Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Only when I could no longer hear the sound of arrows did I finally slow my steps.

My stomach twisted, and nausea churned inside me.

Breathing slowly, I leaned my back against the corridor wall for a moment and let out another long breath.

I felt miserable.

I wish he had at least blamed me.

Maybe then this sickening feeling filling my chest would have been a little easier to bear.

For a moment, I wondered if this was how the villains in stories felt.

Even though I had been half-prepared for something like this ever since I realized this place followed the events of the novel, the bitter taste in my mouth wouldn't go away.

I'll save the self-blame for later.

I could think about everything after escaping this place.

I started walking again, and the others remained silent.

Only the footsteps of the three of us echoed through the quiet corridor.

It wasn't until we stopped in front of the stairs leading to the rooftop that Han Siwoo cautiously asked,

“Are you okay?”

The words, About what? rose all the way to the tip of my tongue.

Leaving Kim Taeyoon behind to die?

Knocking my brother unconscious?

Or was he simply asking whether I was okay?

Countless questions filled my head, but thinking about them was pointless.

The answer to all of them was the same.

Nothing was okay.

I slowly shook my head.

Han Siwoo didn't ask anything else.

He didn't offer words of comfort.

He didn't say anything polite or give me some hopeful encouragement.

I was grateful for that.

If he had said something like that, my feelings would probably have become even more tangled.

While thinking about it, I suddenly remembered that I had lied to them.

The guilt returned.

No matter how urgent the situation had been, I shouldn't have done that.

If I had calmly explained everything, they surely would have understood—

My thoughts suddenly stopped.

Slowly, hesitantly, I continued.

...Would they really?

Would they really understand someone who had deceived them and dragged them into a place where they might die?

I didn't know.

When I turned my head, I saw Lee Dohyun and Han Siwoo looking at me.

Before I could think any further, my mouth opened.

“...Earlier, I said the rooftop would be safe, but that wasn't actually true.”

My mouth felt painfully dry.

I swallowed to wet my throat.

I knew I shouldn't be saying something so unnecessary.

I knew that perfectly well, yet my mouth kept moving on its own.

“It's still not too late. Maybe staying here and fighting the spiders would actually be safer.”

The words came out in a rambling mess.

Even I wasn't sure what I was trying to say.

Han Siwoo asked,

“You know what's on the rooftop, don't you?”

I hesitated before answering.

I was afraid that one careless sentence from me might change the events of the novel.

Afraid that the future I knew might become different.

But I couldn't bring myself to lie anymore.

Weakly, I answered,

“Yeah.”

“In the prophecy you saw, what happens to us?”

I had expected Han Siwoo to immediately question me or get angry.

Instead, he remained calm.

Maybe because of that, my trembling heart gradually settled down.

I answered with certainty.

“We go to the rooftop, fight the boss, and win.”

I remembered the sentence warning us not to go to the rooftop.

Even so, there was a reason we still had to go there.

[You can only escape the dungeon after defeating the boss.]

Anyone who had played even a few RPGs would know that much.

I just never imagined such a rule would apply in reality.

Lee Dohyun shrugged casually.

“Boss? Like the king of those monsters or something? Anyway, you're saying we have to go to the rooftop if we want to get out of here, right? Then let's go.”

“This isn't something you should decide that easily. ...My prophecy could be wrong.”

“But it could also be right. Isn't everything happening exactly the way you saw it?”

His simple question wasn't wrong.

Reluctantly, I nodded.

“...Yeah.”

Lee Dohyun had awakened after defeating the Red Poison Spider.

Kim Taeyoon had sacrificed himself for us.

Everything had happened exactly as it did in the novel.

Lee Dohyun tilted his head.

“Then why are you worried?”

At those words, all the tension suddenly drained out of my body.

“...Good point.”

There had never been any real reason to doubt it in the first place.

We just had to defeat the boss.

And I even knew its weakness.

So what had I been so worried about?

The thing squeezing tightly around my chest loosened slightly.

Just a little.

I felt relieved.

Suddenly, all the worrying I had done seemed stupid.

Feeling embarrassed, I casually tried to wrap up the conversation.

“Well... I just meant it's really dangerous.”

I turned around and began climbing the stairs.

Everything was fine.

Everything was progressing exactly as it should.

And yet, strangely, my body was trembling.

When I placed my hand on the doorknob leading to the rooftop, I slowly controlled my breathing.

“You guys better not regret this.”

Han Siwoo answered first.

“I won't.”

Lee Dohyun followed.

“If I was going to regret it, I wouldn't have followed you in the first place.”

Why did such simple words make my chest ache?

Suppressing the strange feeling rising inside me, I opened the rooftop door.

A chilling wind slipped through the opening.

Creeeeak.

When the iron door opened completely, what greeted us was the black sky we had seen through the windows.

No.

I had thought it was the sky all this time.

But it wasn't.

It was a void.

