episode_0036

The nature of loyalty is extremely broad and complex.

This has been happening to partygoers over the past few months as they wander around here.

But there is one misconception: everyone is convinced that the final destination of this loyalty is the audience room.

There’s no way that’s possible.

‘This kid needs a place to live too.’

The audience room is literally just an audience room.

A place specifically designed for him to meet someone.

Except that it’s a bit fancier and more spacious than the other rooms, so there’s a lot of room for bugs to come in.

The audience room is literally an audience, nothing more, nothing less.

It’s a boss stage, so to speak.

And now it was time to explore what was beyond.

King Chung’s bedroom, study, warehouse, etc.

The good news is that there is no more danger ahead.

I’m not sure because I’ve been hit in the back of the head so many times, but that’s what I know.

‘No way?’

I went through all that trouble, so it shouldn’t exist. If it exists, I’ll just kill myself. It’s so dirty that I can’t live without it.

Anyway, we passed the audience room and started exploring the remaining rooms. Luckily, we found it quickly.

If you walk straight from the entrance we came in through, it’s right there.

“How come it didn’t collapse here···.”

“That’s right.”

“Huh, I guess he made it a bit sturdier because it was his place to stay.”

So we moved on to the next room, while also uncovering the back story of the already fallen King Chungwang.

Unlike the Chunghoe Castle we had passed through so far, the space beyond the audience room was not very large.

It’s so big that you can see the width at a glance.

Of course, since the rooms are divided into several parts, it will take some time to check them all···.

Considering how far I’ve come, I could do this without any problems.

“Warrior, will you move together or separately?”

As I was looking around like that, the saint asked.

I answered without thinking.

“It’s more convenient for me to travel separately···.”

“Then let’s do that.”

“Won’t other party members object?”

“I’ll try to convince them. They’re probably tired too, so they’ll want to rest quickly.”

So she approached the party members again.

Then she starts persuading them. They quickly agree to her persuasion.

“Well, everyone must be tired, so it would be better to divide up the roles.”

I felt a moment of wonder as I looked at it.

I definitely felt like I got a little closer to her during this fight.

She was the only one who witnessed his suffering, and she was the one who delivered the final blow.

I would say he is the only person who has ever seen me major in something.

‘Come to think of it, when I woke up my body was clean too.’

I was definitely in a really dirty state when I passed out.

His entire body was covered in blood, and on top of that, there were the liquid corpses of grasshoppers.

But when I woke up, my skin was soft as if I had just washed it. That must mean she had used a cleanser.

She must have been very tired, but she even walked to the purification area. Even though I didn’t know her true feelings, I couldn’t help but be grateful for this.

Thanks to that, I was able to wake up feeling a little more relieved.

Anyway, that’s how we ended up acting separately.

Camilla and Adele took over the warehouse, Lily and Yulysse took over the bedroom, and I took over the laboratory.

Creak···.

As I pushed the door open, the eerie sound of a rusty door echoed. A musty, moldy smell and a faint chemical smell greeted me.

I thought to myself.

‘I’m glad I’m in charge of the lab.’

Behind the audience room, there were two places with the highest income: the warehouse and the research lab.

Among them, the warehouse contained all sorts of treasures and high-grade materials. However, there were no useful items, so I boldly gave some to my party members. Since the money earned there would be used for party maintenance anyway, it didn’t really matter.

Next is the research lab.

The research center was a space where traces of King Chungwang’s research remained.

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly appealing.

‘That’s what it looks like to other people.’

But things change depending on who is looking at them.

The reagents and bugs scattered around are just objects of investigation to others.

But for me, it was power that was immediately available.

Because I can now use insect magic.

I was planning to use the bugs he had studied and modified to my advantage.

So I went around the lab and rooted what I needed.

Eggs of the one-eyed big-eyed bug.

Powder that helps create summoning circles.

Even a bug-specific bottle with subspace magic applied to it.

“Oh, this is still there?”

I even got the larvae of the dimensional thorn bug.

All the adults would have been used by King Chung, so there weren’t any… But still, where are the larvae?

If I raise this well, I too can attack with those pesky thorns like King Chung.

After walking around the lab like that, the last thing I picked up was this. In the moldy, musty lab, there was only one book on the desk that was clean and tidy.

