"That Horse and I were both just being used!"

The voice rang out loudly. Najin pushed through the gang members gathered outside the tavern.

"Move aside."

"Ow! Who... Najin?"

Najin grabbed the back of the neck of a gang member charging at Arnold and dragged him back. As Najin stepped to the front, the remaining members hesitated and backed away. A brief silence settled over them.

Breathing hard, Arnold looked at Najin.

"Who are you?"

"Najin. Ivan's representative."

Najin tapped the hilt at his waist. The sword was practically a symbol of Ivan himself.

"If you have something to say, say it."

"Bring Ivan..."

"Be reasonable. Would your people let an officer from a rival gang meet the boss just because he showed up unannounced?"

Najin's face twisted into a scowl.

"I'm already cutting you a lot of slack because you seem to have a reason for this. So say what you have to say before I cut off an arm, as the rules require. You have ten seconds."

SHING!

Najin drew the blade from its sheath and gripped it, pointing its tip at Arnold.

"If you don't talk by then, I'll cut it off."

"You insolent little shit..."

"Who's being insolent here? You're making a scene because you need something from us, aren't you?"

Najin let out a short breath.

"Talk, or give up an arm."

Arnold ground his teeth. Ten, nine, eight... Only when Najin's spoken countdown dropped below three did Arnold finally open his mouth.

"... It wasn't Horse."

"What?"

"Horse isn't the one who picked a fight with you. We were just being used by that lunatic."

As they listened to Arnold, the gang members surrounding him gave a brief shudder. Najin caught his breath as well. His eyes widened as he stared at Arnold.

Something pattered to the ground. It was dark red blood.

Blood dripped from Arnold's bloodshot eyes, his mouth, his ears, and his nose. About to continue speaking, Arnold happened to look down. Seeing the blood pooling at his feet and his vision turning red, he laughed.

With a self-mocking laugh, he raised his head.

"Hey, rookie," Arnold said, looking at Najin. "Tell Ivan right away."

He coughed up a mouthful of blood and spoke his last words.

"Hakan the Junkie has made a move."

Najin's eyes flew wide.

2.

Horse's residence was connected to the mine tunnels—the underground tunnels where he had resisted to the bitter end during the civil war ten years earlier. Having slipped inside, Ivan and Offen were making their way deeper in, suppressing any sign of their presence.

"If you ask me, that bastard isn't a spider. He's a mole or an ant. Why the hell did he dig his burrow so deep?"

"Keep your voice down. We went to all the trouble of sneaking in. Do you want to get caught?"

"I can't sense anyone here anyway."

Ivan shrugged. Offen did not dispute that. Quite a few men had been stationed near the entrance, but now that they were deeper inside, neither could sense a single person.

The tunnels were deathly quiet.

Something about this atmosphere felt wrong to Ivan. The tunnels were far too quiet. Silence alone would have been one thing, but the path was also completely unobstructed. Not even a commonplace trap had been set.

'This is too easy. Suspiciously easy.'

It had not been like this before. During the civil war, Ivan had tried to force his way through these tunnels and ultimately failed. Traps lay wherever he stepped, and Horse's arrows had kept flying out of the darkness.

Horse the Spider was a Ranger, and a cornered Ranger could become endlessly troublesome.

That was why Ivan had given up on finishing Horse off and ended the civil war. Of course, this time he had entered confident that he could break through with Offen beside him, but...

'This is strange.'

Ivan frowned. Just as he was beginning to wonder whether the tunnels themselves were a trap, he sensed someone deep inside. He tightened his grip on his sword hilt.

They exchanged a brief glance. Then Ivan and Offen kicked off the ground and ran, racing toward the deepest part of the tunnels, where they sensed the presence. A wooden door stood at the end. Reaching it a step ahead of Offen, Ivan did not slow down.

CRASH!

Instead, he drove another powerful step into the ground and swung his sword with the added momentum. The sword aura coating the blade crushed the entire wooden door. Smashing through it, Ivan slid inside and opened his eyes wide to take in his surroundings.

Beyond the shattered door lay a vast space—a huge, dome-shaped cavern.