BOOM—!

A person suddenly flew through the air and smashed into something before crashing down onto the ground.

It was as though an invisible wall surrounded the rooftop.

“Kuh! S-Save... me...”

Even while trembling violently, the man stretched a hand toward us.

That hand soon dropped lifelessly to the ground.

“Yoo Seokho!”

Someone shouted toward the fallen man.

When I turned my head, I saw several familiar faces among a group of strangers.

Some of them were the people who had left the classroom together earlier.

Kang Haneul, whom we had separated from along the way, was there too.

They were fighting.

[Arachne]

Their opponent was a spider easily three times larger than the Red Poison Spider we had fought downstairs.

RUMBLE—!

Suddenly, a massive roar shook the sky.

At the same moment, lightning struck down.

“Damn it! Shield!”

Someone desperately activated a shield.

But the enormous bolt of lightning smashed through it in a single strike.

“Kugh!”

“Cough!”

Brilliant flashes of light began raining down through the thick darkness.

The lightning fell as densely as heavy rain.

Avoiding it was almost impossible.

Those who barely managed to dodge the first bolts...

Those who were quick on their feet...

None of them could keep avoiding the lightning forever.

One after another, they collapsed helplessly to the ground.

Only after everyone had fallen did the lightning finally stop.

Arachne slowly began walking.

My eyes followed the creature, and then I froze in shock.

There was an enormous throne made from long strands of spider silk.

As if it were some kind of king, Arachne arrogantly settled itself onto the throne.

The entire structure swayed heavily beneath its weight.

Above the throne, something translucent spread out across a vast area.

It was connected to countless strands descending from high above.

An enormous web stretched across the darkness, grand enough to decorate the entire sky.

Flash.

Another burst of light illuminated the area.

And through the single bolt of lightning striking the ground, we saw it clearly.

Countless cocoons hanging from the web.

Whoosh.

Thin strands of silk shot through the air.

One by one, they began dragging away the people lying on the ground.

The silk stretching from Arachne's mouth wrapped around them and transformed them into enormous cocoons within seconds.

Like ornaments being added to a Christmas tree, several more cocoons were attached to Arachne's web.

Lee Dohyun muttered in disbelief,

“...Are all of those people?”

It didn't seem like every person inside the building was trapped there.

Even so, the number of cocoons was enormous.

Han Siwoo asked,

“Are they dead?”

I shook my head.

“No. They're alive.”

Just as awakened people seemed to gain the ability to sense nearby presences, after awakening as a healer, I had also become capable of vaguely sensing the life force of people around me.

It was faint, but I could clearly feel life coming from those cocoons.

However, it was slowly decreasing.

It seemed the cocoons were draining their life force.

This is the boss monster?

My jaw began trembling.

Even though my fear should have been somewhat suppressed after awakening, I was still this terrified.

I thought I had already seen plenty of monsters.

But Arachne was on an entirely different level.

Just looking at it made me feel an overwhelming pressure crushing down on my entire body.

Still...

It wasn't only fear.

Amid the terror that threatened to choke the breath from my lungs, an almost exhilarating urge to fight began boiling inside me.

Like a moth throwing itself into a flame.

“What the... Where are we...?”

Apparently, the effects of Lag had finally worn off.

My brother, who had been carried on Han Siwoo's back, opened his eyes.

He looked around in confusion.

Then his gaze stopped on Arachne.

His blurry eyes gradually regained focus.

A moment later, his lips twisted bitterly.

“That's it? That's why you came all the way to the rooftop after abandoning Taeyoon?”

“......”

“How the hell are you supposed to kill that thing? If we're going to die to a spider anyway, did you really need to come all the way up here just so that one could kill us instead?”

I definitely felt sorry about what happened to Kim Taeyoon.

But even so, I didn't want to listen to my brother's sarcastic remarks in a situation like this.

Does he have any idea what I went through to come here?

I answered quietly.

“I came here because I don't want to die.”

Who in this world actually wanted to die?

Everyone surviving together was nothing more than a dream.

Even in the novel, Kim Taeyoon had died.

Maybe it sounded cruel.

But to me, Kim Taeyoon had been a piece I could afford to sacrifice.

My brother continued,

“I don't care whether you have some prophecy ability or whatever. If I have to fight that thing, I'd rather go back downstairs and help Taeyoon—”

He began turning around.

Then his voice slowly faded.

I felt a small sense of relief.

He underestimated me too much.

I had known my brother for more than twenty years.

I had already expected him to react like this.

And that was exactly why I had knocked him unconscious and dragged him all the way here.

“Hey! Where's the door?!”

Once someone entered the boss area, leaving was impossible.

There was only one way out.

Defeat the boss.

My brother glared at me with an furious expression.

“You little— Seriously...”

But no matter how angry he was, there was nothing he could do in this situation.

I gave my brother a victorious smile.

“Do you still feel the same way?”