Chapter 68

“You really are... someone I can't let my guard down around.”

Arsha let out a hollow laugh.

“To think you would see through even that.”

But there was not a trace of amusement in her glare at Suho.

BZZZZZZ!

The bees forming Arsha's face kept scattering and regrouping, betraying just how rattled she was.

Suho smirked.

“Looks like I was right.”

“I think that's enough conversation.”

As Arsha abruptly sprang to her feet, Suho asked teasingly,

“All of a sudden? Got something urgent to do?”

“Of course. It's about time I collected the sacrifices Lee Minsung killed, and I need to find a new hive to move into.”

“Where are you moving? Found anywhere yet?”

“Wherever it is, you won't be able to visit, Lord Suho.”

“That's hurtful. I was hoping to come to your housewarming.”

“I'm afraid that won't be possible.”

Neither yielded an inch in their back-and-forth.

Arsha turned toward Suho with a dazzling smile.

“While we've been chatting, this basement has filled with my poison.”

“Poison?”

“Yes. It's a colorless, odorless, lethal poison I painstakingly developed. Even as the Monarch of Fangs' successor, you wouldn't have noticed it.”

That was why Arsha had spent so long chattering with Suho here in the first place: to buy enough time for her poison to permeate his body completely, down to its deepest reaches.

Her smile at him grew increasingly cruel.

“Once you willingly enter a queen bee's chambers, you can only leave as one of two things: a worker bee or food. Now, I shall bid you farew—”

[“Kheheh.”]

“... Huh?”

But what was this?

[“Kheheheh!”]

For some reason, the tiny ant Beru was clutching his belly on the table, snickering. His laughter was far more mocking than before.

Suho, on the other hand, wasn't laughing at all. Just as he had when he first came down here, he simply rose from his chair as casually as could be, stood beside Arsha, and spoke.

“Perfect timing. I was thinking of going to see Lee Minsung myself. Shall we go together?”

“H-how?!”

Arsha, who had been so confident in her poison, hastily recoiled from Suho as though burned.

She couldn't sense so much as a trace of poison in him.

Of course, even at that very moment, Suho was continually being poisoned.

It was just that...

[A harmful substance has been detected.]

[Detoxification will begin through the effect of 'Blessing: Health and Longevity.']

[Detoxification complete.]

[Detoxification complete.]

[Detoxification complete.]

...

Detoxification messages rained incessantly before Suho's eyes.

“Impossible! You're withstanding my poison! Th-this power...!”

Arsha cried out in utter shock as she stared at him.

“Have you actually obtained another of Lady Querehsha's relics?”

Arsha had watched the lancers' battle through her bees. Like the lancers at the end, she too had considered the possibility that Suho had obtained another relic.

But it had only been a possibility. The chances of a mere human acquiring a great Monarch's relic were infinitesimal.

Now, however, she was certain.

He couldn't possibly withstand her poison unless he had inherited a relic left behind by the Monarch of Plagues.

“You're already the Monarch of Fangs' successor! Why are you after Lady Querehsha's succession as well?”

[“...”]

“...”

Faced with the utter conviction on Arsha's face, Beru and Suho looked at her with pity.

At this point, they felt almost too bad for her to deny it.

[The King of Beasts, the Monarch of Fangs, clutches his belly and wheezes with laughter.]

“Let's go, Beru.”

Ignoring Arsha, Suho turned away. He had heard everything he wanted to hear. There was no reason to stay.

“Answer me before you leave!”

Suho stopped short. At Arsha's voice behind him, he glanced back, his eyes flashing.

“I'll give you that answer in person next time I meet your real body.”

But you won't get off unscathed like you did today.

There was no need to say that last part aloud. The message would have come across clearly enough.

With that, Suho headed straight up the stairs to the ground floor.

Watching him leave, Arsha bit her lip in frustration.

How dare he turn his back on her so defenselessly?

He must be that confident.

'He stole all my worker bees, and my poison doesn't even work on him? At this rate...'

Didn't that make the human more of a queen bee than she was?

'This won't do. I need to hurry the ritual.'

Anxiety swept over her. At this rate, someone—whether Lee Minsung or Sung Suho—might steal the succession from her.

In an instant, Arsha's body scattered into countless pieces.

BZZZZZZZ!

A short while later, civilians witnessed countless bees flying out of Times Square like smoke, heading off somewhere.

* * *

[“Are you simply going to leave that dim-witted queen alone?”]

“She says it isn't even her real body. Why waste my strength here? Lee Minsung is the bigger problem right now.”

To Suho's eyes, Arsha's beautiful form had been nothing more than a seething cluster of bees.

Killing a few measly bees wouldn't yield much experience, and more importantly, it didn't seem likely to cause Arsha any serious trouble.

