Jodoc's POV
The notification appeared, and I felt my stomach tighten— in fear and in that delicious, electrifying way only opportunity can make my veins pulse.
╔════════════════╗
[ SYSTEM NOTICE ]
╚════════════════╝
⚠ Escape Scroll Activation — FAILED
→ External teleportation is sealed within the Palace Domain.
⚠ All Active & Passive Skills— RESTRICTED
→ Combat abilities temporarily suppressed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ EMERGENCY TRIAL ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Trial Name: Throne of the Unborn Queen
Objective:
• Survive the Palace
• Clear the Throne Chamber 0/2
• Satisfy the Palace's Requirement
Monsters:
A-Rank Giant Venom Spiders
→ Neurotoxic Venom
→ Reinforced Silk Armor
→ Swarm Intelligence
Failure Condition:
• Inability to fulfill the Palace's demand
Penalty:
☠ Permanent Death
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sacrificial Requirement: 0/2
Survival Probability: 0.7%
────────────────────
I stared at the notification but kept my expression neutral. Survival probability—zero point seven percent.
I smiled subtly, careful to appear terrified.
Funny. I had never liked odds. But today... is an exception.
I glanced at Kaelon, trembling as he read the system message. Then at Nina, quivering, pale, hopeless.
Perfect. Too perfect.
Oswyn and I had planned to murder Rhys and Nina, loot their corpses, and gain the EXP from it. But Rhys didn't show.
Then Kaelon came, the weakest, most pathetic Wardrieu, joining my party by sheer luck. Everything aligned better than I could have hoped.
I've always want to get back at the Wardrieu's family for humiliating me. Made me look like a fool... especially Nigel Wardrieu, I've always wanted to see that smug bastard falter.
Now... I can finally get the chance to have my revenge, this is like hitting two birds with one stone.
If Kaelon dies here… his family will mourn or probably just think it was unfortunate.
But suspicion? They can't prove a thing.
What happens in the dungeon stays in the dungeon.
And if I survive? If I sacrifice these two fools… the blame falls squarely on Kaelon.
I'll cry, I'll scream, I'll make it look like Kaelon snapped mid-battle.
They can't confirm the death of anyone when inside the dungeon, that's an advantage for me.
And that is exactly what I'm planning, If I survive this dungeon, sacrifice these two fools, then come out victorious and point all the blame to Kaelon Wardrieu.
I'll tell everyone that Kaelon killed the other two members of my party just to earn a massive exp point and Kaelon looting their corpses.
"W-What are we going to do…?" Nina's trembling voice snapped me out of my thoughts. "I… I don't want to die here…"
I glanced at Kaelon. His face was still pale, anxious. "We can't use any skills… return scroll won't work either," he said, almost as if stating the obvious.
I forced a worried expression and nodded. "Okay, listen. The system gave us a quest. What we need to do is to find the Throne Chamber."
I laid a hand on Nina and Kaelon's shoulder. "Kaelon, Nina, we'll get out of this together. Trust me."
"B-But… the quest… it says… to give… two sacrifices…" Nina stammered, eyes wide. I bit back a smile and masked my true intentions.
"No one will be sacrificed," I said firmly. "We get out alive. Both of you." She relaxed instantly. Perfect. Trust—I had it.
That's it, trust on me.
I glanced at Kaelon. "You need to check the rooms. Carefully, one by one."
Kaelon frowned. "Me? Shouldn't we do it together?"
"Kaelon. Each one of us has a task." I said firmly.
I turned to Nina, seeing her fear, her trembling hands. "Nina is too scared to move right now. But we need her for her healing skills. While I take care of any monsters that comes in our way, Kaelon just opens doors to find the Throne Room, easy right?"
Kaelon hesitated, then nodded. Slowly, reluctantly, he approached the massive door. My pulse quickened.
Go. Open it. Be my first sacrifice.
I took one last glance at Nina. She'll be the second. Easiest prey. And the path to the Throne Chamber is clear—I already know which hallway leads there.
One rank above me, those spiders are nothing.
I then smiled a little, watching this dumbass opened the door.
When I saw Kaelon had stepped inside. I kicked him hard. He stumbled forward, then I quickly slammed the door shut behind him.
"What… what are you doing, Jodoc?!" Nina screamed, rushing to the door. I grabbed her arms, yanking her back.
Outside where we are right now, the clicking of countless spider legs echoed, fast, precise, and terrifying. I had to think fast.
"You said we'd get out alive!" Nina cried.
"And you believe me?" I smiled, knife in hand. "Don't you see? Survival here… is a choice. Yours isn't made yet, and I get to decide that."
"W-What? Please...Jodoc..." Nina then took a step back, as I approach her slowly.
I licked my lower lip slightly while I stared at her, "Please what?" I tilt my head.
"You don't have to do this... Please, there must still be a way... Please... I don't want...I don't want to die..." Nina plead as she keep taking a step back away from me.
"Well same...I don't want to die either, and although I don't want to sacrifice you but...looting you would be... delicious." I grinned at her.
"And not to mention, I'll receive a massive exp point of killing you." I smiled at Nina, holding my knife firmly on my right hand.
Nina shook her head, then she looked straight behind me, and immediately took a step back and started running away.
I then looked behind me and that's when I saw a swarm of massive giant spiders heading in our direction.
