520

 [Chapter 142]

[Hatching (3)]

Consciousness returned faintly.

Kim Geon-ung opened his eyes groggily.

"..."

It looks like a cave with small rooms packed tightly together.

Kim Geon-ung thought as he looked at the rooms filling the walls.

Then he vaguely realized.

That he too was inside one of those numerous rooms.

This place is...

His consciousness faded again after that.

And when he regained consciousness again,

Kim Geon-ung could look around with a clearer mind than before.

"..."

Monsters, monsters, monsters.

Everywhere he looked, there were only monsters.

Only then did he realize he had been captured by monsters.

He was shocked to see countless giant bees flying around the area.

The sights that shocked him even more did not end there.

What on earth... are they doing?

The giant bees were pulling monsters out of the rooms.

The unconscious, limp monsters were dragged away by the giant bees.

Then he lost consciousness again.

Ah...

When his eyes opened again,

He tried to follow where the bees were taking the monsters while struggling to keep his eyes open.

"..."

At the end of the space,

There was something like an altar.

When the bees placed a monster on the altar,

'It' revealed its presence.

...

Kim Geon-ung could not properly look at the being approaching the altar.

Just its presence there seemed to overwhelm his soul with fear.

So he immediately averted his gaze when he saw 'it' stab the monster placed on the altar.

Ugh... consciousness...

His consciousness faded again.

The last sight that entered his fading vision was a monster with a swollen belly being dragged away by the giant bees.

When he finally regained consciousness again─

"─...!"

Lee Cheon-seo was being dragged away.

☆

How did things end up like this?

Seo-na could not help but feel dejected.

"─Eun-woo, you come this way! Si-hyung!"

"Duck your heads!"

Evening of the 4th day in the Academy dungeon.

While most parties decided to spend the night at the edge of the 4th underground floor,

Min-ho's party and a few others chose to push on and descend to the entrance of the 5th floor.

"Don't scatter! Stick together with people nearby and move!"

That day passed safely.

However, as soon as the students entered the main hall in the morning,

Monsters suddenly appeared from the well behind the main hall.

It happened in an instant.

7th tier, occasionally even 6th tier.

The monsters swarmed and dragged students into the well.

"Seo-na! Where should we go!?"

"Just hang on a little longer! I got word that Pa-rang oppa is setting up defenses in the plaza!"

A sudden attack.

And far too many monsters.

The students were helpless.

Their formation lost meaning and crumbled.

In that situation, Mok Min-ho had no choice but to decide on a retreat.

He planned to return to the 5th floor plaza and join up with parties coming down from above to deal with the monsters.

But─

"─Eun-woo, are you okay right now?"

"..."

"Cha Eun-woo!"

"...Seo-na, I can't do this. I can't leave Min-ho behind like this."

"So you're saying you'll go there alone now? Don't say such nonsense!"

"But Min-ho..."

─To help the students retreat,

Mok Min-ho entrusted Seo-na with command of the group while he faced the monsters at the rear.

Then wasp-type monsters that had been lying in ambush at the front kidnapped Yoon I-byeol.

Mok Min-ho turned back to rescue Yoon I-byeol.

"Seo-na, what about Min-ho..."

"...He'll be fine. He'll be okay... please calm down now."

At Mok Min-ho's action of rushing into what was practically certain death,

Cha Eun-woo, who had been leading the students at the front, finally broke down.

She pleaded with the students to let her go after him,

But Jin Seo-na absolutely refused to let her go.

It's okay... it'll be okay.

We learned about this in class.

Golden Wasps are monsters that kidnap their prey alive and move them to their nest...

Min-ho must have known that when he rushed in.

Anyway, the kids should be safe for at least a few hours. They have to be.

Even with the students in a panic,

Jin Seo-na tried her best to maintain composure.

If she fell into panic too, the command structure she had barely stabilized would crumble again.

She spread telepathy around her to make the students listen to her even amidst the chaos.

[See that cracked pillar over there!? Keep running until you reach there without giving up! Ha-yang and the others are preparing an attack up ahead!]

Meanwhile, as soon as the situation occurred, she attempted to send telepathy to Jin Pa-rang.

She judged that by then, the group led by Jung Ha-yang would be heading towards the main hall.

She actually wanted to send it to Eun-ha, but that Noh Eun-ha is probably just playing around when it's important...!

