novelraw Chapter 39 : Chapter 39
Chapter 39 : Chapter 39
Chapter 39.Turmoil (8)
Riman picked up the sword and approached the corner of the spawning room.
What was piled up high there was none other than the spider Demonic Beast’s egg sacs.
The true final goal of today’s hunt.
A brown heap with a somewhat crumbly texture.
It looked like rice straw had been tightly compressed.
Except that it was actually a bit sticky, the texture was similar to rice straw too.
Riman began to tear off the egg sacs with the Caterpillar Sword he held in his hand.
Embedded inside the egg sacs were hundreds of eggs about the size of tennis balls.
All of them eggs of the spider Demonic Beast.
Riman was careful not to touch the eggs with the sword.
If an egg bursts, foul-smelling fluid flows out.
After filling his bag with the egg sacs torn off like that.
“Good.”
Closing the bulging bag, Riman thought.
‘How much will fall to me from here?’
What Riman was supposed to receive was 20% of the profits generated from this Boss Room.
He was expecting at least a few hundred million won.
Well, profits were for later anyway.
[Ignition]
Fwoosh!
Riman set fire to the remaining eggs and egg sacs.
The egg sacs burned well.
The eggs shriveled up like burning plastic.
After completely burning away even the possibility of the spiders’ revival like that.
Riman shouldered the bag and walked back out to the center of the spawning room.
Then he quietly looked at the corpse of the Queen Spider.
It was a moment where many thoughts would have crossed his mind if it were the old days.
Because this guy hadn’t done anything particularly wrong to Riman.
It just lived in the cave and was suddenly attacked and died.
It deserved sympathy.
If it were Riman from his past life, he would have surely felt guilt.
But the current Riman felt no such emotion at all.
Was it the influence of this body’s original owner?
But feeling sympathy for a Demonic Beast’s death here and now was also funny.
Considering how many people he had killed with these hands so far.
‘...Right, to survive in this world, a personality like now is better.’
A world where people kill each other for profit the size of a fingernail.
In such a place, sympathy or compassion was an emotional luxury.
“Shall I go see Saya now?”
Riman shouldered the bag and returned to the entrance he had come in through earlier.
And pushed the rock to open the hole.
At that moment.
“Hm?”
Bang!!
Something struck Riman hard.
* * *
At the time Riman was fighting in the spawning room.
Lee Jeok-seo, the CEO of Jeoksong Company, followed his brother to a secluded corner.
Lee Jeok-seo asked his brother.
“What did you call me for?”
“Hyung, how much did we agree to give that guy?”
“That guy? You mean Mr. Leman? We agreed to give 20 percent.”
“Do you want to give it?”
“Would I want to give it? Giving money is hateful in any case. But naturally, we have to pay the price…….”
“What if we didn’t have to give it?”
“What?”
The brother said once more in a lowered voice.
“If we didn’t have to give it, would you not give it?”
“……!”
Lee Jeok-seo’s eyes widened in surprise, and he unconsciously looked around.
Of course, Riman had gone into the spawning room earlier.
So there was no way he could hear.
But plotting something harmful to someone naturally makes one look around.
“How are we not going to give it?”
“We have to kill him.”
Lee Jeok-seo’s eyes wavered.
“…That’s not right.”
“I’m not asking about right or wrong, Hyung. I’m asking if you want to or not.”
From a question of right and wrong to a question of like and dislike.
From a question of ethics to a question of preference.
Lee Jeok-seo couldn’t easily accept this shift in perspective.
As his brother hesitated in judgment, the brother went into even stronger persuasion.
“Is right and wrong that important, Hyung?”
“It’s not that it’s important, it’s obvious…….”
“It’s so obvious, but why didn’t Parakel keep it?”
“……!”
Lee Jeok-seo’s lips shut tight.
Unilateral contract termination for absurd reasons.
The trauma from just a few hours ago began to flare up in his head again.
