Chapter 122: Verification of Life (1)
“What is that!”
“How could she…”
After Yeorum exploded the entrance of the boss room, angry complaints echoed across the auditorium.
“Isn’t that too much?”
“Can the security guards even go in?”
“Is it allowed to block the entrance like that!”
In response to the denunciations of the guardians, the professor in charge of the assignment, Katreyvan spoke.
“It is a practical application of the landscape, and there is no problem with it according to the regulations. It’s not like she was attacking a cadet either.”
“No, but even then…!”
They hesitated during their complaints. It was because it was related to none other than the Yu household, which was one of the most troubling topics recently.
“Can the securities even protect them at this rate?”
“Of course. Team 3 of the guards are currently on the mission.”
Team 3 was a stealth group, specialised in fluid-like movements. By relying on the flow of mana, they could stealthily travel to places without being bound by physical restraints. More complaints like, “Even if there aren’t any problems with the regulations…!” and, “She has no etiquette.” were heard.
Those continued until Mihailov shot out of his seat and yelled.
“Seriously! You guys are being too noisy. There would be no problems if your cadets have the ability to destroy the rocks blocking the road and go in, no?”
“Of course!”
“That’s not the problem here!”
“Now! Since there aren’t any problems with the regulations either, just stay quiet and watch! Don’t you understand that the kids on our side are also taking a risk?” Mihailov continued.
“That’s true but…”
…Wait, something was weird.
“Sorry? You mean they’re trying to defeat a B+ ranked boss with a four-man party?”
“They’re not trying to just buy time for their recovery?”
Things were different from their original plan. Mihailov wasn’t certain either, so he kept his mouth closed.
How can four cadets defeat the boss of a B+ dungeon? The minimum number of members required was 8, because Spider Queen had a large body, with a lot of vitality and defensive measures.
The guardians who had been causing a ruckus from their discontentment closed their mouths. One quarter of the screen focused on Yeorum’s party.
There were lots of people watching the raid.
Unlike the individual spars that had been uploaded a few days after the event, the dungeon raid was revealed live by the PR team in order to prove that the assignment was genuine.
A war correspondent from Serbia who had won the Pulitzer Prize; a prestigious superhuman analyser who had himself been in the top 200 ranks worldwide before retiring from injuries –
Petrovic.
He was doing a live stream while commenting on the videos.
– Holy shiiit.
– How do you even defeat that thing?
– Are they really trying to defeat that? Impossible.
People that were interested in Lair gathered from worldwide to watch the competition of 1st grade cadets like it was a sport. There were 120 thousand live viewers, with live comments being uploaded in many different languages.
“It’s a shocking turn of events indeed.”
Petrovic gave a frown.
“As I’ve mentioned before, this year’s line-up for the Yong household is exceptionally great. It might be possible for their 4-man party, but it will be a long battle, and would only be possible as long as Cadet Yong Taeha doesn’t make a single mistake.
– What about other cadets?
“Only Yong Taeha and Tyr Brzenk will be able to damage the boss in a short period of time. Other cadets do not have enough power.”
The immense vitality of the boss, Spider Queen, was the biggest problem.
– What is Cadet Yeorum’s blessing? We haven’t heard anything about it yet.
“Her blessing is probably related to body strengthening.”
– Why?
“It’s nothing but an assumption, since Cadet Yeorum has never made it clear. However, you can tell that she has an extremely tyrannical way of fighting from the individual sparring sessions.”
– I see. Will Cadet Yeorum be able to defeat the boss?
– It’ll be difficult imo. Body strengthening has a hard time dealing with things that are bigger than themselves.
– Yu Yeorum is strong, yeah. Might just be because of the size of her body though.
– I still think it’ll be impossible.
– Same. It’s too reckless.
– She might get injured.
Most of the comments expected Yeorum’s team to go down.
“Indeed… it seems difficult from what we’ve seen so far.”
– Do you think they’ll lose as well?
“We don’t know about that yet. A superhuman is called a superhuman because they go beyond the limits, after all.”
Petrovic watched the situation unfold with a worried expression. Before long, Yeorum’s team began fighting the Spider Queen head-on, and his words gradually became faster.
“The most terrifying thing about the Queen, is that she can increase the number of her army.”
As soon as his words came to an end, dozens of eggs came flooding out of the Queen’s stomach. Each and every one of those eggs was an ‘underground spider’. Although the spiders that had just hatched were weak, they were very aggressive.