After several failed attempts,

She managed to weakly connect telepathy with Jin Pa-rang.

From then on, the two shared the situation in real-time.

And finally─

[─Don't look back and keep running to the end!]

The two groups met.

Jin Seo-na squeezed out her remaining strength to pass through the cracked pillar.

Immediately, the students who had been waiting after setting up defenses revealed themselves.

"─Annihilation, begin."

As a voice infused with mana rang out,

Jung Ha-yang ordered interception just as all the retreating students entered the defensive perimeter.

BOOM!!

Bae Su-bin unleashed her magic.

The explosion shook the ground.

Following her, the casters deployed their prepared spells.

"We can't let any monsters return to the nest. We must eliminate every last one."

Jung Ha-yang spread protective magic in case of unexpected situations.

Jin Pa-rang beside her quickly relayed her words via telepathy.

SCREECH!!

Meanwhile, after the casters' turn passed,

The navigators continuously deployed detection nets to search for monsters.

The telepathists received coordinates from them and relayed them to the rangers and snipers.

And the rangers and snipers intercepted the monsters that emerged from the explosions.

Now it was their stage.

Those who had maintained sufficient distance beforehand continued pulling triggers without receiving monster attacks.

The smell of gunpowder filled the surroundings.

"Supporters, check if the students who just arrived are injured and treat them. Dealers and hunters, hunt down the fleeing monsters as their numbers decrease."

The monsters crumpled, unable to properly respond and becoming bullet fodder.

Judging that the situation was somewhat under control, Jung Ha-yang delegated tasks to the navigator assisting her.

Then she walked towards the students sitting on the ground.

"Seo-na, are you hurt anywhere?" "No, we're fine. But..."

"It seems the situation was too complex to explain fully via telepathy... Will you tell me the details now?"

While tightly holding Cha Eun-woo's hand,

Jin Seo-na trailed off as she glanced at her.

Jung Ha-yang smiled gently and comforted the two.

☆

She grasped the situation.

And captured a monster to identify its identity.

Jung Ha-yang furrowed her brow.

...It's definitely the 7th tier monster Golden Wasp. Judging by the paralytic poison on its stinger rather than regular poison, it means they're not moving as individual entities.

As <The Seed> of <Index >,

Jung Ha-yang carefully recalled the information she had memorized.

The 7th tier monster Golden Wasp shows different behavioral patterns depending on the type of secretion on its stinger.

Generally, Golden Wasps that don't obey higher-ranked monsters and gather with the same species use poison that causes continuous bleeding.

After weakening prey with poison, they move them to their nest and feed as a group.

However, if it's a Golden Wasp using paralytic poison─

─We can identify the higher-ranked entity ruling over the Golden Wasps based on the composition of the paralytic poison.

The higher-ranked monster the Golden Wasps follow was a wasp-type monster belonging to the hornet family.

Jung Ha-yang recalled wasp-type hornet family monsters above 6th tier that she knew.

Four types of monsters came to mind immediately.

If I had known this would happen, I should have asked the teacher in more detail back then.

If she could see the composition of the paralytic poison, she could have quickly identified the monster.

Unfortunately, she hadn't learned how to see the composition.

But she could narrow down the range.

I saw quite a few different types of wasp-type monsters among the Golden Wasps earlier.

Wasp-type monsters had clearly divided hierarchies.

Therefore, the more diverse the hierarchy of monsters forming a group,

The higher the rank of the monster dominating that group.

Which means─

─This is not an opponent we can handle.

At least 4th tier or above.

Adding the dungeon's influence, the conclusion was at least 4th tier overrank or above.

Jung Ha-yang swallowed hard, avoiding others' eyes.

The best judgment was to quickly evacuate the students out of the dungeon.

But if we do that, we can't guarantee the survival of those who were captured.

At most a day.

From what she heard from other students, they captured both humans and monsters indiscriminately.

Then optimistically thinking, we might be able to buy one or two more days.

But whether optimistic or not─

─It will take days to report the situation after leaving the dungeon. That's too late.

Moreover, it would take at least two days to come down to the 5th floor, even rushing.

It seemed hopeless.

Standing in the position of commanding the students, she hesitated to make a decision.

She desperately wanted to rescue Mok Min-ho and Yoon I-byeol who were likely captured by monsters now.

But one wrong move could lead all the students to their deaths.