《On the origin and summoning method of the poison》

Have you ever unfolded it until recently?

The book was covered in fingerprints.

That means the guy was serious about summoning loneliness.

“Um···.”

I looked at it and sighed for a moment.

“Someday, I will have to summon you too···.”

In fact, it could be said to be the flower of insect magic.

This skill, which has reached the pinnacle of summoning magic, may one day be able to summon even an ancient disaster.

Of course, the third one is now dead and cannot be summoned.

We still have the second one left. The first one is out of the question.

‘The problem is that the amount of resources required for summoning is enormous.’

You could tell just by looking at King Chungwang’s appearance today.

Didn’t he use up most of his bugs just to summon a single earthworm? I should put in that much money too.

It’s an absurd amount of money.

Still, I had to summon him no matter what.

Each of them has powers on par with the Four Heavenly Kings, so shouldn’t they be summoned?

“Ah, I don’t know, let’s just pack it first.”

So I took the bastard’s book. Anyway, the lonely summoning circle is stacked.

This means that you don’t have to put in everything at once, but can steadily put in money over time.

So maybe I can summon it someday too.

Kkieee···.

After finishing farming, I came out of the lab again.

My colleagues were still investigating, and there wasn’t even a single person in the hallway.

Well, compared to the lab, the other two rooms are actually quite spacious.

I knew what was inside the lab, and the area was small, so I finished it quickly, but it was clear that it would take them a while.

I had no choice but to wander around the hallways.

I’ve already packed most of what I need, but just in case.

With so many variables in the game, something new might have emerged.

But unfortunately, there was nothing new.

However, there were things that should not have been there.

“···Huh?”

As I was walking down the hallway for a while, I suddenly felt a strange sense of ‘discomfort’ as I passed a certain point.

There was something, but I felt like I was forcibly ignoring it.

The feeling of not seeing what I needed to see and hastily erasing it from my mind.

Feeling something strange, I looked back and soon discovered a hole.

A hole just big enough for one person to pass through.

The gaping hole in the hallway felt strange and out of place.

What’s even more amazing is that you can’t see anything beyond the hole.

A hole so black it looks like it was covered in Vantablack.

I tried throwing a small fireball just in case, but it was the same as not being able to see beyond it.

Anyone else would have felt suspicious at this point. What on earth is this?

But the more I examined the shape of the hole, the more I couldn’t help but feel a strange certainty.

This looks like a place I know.

Just in case, I turned on the system and checked the hole.

Sometimes the system would tell you the name of the space, or the background, or something like that.

But the holes identified by the system.

[#!^$◇ ◆ ◈What is it?]

It just appeared as broken letters.

I was convinced here.

This is the hole I know. I don’t know why it’s there, but I’m sure of it.

After thinking about it that far, I decided to just go inside the hole.

[WARNING!]

As I put a footprint in the hole, a warning sign popped up.

[WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!······]

As soon as I put my upper body in, it started to howl like crazy.

A huge amount of warning texts filling your field of vision.

“Get out of the way.”

Ignored it.

At least as far as I know, this place wasn’t dangerous at all.

And if the warning message is like that, I should be dead by now.

So I started to continue going down the hole.

There’s nothing in sight, and a strange chill runs down my spine.

[Got it! Huh?# ¶What the heck…]

[%!$⧓∏∐▣□■▣▣▣···]

Meanwhile, the system seemed to have broken down completely, as it kept sending strange messages.

There was nothing I could judge, but I continued down, using the sensation in my fingertips as a landmark.

After crawling like that for a while, before I knew it···.

Hwaaak!

[∑∏∀······]

The space has expanded.

The constant warning sound in my head disappears, and even my dark vision brightens.

My body even felt refreshed for some reason.

The place I arrived was an empty lot about the size of a room.

An empty space with not a speck of dust on the floor and no patterns on the walls.

In a space where everything was featureless, the only thing that stood out was the center.

In the center of the common space, where a particularly bright light was shining down, there was a stone that was emitting a mysterious light.

I went closer and examined it.

[▣△뭻▲※궯#@&∑]

The text is still broken.

I was drooling.

“···Hmm.”

Seriously, why is this here?