TEOCH 26

A storm raged behind us in the passage. Rikiel, carrying us in his arms, flew at a terrifying speed, while the buzzing of the ground wasps’ wings pursued us with a ferocity that seemed ready to tear us apart. Feeling the sharp wind graze my cheeks, I struggled to open my eyes. The passage, which had seemed endlessly long, flashed past the edges of my vision in a dizzying blur.

The enhanced ground wasps were undoubtedly fast, but Rikiel, even while carrying both me and Tristan, crossed the passage far more swiftly. His wings beat at a pace incomparable to the other wasps, and thanks to that, the distance between us and the ground wasps was slowly but surely widening.

“Ha… ha…!”

But his flight clearly had its limits. Repeating hundreds of wingbeats per second was no easy task for a human. Moreover, Rikiel was pushing himself beyond his limits to bear the weight of both me and Tristan. He was panting so heavily it seemed he might collapse at any moment.

“Are you okay, Rikiel?! You’re pushing yourself too hard…!”

“Don’t worry about me, hyung! Getting out of here comes first!”

To ease Rikiel’s burden, Tristan and I would need to get down, but the enhanced ground wasps were flying faster than we could run, making that impossible. All we could do was cling to Rikiel’s waist and hold on to avoid falling.

How much time had passed? After a long escape, we finally reached the plaza from before. But the relief of arriving in a wide space was short-lived. Faced with the countless passages branching out from the plaza, we were thrown into confusion.

“W-Which way do we go?!”

“I can’t remember which path we came from! What do we do, Rohan?!”

Unable to decide which way to go, we hesitated. I stepped away from Rikiel and looked around, trying to recall which path we’d taken, but I soon gave up. I couldn’t trust my memory. No matter how hard I tried to distinguish the passages, they all looked so similar that the effort was futile.

‘Damn it, I should’ve left a marker!’

I regretted not leaving a mark, fearing it might alert the ground wasps. I briefly considered just picking a random passage, but after suffering so much from hasty decisions, I couldn’t afford to make the same mistake again. If we chose the wrong path and ran into the queen wasp, there’d be no escape.

Anxiously, I scanned the passages repeatedly. The buzzing of the ground wasps was already audible in the distance, and it felt like they’d catch up any moment. We stood there, paralyzed, unable to move forward or back.

‘Damn those ground wasps! Why aren’t they off fighting the hornets? Why us…!’

Wait… hornets? As I fumed about the hornets, a small thought flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning. Yes, there might be a way!

I snapped to attention and focused on the sounds around us. The clearest sound was the buzzing of the pursuing ground wasps, but by closing my eyes and concentrating fully on my hearing, I began to pick up fainter wingbeats from farther away. I zeroed in on those sounds.

‘I don’t need the sounds coming toward us—I need the ones moving away!’

As soon as I pinpointed the direction of the receding wingbeats, I opened my eyes. The sound faded until it was barely audible, but identifying the general direction was a huge gain. I shouted to my companions.

“That way! The northwest passage! If we go that way, we’ll find the exit!”

“R-Really?! How do you…!”

“I hear other ground wasps in that direction! Most of them are probably fighting hornets at the exit, so if we head where they’re gathered, that’s the way out!”

“B-But! Isn’t that dangerous?! Charging straight into a swarm of ground wasps and hornets…!”

“There’s no other way! If we’re going to escape, it’s better to head toward the exit! Getting lost again like before is even riskier!”

Rikiel and Tristan exchanged panicked glances but eventually nodded heavily, accepting my plan. As soon as Tristan and I entrusted ourselves to Rikiel, he began flapping his wings.

The moment the pursuing ground wasps, buzzing loudly behind us, came into view, we shot into the passage like a bullet. My heart felt like it would burst from tension. The singular determination to escape this place alive consumed my mind.

The plaza we finally reached was nothing short of chaos. Hundreds of ground wasps darted through the air, fending off the hornets’ attacks, while the hornets swung their venomous stingers, trying to break through. The sight of giant insects clashing in the air was grotesque and bizarre, even to me, who was somewhat accustomed to the demon realm.

