BTCATL 30

30.

—Whoosh!

Hearing a noise from above the trees, I briefly glanced behind me.

A horse’s neigh echoed through the forest.

Most spirit users rode horses to get around, but some moved almost as if flying, using their spirits to leap from tree to tree.

“Kuweeeeegh!”

Just as the foul stench grew stronger and I turned toward the approaching monster, a sharp jet of water cut through the air.

A spirit user snatched up the cracked core from the rapidly disintegrating monster’s remains and swiftly mounted their horse again.

Fast.

Rdin’s warning flashed through my mind—it would be a mistake to underestimate them.

I was competing with spirit users who handled monster-related requests as effortlessly as breathing.

There was no room for complacency.

[Let’s go deeper. Inside.]

[Yeah. The worse smell is coming from that direction.]

[If we want to kill a lot, we need to go deeper.]

[I can feel there are more and more of them.]

Tearing my gaze away from the retreating spirit user who had just casually collected a core, I urged my horse deeper into the forest, following the guidance of the butterflies.

—This hunting festival will be an important benchmark for evaluating your abilities. Even the old folks who’ve been skeptical of you said that if you produce decent results, they’ll stop giving you crap—well, stop talking about you behind your back, anyway.

Callios’s obsession with the hunting festival wasn’t just because he’d lost first place to Rdin numerous times and wanted me to fulfill his ambition.

There were many who didn’t view me kindly—a rare case of forming a spirit contract upon becoming an adult, and that too with Nyx, a spirit considered immensely powerful.

Suspicious eyes followed me wherever I went, always cautious of my sudden appearance.

Some even looked at me with outright contempt.

Perhaps it was because most of the spirit users had grown up together in the tower from a young age and naturally had tighter bonds, making me, an outsider, seem even more unfamiliar and threatening.

But most of those gazes weren’t just about unfamiliarity.

They saw me as a dangerous element—someone who lacked control and could go berserk at any moment if unlucky.

I didn’t know how that rumor spread, but it had become the dominant perception.

Even the Elders, the highest-ranking individuals in the tower after the Tower Master, were uncomfortable with my presence, viewing me as a ticking time bomb.

But this place wasn’t like those filthy noble social circles, where people gleefully clawed at weaknesses and twisted them around.

Still, being silently doubted wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.

Callios and Rdin, and even the Tower Master, weren’t blind or deaf. They knew.

That’s why they wanted to give me a chance to prove myself.

I took out the pocket watch dangling from my waist. Its surface still showed only a simple circle.

An incomplete pocket watch.

By principle, spirit users who hadn’t been fully acknowledged by the tower—symbolized by the completed pocket watch—weren’t allowed to participate in the hunting festival.

However, due to my past accomplishments—handling an S-rank monster and rescuing Marchioness Seden (an ordinary person under an illusion)—I had been granted an exceptional entry.

If I produced solid results here, the upper echelons had promised Callios and Rdin that they would no longer speak ill of me.

Gratitude toward the two was quickly weighed down by the heavy pressure of expectations.

I told myself not to overthink it. Like Callios said—just focus on killing monsters.

Results or whatever else didn’t matter for now. The key was to kill enough monsters.

—Shhhk!

A hissing noise like a snake came from nearby. I inhaled slowly.

The stench pierced my nostrils.

A huge shadow brushed past me.

“Nyx.”

[Yeah.]

As if she already knew, Nyx devoured mana and multiplied the butterflies, sending them swarming in the direction the shadow had passed.

—Boom!

Within seconds, the monster fell, its death cry stabbing my ears.

It must have been a large one—the remains piled up into a small hill, and in the middle of it all, a cracked purple core glowed faintly.

I picked up the core and tucked it into my pouch, taking a deep breath.

Just one down. I had to hurry.

Judging by how quickly those other spirit users had dispatched monsters earlier, they’d probably already killed five or six by now, even factoring in time spent locating them.

Finding a well-lit spot in the forest, I dismounted and drank the water I’d received before the hunt.

Hunting was permitted until just before sunset.

As the sun began to dip, I glanced at the pile of cores in my subspace pouch.

