The End and the Beginning (16)

I yanked Min Ha-jun by the waist and dodged the attack with him in an instant. A forest of legs swept past in front of my eyes.

Even taking a straight hit looked like it would send you flying, and the thing was packed tight with sharp spines.

“Wow, being big does make it kind of gross.”

Min Ha-jun said it like it was nothing.

His voice was calm, not what you’d expect from someone who’d just barely avoided getting hit. As he said, it was bigger than the one we first met, so the details popped.

Maybe sensing we’d dodged, the monster paused and twitched its antennae. Then it swung its long torso like a rope and scythed the ground—too wide an area to avoid like before.

“Stick right next to me!”

Realizing there wasn’t time to evade either, Min Ha-jun raised his mana and formed a thick ice wall. I darted to his side.

When I came close, Min Ha-jun wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

KAAANG!

With a harsh clang, a hard, slick carapace showed through the clear ice wall. The weight behind the blow pushed us back along with the wall, but thankfully the ice didn’t shatter.

Only after confirming I hadn’t taken so much as a scratch did Min Ha-jun remove the arm around my shoulder.

“It looks even madder.”

I spoke coolly. This didn’t seem like the time to be checking my condition.

Behind Min Ha-jun, the giant centipede was rearing half its body upright and working its jaws nonstop.

“So, it does.”

He glanced back and answered. He didn’t sound particularly alarmed.

KYAAK!

Then a deep violet liquid dribbled from the monster’s mouth and a drop plopped onto the ground.

It was the size of a fist, but the impact was tremendous. The moment it touched the earth, the grass melted away and even the rock vanished.

‘So that sizzling sound earlier was from that.’

“Ah, that one’s bad. Be careful not to touch it.”

Easier said than done. Blue smoke began to rise from the melted ground. To cut off the air, Min Ha-jun quickly created a wide, thin barrier across our front.

“If we drag this out, it’ll get worse for us.”

Even if I had a purification ability, fighting while caring for two people at once was too much. It wasn’t like last time when I had a stupid amount of mana.

The monster didn’t stop at spewing toxin; it wriggled its legs and coiled to move. Then it charged straight for us.

Since it was a simple straight-line attack, Min Ha-jun and I sidestepped easily, but the thin ice we’d made shattered in an instant.

“Ms. Yuha! Hold your breath!”

Dodging in opposite directions, we were split with the centipede between us. I heard Min Ha-jun shouting from across the way.

And the smoke swept along by the charge spread to this area as well. It was faint at first, but as the thing kept leaking toxin, the concentration kept thickening.

I clamped down on my breath and looked around. My vision was already blurring white from the smoke. Up in the sky floated a huge block of ice—probably his—but since he didn’t know where I was, he couldn’t just slam it down.

‘I need to get out of here first.’

In this state I was just in the way. I sprinted for the biggest tree I could see. If I climbed, I might get a better view.

Once I stepped up sturdy-looking branches and got clear of the smoke’s range, I could at least grasp the situation.

I couldn’t see clearly, but it looked like Min Ha-jun was easily dodging attacks. He still wasn’t able to go on the offensive, though. Even when he skewered the body with a spear, the centipede didn’t even falter and thrashed harder.

I shouted to let him know where I was, but maybe because of the distance, maybe because he was busy slipping past dozens of legs brushing by his face, he didn’t seem to hear me.

“Cough, cough. Hah…”

A sudden pain forced me to stop shouting. My airways felt like they were burning. I must have inhaled a couple breaths.

I gave myself emergency treatment with 「Purification」 and started thinking.

‘We killed it by cutting off the head last time.’

The one we took down first was much smaller, but it was definitely the same kind. It kept moving even when skewered, but once its head came off, it stopped breathing.

Just then, the giant centipede was fully keyed up fighting Min Ha-jun and didn’t spare me a glance. I gauged the distance between me and it.

And I did the math.

‘No good.’

No matter what skill I used, there was no way I could leap that far in one go from here. The branches I’d use as footholds wouldn’t hold.

All the while, the centipede was churning the ground like it meant to till it.

‘If only Yul were here…’

Just blowing the fumes away would make this easy. This wasn’t something we should be struggling with at this power level.

After a breath’s worth of judgment, I cut a strip from my upper garment with a dagger and tied it around my nose and mouth. Better than nothing.

