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Koo-goong, Koom!
A thunderous roar kept coming, along with vibrations strong enough to shake the walls.
The members who’d chased us here were dumping skills into the steel door. Pashsh—dust sprinkled down from the ceiling.
I asked Cha Sahyeon, who was holding my unsteady body up.
“Cha Sahyeon, can’t you send a shadow bird and move us straight to that spot?”
Cha Sahyeon watched the monitor for a moment, then shook his head.
“I can track a specific person’s presence and go to them, but like this—when there’s no presence at all and it’s just an unfamiliar space—it’s hard. If it fails, we could end up somewhere else entirely.”
“Then moving directly is better.”
I looked back at the team. Everyone drew their weapons like they agreed.
Cha Sahyeon wrapped an arm around my waist and raised the presence he’d been suppressing as much as possible again. A pitch-black haze surged up from the floor and stretched toward the steel door.
My vision lurched, and a harsh wind grazed my skin. At the same time—
Kwa-BOOM!
A sound and screams far stronger than anything the members’ skills had made exploded through the air.
“Aaagh!”
“B-back up! Fall back!”
Cha Sahyeon tore off the steel door in one shot—something dozens of Awakeners had been charging and smashing—and burst out in front, pulling me into his arms as he ran.
The ripped-off door tilted out into the hallway, and the members who’d been closest to it scattered in panic. In that opening, the S-ranks also poured out of the room and sprinted down the corridor.
“They’re running!”
“Catch them! Hurry up and catch them!”
The members snapped out of it late and chased after us.
Then, completely out of place for how urgent things were, a sweet melody filled the hallway.
When I glanced back over Cha Sahyeon’s shoulder, I saw Kwon Seoyul running while playing a harmonica.
Even as skills flew at him from every direction, he dodged them with practiced ease, never letting the melody break even once.
“Huff, huff...!”
“W-why do I feel this drained...!”
The longer he played, the farther the gap became between us and the pursuing members. Panting with startled faces, they soon realized the debuff effect carried in the harmonica’s sound and covered their ears.
But running with both hands clamped over their ears made their speed drop sharply, and they couldn’t attack either.
After effortlessly shaking the pack off, Kwon Seoyul sped up, pulled alongside Cha Sahyeon, and grinned at me.
“Brooo, did you see? See? It’s way easier when I’m here, right? I’m the best, yeah?”
“You could’ve done that earlier.”
When we’d been running for two hours, he’d only bothered to smack away the guys who came at him.
The real value of that debuff performance skill of his was the fine control.
The sound filled the entire corridor, but only the enemies were affected by the debuff. The teammates sprinting right beside him were perfectly fine.
“C’mon, praise me!”
“Younger brother. Turn there.”
Right after Kwon Seoyul’s whining, Eun Woojeong’s voice cut in.
Unlike Kwon Seoyul, who was on my right, Eun Woojeong was on my left. He summoned chains, hooked them into the ceiling, and vaulted up. Shooting out to the front, he spoke.
“We can’t use the elevator, so I’ll guide us down the stairs. This way.”
“Ah, that bastard, seriously.”
Ignoring the curse Kwon Seoyul spat after getting shoved aside the moment he finally tried talking to me, Eun Woojeong flew forward with agile precision.
Reaching the locked door at the end of the corridor leading to the emergency stairwell, Eun Woojeong immediately kicked it in. The door blew off like paper, and beyond it the stairs stretched down a long way.
“We just have to go down to the very last level.”
Following behind Eun Woojeong as he stepped onto the stairs first, Kwon Seoyul, Yoon Jeha, and Kwon Taehyuk took the steps at a run.
The only ones left at the very end were me and Cha Sahyeon. Cha Sahyeon glanced at the members chasing from far behind, then flicked his hand once.
A black shadow that surged up from the floor rose like a curtain and blocked the entrance into the stairwell.
“What is this?!”
“Hurry up and clear it!”
“Skills don’t work—what kind of...!”
Even the members’ shouting, muffled by the shadow, grew fainter and then vanished.
After completely cutting off pursuit, Cha Sahyeon turned away.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
At my answer, Cha Sahyeon held me and, without hesitation, launched his body over the stair railing.
***
The central building of Spiderweb.
The deepest underground level within it.
The darkened hallway was much colder, and an eerie stillness flowed through it.
Out of consideration for Cha Seohu—who wouldn’t be able to see in the darkness while in his supporter state—Kwon Taehyuk turned on his phone flashlight and lit the corridor.
“Huh.”
After looking around and tapping the hallway lightly with the tip of her blade, Yoon Jeha twisted her lips.
“Clean. Way too clean for a floor that’s supposedly empty.”
Sure enough, for a level that hadn’t been used in a long time, it was excessively spotless.