At first, I tried to keep track of the number of monsters I killed, but as time went on and the number increased, I gave up.

I had no time to figure out which monsters were C-rank and which were higher. I just charged whenever I saw one, butterflies swarming ahead.

I was taking a breather when—

[Asilla, behind you!]

With the butterflies’ shout came a sweet, sickly scent.

From past experience, I knew that in a place reeking of death, such a sweet aroma was never a good sign.

Reflexively, I grabbed the nearest handkerchief and covered my mouth as I mounted my horse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something like a silken thread land on the tree where I had just been standing.

Thread?

Before I could fully process it, more threads started latching onto everything around me.

The trees the threads touched began rotting rapidly.

I swallowed hard.

Don’t let that touch me.

“Neighhh!”

I yanked the reins hard and kicked the horse’s flank. We bolted in the opposite direction of the incoming threads.

Some monsters were best dealt with up close. Others needed to be taken down from a distance.

This one… I had a very bad feeling I wouldn’t even be able to retrieve my bones if it caught me.

It was different from the mindless monsters I’d encountered so far.

Why?

I’d just defeated a few A-rank monsters. Even if they had special abilities, I was starting to get the hang of their attack patterns.

Riding high on the thrill of having survived fights that would’ve killed most people, I’d felt a surge of confidence—only for it to vanish in an instant.

This one was different.

Both my instincts and the spirits connected to my mind screamed: danger.

An S-rank? Why would an S-rank appear?

I’d heard that the forest where the hunting festival took place had been divided and managed for weeks.

—Boom!

I turned toward the noise, gasping.

Threads flew at me again, this time in far greater quantity and precision.

No time to think.

As I urgently tried to dodge, the horse stumbled and crashed forward.

[Asilla!]

My body was flung through the air, but the multiplied butterflies caught me and cushioned my landing.

Looking back, I forced down my rising panic.

Thick white threads were coiled around my horse like a living creature.

Before it could even react, the light vanished from its eyes.

Its body, once heaving with breath, went still.

“…!”

[Asilla, watch out—]

Before I could move again, threads wrapped tightly around me.

“Ugh!”

At the same time, I felt mana draining rapidly from my body. Far faster than when the butterflies absorbed it.

Any butterflies that touched the sticky threads instantly vanished without a trace.

And then I realized.

This wasn’t just thread.

It was a web.

A spider’s web radiating in a hexagonal pattern with me at the center.

And then—

—Boom, boom, boom.

The monstrous creature revealed itself.

Its lower body was that of a spider. Its upper body, a grotesque girl so horrifying I couldn’t bear to look.

My mouth went dry.

This wasn’t just an S-rank monster.

This was an SS-rank monster: Arachne.

I had seen the name by chance while flipping through monster documents a few days ago.

Decades ago, it had appeared once and devoured multiple spirit users. That was how it earned its rank.

It hadn’t been seen since—so why now?

My mana was draining faster and faster.

I coughed up blood.

All the spirits I had summoned vanished at once, forcefully recalled. My organs felt twisted.

My vision blurred.

Arachne crept toward me with a grotesque smile, slow and deliberate.

I forced my eyes wide open.

It felt like my whole body was burning—I thought I might die at any moment—but I desperately clung to consciousness.

It hurt. The pain began to swallow me whole.

But I couldn’t end like this.

Not to a single monster. Not after everything I’d escaped from in the past.

I couldn’t fall now.

[We can do this, Asilla.]

A familiar voice echoed faintly in my mind.

The mana that had been draining began to slow.

[Call us, quickly!]

The butterflies’ voices. My spirits.

[Before it’s too late. Asilla.]

Call.

Call, call, call.

The small voices grew louder and louder until they filled my entire head.

[You can do this.]

My lips trembled as I opened my mouth.

The mana being sucked out of me abruptly stopped.

It was like it recognized my will. I felt the mana in my body swell, gathering and floating as one powerful force.

Release it.

Release it, Asilla.

[Nyx. Kill.]

A voice not my own filled my mouth, then burst outward.

A massive swarm of crimson butterflies tore through the web and charged toward the monster.