A moment later, Lee Jeok-seo, having calmed his mind, answered his brother’s question.
Why did Parakel do something wrong, something against morals?
“…Because they are strong.”
“What did you say, Hyung?”
“Because Parakel is strong. Because they have power. That’s why they can act like that. We can’t imitate them.”
“No, it’s the opposite, Hyung. The order is reversed.”
“What does that mean?”
“They could grow that big because they did wrong things.”
“What……?”
“Was Parakel a large corporation from the start? No, right? They were guys who started from a tiny lab too. They’re guys who grew by stealing other labs’ pharmaceutical recipes and committing terror there.”
“…….”
“Morality is a stumbling block to success, Hyung. All great successes start from courageous injustice.”
“But my conscience…….”
“You can fill the place where conscience left with money. Can’t you understand what I’m saying, Hyung?”
Lee Jeok-seo’s eyes began to waver.
The brother began to push with an even stronger tone.
“We agreed to give 20 percent, right? After giving that, we barely break even. But if that 20 percent comes into our hands, we can use it as a foundation for the next business. The direction of our Jeoksong Company depends on this very moment.”
“Whew…….”
Lee Jeok-seo wavered until the end.
But the brother quietly watched him without rebuking him.
Because he was originally that kind of person.
Smart but indecisive, not moral but not completely evil either.
That was the person named Lee Jeok-seo.
The brother said in a slightly softened voice.
“I know, Hyung. It is backstabbing someone who helped us. I know it weighs on your mind because of that. But Hyung. rather than being recorded in history books as a good person after dying, I want to live and be someone on the front page of economic newspapers.”
“…….”
“Decide, Hyung. The people here right now are Hyung’s people. Hyung’s people who will move as Hyung says.”
Lee Jeok-seo clenched his fist tight.
His wandering eyes also stopped.
Lee Jeok-seo finally opened his mouth.
“…Still, there is a problem.”
“Tell me.”
“How are we going to catch that guy?”
It was the moment Lee Jeok-seo’s opinion leaned toward his brother.
A faint smile finally rose on the brother’s lips.
“Right, Hyung. That guy named Leman is definitely incredibly strong.”
“That’s why I’m asking. Can we handle him with just us?”
“The probability of us winning is overwhelmingly large.”
“Explain.”
“Mana is consumable. And that guy is catching the boss alone right now. When that battle is over, naturally his mana will be almost depleted.”
“Hm.”
“And that guy is an Enhanced Human. Hyung knows too, right? On average, Mages are the strongest, then Superhumans, and then Enhanced Humans.”
“I understand that the probability of winning is high. But there’s one more problem.”
“What is it this time?”
“How do we get out of here without Leman? Only that guy knows the internal structure here, right?”
The brother put his hand on Lee Jeok-seo’s shoulder and said.
“I marked every fork knowing this would happen.”
“……!”
With this, all problems were solved.
Now only execution remained.
Lee Jeok-seo nodded and said.
“Let’s do it.”
A grin rose on the brother’s face.
The brother called in the other Hunters and spoke his thoughts.
There was no division of opinion on this.
The Hunters surprisingly agreed readily to the suggestion to kill Leman.
No, rather they cheered at the fact that their share would increase.
Like that, a conspiracy began to proceed.
“The key is a surprise attack. Let’s crush him by attacking immediately without giving him a chance to react.”
“I’ll take care of that.”
Clank.
Saying that, a Hunter lifted his hammer.
Lee Jeok-seo’s brother nodded and said.
“Good. You wait in front of the hole and smash him with the hammer the moment he comes out.”
“Okay.”
“And the others…….”
Like that, the plan to murder Riman began to gradually take shape.
* * *
Back to the present.
The moment he opened the hole, Riman was struck hard by something.
‘A hammer?!’
K-boom!!
There was no time to dodge.
The hammerhead struck Riman directly.
The impact burst, and Riman flew backward as he was.
Thud!!
Riman, who flew back, crashed into somewhere.