"Ah f*ck... I should have killed that b*tch fast..." I then started running after Nina, holding my knife as she tried to run away from me.
But given that she's one rank lower than me, I was able to catch up with her in no time.
"Ah—" Nina yelp when I was able to grab her hair and yanked her back towards me, I was about to kill her by slitting her throat wide open but I let my guard down for a second.
Nina took out a pair of sharp scissors out from her bag and stab me from my neck when I got near her.
"You f*cking b*tch!" I then broke Nina's forearm where she was holding the scissors and she screamed.
"You a*shole!" Nina yelled as I finally sliced her throat open, once I was finished, I looked behind me and the spiders were getting nearer.
"F*ck." I exhaled and look ahead of the hallway.
Well, sh*t, I'm too far to get to the throne room at the end of the hallway, and even if I would be able to get there, there would be mo time for me to close the doors.
I then looked at the door on my right side, it was another massive door, I quickly get inside the room, and closed it behind me while trying to stop the blood from coming out.
The giant spiders moves outside the room, and I could hear Nina's body getting eaten, the crunch of bones breaking was chilling.
I then ripped my shirt and tried to wrap the cloth around my neck to stop the bleeding.
And then that's when I heard the notification from my system.
╔════════════════╗
[ SYSTEM UPDATE ]
╚═══════════════╝
Sacrificial Requirement — Progress Updated
Sacrificial Requirement: 1 / 2
Remaining Requirement: 1
────────────────
After reading the update of the system, I couldn't help but curse under my breath.
"One?" I looked at the screen.
That means... Ah...f*ck.
It means... That a*shole is still alive?!
Goddamn it! I should have stabbed that a*shole before kicking him!
Sh*t! what do i do?! F*ck f*ck...
Okay, calm down, I should calm down first...
Kaelon will die anyway, right?...
Damn it! What if...what if he'll still be alive?! That E-rank?!
F*ck. I should have...
I should have just really kill him right there and not just kicked him...right?!
Now what...
What the f*ck am I gonna do?! That a*shole is still alive in that room.
I bite my own nail as I panicked.
Sh*t. Damn it!
I can't go outside this room right now, those things are still outside eating Nina.
And I'm trapped here in this dark room...
I then stopped moving around when I heard someone...or something around the room.
I looked around, at first, I couldn't see a thing, the room was pitch black, but I could smell in the air, it smelled like something is rotting, like metalic ... And this smells so familiar...
The vibration around this room makes my skin crawl, I could feel this faint pulsing around me.
And when I squint my eyes to look hard enough in the dark since I felt a shadow just moved right across me...
My blood almost dropped when two pair of red eyes suddenly opened in the dark, followed by seven more eyes.
I felt my entire hair all stands from the sight of what was in front of me.
It was a spider, yes... But not the usual spider who was chasing me outside the hallway.
This one...this one was colossal in size, and it feels like my soul just want to leave my body.
It was staring right at me.
Sh*t.
I then moved slowly to my right side, but accidentally stepped on something soft and wet.
I looked down and saw a translucent sac, I have stepped on the egg and saw the squirming legs of a tiny spider under my foot.
And funny how the tables actually turned...the notification system showed up.
╔══════════════════╗
⚠️[ SYSTEM ALERT ]⚠️
╚══════════════════╝
Location Discovered: S-Class Queen Spider Nest Chamber
Status:
Jodoc have entered the core nesting grounds.
Warning:
Hostile Presence Has Been Detected.
Action Triggered:
One (1) Egg — Crushed.
Result:
The Nest has been alerted.
High-Level Entity Awakening…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ COMBAT PREPARATION ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All escape routes: Blocked
Enemy Aggression: Maximum
Venom Saturation in Air: Critical
────────────────
Survivability Rate:
1.2%
Prepare for battle, Player Jodoc.
────────────────
I looked up and saw the colossal spider, it does not look happy at all.
"Well..sh*t."
This... wasn't in my plan.
I looked around the room, that's when I truly realized, that I'm definitely doomed.
The entire chamber was full of translucent swollen spider eggs that stretches wall to wall in heaving sea of pale.
I could see the fsint silhouette of the spiderlings inside the sacs, writhing inside, ready to burst.
"This is...unfair."
Then the spider Queen made a clicking sound, and one by one, each sacs moves, each of the spiderlings were medium size...
Each of the spiderlings size were already around my lower abdomen...it makes me sick.
"Klik...klik...klik..."
The clicking sound from the queen was the most chilliest sound in the room...and the egg sac next to me burst open and before i knew it...
It attacked me.
I tried to break free, this is just a bigger spider.
I'm a B-rank hunter, seeing a bigger spider is nothing for a B-rank hunter!
I can kill this thing. These are just nothing!
"SKREEEEEK"
A thick spider silk wrapped around my limbs, i couldn't move, and slowly... thousands of spiders were out from their sac, my blood drop seeing a sea of spiders.
"Damn it!"
I tried to cut the silk using the knife I was holding, but then one spiderling dropped right in front of me.
Before I knew it...it opened its mouth and chomped off my arm, and followed by another spider...tearing me apart.
Only then I realized, I really f*cked up.
I miscalculated everything...and that son a of b*tch is still alive out there...
I don't want to die...
I don't wanna die here...
But with my miscalculation... I walked straight into its mouth...
I can't feel my body anymore...
I can't...survive this.
...