasp’s head.
‘A sword? No, a spear?!’
Only when she approached the worker wasp did she realize the skewer was a long spear. And there, blocked by the spear shaft and unable to penetrate further, was the end of the rebar she herself had thrown.
‘The rebar got caught on the spear shaft, which isn’t even the blade….’
It was proof that the spear had struck the worker wasp first. In other words, Johanna’s rebar attack had been utterly pointless.
“Tch! Even so, I put in the effort. How can you be so cold?”
As Johanna grumbled, shifting her complaint from their rudeness to their indifference, Jang Deok-gu spoke to her.
“A hunter who didn’t run and stuck around. Impressive.”
“Run? That’s for the weaklings. What do you take me for? Tsk.”
“Fair enough. An A-rank wouldn’t go getting beat up everywhere.”
Johanna flinched. This Eastern man had pinpointed her rank at first glance. She grew even more wary watching him emotionlessly retrieve his spear from the worker wasp.
‘Now that I look, I can’t gauge his rank at all. He seemed full of openings, but… he’s above me. Then that mage… Huh? What? Did I sense wrong? He looks way lower rank. Or is there another mage?’
Thomas responded to her visibly perplexed expression.
“Don’t look at me like that. That magic was mine, yeah. It’s a long story. Don’t ask. Anyway, with the city under attack, we’ll probably need to stick together for a bit. For smooth communication, how about introductions first? I’m Thomas Lee. This is Deok-gu Jang. Pronunciation’s tricky, so just call him Mr. Jang. Judging by your speech, you’re not from North America. You?”
“Europe. Name’s Johanna.”
“Just Johanna?”
“Sereti. Johanna Sereti…”
Johanna paused mid-sentence, having blurted it out.
‘Ugh! Slipped up. Been relaxing too long? Giving my full name so easily in a situation like this. Gotta stay sharp, Johanna!’
There was good reason for Johanna’s fuss over just a name.
In a city turned lawless zone by monster attacks, no environment was riper for crime.
And hunters were the ones fueling it.
Occasionally, psychos would turn their violence and sadistic urges from monsters onto people.
Beyond that, there were cases where people got dragged into shady dealings, unwittingly becoming criminals or debtors.
In the hunter world, on-site “judgment” in the chaos was far more common than courtroom resolutions under the presumption of innocence.
To avoid ruining a vacation, you had to stay on high alert—especially against someone stronger.
Sensing her wariness, Jang Deok-gu shook the blood off his spear and said,
“I used to be an investigator. Then a bounty hunter. If you got caught doing bad in front of me, you’d beg to be thrown in prison.”
“Seen plenty of hunters who catch villains and turn into them.”
“Those were rotten to begin with.”
“Who vouches for your nature?”
“Rank.”
“Pardon?”
“Ever hear rank makes the thug? My rank’s higher, so I’m right.”
“Ha? So that’s your nature?”
“Don’t trust hunter nature. They’re all the same. Hunters and villains are a sheet of paper apart. Being cautious is good, but overdo it and you get nothing done. Read the situation and be flexible. You didn’t come up to this rooftop just out of curiosity, right?”
It was curiosity. So Johanna couldn’t say a word.
‘No, half curiosity. The rest… uh, right! Situation assessment. Had to grasp it exactly to plan next moves.’
As Johanna busily rationalized to herself, Thomas examined the worker wasp and said,
“This one’s just a regular worker wasp.”
“A worker’s a worker. What’s ‘just’ mean? There special ones too?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh?”
“How much do you know about carnivorous hornets?”
“That these are them? They showed up once in Korea, so I can tell ’em apart.”
Thomas figured Jang Deok-gu’s knowledge was typical.
Carnivorous hornets were low-frequency monsters to begin with. Limited regions, and recent cases got suppressed early without much fuss.
But going back, the damage they’d caused was horrifying.
