❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 ❜ ━━━ (𝘀. 𝗷𝗶𝗻𝘄𝗼𝗼)

| twenty ; the ant king

"byeong-gu!" yoon-ho shouted.

blood sprayed out from byeong-gu. he looked down at his stomach and saw the claw of the ant piercing him.

"no!" y/n screamed as she looked at him in horror.

"min byeong-gu!" yoon-ho yelled as he tried to get up, but his wounded body prevented him to do so.

"hyung...y/n...run."

the ant tore into byeong-gu's head. the other hunters watched in horror at the gruesome sight. the ant discarded byeong-gu's body and yoon-ho ran towards it. the ant grabbed yoon-ho by his neck and it opened its mouth.

"hyung...run, run...hyung."

yoon-ho was beyond freaked out. the ant perfectly mimicked the speech pattern of byeong-gu.

"you fucker!" yoon-ho shouted.

the ant then spoke, "you all...are weak. we have lost...our queen. the life of your lowly conscript...doesn't balance the equation. who...is your king?"

"king?" yoon-ho repeated.

"outside..." the ant said. "he is outside...a strong presence."

the ant let go of yoon-ho before looking at y/n, "i...will come for you later..." within a second, it was flying outside of the ant tunnel and towards the presence.

"did he go to goto ryuji...?" yoon-ho asked as he coughed out blood.

y/n moved towards hae-in, lifting the younger girl into her arms. y/n had never felt this powerless before. the fight with the ant queen had took out most of her mana. with a grunt, she accessed the system by the clip on her hair.

she looked through the shop with exhaustion, the amount of fatigue catching up to her. she scrolled down before seeing the mana and healing potion. she quickly bought it and gulped it down quickly. within seconds, she felt herself surging back with mana and her wounds were gone. she closed the system and lifted hae-in's arm over her shoulder, regrouping with the other hunters.

"the ants are coming back!" yoon-ho shouted.

y/n placed hae-in down on the floor and looked at jong-in, "can you handle the swarm of ants? if that beast comes back, i'm the only one who can try to stop it."

"are you crazy?!" jong-in shouted. "that thing knocked hae-in unconscious with one hit. it killed byeong-gu, our only healer. if you die, we have no one else to protect the island!"

"i'll buy us some time at the most!" y/n shouted. "i swore to gun-hee to protect everyone, even if it costs my life!"

"i can't let you!" jong-in argued. "we lost one hunter already, we can't lose another."

"my parents died fighting these ants. if me dying means that we can finally stop them, then so be it." y/n said with determination. jong-in looked at her with concern but the swarm of ants had already reached the queen's chambers.

jong-in took position and the remaining hunters began to attack the ants.

"goto? goto, respond! is there a problem?!"

"we have fatalities..." goto replied through the communication device.

"what a needless loss... i thought we elected to this strategy to avoid this possibility?"

"you are correct," goto said. "they were weak. it's nothing to be concerned about."

"strict as always... well, as long as we have you, no real loss for having a couple of them die off. is the korean team fighting the queen right now?"