Someplace sticky and squishy.
Riman was embedded in the Queen Spider’s corpse.
Inside the corpse’s body, at that.
It was because the Queen Spider’s carapace had been crushed by the stalactite shower, exposing its insides clearly.
“Hit him!”
“Good, charge in!!”
The Hunters crossed the hole and entered the spawning room in unison.
“Where is that bastard?”
“Over there! He flew to where the Queen Spider’s corpse is!!”
“Whoa…….”
They were momentarily speechless at the sight before their eyes.
Because the corpse of the Queen Spider, with stalactites embedded all over its body and cut in half, came into view.
“He really caught the boss alone…….”
“Don’t mind it!! Just focus on catching that guy Leman right now!!”
They soon discovered Riman.
Riman buried inside the Queen Spider’s corpse.
“Cough.”
And Riman was alive.
He couldn’t dodge the hammer, but thanks to activating a shield at that split second, the impact was dampened.
Of course, it was an imperfect shield, so it couldn’t completely block the hammer’s impact.
Was that why?
Riman was definitely not in a fine state.
Blood trickled from his mouth, and his bones all over his body seemed to ring due to the concussion from the impact.
Still, he was alive.
So they didn’t stop their attack on Riman.
“Kill him!”
“Finish it!!”
Whoosh!
The Hunters rushed toward Riman in unison.
Menacing weapons sufficient to turn Riman into minced meat in just a few seconds.
In front of that, there was one thing the empty-handed Riman could do.
Magic.
[Water Vein Thread]
A magic that shoots a high-pressure water stream at high speed.
Pshht!
Seeing the water stream flying from Riman, one Hunter quickly raised his shield.
Ting!
The shield deflected and refracted the water stream Riman shot.
And the deflected water stream……
Zip!
Grazed the forearm of the Hunter holding the hammer nearby.
That wasn’t the end.
The water stream was still under Riman’s control.
Refracting here and there in the air, the water stream attacked other Hunters in succession.
Pshhew!
Slash!!
“Ugh!”
“Tsk……!”
At the sudden counterattack, the Hunters stopped their charge for now.
But……
“…What, is that it?”
Surprisingly, not a single Hunter received a proper wound.
Just grazing places like forearms, cheeks, or thighs.
If it were a penetrating wound, they would have been incapacitated immediately, but wounds of this level were really nothing.
“What the……?”
“Ha really, was that just a last struggle?”
The Hunters smirked and approached Riman again.
“We aren’t those spider bastards, huh?”
“Did you think such a crude technique would work?”
Riman seemed to have wasted his last chance vainly, and so they were certain of victory.
But at that moment.
“Hm?”
Drip—
Blood began to flow from a Hunter’s nose.
“Uh……?”
That wasn’t the end.
Ears began to go deaf, dizziness assaulted the head, and blood began to well up and fill under the eyelids.
“Gack……!”
“Guk……!”
Thud!
One by one, the Hunters poured blood and collapsed on the floor.
The holes from which they bled were different, but there was one common point.
That they were hit by the Water Vein Thread Riman shot.
And that the hit area was dyed dark blue.
“W-what the……!”
“Whew... these sons of bitches.”
Riman staggered and walked out of the Queen Spider’s body.
In Riman’s right hand, something was gripped that wasn’t there before.
It was an internal organ freshly pulled from the Queen Spider’s abdomen.
It was the ‘poison sac’.
The organ that produces and stores venom.
Riman had shot [Water Vein Thread] with the liquid contained in it.
Not with water, but with venom.
It was the moment a simple piercing magic turned into an instant-kill technique even with a graze.
“Gurgle... gack…….”
There were a total of four Hunters hit by [Water Vein Thread].
Unable to handle the poison spreading in their bodies, they died instantly.
Four out of the six who attacked Riman died instantly like that.
“This crazy…….”
They looked at Riman.
Only then did they realize.
That a boss still remained in this Boss Room.
And it was their final boss, created by them.