[“True. All the lancers she worked so hard to gather are gone now anyway, so she'll keep her head down for a while. After all, a queen bee's fate is to spend her entire life hidden in her hive...”]

“Release Spirit Possession.”

Suho also released Spirit Possession to conserve mana.

['Spirit Possession' has been released.]

The change came smoothly. The spirit wind swirling around Suho's body subsided, and his fluttering, silver-bleached hair turned black again.

He had kept Spirit Possession active while facing the queen bee, but now he needed to conserve mana until he found Lee Minsung.

“Grrr!”

[The spirit of 'Pet: Gray' leaves the shaman's body.]

“Go back inside for now.”

“Whine?”

Suho sent Gray, who had emerged from his body, back into the Shadow Dungeon.

STEP.

It happened just then.

“Hunter Sung Suho! You're safe!”

Having just reached the ground floor, Suho ran straight into the Baekho Guild members who were about to head downstairs.

Baek Miho, who was at their head, quickly checked him over first. Then she tilted her head.

'They said his hair had turned white, but it's black. Did he deactivate his skill?'

Miho had wanted to see for herself whether Suho really had used a Beast Transformation skill, so she felt disappointed.

She could simply ask him whether he had the skill, but there were far more pressing issues right now.

For starters, Suho alone wasn't wearing a gas mask in this poison-fog-filled area!

'They said he gave the others gas masks before leaving! Did he even give up his own for them?'

Miho couldn't stand by and watch his self-sacrificing spirit(?).

“Quickly, give him a gas mask first.”

“Yes, Vice President!”

At Miho's instruction, a guild member took a gas mask from their bag and tried to fit it over Suho's face.

But he politely declined and kept walking.

“No, I'm fine. Something urgent has come up, so I need to leave right away.”

“So do we. We're evacuating the other hunters too... No, more importantly! What on earth happened here?”

Miho kept close beside Suho as he headed out of Times Square, bombarding him with questions.

“And the other hunters said you saved them. How did you...”

“This isn't the time for small talk.”

Suho cut her off, his expression serious.

“We need to find Lee Minsung and stop him immediately.”

“What? All of a sudden? Stop him from wha—”

Just then, a Baekho Guild member holding a phone behind them urgently called out to Miho.

“Vice President! We've heard from headquarters!”

“Lee Minsung is carrying out a massacre in the streets right now...”

“...!”

“...!”

Suho and Miho turned their heads at the same instant.

Then, in a sudden burst of speed, both broke into a run toward the labyrinth's exit, neither waiting for the other.

“W-wait for us, Vice President!”

The startled Baekho Guild members chased after them a beat late.

Then something struck them as strange.

“What the hell? Didn't they say he was C-rank?”

“Why is he so fast?!”

Amazingly, Suho was running at almost the same speed as Baek Miho, an A-rank hunter.

Miho, running right beside him, was even more shocked.

'What? His profile definitely said he was a summoner!'

Granted, she hadn't yet used her main skill, Beast Transformation. And the twisting labyrinth kept her from sprinting flat out in a straight line.

But regardless of all that, Suho's current speed was absolutely not that of a C-rank summoner.

As it happened, Suho was thinking much the same thing as he watched Miho.

'She's fast. So this is an A-rank?'

Then he recalled that Lee Minsung, the man they were going to catch, was also an A-rank hunter.

Minsung would be in a different league altogether from the lancers made exclusively from C-rank hunters and below—enough so that the queen bee Arsha was reluctant to give him up.

'If he seriously tries to run away, this could get a little annoying.'

Besides, didn't Lee Minsung have wings now?

Ah. He had a good idea.

“Ms. Baek Miho.”

“Yes?!”

Startled when Suho suddenly called to her from right beside her, Miho looked at him.

“How long do you think it would take you to reach Lee Minsung from here if you ran at full speed?”

“R-ran?”

“Surely you weren't planning to drive? Traffic will be backed up at this hour.”

“Oh.”

Since the Cataclysm, traffic congestion in Seoul had become severe. Gates had opened in several major subway stations, breaking up the rail lines.

In an emergency like this, running there was much faster.

Understanding his intention, Miho briefly calculated the distance and answered confidently.

“At full speed, twenty minutes should be plenty! What about you, Suho?”

There was a competitive edge to the challenging look she gave him.

Though they were running side by side now, she had good reason for her confidence: if she used Beast Transformation and sprinted at full speed, she would become vastly faster.

“Oh. An A-rank, all right.”

Suho promptly gave her two thumbs up in genuine admiration.

Then, with an even more guileless expression, he made a suggestion.

“I think I'd be much slower than that, so how about giving me a piggyback ride?”

“... What?”

Baek Miho couldn't believe her ears.