Chapter 39. The Meat Was Grilled.

I looked around the cave a bit more carefully in case there were any clues about Luke, but I couldn't find any proper leads.

For one, the light source was limited, so I had to search almost by fumbling with my hands, and it was a big factor that as the Arachne swarmed and multiplied here, their traces had covered everything else.

The ones who planned this must have left a long time ago, leaving only the Yonghyeol and the Arachne.

It wasn't as if the Arachne would have preserved the scene.

“……Brother, Brother! Let's get out of here quickly, okay?”

Pol suddenly grabbed me and said.

“Why?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

A bad feeling?

I could ignore anyone else's feeling, but not Pol's intuition.

Above all, we didn't have the luxury of gambling with our safety.

“Alright. Let's go.”

In truth, I wasn't an expert investigator, and it was possible that there were clues I hadn't recognized.

I decided to focus on what I had learned instead.

Let's inform the Sword Saint of the existence of an underground organization trying to shake the Empire.

The Sword Saint, who possessed enough power to cause confusion even in my wanted status, would be able to conduct a more efficient investigation.

* * *

The hideout where Luke was staying was not that far from the cave used as the Arachne's breeding ground.

Moving immediately, Luke, having arrived in front of the cave, surveyed the surroundings.

The cave entrance, which had been wrecked by a large-bodied Arachne superior individual bursting out from within.

The oil can rolling around and the ashes piled up among the debris allowed one to roughly guess what had happened here.

‘Someone set a fire.’

There was a reason the Arachne had rushed out even though it wasn't time yet.

He had deliberately chosen Red Arachne so they wouldn't be easily taken down by an arson attack.

They probably weren't harmed by the fire.

But the Arachne, stimulated by the fire, would have swarmed out, and as a result, they were annihilated.

‘It's hindsight, but it might have been better to use normal Arachne.’

If they had been Arachne weak to fire, they would have hidden in the depths of the cave rather than going out to launch an offensive when a fire broke out at the cave entrance.

The cave was so deep that whatever happened at the entrance wouldn't have affected the whole, and it would have rather caused the Arachne to band together, accelerating their evolution.

‘Regret is meaningless.’

Luke shook off his idle thoughts and walked into the cave.

At the point where the surrounding darkness deepened, Luke snapped his fingers.

Then, the magic tool on Luke's shoulder emitted light.

The inside of the cave, lit up as if it were midday.

There was no hesitation.

He had learned the structure of this place when he had visited it before.

Although there was some damage from the process of the superior individual escaping the cave, the structure itself had not changed.

After descending deep into the cave for a long while.

Luke, who faced the empty cavern, headed straight for the pool where the Yonghyeol was collected.

“There's much more left than I thought.”

The amount had decreased by about a hand's breadth in height.

Considering the depth of the pool, about half of it was left.

It was partly because the Arachne had rampaged too early, but it was also thanks to the fact that he had filled it generously with a surplus from the beginning.

Luke took a palm-sized hexahedron out of his pocket and threw it into the pool.

A magic tool that absorbed liquids.

It was an item prepared to transport the Yonghyeol.

The magic tool, made of an unknown material, floated on the Yonghyeol for a moment before slowly starting to rotate.

The surface of the Yonghyeol rippled, then slowly turned into a whirlpool following the rotation of the magic tool.

Gurgle, gurgle.

The thick Yonghyeol was sucked into the magic tool.

The Yonghyeol in the pit decreased at a surprising speed.

While the magic tool was swallowing the Yonghyeol, Luke looked around.

A torch would have illuminated only a radius of a few meters, but the amount of light emitted by the magic tool on Luke's shoulder was enough to fill the entire cavern.

Therefore, the corpse of the Arachne superior individual immediately came into Luke's sight.

‘Did the Arachne fight amongst themselves or something?’

But it was strange.

Although it hadn't reached the next stage, the Queen of the Arachne had been born.

To fight to the death even when there was a being to mediate conflicts between superior individuals?

Moreover, the fact that the corpse remained intact was even stranger.

Cannibalism among monsters was a natural phenomenon.

There was no reason to leave such a large chunk of meat unattended.

The sense of unease grew, one thing leading to another.

The fact that it was split from the head down was also not natural.

‘This is not a trace of a battle that could have occurred between Arachne.’

The same went for the corpses of the normal Arachne that had come into view later due to the superior individual's size.

Wounds from being cut by something sharp, not from fangs and legs.

‘Someone, was here?’

Luke, who approached the corpse of the Arachne superior individual, examined the marks left on its body, and his expression hardened even more.

Because it was an all too familiar sword mark.

‘Celestial Sword.’

Just from the remaining traces, he could see the sword style used by Luke's master, the very sword style Luke had learned.

‘Did Simon chase the Arachne all the way here?’

Since there was information that Simon had killed the Arachne Queen, the first face that came to mind was Simon's.

However, Luke soon shook his head.

No.

Simon's sword was much cleaner than this.

Moreover, the trace of a thrust, twist, and downward slash.

If it had been Simon, he would have killed the likes of an Arachne superior individual with the first strike and then some.

“…….”

In fact, there was another point that made Luke the most uncomfortable.

The fact that the corpse of the Arachne, which decomposed quickly, was still intact.

