Chapter 5
The Net Queen's brow was pierced.
The arrow, driven in with pinpoint accuracy.
Thud—!
As the Net Queen's body toppled backward, the spiders that had lost their mother began fleeing in panic.
“Y-you bastards, where do you think you're going—!”
Hunter Lee Kangho was still so worked up that he hadn't grasped the situation and was frantically firing his shotgun.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire rang out pointlessly.
Leaving the excited Hunter Lee Kangho behind, Renea and I headed toward the Net Queen.
A hole in its brow.
The arrow had long since vanished into a spray of light.
“Ahem, it was nothing.”
“I haven't even said anything yet.”
“I could tell you were going to praise me.”
Praise?
It was certainly worthy of praise.
She'd taken down the Net Queen cleanly without a single hostage being touched.
But from my perspective, this was awkward.
Didn't I already have someone on the way before we left?
“Hah! Hah! Mia! Mia, where are you!”
Just then, Lee Kangho came rushing over after driving the spiders away.
There was something almost pitiful about the way he was frantically tearing at the spider-silk cocoons.
Ssshhk! Ssshhk!
One, two, three—.
People emerged from the cocoons.
Most of the ones who looked like Hunters were weakened, but they were still alive.
“That it liked eating them alive was a blessing in disguise.”
Thanks to that strange preference, the people had survived.
I immediately called 119.
After explaining the location and situation—
- Huh? We can't go that far.
“What?”
The reply I got was absurd.
- No, it's outside the city. We can't go either because of the monsters. You need to move them at least to the makeshift ward yourselves.
“People are dying here—!”
- And you want us to drive an ambulance into a monster zone? Do you want everyone to die?
Click.
The call was disconnected.
With an annoyed sigh, it looked like we'd have to haul them to the makeshift ward in the SUV as far as we could.
“M, Mia! Mia!”
When he tore open the cocoon, Yumia finally appeared.
Her face was pale, and her breathing was weak.
She had some injuries, but she was clearly alive.
“Mia! Mia—!”
Lee Kangho lifted Yumia up with trembling arms.
Huge tears rolled down as he wiped Yumia's dirty cheeks.
“Hic! Thank goodness... really, truly thank goodness.”
He held his beloved close to his chest, as if he'd never let go again.
I thought about putting a cigarette in my mouth, then put it back. This wasn't the time to smoke leisurely.
“For now, help me move the people to the vehicles.”
“Yeah, got—”
Renea frowned mid-answer and looked up at the sky.
“Someone's coming?”
“Of course. I called them.”
“The friend you mentioned earlier?”
Before she even finished speaking, a shadow fell.
The woman who stepped off a 6th-Floor-only airboard was named Ryu Seoram.
A black baseball cap and a baseball jacket.
She was my friend and a die-hard fan of the Daeheung Bear Force, the perennial last-place team.
She immediately pointed a baseball bat at me.
“One run down, bottom of the ninth. It's just starting—do you really expect me to believe you called me away?”
“You're still cheering for them?”
“......I'm only cheering until this year. Then I'm done.”
I'd heard that last year too, and the year before that.
“Haa, I can guess why you called me—.”
Ryu Seoram looked around.
The Net Queen's corpse and the unconscious people.
She didn't need any explanation.
“Looks like you already handled it before I got here?”
“This elf took care of it.”
“And the ambulance? They said they aren't coming?”
“Uh...”
“Wait.”
“Hey, it's me. I'll turn on GPS, so send an ambulance to my location right now. There are tota-”
I held up two fingers.
“About twenty. What? It's outside the city? So what? I'll guard the ambulance, so come on over.”
The argument didn't last long.
After ending the call, Ryu Seoram answered simply.
“They'll be here soon.”
“Thanks. You saved us.”
“No, no. You're not done yet.”
Just as I was about to smile in relief, she wagged a finger and warned me.
“If our team had lost today, you'd have been riding in that ambulance too.”
Ah, so she's got quite the temper.
“R-Ryu, Ryu, Ryu Seoram Hunter?!”
Hunter Lee Kangho, still clutching Yumia tightly, shouted in our direction as if he had finally come to his senses.
“Y-you're one of the Seven Supremes, one of only seven on the 3rd Floor, aren't you!?”
Seven Supremes.
A title for the seven Hunters at the very top.
Ryu Seoram was one of them.
“Ah, shit—! We lost! What the hell was that three-up, three-down in the bottom of the ninth, you idiots—!”
A roar from one of the Supremes shook the ground.
Her furious glare in my direction was terrifying.
“How are you going to take responsibility for this?”
“It's the other way around. Thanks to me, you didn't have to see that scene with your own eyes.”
“What...!”
She seemed convinced, and nodded with a hiss.