Then I dropped down from the tree.

Holding my breath, I looked around; the smoke had grown so thick I couldn’t see an inch ahead. I moved toward the sounds of heavy impacts and roars.

KWAANG!

‘Holy—!’

After only a few seconds of running, something crashed down right in front of me. Looked like the centipede’s tail end—already blunted and bleeding, like part of it had been chopped off.

I was nearly flattened.

Cold sweat prickled inside. At least I was going the right way.

Then a thought struck me.

‘Can’t I just grab on from here and climb?’

If I had to smash the head anyway, in a place this wide with this much cover, riding the body up might be faster than trying to find Min Ha-jun. Besides, the monster wasn’t paying me any mind.

Worst case, I could just jump off.

Muttering a line that would make Yul clutch the back of my neck and collapse if he heard it, I boldly climbed onto the tail.

The shell was like solid armor; so stabbing my way up each time wasn’t realistic. But its short segments were linked in a way that if I gripped between them, I could haul myself up.

Soon the centipede started moving again.

“Ugh.”

It was faster than I thought. I climbed the undulating body like riding waves.

I got short of breath in the middle and took a gulp of air, but I purified it as quickly as before. I’d expected it, so I didn’t panic. It was annoying for a moment, from the pain.

By the time my fingers were tingling, I finally got out of the smoke. The breeze felt cool, and I tugged the cloth down from my face with one hand. I was already struggling, rationing my mana to the minimum since I didn’t have much; being short of breath on top of that was maddening.

“…Ms. Yuha?!”

When I poked my head out of the smoke, I heard Min Ha-jun’s voice from far below. I couldn’t see his face, but I could picture his alarm.

“It’s dangerous! Hurry and…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, shifting his body to avoid the legs scything in at speed.

I almost shouted back to tell him not to worry, but I held it back in case I made the monster notice me. Right now, it was losing its mind over the white-haired man darting around its own attacks.

‘Since he knows where I am, it’d be nice if he cut off, say, the lower half.’

No, that’d just make it go even wilder; better to leave it.

I kept climbing, a stream of silly thoughts bubbling up during the simple labor. The higher I went, the less it moved, and the easier it became.

At this rate, I could finish it easily.

But life never goes the way you want.

“Uh… hi.”

I gave an awkward greeting to a giant pair of eyes staring straight at me. The monster flicked its antennae—like massive feelers—back and forth, then clicked its head left and right a few times. It was grotesque.

‘Crap.’

In a tense one-on-one staring contest with a giant arthropod, I suffered a glorious defeat. Having sized up the situation, it began thrashing like crazy to throw me off.

I wanted to jam a dagger in, but there was no time. I clamped my hands down, gripping the centipede’s shell like it was my lifeline.

“Yu… Yuha…!”

I thought I heard someone call me, but the wind made it echo like a faint hallucination. After a brief stretch of hanging on, I heard an ominous sound nearby.

Rrriiip!

The section I was holding began to tear away from the body. At first it was just the sound of ripping, then soon more than half had peeled off. What kind of “rip out your own fingernails” strategy was this.

I tried to scramble to another section, but the monster’s violent whip of its body was faster.

* * *

“Ms. Yuha!”

Watching Yuha fly through the air at high speed, Min Ha-jun shouted. He threw up skills, ignoring incoming attacks, to catch her safely, but a massive body soon blocked his view.

‘Because of me…!’

From the moment he saw her, he became overly conscious without realizing it. That unnaturalness probably got her discovered.

No—if only he’d finished it fast. If he’d trusted Yuha and ended it with a large-scale attack, she wouldn’t have needed to push herself.

Normally he wouldn’t have let a fight drag out like this. Guildmates who matched his rhythm would always clear the area and evacuate in situations like this. But with Yuha, they’d made no prior arrangements, and he couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone nearby might get swept up while trying to help him.

And just imagining that made his innards go cold; he couldn’t focus the entire fight.

‘At that speed, without a flight skill, there’s no safe landing.’

If it were a desert like the last Gate, she might be okay, but…

Despair surged, then turned into anger and resolve. If it had come to this, he would end it fast with everything he had.

He raised his head; Min Ha-jun’s blue eyes shone with an unusual light.