The enhanced ground wasps used their parasitic powers to hold off the hornets. Though they were barely half the size of the hornets, they leveraged their parasite-granted speed to strike at the hornets’ weaknesses. Each time multiple ground wasps attacked, shimmering with blue auras, the hornets hesitated, wavering in their assault.

But the hornets weren’t being completely overwhelmed. While the ground wasps had parasites, the hornets had their massive size and paralyzing stingers. Nearly twice as large, they menaced the ground wasps relentlessly. If a hornet’s stinger grazed a ground wasp, it would fall helplessly, unable to move.

“We’re supposed to pass through that chaos to escape this nest?”

Rikiel muttered in a voice filled with shock. We stared at the battle with pale faces. The air was a battlefield, an overwhelming scene no mere human could hope to break through.

Fortunately, the ground wasps and hornets were too preoccupied with each other to attack us. The ground wasps that had chased us into the plaza soon got caught up in the hornets’ attacks, joining their own war. This allowed us to hide in a corner of another passage, safely observing the fight. But that didn’t make escaping any easier.

‘I never imagined there’d be so many wasps fighting…’

The battlefront in the air was so dense and perilous that breaking through seemed impossible. We were relatively safe on the ground for now, but if Rikiel tried to fly us through that chaos, the wasps wouldn’t leave us alone. A stray attack in midair could spell disaster.

‘The biggest problem is the hornets. One hit from them, and we’ll crash!’

We could endure the ground wasps’ attacks to some extent, but the hornets’ paralyzing stingers were the real issue. If we could somehow avoid them and fly upward, we might escape the nest, but that would require near-acrobatic flying skills.

Having just implanted the parasite, Rikiel wasn’t accustomed to flying, so expecting such skill from him was unreasonable. My companions, realizing the gravity of the situation, looked at me with pale faces.

“Rohan, are you really planning to break through that swarm?”

“It’s too reckless! Now that we know the plaza’s location, shouldn’t we wait until the fight ends before trying to leave?!”

Their suggestions made me waver slightly. Yes, that might be a better plan. Escaping while accounting for both enhanced demon beasts and paralyzing stingers seemed impossible. Waiting for one side to fall and seizing the chance to escape might be wiser.

‘No, but that’s just as risky.’

It wasn’t a bad idea, but there was a critical flaw we had to consider. If one side completely collapsed, the surviving side would turn their full attention to us.

Right now, they were distracted by each other, sparing us direct attacks, but if they focused solely on us, we’d have no way to escape.

It was a true dilemma. Charging now or waiting for one side to fall—both options were equally dangerous. I gritted my teeth, hesitating over the decision. If only there was some way, some solution…!

‘…Han! …There! …Rohan!!!’

At that moment, a faintly familiar voice seemed to call from far beyond the hole, and I snapped my head up in surprise.

“Wait, did you hear something just now?”

“A sound? What sound?”

“It might be my imagination, but I thought I heard someone calling me…”

Rikiel and Tristan looked at me with puzzled expressions. I hardened my face and focused all my attention on my hearing. The loud buzzing of the hornets and ground wasps drowned out most sounds, but amidst the noise, I could faintly make out something like a voice. Strange—was it a hallucination? But it felt too real to be a hallucination…

‘…Han, Rohan!!’

Suddenly, the ground wasps and hornets flying in the air lost their balance, swaying erratically. The change was so unnatural that, in our shock, we leapt out from our hiding spot and stared up at the sky.

It was certain. The wasps and hornets spun in circles as if they’d lost their sense of balance, and some unlucky ones even collided with each other and crashed.

I realized the feeling of someone calling us wasn’t a hallucination. At the edge of the massive hole, two familiar figures were waving frantically.

No, to be precise, only one was waving. The other was shouting something, waving a large staff, and as the light from the staff grew brighter, the wasps’ movements became increasingly unstable. I quickly understood the phenomenon. It was confusion magic.

“Rohan! Your Majesty! Captain! If you’re in there, please answer! Rohan, Rohan!”

I stared at them, dumbfounded. Rehas, wearing a helmet that covered his face, and Damian stood at the edge of the hole, looking down at us.