It was estimated that it was still alive at the time Luke had set foot in the cave.

‘Why didn't we run into each other?’

It was a question that arose because he knew the overall structure of the cave.

In the end, there was only one entrance.

And there was only one efficient path connecting the entrance and the deepest part.

If they had defeated the Arachne superior individual here and then gone outside, shouldn't they have run into Luke, who was coming down?

“Are they still in here?”

Luke's gaze sank.

Clatter.

The hexahedron, having absorbed all the Yonghyeol, hit the bottom and made a small noise.

***

On the way out of the cave, I suddenly felt something was strange.

“Queen.”

[What is it?]

“I have a feeling we're just going around in circles.”

Just like when we were coming in, I had entrusted the navigation to the Arachne Queen, but even after a similar amount of time had passed as when we were descending, we couldn't get out.

[……It's just your imagination.]

“How could that be? Look here. This is the mark I made earlier.”

I pointed to the wall, which was stained with soot from the torch.

When I presented the evidence, the Queen finally admitted it.

[Heh, hehehe. It's too late to realize it now! You're already trapped! Starve and die!]

As expected, it seemed she had been trying to kill us in an indirect way.

I held back my anger at the Queen.

She was a Queen who held animosity towards me, so wouldn't it be stranger if she didn't pull any tricks?

Just by looking at how she had gloated when the superior individual appeared, she was not someone to be trusted.

I should have memorized the path on the way down if I knew this would happen.

This was a disaster.

“Brother, Brother?”

“What? Do you have another bad feeling?”

My heart sank.

“No, it's not that-”

Growl-

A loud noise rumbled from Pol's stomach.

“…….”

Right, it was about time he got hungry.

The Queen, realizing that Pol was complaining of hunger, couldn't contain her joy.

[You bastards can't get out of here! You'll suffer from hunger and thirst! And die here! Muhahaha! A fitting end for lowly humans!]

“Shut up.”

I shoved the crystal back into my pocket.

Honestly, she can't hold it in whenever it seems like she has a slight advantage.

If a proper enemy had said such things, I would have been at least a little scared, but with the Queen blabbering like that, I felt rather reassured.

She was a walking— no, she didn't have legs, so she couldn't even walk.

Anyway, she was a walking bundle of defeat flags.

“Well then, let's eat and move.”

I immediately took out the meat that Grainy had given me to deliver to the Guild Master.

I had some preserved food, but since I didn't know when we could get out, it was standard practice to eat the things that would spoil quickly first.

My conscience pricked me for eating something I was asked to deliver, but Grainy would probably understand if I told her I had no choice but to eat it since we were trapped in a cave.

Or not.

What could she do, I'd have already eaten it.

“I think we'll have to grill it, but is there anything that can be used as firewood?”

The problem was rather the cooking method.

I couldn't just use the torches as firewood to grill some meat.

In any case, I needed light to even have a chance of finding the way.

“How about this?”

Pol dragged over a shed exoskeleton of an Arachne from a corner of the cave.

Although it was empty inside, it still looked exactly like a spider, yet he had a strong stomach.

I was worried that it wouldn't catch fire since Red Arachne were resistant to it, but perhaps because it had dried out completely after molting, it did catch fire.

Since there was no way to get a grill or a hot plate, I had to accept that some parts would burn and somehow cooked it by burying it in the embers.

“Heup! Th-this, this is even more delicious than what we ate yesterday!”

“I know, right. The Guild Master was a real connoisseur.”

Even though it wasn't a proper cooking method, the rich flavor was admirable.

It was slightly irritating that she had kept this good cut hidden away to give to the Guild Master.

To think I would have such a satisfying meal in a cave.

“Connoi-? What did you say?”

“It's nothing. Just eat.”

I brushed off the unimportant talk and looked at the dying flames.

The meal being satisfying was one thing. In any case, I had to get out of here.

Including the preserved food, I only had enough for one or two more meals.

Water was also scarce.

This could become a more serious situation than I thought.

There was no one who would rush to save us.

In the end, we had to escape on our own.

‘I hope Pol's bad feeling wasn't pointing to this.’

I really hoped it wasn't.

If so, he should have reacted before we even entered the cave.

Suddenly, a thought leaped out.

Wasn't it actually dangerous to light a fire in an enclosed space?

‘It's hard to call it an enclosed space. Considering there's no problem breathing this deep inside.’

This cave, I don't know what its structure was like, but it was being ventilated smoothly.

Oxygen supply was an important issue.

Even if there was space and food to raise tens of thousands of Arachne, if they couldn't breathe, they would all die.

This must also be the result of the actions of those who had planned to use the Arachne.

‘How meticulous of these villains.’

Considering the level of knowledge in this world, scientific information like the existence of oxygen probably wasn't common knowledge.

Wouldn't only miners be conscious of ventilation from experience?

Was that a prejudice too?

Anyway-

The fact that it was ventilated meant that it was connected to the outside in some way.

“Brother?”

Pol, who was happily chewing on his meat, blinked when I shot up to my feet.

“If we follow the flow of the air, we can get out.”

Moreover, it was the optimal situation to see the air currents through the smoke without much effort, as we had just lit a fire.

“Let's move. Before the smoke disperses.”

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