People avoided mentioning it because of the catastrophic results. Only scholars obsessed with monster ecology or pros hoarding all hunt data regardless of frequency paid them mind.
“I’m local, so I know LA’s monster defense setup. No movement from the material guilds despite this level of attack means the raid’s too big for them to handle. Assume the whole city’s under assault.”
“Mm. Wonder if the boss is okay. Smartphones are dead, and message skills won’t reach.”
“If he went to Hunter Crime Division, he’s fine. Building’s got defense on par with a major guild.”
“Yeah, not the type to die easy. So?”
“If the whole city’s hit, the hive’s massive. No hornet species expands stupidly forever. They swarm at the right time.”
Swarming was when the old queen left with some workers to make a new hive before a new queen emerged.
Jang Deok-gu knew hornet basics even if not specifics, so he followed.
“So this is a swarming incident?”
“No. Swarming’s the old queen taking part of the force. Carnivorous hornets are different.”
Johanna cut in. Seeing her speak like an expert, Thomas and Jang Deok-gu gave her odd looks.
“Why?”
“You know carnivorous hornets? None in Europe.”
“I’m Italian. Mediterranean’s right across from Africa. How many alerts for crossings? You don’t know that?”
“Then explain how they differ, Johanna Hunter.”
Thomas prompted, and after hesitating, she spoke.
“They do swarm. But it’s the new queens from the brood that swarm, not the old one. She stays put.”
“What’s that got to do with workers?”
“Swarming queens are second-, third-gen. I said they differ from other hornets? They evolve genetically faster per generation. Stronger, basically.”
“Right. But this worker’s close to the original form.”
Thomas circled back. Jang Deok-gu muttered, piecing it together.
“So these are first-gen. Not swarming. What makes a massive hive spit out first-gen workers without swarming?”
“Most likely getting attacked. They pour out to counter, eliminating threats preemptively. But this scale’s too vast. Here, a full hive’s ejecting its forces for some trigger.”
“Ejecting forces?”
“Yeah. Tossing out useless old forces. The next-gen queens and their workers drove ’em out.”
Jang Deok-gu wore a hazy look, grasping the situation but not its implications.
Johanna grimaced instead.
“Damn, picked the wrong vacation spot.”
“Meaning?”
“That’s the worst. New queen kicking out a much larger old force without swarming means the new gen’s that strong. Confident enough to swallow this huge city.”
* * *
“And it doesn’t stop there.”
“Worse than a stronger new queen?”
No Song-rin, gripping the wheel toward Gunpowder Guild, asked with a queasy face.
Kang Moo-hyuk, in the passenger seat, cracked the window.
“Careful. Might get stung.”
No Song-rin warned, so Kang Moo-hyuk didn’t open it more, just stuck the gun barrel through and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
“Kweeeek!”
A hornet keeping pace beside the car screeched, hit by the silver revolver’s bullet, and tumbled. It smashed into a signal pole ahead and fell far behind.
“American anti-monster gear’s the best. Not lethal, but effective on carnivorous hornets.”
“That’s a billion-won shot. Even in the US, they tremble firing it. Where’d you snag it?”
“Bunker. Gave it when I asked on the way to the garage.”
“Yanks got big hearts. Just handing over something that pricey.”
“Not a gift. Gotta return it.”
“Ah, return?”
“In this mess, say it got lost—they won’t nickel-and-dime, right? Emergency times.”
No Song-rin shot Kang Moo-hyuk a ‘knew it’ look.
“Extra hunter basics in the trunk. All US-made, shiny. Help yourself, No Song-rin Hunter.”
“Aigoo, emergency indeed. Could lose ’em hunting monsters. Sure.”
“Anyway, the issue’s if that queen births the next gen. One stronger, or hundreds slightly weaker? Unknown, but carnivorous hornets prioritize evolution. Africa’s first outbreak went five gens without swarming. Wiped a country. Don’t know if this queen’s gen two or three, but stopping the next gen’s key to the raid.”