Dozens of spiders dashed towards Yeorum’s party whilst staggering. Soujiro and Kim Ji-in sniped the heads and the eyes, but there were too many of them.
– What do they have to do to win?
“They must control the situation. 3 of them need to locate and defend an advantageous area and deal damage over time, while one of them shifts the attention of the boss to them.”
That was the thought of a soldier who had, 5 years ago, been the raid leader of a S+ dungeon, that had triumphed over 200 dungeons.
And as he had expected, Kim Ji-in and Soujiro with Sophia at the lead eliminated the baby spiders and focused their shots on one of the Spider Queen’s legs. Soon, one of the eight legs was crushed.
At the same time, Yeorum stepped on top of the spiders and the wall, and attracted the gaze of the Spider Queen by jumping up.
“As we thought, she is trying to gain aggro… Ohhh!”
Petrovic let out a yell. Yeorum suddenly dashed up to the head of the boss – at the gray upper body of a human that was attached to the spider’s chest!
– ??
– Huh? Why’s she doing that?
– Risky!
It was an extremely dangerous idea. Mother-type monsters had all sorts of defensive measures at the cost of their agility.
Tentacles came shooting out of the Queen’s body. With poisonous thorns hanging here and there, they surrounded Yeorum and simultaneously shot for her body.
That was when flames surged forth from Yeorum’s shoulders, ribs, back, chest, legs, ankles and her two hands that were holding onto a sword.
“Oh my word!”
It was a feat that had never been shown before.
Attaching the blazing mana onto her blade, Yeorum slashed all the tentacles apart. The tips of the tentacles were scorched after being cut by the blade. The Queen tried to raise her legs to block it, but Yeorum’s sword created a massive explosion the moment it touched the Queen’s legs.
Kwakwakwang–!!
Petrovic shouted in surprise.
“Flames! It seems that Cadet Yeorum had a fire-attribute blessing all along!”
The live video hadn’t shown how Yeorum destroyed the entrance of the boss room, and it was the first time the masses had ever seen Yeorum use her blessing.
“Ahh, thinking back, when Cadet Ling Ling was using her fire-attribute blessing, she did casually walk out of that. No wonder!”
– How astonishing.
– She had been hiding that all the time?
– What the fk. Does that mean she was bashing up Zhang Xueyan and Ling Ling like that without even using her blessing?
The Spider Queen’s second leg was soon cut off, but the boss didn’t remain still either. The horrendous-looking mouth of the female body was dropped all the way to her chin, as it vomited out a crazy amount of poison.
Yeorum shouted as she dodged it, while other cadets discarded the advantageous position they were in and scattered.
It was the start of a dogfight. The Queen jumped up and down with large thuds and stabbed the dungeon walls with her legs. She also climbed the walls and continued attacking Yeorum. Her movements were swifter than anyone had expected.
Meanwhile, she still vomited out poison and endlessly spewed out eggs.
Even the watchers were filled with nervousness.
“They have to be careful now! The human body attached to the Spider Queen’s body is not there for show!”
In an instant, a sharp ice lance was created on top of the Queen’s hand, before quickly heading for Yeorum. Unable to dodge the unexpected magic spell, she raised her sword and destroyed the lance but crashed into the wall from the sheer force.
– Ouuhh, damn!
– Her protective necklace is still there!
Petrovic once again shouted.
“She blocked it!”
Right when the ice lance was flying towards her, Yeorum had moved her mana to the edge of the blade in preparation for the strike. That had happened in just 0.1 seconds!
Moving mana fluently inside the body in that short period of time is skilled enough already, and yet she had moved it outside her body?
To Petrovic who had only been interested in Yong Taeha, Tyr Brzenk and Zhou Luxun until now, it was a shocking situation.
‘Yu Yeorum!’
The name of the red-haired female cadet, whom he thought was only pretty, was etched into his brain.
While Yeorum was readying herself for battle again, her teammates moved.
The three of them gathered and stood with a small opening in front of them. Sophia used her blessing, [Refraction] to an exceptional degree. She bent the trajectory of her rapier over and over again and blocked all the baby spiders that were jumping in at them.
SHOOT–! Her yell echoed through the dogfight.
With Sophia as a shield, Kim Ji-in and Soujiro screamed while shooting their gun and bow.