Here, tunnels branching every which way like an anthill intersected. Rails for transporting ore tangled together like a spiderweb. Ivan frowned as he noticed openings leading to other passages on every side.

'Was this place here before?'

He did not remember seeing a space like this when he entered the tunnels during the civil war. How was he supposed to know which way to go? There were dozens of passages, and searching each one was out of the question.

Just then, he heard a small fragment of rock clatter to the floor. Ivan's head whipped toward the sound. Someone stood in an upper passage, inaccessible because the rails leading up to it were broken.

"Hah."

Ivan gave a disbelieving laugh.

"Saved us the trouble of looking. What's this, Spider? Come to welcome us?"

Horse the Spider had revealed himself, a crossbow gripped in one hand and his hood pulled low.

"It's been a while, Ivan."

"It has. I meant to kill you the moment I spotted you, but you've done a fine job of staying out of sight."

Ivan grinned. Adjusting his grip on his sword, he gestured to Offen, as though telling him to be ready to move if Horse tried anything.

"So where'd you get the nerve?"

HISS!

Sword aura rose over Ivan's blade.

"Coming within my reach like this. You must be feeling confident."

Ivan was a knight who had reached the rank of Sword Expert. To him, the gap between himself and Horse was practically nonexistent—a distance he could close in one or two leaps.

Why had Horse shown himself?

Horse was a Ranger. He could never gain the upper hand against a knight in close combat, all the more so with two Sword Expert swordsmen present.

'Does he have something up his sleeve?'

But that would be meaningless at this distance. Ivan was confident he could take Horse's head off before he could try anything. He exhaled and was about to kick off the ground when Horse spoke.

"I'm not confident."

Horse opened his mouth.

"To be honest, Ivan, I don't want to fight you. The scars you gave me still ache. Why do you think I've spent the past ten years in hiding?"

He took a step forward, emerging from the shadows beyond the ore lamps' light.

"But what choice did I have?"

He stepped into the light. The dim glow of the ore lamps illuminated his face, revealing what the darkness had concealed. He pulled back his low hood as though inviting a closer look.

"I had to lure you out to stay alive."

Half his face was hideously twisted. One eye was cloudy and unfocused, as though blind. The corners of his mouth twitched with every word—a symptom seen in junkies high on drugs.

"You..."

Before Ivan could say anything more, Horse said, "It's the only way to survive that lunatic."

He pulled the crossbow's trigger. But he was not aiming at Ivan. The bolt flew toward the ceiling of the domed cavern, striking something hanging there.

BZZZZZZ...

A strange noise echoed through the cavern. Ivan could not identify it, but Horse had clearly pulled something. He kicked off the ground and lunged at Horse.

Or rather, he tried to.

Ivan stopped in his tracks. Sensing people all around him, he gave a hollow laugh. Footsteps echoed from the dozens of passages branching out from the cavern.

There were not just one or two people. Not even mere dozens.

Countless humans poured out of the passages to the sound of uneven footsteps. Their eyes were unfocused, saliva dripping from their open mouths, as though they were high on drugs.

"What the hell are those..."

Ivan frowned. They held blades in their hands, but their numbers aside, they did not seem particularly threatening. Their movements were sluggish and slow from the drugs.

'What's the point of this?'

After roughly estimating their numbers, Ivan turned his gaze back to Horse. Horse was smiling bitterly.

"You and I have both been played, Ivan."

Ivan assessed the situation based on the circumstances and information available to him. In doing so, he understood: this place itself was a trap. Horse, and the civil war Horse had seemed intent on starting, had been bait laid by someone else.

'Bait for what?'

The answer came quickly. Bait to draw him and Offen here. Then who had orchestrated this? The stench of chemicals pervading the air on all sides supplied the answer.

One of the underground city's three rulers. The ruler of the landfill, who had never made a move during the civil war, the frequent power struggles, or any other crisis.

"... Hakan the Junkie."

The landfill's alchemist had intervened.

But Ivan did not know why Hakan had tried to lure him here. He lacked information about the Junkie, and he knew little about the breed of people called alchemists.

"Ivan."

