Chapter 5
The Net Queen's brow was pierced.
The arrow had struck home with pinpoint accuracy.
Thud-!
As the Net Queen's body toppled backward, the spiders that had lost their mother panicked and began to flee.
“Where the hell are these bastards going-!”
Hunter Lee Kangho was still blasting away with his shotgun, far too excited to understand what was happening.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The gunfire rang out meaninglessly.
Leaving the excited Hunter Lee Kangho behind, Renea and I headed toward the Net Queen.
A hole had been bored through its brow.
The arrow had long since vanished into a mass of light.
“Ahem, it was nothing.”
“I haven't said anything yet.”
“I could tell you were about to praise me.”
Praise?
It definitely deserved praise.
She had dealt with the Net Queen without so much as touching a hair on any hostage's head.
But from my perspective, this was an awkward situation.
I had already called in someone before we set out, after all.
“Gasp! Gasp! Mia! Mia, where are you!”
Just then, Lee Kangho came running over in a panic after driving away all the spiders.
The sight of him frantically tearing open the spider-silk cocoons was almost heartbreaking.
Sssizz! Sssizz!
One, two, three-.
People emerged from the cocoons.
Most of those who appeared to be Hunters were severely weakened, but none of them were dead.
“It's a blessing in disguise that she liked eating them alive.”
Thanks to that peculiar preference, the people had survived.
I immediately called 119.
After I explained the location and situation-
- What? We can't go that far.
“What?”
The answer I got was absurd.
- No, that's outside the city. We can't go there either because of the monsters. You'll have to carry them to the makeshift ward yourselves, at least.
“People are dying here-!”
- Even so, you want us to drive an ambulance into a place full of monsters? Do you want us all to die?
Click.
The call was disconnected.
With an annoyed sigh, it seemed we'd have to transport everyone to the makeshift ward in the SUV as far as possible.
Just then.
“Mia! Mia!”
When the cocoon was torn open, Yumia finally appeared.
Her face was pale, and her breathing was weak.
She had a few wounds, but she was definitely alive.
“Mia! Mia-!”
Lee Kangho lifted Yumia into his arms with trembling hands.
Large tears fell one after another as he wiped Yumia's dirty cheeks.
“Hic! Thank goodness... Thank goodness, really.”
He held his lover close, as if he would never let her go again.
I almost put a cigarette in my mouth, but put it away again. This wasn't the time to leisurely smoke.
“For now, help me move some of these people to the vehicle.”
“Yeah, got it-.”
Renea stopped midway through her reply, frowned, and looked up at the sky.
“Who's coming?”
“They should be. I called them.”
“That friend you mentioned earlier?”
Before she could finish speaking, a shadow fell over us.
The woman who got off an airboard sold only on the 6th Floor was Ryu Seoram.
She wore a black baseball cap and a baseball jacket.
She was a die-hard fan of the perpetually last-place Daeheung Bear Force—and my friend.
She immediately pointed a baseball bat at me.
“One-run game, bottom of the ninth. Just when things were getting started, you called me away. Do you expect me to believe that?”
“You still support that team?”
“......I'll support them just until the end of this year.”
I had heard her say that last year, too. And the year before that.
“Haaah, I can guess why you called me, but-.”
Ryu Seoram looked around.
The Net Queen's corpse and the unconscious people.
As an experienced Hunter, Ryu Seoram needed no explanation.
“Just looking at this, it seems like everything was already over before I got here, huh?”
“This elf dealt with it.”
“The ambulance? It's not coming, is it?”
“Uh......”
“Wait.”
Ryu Seoram called someone. Judging by the fact that she was searching through her contacts, it definitely wasn't 119.
“Yeah, it's me. I'll turn on my GPS, so send an ambulance to my location right now. The injured are-.”
She held up two fingers.
“About twenty people. What? We're outside the city? So what? I'll protect the ambulance myself, so tell them to come.”
The argument didn't last long.
After ending the call, Ryu Seoram gave us a simple answer.
“They'll be here soon.”
“Thanks. You saved us.”
“No, no. You're not off the hook yet.”
Just as I was about to smile in relief, she waved a finger at me in warning.
“If our team lost today, you'd be riding in that ambulance too.”
Ah, what a nasty temper.
“H-Hunter Ryu Seoram?!”
Hunter Lee Kangho, who had been clutching Yumia tightly, seemed to come to his senses and shouted toward us.
“Aren't you one of the seven Ultimate Hunters on the 3rd Floor?!”
The Seven Ultimate Hunters (七極人).
A title referring to the seven Hunters at the very top.
Ryu Seoram was one of them.
“Ah, fuck-! We lost! What the hell was that three-up, three-down in the bottom of the ninth, you idiots-!”
The roar of an Ultimate Hunter shook the earth.
Her eyes, glaring at me as she huffed angrily, were positively ferocious.
“How are you going to take responsibility for this?”
“You have it backward. Thanks to me, you didn't have to see that sight with your own eyes.”