Nevertheless─

"─I'm going to form a party to rescue the captured people. Those who want to volunteer gather where Min-ji is, and I'll form a return team so the rest can safely exit the dungeon."

Jung Ha-yang decided to carry out a rescue operation.

She assigned Jin Pa-rang to the rescue team and Jin Seo-na to the return team as she organized the students.

And after sending the return team to leave the dungeon and request reinforcements from outside,

""..."

She led the rescue team to the main hall.

The students fell silent seeing the wasp-type monsters filling the area around the main hall.

There's not much blood visible around.

That means there's a high chance those monsters didn't kill the people.

They were in a standoff.

The wasp-type monsters were buzzing their wings threateningly.

Even in that situation, Jung Ha-yang calmly observed her surroundings.

They said the kids came out of the well. Perhaps there's a completely different area existing in this dungeon.

And... the captured kids are probably there. There's no suitable environment around here for Golden Wasps to store their prey.

Just as she made that judgment,

The monsters that had been slowly surrounding the sky above began attacking all at once.

But Jung Ha-yang wouldn't have let the students be quietly surrounded.

─Queen of Hearts' Declaration

One More Time

She scattered trump cards.

The cards specially made with mana alloy spread out widely with her at the center, constructing a solid protective magic.

At the same time, Cha Eun-woo deployed magic to add another layer to the protective magic she had spread.

While the monsters struggled to break through the protective magic─

─Spark Shower

Bae Su-bin released the magic she had been working on for a long time.

Sparks generated outside the protective magic split into dozens of strands and fell on the monsters' heads.

Wasp-type monsters are weak to fire.

The casters skilled in fire magic led by Su-bin need to press the advantage.

Ha-yang calmly directed the battle situation.

Sparks continuously exploded and blazed outside the protective magic barrier.

As the casters began to stop casting one by one due to lack of mana,

Jung Ha-yang raised her hand to signal the snipers and rangers.

The second bombardment began.

The monsters were helplessly blocked by her protective magic.

Whoosh!

However, there were occasional monsters that pierced through gaps in the protective magic.

Of course, she had already placed dealers and hunters at the weak points of the protective magic in preparation for such cases.

Jin Pa-rang and Choi Eun-hyuk dealt with them without much difficulty.

But there are still too many.

Just how many are there?

But she couldn't feel relieved.

All the casters had dropped out.

Even the snipers and rangers were now showing signs of fatigue.

The monsters that seemed to have decreased in number increased again by the same amount.

Moreover, unlike the casters' magic, the snipers and rangers' magic wasn't dealing much damage.

But if she were to remove the protective magic─

─That would be the end of everything.

It's difficult to deal with monsters flying in the air.

In the end, we have no choice but to keep pushing like this.

Fortunately, there's enough internal mana.

We can hold out for a long time.

But the damage output was severely lacking.

As a result, if this turned into an endurance battle, they would end up losing.

"─It's okay."

Nevertheless,

Jung Ha-yang remained calm.

She wasn't anxious at all.

Because she was confident of winning even if it turned into an endurance battle.

Would she have brought the students into a battle with no chance of winning?

She led the students on the rescue mission because she assumed there was a chance of victory.

Though their damage output was certainly lacking─

"─Who dared to touch my girlfriend?"

─Platinum Cross

─My boyfriend's damage output is the best.

Jung Ha-yang smiled proudly as she watched the flash of light that flew in from behind form a cross and explode.

As the platinum light flashed and disappeared, the monsters filling the sky fell in droves.

The tide of battle turned just like that.

Having gained the upper hand, Jung Ha-yang immediately ordered Jin Pa-rang and Choi Eun-hyuk.

The students holding swords shouted as they rushed out of the barrier.

It might have been different if they were flying in the air.

The monsters that had fallen to the ground were no obstacle to them.

Platinum Cross

Another flash of light.

Soon, the newly appearing monsters disappeared helplessly.

The situation began to be resolved like that.

Only then could Jung Ha-yang relax her tense expression and turn away from the battle.

"Eun-ha!"

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

She didn't know how much she had missed him.

One day had felt as long as a year.

Jung Ha-yang spread her arms wide to hug Eun-ha─

"─Pipipi papapa pupupu!"

"...Huh?"

Jung Ha-yang reflexively caught the baby bird that flew into her arms.