Chapter 67

“Lee Minsung, you son of a bitch...”

So that was why he had been abducting Reaper Guild hunters instead of killing them!

Lim Taegyu was furious. Thinking back on Minsung’s usual behavior, he realized what the bastard wanted.

He had always been desperate to raise his standing within the Reaper Guild. To rise above even Taegyu, his friend and guildmaster!

‘I don’t know what skill you bought, but did you want to make our people your subordinates so badly that you’d turn them into this? What... could possibly make you go this far?!’

Looking at the Mutants, who no longer even looked human, Taegyu clenched his teeth and drew his bowstring.

WHOOOOSH!

Blue currents swirled around the S-rank weapon, Reaper’s Bow, as mana arrows formed.

One, two, three, four.

SHWIP! SHWIP! SHWIP!

Five mana arrows flew along different trajectories, piercing the bodies of the scattered Mutants. Monstrous cries erupted from the mouths of those who had once been his guildmates but were now monsters.

Somehow, to Taegyu, those cries sounded like mournful sobs.

“Grrrgh...!”

But the Mutants kept moving even with Taegyu’s arrows embedded in their bodies. His expression hardened at their tenacity.

Perhaps because they had been high-ranking hunters before becoming Mutants, their physical abilities were formidable. They were even still wearing the armor they had worn when they were abducted. One or two arrows would likely not be enough to take them down.

Gritting his teeth, Taegyu looked back at the unaffected guild members he had brought with him. They were hesitating to attack their comrades, who had become magic beasts—people they had laughed and joked with only days ago.

Drawing his bowstring again, he shouted.

“Don’t hesitate! Those Mutants aren’t human! They’re not the people we knew anymore!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

“They’ve already turned into zombies! Hitting the heart won’t do any good! Shoot their legs to slow them down, then cut off their arms and legs!”

“...!”

At that utterly brutal yet resolute order, the Reaper Guild members gritted their teeth and raised their weapons.

The ability to make clearheaded decisions even in a situation like this was the true measure of Lim Taegyu, the S-rank hunter who had led the Reaper Guild all this time. Jolted back to their senses by his thunderous rebuke, his guild members began attacking the Mutants in earnest.

“So this is the Reaper Guild...”

The Association hunters rescuing civilians watched their efforts in admiration.

Despite all the controversies over the years, including the current trouble involving its vice president, the Reaper Guild was still the Reaper Guild. One of Korea’s very best guilds.

Its true strength shone brightest in emergencies like this.

“Grrrgh...!”

The problem, however, was that the Mutants had also been members of that very same guild. Though they had lost their reason and become magic beasts, the experience etched into their bodies remained.

“The Mutants are splitting up! After them!”

Evading the Reaper Guild’s attacks, the Mutants scattered and slipped into the buildings. The civilians inside soon became their victims.

“Aaaah!”

“H-help...!”

The Mutants’ unexpected response left the Reaper Guild members flustered.

“Stop them!”

“Don’t let them into the buildings!”

In the end, they too scattered and entered the buildings, following the screams coming from all directions.

It was a trap.

BZZZZZZ!

“Wh-what the hell?!”

“There’s a swarm of bees inside...!”

The Contaminated Hornets waiting inside the buildings for the hunters to enter descended on them.

“Hornets?!”

“They’re not ordinary insects! They’re insect-type magic beasts!”

“They’re venomous! Don’t let them sting you!”

The situation descended into chaos. Pursuing Mutants into buildings while also wiping out the swarms that darkened the air would leave even the well-trained, battle-hardened Reaper Guild rattled.

Taegyu realized something. Contrary to their appearance, the Mutants were moving strategically. That meant someone was controlling them from behind the scenes.

It was obvious who.

“LEE! MIN! SUNG!”

A mana-charged roar burst from Taegyu’s mouth.

“Where are you?! Where are you hiding?!”

The S-rank hunter’s booming voice shook the air like a shock wave, shattering the buildings’ windows.

“Your ears! Cover your ears!”

The Association hunters shouted urgently as they rescued civilians.

At the center of the chaos, Taegyu raised Reaper’s Bow and loosed his bowstring toward the sky.

Multiple Multishot.

SHWIP! SHWIP! SHWIP! SHWIP! SHWIP!

Countless mana arrows shot into the sky, arcing like a fountain before plunging toward the ground.

Some struck the crowns of Mutants roaming the streets. Others passed through shattered windows and into the torsos of Mutants attacking people inside.

Not a single arrow accidentally harmed a civilian.

“My God...”

Team Leader Han Jaehyuk of the Association stared openmouthed at the incredible skill.

“If he could do that, he should’ve used it sooner...”

Despite his words, a skill like that left its user with a long gap before they could act again. He could understand why Taegyu had held it in reserve.

But its effectiveness was undeniable.

“Grragh...!”

Pierced by the reaper’s arrows, the Mutants could only writhe on the ground, unable to get up. The arrows had driven straight through their torsos, pinning them to the ground.

The Reaper Guild members rushed them and severed their arms and legs. These were their comrades, with whom they had laughed and joked just days before...

“I’m sorry, Jaeseop.”

“Grrgh...!”

They put them down.

Meanwhile, the Association hunters breathed sighs of relief. Thanks to the Reaper Guild’s efforts, the number of Mutants was visibly dwindling.