Stab–! The poisonous fangs of a baby spider landed on Sophia’s shoulder, but without hesitation, she used [Refraction] to change the path of her rapier and slashed the spider alongside a portion of her own shoulder.
– Oh my gosh.
– Crazy, for real!
– Doesn’t it hurt?
Poison dripped from the spider and dropped on Soujiro who had been unable to dodge. His clothes melted as the poison festered his leg. Soujiro thus leaned on the wall as he continued shooting the arrows.
“He lacks power and experience, but he is really fierce regardless!”
Kim Ji-in shortened the distance a bit more in order to snipe the boss, but was discovered by a spider and was kicked by it. She crashed into the wall and bleeded from her lips. If the shock had been slightly greater, her protective necklace might have been activated.
However, the direction she was kicked in wasn’t bad because the boss was slightly closer to her now. While bleeding from her mouth, Kim Ji-in placed her eye near the scope of the musket.
She had changed to RT bullets. It was an anti-monster armour-piercing bullet that was extremely effective at close range.
Tang! Tang! Tang! Tang!
Her hands quivered. She was extremely close to the boss and the magic bullets managed to destroy three of the boss’s eyes.
Kyuuaaak!
The human’s upper body went insane while holding onto her eyes.
“It landed perfectly! Perfect! Not only did she stay conscious after the kick, she was still in focus!”
– Iyaaaa!
– It’s crazy! Crazy!
– Woah tf!!!
Petrovic shouted.
“That would’ve put her life at risk if it was a real battle! Although the protective necklace does protect her life, is she not scared?”
Were there any cadets that went to such lengths for a mere assignment performance? In fact, it wasn’t just her. The entirety of Yeorum’s team looked as if they were in a real battle. Their auras cried out that they’ll sacrifice their flesh for the bones of the enemy.
Petrovic felt his blood boil for the first time in a very long time.
“Now, this is the most – most important situation! The boss has her eyes blocked! And her movements are slowed! The baby spiders will begin to act defensively to protect their mother now! How will they create a gap there! And how will they land a fatal blow?!”
As soon as his words came to an end, the baby spiders shot out spider webs from their bottoms and began covering their mother.
Then, a bunch of sharp tentacles suddenly flew in towards Yeorum, but Sophia appeared out of nowhere in an instant, and used [Refraction] five times consecutively and used the rapier like a shield to block them all.
– She blocked it! The Russian blocked it!
– Damn it, using the blessing like that is bad for the heart though!?
“Thanks to her, Cadet Yeorum managed to save her own power! But now they must be prudent with how they use their remaining power!”
By nature, power was something that was consumed.
If she were to attack the baby spiders, it would take away from the power that would otherwise be used for the boss. But the baby spiders were in the way, stopping her from attacking the boss directly.
There wasn’t much time. The boss would recover soon.
“Cadet Yu Yeorum! What will she do!”
*
Yeorum closed her eyes.
She remembered walking hand in hand with Yu Jitae.
Back then, she asked why she had to walk. Walking was hard, but so was anything that required her to move the body. Wasn’t it better to practise something else in that case?
Yu Jitae replied, “In order to live, you must walk.” It was difficult for Yeorum to understand it, and in fact, she still found it hard to understand in full.
However, Yeorum trusted him. Thanks to him, she was able to explosively increase her mastery over footwork which was one of the skills belonging to a dragon.
Yeorum opened her eyes.
With her quivering gaze, she could see white strings as tough as metal protecting the mother of spiders. If she were to invest her power into dealing with that, she wouldn’t be able to deal a fatal blow to the broodmother.
But,
If with just one step;
If one step was all it took for her to pierce through all the cobwebs and reach the Queen –
[Karl-Gullakwa Stand-up Martial Art]
Flames exploded beneath her feet. It was the footwork of the Karl-Gullakwa race who lived on the ground in a distant past, that allowed them to shoot their bodies like missiles to fight the wyverns flying in the sky.
[Spark]
Yeorum was enveloped in flames as bombs exploded under her feet. With one step, Yeorum reached the other end of the boss room from one end.
All the spider webs that touched her body melted. However, Yeorum’s mana and the flames blooming all over her body – the power embedded in her body wasn’t consumed.
She cut the head of the Spider Queen. The detached head was set on fire.
Kwaaang–!!
Straight afterward, the body of the Spider Queen exploded.