Offen was no different in that respect. He knew little about the Junkie either. But he knew very well what sort of people alchemists were. Back when he commanded a mercenary company, he had carried out jobs for those damned alchemists time and again.

In other words...

"Move."

Offen knew exactly how alchemists used human beings. Shoving aside Ivan, who was about to swing his sword, Offen stepped forward and kicked the man approaching at the front.

The man was knocked back and convulsed briefly. Then his body swelled enormously and exploded with a bang. Blood and chunks of flesh shot upward and rained down over Offen as he heaved a long sigh.

"Watch out for the ones shaking and spilling blood," Offen said, sounding utterly sick of it. "Those are living bombs."

3.

Najin's eyes flew wide.

"Hakan the Junkie has made a move."

It was not because he understood what Arnold meant. What Najin's wide eyes saw was a flow expanding outward from Arnold.

The expanding flow. Arnold coughing up blood. The ground trembling faintly around him. And Arnold's expression, as though he sensed his death approaching.

Four pieces of information gathered through his eyes.

At that moment, a single sentence flashed through Najin's mind: he needed to get some distance. These thoughts that suddenly came to him in battle were something he had relied on since he was very young.

Instinct—that was how Najin understood it.

But this was far removed from something as vague as instinct. Najin's talent was seeing, and this was an extension of that talent. He had made an instantaneous judgment based on the information his eyes provided.

His innate talent and the combat sense honed in real battles worked together to create a momentary glimpse of the future.

BANG!

And Najin possessed the judgment to act on it immediately, without doubt. He kicked off the ground, rushed forward, and kicked Arnold as he coughed up blood.

The kick slammed into his abdomen with a sharp crack. The moment his foot struck, Najin fully extended his bent knee. It was a kick intended to shove his target away. Propelled by the impact, Arnold crashed into the alley between two buildings.

"Now!"

Najin immediately turned and ran back, shouting, "Everyone get back!"

Najin scowled at the gang members hesitantly backing away. Grabbing the scruff of a member standing close to the alley, he flung himself away.

A moment later—

BOOOOOOM!

Arnold's body exploded in the alley with a deafening roar. In an instant, the area erupted into chaos: gang members were knocked flat by the blast, while those who had seen a person burst apart before their eyes screamed.

Gang members fled and ordinary people cried out.

Amid the confusion, Najin clenched his teeth. The officer from Horse's gang had said the Junkie had made a move. Only then did Najin recognize the foul smell he had noticed earlier.

He had smelled it once before, when he caught and beat the shit out of an addict trying to distribute drugs in Ivan's territory.

A nose-stinging stench produced by a mixture of hallucinogens and all manner of chemicals. It filled the alley where Arnold had exploded. And Najin had smelled that very same stench on his way here.

His foot struck the ground, and Najin broke into a run. As he retraced his route, the stench brushed his nose. He whipped his head around, his gaze landing on an alley sealed by iron bars.

'That's...'

It was where sewage, filth, and rubbish were sent down to the underground city's landfill. The moment that thought reached him, Najin saw it.

A hand gripped the bars from the inside. He saw that hand convulse, swell, reach its breaking point, and explode.

BOOOOOOM!

The iron bars buckled with a deafening roar. Someone stepped out from the thick darkness beyond them, where the stench hung heavy—a woman drenched in the blood of the human who had just exploded.

Her eyes met Najin's.

The moment their gazes met, Najin felt every sense in his body sharpen. It was something he had felt during his recent spar with Ivan, something like the oppressive presence of a powerful fighter who had risen beyond a certain level.

It told Najin who the woman standing before him was. He immediately drew his sword. The blade scraped out as though it might shatter the sheath, and Najin gripped it while putting distance between them.

Watching him, the woman curled up the corners of her mouth.

"Good instincts."

She snapped her fingers.

At that moment, a buzzing sound like an insect's cry rang out. Najin did not know what the echoing noise was.

But even without knowing, he could tell that the dozens of presences he sensed beyond the woman immediately afterward, and the explosions sounding throughout the underground city, bore some connection to it.

And he knew who that woman was, too.

"Do you know who I am?"

"The Junkie," Najin answered her. "Hakan the Junkie."