“What the...!”
She started to argue, but seemed to find me convincing and nodded with a hiss.
“You do have a point.”
“Right? So you're buying drinks tonight.”
“Bullshit.”
“You make plenty of money, and you still want me to treat you?”
“Who told you to call me? Shut up and order a large order of jokbal. We're absolutely eating that tonight.”
Only now that her excitement had died down did Ryu Seoram look at Renea.
“The Net Queen is a wanted monster with a bounty on her head. Anyone who can kill it that cleanly is no ordinary person, huh?”
“Ah, this person is-.”
“Wait, wait, wait!”
I was at a loss for words.
Renea had clung to my back and covered my mouth from behind, like an assassin.
She whispered into my ear.
“Keep it secret that I was once the Elf Queen.”
“......Why?”
“Ahem, privacy and all that. Just do me this favor.”
Well, if that's what she wanted.
When I nodded, Renea let go of me.
Ryu Seoram immediately spoke.
“Former Elf Queen? Hey, Kim Juseon. Your guest is quite the big shot.”
What was the point of whispering in front of her?
We needed to get at least a kilometer away.
Thirty minutes later, the ambulances arrived.
As people were loaded in one by one, Lee Kangho stayed right by Yumia's side.
“C-can I go with her too?”
“Are you her guardian?”
“Ah, no. It's just-.”
At the paramedic's puzzled look, Lee Kangho shouted as if steeling himself.
“I'm her husband!”
“Pardon?”
“She's my wife! I have to go with her!”
Yumia was still unconscious.
The confused paramedic glanced subtly in my direction.
I lightly nodded.
“That's right. They're married.”
* * *
That night, in the hospital hallway.
“Tsk, buy me jokbal next time. There was a bit of a fuss over calling the ambulance.”
Ryu Seoram clicked her tongue while looking at her phone. I'd been curious about it since earlier, so this worked out.
“Who did you call earlier?”
“The director of Neo Seoul Hospital.”
“......”
“I'll put it on my tab.”
Just before Ryu Seoram left, she added,
“The bounty on the Net Queen will be handled later. Tell the elf.”
“She knows best. That was the first thing she checked earlier.”
“Really?”
As if she had something to say, she hesitated briefly, then added without even looking this way,
“......Take care.”
Ryu Seoram left.
The only ones left in front of the intensive care unit were me and Hunter Lee Kangho.
“B-Boss...... Thank you so much for today.”
“Oh, it's nothing. You're our customer. The doctor said there's no danger to her life, so go get some rest. You've had a rough day.”
Just as Renea had said earlier, it seemed the Net Queen had injected its prey with an anesthetic to keep them fresh.
Thanks to that, everyone who had been in the cocoons was safe.
Squeeze!
Lee Kangho clasped both my hands and began to cry again.
“No, sir. Thanks to you, we were able to find her like this. If it weren't for you...... I'd still be wondering why Mia had suddenly gotten tired of me. While Mia was actually dying inside a cold cocoon!”
“......Have a beautiful relationship. That's all that matters.”
“Y-yes! I will. I absolutely will.”
Leaving Hunter Lee Kangho behind as he thanked me several more times, I headed outside.
I ran into Renea, who was standing at the corner of the hallway.
“What?”
“Where are you going?”
“To smoke.”
Renea hesitated briefly, then nodded.
“I don't smoke.”
“I never asked you to come.”
Even so, Renea trailed after me.
When we reached the smoking area and I put a cigarette between my lips, Renea immediately asked,
“The two of them will be okay, right?”
“You're not still looking for an opening, are you? There's no room for you to wedge yourself in anymore.”
“I don't have a taste for breaking up beautiful relationships either.”
Could she even break them up?
“......It was beautiful.”
A pensive voice drifted through the cigarette smoke.
“It was beautiful. A relationship like that. Have you ever had one?”
“I don't know. Have I?”
When I hedged, Renea gave a small laugh.
“Never mind; I won't pry. I never had one either.”
“......”
“Even after living 1,900 years, not once.”
Her fist shifted restlessly.
A short sigh escaped her, as if she had made a resolution.
“That only makes me want it more.”
“......”
“Funny, right? An elf who's 1,900 years old-.”
“No.”
Sizzle!
I stubbed out my cigarette.
“I'm the owner of a matchmaking agency. Why would I laugh? I'd welcome you with open arms.”
Renea looked at me.
The emotion in her expression seemed to be asking for an answer.
“There's no reason to give up on love just because you're old. All the more so if you've spent that time fulfilling your duty.”
The life of a queen.
I didn't know for sure, but perhaps it had been a time when she couldn't even think of love.
For me, who found it burdensome enough just to be responsible for a single matchmaking agency, it was impossible to even imagine what her life—bearing responsibility for an entire race—must have been like.
“......Yeah.”
A small smile appeared.
This time, it wasn't feigned; it was a genuine smile.
“Thank you.”