“...I hear something.”
Kwon Seoyul, blinking slowly, stared into the far end of the corridor buried in deep darkness.
“You said this group’s name is Spiderweb, right? Even the sound of spider bastards moving around is creepy as hell.”
Cha Seohu asked him, reacting to Kwon Seoyul’s smirking tone.
“Explain properly what kind of sound you’re hearing.”
“Like bugs crawling, for real. Like this... shh-shh... and maybe cloth brushing. Ugh. Damn it.”
Kwon Seoyul shuddered in disgust and rubbed both arms as if he had chills.
‘Bugs crawling?’
Cha Seohu touched the corner of his mouth.
‘This is the first time I’ve heard Kwon Seoyul describe sound like that.’
If his guess was right, Spiderweb’s previous head would be in there.
‘Could it be connected to a skill?’
An Awakened like Eun Woojeong, with a skill tied to the organization name “Spiderweb.”
“Either way, you’re saying there’s something there.”
With an irritated look, Yoon Jeha shoved between Cha Seohu and Kwon Seoyul and took the lead.
“If we just check that one spot, we can get out of here, right? Then let’s go.”
Cha Seohu glanced back at Eun Woojeong just in case, but he only shrugged like he didn’t know either. Thinking, as always, that none of them were much help, Cha Seohu let out a sigh.
He moved with the group, following alongside Yoon Jeha as she led.
In the corridor where cold darkness had settled, only their footsteps could be heard. The closer they got to the end of the hall, the thicker the darkness became—and the more the tension slowly tightened.
“Hunter Cha Seohu. Are you alright?”
Walking just behind Yoon Jeha, Kwon Taethyuk turned and asked Cha Seohu with concern.
Even with the phone’s flashlight shining forward, it was so dark they could barely see what was right in front of them.
Darkness that blocked even an S-rank’s vision. There was no sign a skill had been used, which meant an item had been installed somewhere.
Trusting Cha Sahyeon at his side, Cha Seohu nodded.
“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
If it got any worse, he’d been planning to ask Cha Sahyeon to find and remove the hidden item—but just then, the vague shape of a door began to appear ahead.
A plain-looking gray steel door, half swallowed by darkness.
The moment Yoon Jeha raised one eyebrow at the finally revealed door and moved her leg without hesitation—
“Wait.”
Kwon Seoyul narrowed his eyes as if measuring something and spoke in a stiff voice.
“The sound.”
After that short warning, his gaze fixed on the sword Yoon Jeha was holding.
The sharp tip of the long blade, jutting slightly farther forward than Yoon Jeha’s body. A tiny, tiny noise—something brushing that sword tip.
But nothing was visible.
Darkness. This darkness was clearly hiding something.
‘...It’s this dark, but we can see that door at the end of the hall?’
It was too unnatural.
Yeah. It felt like a spider had laid a web and was luring prey in.
A hollow laugh slipped out.
“Ha. What a filthy trick.”
“What is it? What’s there?”
Instead of answering Cha Seohu as he stopped and asked, Kwon Seoyul pulled an item from his inventory.
It was a pure-white violin made for him. Taking a practiced stance, Kwon Seoyul immediately moved the hand holding the bow.
A melody different from the harmonica shattered the silence and spread through the corridor.
Kwon Seoyul closed his eyes. He sharpened his senses and focused on sound, and with his trained ears, the noises everyone else missed reached him clearly.
Ting. Tiiing. Ting.
A sound like invisible something vibrating in response to the faint ripples born from the violin’s performance.
Kwon Seoyul’s hands moved faster and faster. As the performance grew stronger and quicker, the ripples spreading out became that much more violent—until the vibrating “something” finally revealed itself.
“That’s... thread?”
Extremely thin thread hidden secretly within the darkness.
Fine, delicate threads were stretched densely throughout the corridor. Trembling from the vibration, the threads caught the flashlight beam and glittered—truly like a spiderweb.
Realizing that if she’d taken ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) even one more step, the threads would have brushed the tip of her nose, Yoon Jeha swallowed dryly.
“Hm.”
Eun Woojeong flicked and tossed aside the bloodstained glove he’d swapped out earlier.
The moment the glove touched the thread—so thin it looked like it would snap at any second—the leather glove instead bubbled and melted away.
“If we’d gone straight in, we would’ve been badly hurt, right? You wouldn’t have died since Hunter Cha Seohu is here, but still.”
Kwon Seoyul, who’d been playing brutally fast and fierce enough to feel rough, suddenly yanked the bow hard.
A razor-sharp screech blasted outward, and a powerful vibration erupted.
Piiing—under the vibration, the threads drew taut.
Then they shook up and down, and, unable to endure it, they started snapping one after another with sharp ticking sounds.