‘Good. At this rate, we’ll have this area cleared soon.’

That was when something unexpected happened.

“Guh...”

A sudden groan came from somewhere.

There stood Taegyu, looking down in bewilderment at the sword protruding from his abdomen. His head swam.

‘Poison.’

But what shocked him even more was the very fact that someone had ambushed him. Who could possibly evade an S-rank hunter’s senses and get behind him?

He immediately turned around. When he saw who had stabbed him, his mind went blank.

“Cough... Y-you? Why...?”

The man hadn’t evaded his senses to approach him. He had been standing behind Taegyu from the start.

As always.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Secretary Oh...”

Secretary Oh, the man who had stabbed Taegyu, wore an awkward smile.

“It’s still too soon. Vice President Lee Minsung needs to run wild a little longer.”

* * *

Suho asked Arsha, “You don’t seem all that concerned, considering.”

Even though Lee Minsung was imitating a queen bee and building an army of his own, Arsha, the actual queen bee, seemed untroubled.

“Hmm. Despite appearances, I am quite upset. I put a great deal of effort into raising that worker bee, you know.”

“Then you should’ve sent the lancers to catch him as soon as he escaped.”

“That was my intention at first. But no matter how many ordinary lancers I send, they can’t do anything to him.”

The Contaminated Lancers had been made from C-rank hunters or lower. No matter how many of those worker bees swarmed him, capturing Lee Minsung, an A-rank hunter, had been impossible from the start.

Just as Suho had defeated them all and made it here.

With a delicate frown, Arsha crossed her legs and shifted in her seat.

“It’s quite a headache for me, too. My original plan was to live quietly in hiding here and succeed Lady Querehsha. So I really did keep a very low profile.”

“You had an awful lot of lancers for someone keeping a low profile.”

“This is hardly any. I gathered them little by little to avoid attracting the Association’s attention. If I’d set my mind to gathering them quickly, I could have amassed a hundred times this many.”

“I suppose you could have.”

Suho agreed on that point.

From what he’d heard, creating a lancer was simple. Just feed someone royal jelly and see what happened. That was all.

If they were lucky enough to have a constitution that agreed with royal jelly—if “agreed” was the word—they became a lancer. Otherwise, they died.

“The process actually takes a surprising amount of work. First I have to tame Earth’s bees one by one as my subjects, then imbue their stingers with my royal jelly.”

[“You call yourself a queen bee, but aren’t you just a beekeeper?”]

With an utterly innocent expression and no intention of mocking her, Beru mocked Arsha.

She looked a little hurt.

“I had no choice. I lost all my worker bees crossing the dimensional rift. I had to find replacements one at a time.”

“Must’ve been tough. Now I feel bad. I killed all those lancers you worked so hard to gather today. And Lee Minsung ran away, too.”

“An apology doesn’t mean much when you don’t look the slightest bit sorry...”

Arsha gaped in disbelief at Suho’s utterly insincere apology. Then she gave a little laugh, folded her arms haughtily, and spoke.

“Well, it’s fine. Though Lee Minsung, whom I worked so hard to raise, became a disloyal worker bee and ran away from home, his instincts will still be working faithfully for me.”

“For you?”

“Yes. Even now, he must be working hard to make me the Queen of Insects. Of course, he won’t realize it himself.”

“...”

Arsha’s words gave Suho a strange sense of déjà vu. According to the Baekho Guild’s briefing, all Minsung had done over the past few days was attack and abduct hunters.

‘Say he abducted the hunters to build an army of his own. Then why did he kill the others?’

Ah.

‘What if killing people was the goal in itself?’

A flash of insight struck Suho, and at last he understood.

Succeeding a dead Monarch. Becoming a new Monarch.

Hadn’t he already witnessed that process once before?

[The King of Beasts, the Monarch of Fangs, chuckles as he looks at his shaman.]

As though responding to that realization, Rakan sent a message at that very moment.

Suho glared at Arsha, who sat there so calmly despite having lost her entire power base.

“You need sacrifices.”

She flinched.

“As many sacrifices as possible, for a ritual honoring the dead Querehsha.”

“...”

Watching Arsha’s expression grow increasingly rigid at his words, Suho became certain.

“Lee Minsung must be out there slaughtering people on your behalf. Since he’s only killing hunters, I take it you need sacrifices imbued with mana?”

“... Well, it would be stranger if you didn’t know. Your method may have been different, but you must have done something similar to become the Monarch of Fangs’ successor.”

He was a shaman, not a successor, but that hardly mattered.

Suho shrugged and asked another question.

“But are you sure you’ll be all right? The Reaper Guild is really gunning for Lee Minsung. They’re afraid they’ll be lumped in with him if they do nothing. Besides, to catch an A-rank like him, naturally their S-rank guildmaster will have to step in himself—”

He paused, cutting himself off.

Arsha had kept Minsung at her side for a long time. There was no way she didn’t know that an S-rank hunter would capture him in an instant.

And yet she was this relaxed?

“You planted a traitor at the guildmaster’s side. Someone like Lee Minsung.”

She flinched.

The instant Suho spoke, a genuine expression appeared for the first time on Arsha’s face, which had been so composed until now.