“You're not wrong, huh?”
“Right? So you're buying the drinks tonight.”
“No way.”
“You make plenty of money, and you still want to mooch off me?”
“Who told you to call me? Shut up and order the large jokbal. That's what I'm eating tonight, no matter what.”
Now that she had cooled off a little, Ryu Seoram looked at Renea.
“If it's the Net Queen, that's a monster with a bounty on it. The way it was killed so cleanly means you're no ordinary person.”
“Ah, this person is—”
“Wait, wait, wait!”
I was at a loss for words.
Renea clung to my back and covered my mouth like an assassin.
She whispered furtively into my ear.
“Keep the fact that I'm a former Elf Queen a secret.”
“...Why?”
“Ahem, for privacy reasons. Please, just go with that.”
Well, if that's what she wanted.
When I nodded, Renea let go.
Ryu Seoram spoke right away.
“Former Elf Queen? Hey, Kim Juseon. Your customer is a bigger deal than I expected?”
What was the point of whispering in front of her?
We would have had to get at least a kilometer away.
Thirty minutes later, the ambulances arrived.
As everyone was being loaded up one by one, Lee Kangho stayed right by Yumia's side.
“C-can I go with her too?”
“Are you the guardian?”
“N-no. It's just—”
To the paramedic tilting their head, Lee Kangho blurted it out as if steeling himself.
“I'm her husband!”
“What?”
“She's my wife! I have to go with her!”
Yumia still wasn't conscious.
The flustered paramedic glanced at me.
I gave a light nod.
“That's right. They're husband and wife.”
* * *
That night, in the hospital corridor.
“Tsk, buy the jokbal next time. There was some talk because you called the ambulance.”
Ryu Seoram, looking at her phone, clicked her tongue. I'd been curious for a while, so this worked out.
“Who did you call earlier?”
“The director of Neo Seoul Hospital.”
“...”
“I'm leaving, so cover for me.”
Just before Ryu Seoram left, she added:
“The Net Queen bounty will be settled later. Tell the elf.”
“She knows best. She checked that first.”
“Really?”
She hesitated briefly, as if she had something to say, then added without even looking at me:
“...Take care.”
Ryu Seoram left.
Left in front of the ICU were Hunter Lee Kangho and me.
“Um, Boss... Thank you so much today.”
“Oh, it was nothing. You're our customer, after all. The doctor said it's not life-threatening, so go get some rest. You worked hard today.”
As Renea had said earlier, it looked like the Net Queen had injected anesthetic to keep its food fresh.
Thanks to that, everyone in the cocoons was safe.
Squeeze!
Lee Kangho, enclosing my hand with both of his, started crying again.
“No. Thanks to you, Boss, we were able to find her. If it weren't for you... I'd still be wondering why Mia suddenly went cold on me. Meanwhile, Mia was dying in that cold cocoon!”
“...Just love each other well. That's enough.”
“Y-yes! I absolutely will. Definitely.”
Leaving Hunter Lee Kangho, who kept thanking me over and over, I stepped outside.
I ran into Renea standing at the end of the corridor.
“What is it?”
“Where are you going?”
“To smoke.”
After a brief hesitation, Renea nodded.
“I don't smoke, though.”
“I never asked you to come along.”
Even so, Renea trotted after me.
After I got to the smoking area and put a cigarette in my mouth, Renea immediately asked:
“Those two will work out, right?”
“You're not still looking for an opening, are you? There's no room for you to wedge yourself in now.”
“I don't have a taste for ruining beautiful relationships, you know.”
Could I even break one?
“...It was beautiful.”
A troubled voice mixed in with the cigarette smoke.
“It was beautiful. A relationship like that. Have you ever had one?”
“Hmm. Did I?”
When I brushed it off, Renea gave a small laugh.
“Fine, I won't pry. I haven't had one either.”
“...”
“Even after living for 1,900 years. Not even once.”
Her fist fidgeted restlessly.
A short sigh, as if making some kind of resolve.
“That's why I want to do it even more.”
“...”
“Funny, isn't it? A 1,900-year-old elf—”
“No.”
Tsssh!
I snuffed out the cigarette.
“I'm the president of a matchmaking agency. You think I'd laugh? I welcome it, actually.”
Renea looked at me.
The emotion in her expression was asking for an answer.
“There's no reason to give up on love just because you're old. Especially if it was to fulfill your duty.”
A queen's life.
I didn't know for sure, but maybe it was a time when she couldn't even think about love.
For someone like me, who found it heavy enough just to run a single matchmaking agency, it was hard to even imagine what her life must have been like, having carried an entire race on her shoulders.
“Yeah.”
A small smile formed.
This time, it was a real smile, not a fake one.
“Thank you.”
* * *
That night, in the hospital corridor.