It was less than an hour after we left the storeroom that I realized the ant monsters were approaching.
At the very edge of the senses I had spread out as widely as possible, just in case, I felt living creatures in motion.
Since we were underground, I couldn’t extend my senses as far as I could on the surface.
Still, thanks to the abilities that had grown stronger after coming to this planet, when I stretched them as far as I could in front and behind us, I could sense living things several hundred meters away.
Dozens of signals that felt like ant monsters entered my senses.
The signals approached quickly, and their numbers increased just as rapidly.
‘Looks like there’ll easily be more than a hundred of them…’
For our group, even dealing with ten would be no easy task, let alone a hundred.
They were several hundred meters away in the complicated underground passages.
They weren’t an immediate danger.
But judging by the shrinking distance, we would run into them before long.
This was not the time to hide my ability.
I told everyone that I had detected the ant monsters.
“Ant monsters are coming up from below. They’re chasing after us.”
The people who had been walking hard stopped in their tracks when they heard me.
‘As expected, it must be hard to believe.’
If they had believed me, they wouldn’t have stopped.
“Keep moving.”
David got the others walking again, then asked me,
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. It’s the same aura as the ant monsters we encountered in the canyon.”
David turned his head and looked at me.
He frowned and asked,
“You found them with that sense of yours that discovered the trap last time?”
“Yes.”
“That ability is far more useful than I thought.”
Unlike before, emotion showed on David’s face.
Curiosity, discomfort, even concern.
After several expressions passed across his face, it hardened again, and he asked me,
“How far away are they?”
“About three hundred meters in a straight line.”
At my answer, everyone looked at me in shock.
“No way. You can sense that far?”
“That’s basically radar. No, since it’s underground, is it even better than radar?”
Just as the middle-aged man and the Black youth were babbling, everyone found it hard to believe me because the distance was too great.
David was the same.
“We’ll need confirmation.”
He gave an order to the Latino man.
“Carlo, go check.”
At David’s words, the Latino man sighed.
“I knew this would happen.”
He left me with one remark and immediately set off.
“If this turns out to be bullshit, I’m not letting you off.”
He shot toward the lower levels of the ruins like a bullet.
If not for my senses, I would have almost lost track of his movement again.
Some time passed, and then I felt him encounter the ant monsters.
For a brief moment, their positions overlapped, and the Latino man immediately turned around.
He came back far faster than he had gone down.
Returning in less than ten minutes, he poured out the results of his reconnaissance with a deathly pale face.
“It’s t-true. Hah, hah, there are dozens of ant monsters. They’re not taking any side passages. They’re heading straight this way, fast.”
After blurting it all out, the Latino man grabbed his legs and gasped for breath.
His face seemed pale not from shock, but from having run too quickly.
Seeing how exhausted he was, almost to the point of collapse, it seemed even his speed had limits.
Whatever the Latino man’s ability was, his report sent the group halfway into a panic.
“It’s real?”
“Dozens of them? We can’t stop that many!”
The macho middle-aged man was dumbfounded, the Black youth shouted while swinging his shield, and the businessman was terrified, trying to flee at once.
“We have to run right now. We have to hurry.”
The others had become serious as well.
David’s expression hardened further, and Huiwon’s face turned pale as her eyes darted about.
They hadn’t believed me when I said it, but it seemed everyone believed it now.
Just as everyone was about to run in fear, someone spoke in a calm tone.
“Wait a moment.”
The one who stopped the group was Magreta.
People looked at her, but she paid them no mind and asked the Latino man, Carlo,
“You said the monsters weren’t taking any side passages and were coming toward us, right?”
“That’s right. Though I only saw one place.”
After hearing the Latino man’s answer, she asked me this time,
“Are they still not taking any branches and continuing this way?”
It was a somewhat out-of-the-blue question, but I nodded in response.
The moment I nodded, complaints burst out from among the group.
“Is that important right now? If we don’t move immediately, they’ll catch up in no time!”
The businessman stomped his foot and shouted.
The others didn’t say it, but they all seemed to think the same thing.
This time, I agreed with them.
She seemed to have something important in mind, but now wasn’t the time to confirm it.
However, David did not stop her.
Under David’s tacit permission, she continued speaking.
“Back where the artifact disappeared, Mr. Hyeon said that we didn’t know what would happen if the artifact vanished.
But at the time, nothing happened.
And now, ant monsters are rushing toward us. Straight toward us.”
Perhaps she was in a hurry as well, because her words grew faster and faster.
“I think the missing metal rod is an artifact that attracts monsters. Even now, that artifact must be drawing the monsters this way.”
Her words were an extremely plausible deduction, even including things I had not told her.
The people who had been restless were now listening to her.
David, who had been quietly listening, opened his mouth.
“Are you saying someone here has the missing artifact right now? And that’s why the monsters are rushing here?”
At David’s words, Magreta looked at one person and nodded.
“Yes. I believe you have that artifact right now.”
The man she pointed out, the businessman Benedict, flushed red and shouted loudly.
“Ha. Ha. What kind of nonsense is that? We already confirmed I don’t have anything like an artifact! You can check again! I don’t have anything.”
He seemed to be shouting in anger, but his tone and expression were strange.
He didn’t look angry because he had been wronged; he looked like he was getting angry to cover up the fact that he had been caught.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t found any evidence so far. Even so, in a situation like this, I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t know.”
She was right.
If we found the culprit and recovered the artifact, we might be able to find a solution.
Because the businessman looked suspicious, her words seemed even more plausible.
When the others’ expressions changed, the businessman flew into an even bigger rage.
“So you’re accusing me without evidence! You think I’ll just take this lying down? Once we get back to Earth, I’m suing you immediately. No matter how good your backing is, I’m no pushover either, so you’d better be ready!”
He seemed to have forgotten all courtesy and manners.
“This is troublesome. We can’t accuse someone without evidence.”
David looked Benedict up and down with a troubled face.
At David’s words, I laughed inwardly.
He had taken the box from me without evidence.
And now he needed proof?
What a joke.
“Besides, if we can’t find the artifact, finding the culprit won’t mean anything…”
It was ridiculous, but it wasn’t wrong.
For now, we had to find the artifact first.
But the artifact was nowhere to be seen.
Magreta seemed to have been watching the businessman the whole time.
Since she hadn’t found the artifact, it would be impossible to find it by sight.
I couldn’t sense the artifact either.
‘From the moment the artifact disappeared, I couldn’t sense it either, could I?’
Thinking back on it now, that was truly strange.
Just because it couldn’t be seen, it didn’t register in my senses either.
That had never happened before.
Of course, at the time, I had thought the ruins had moved the artifact, so I couldn’t sense it.
But if Magreta was right, then the artifact was here right now, and even with my senses I couldn’t find it.
Even if the businessman had hidden it with some special ability, I had thought something would still register in my senses.
Contrary to my expectations, I could feel nothing.
Not on the businessman’s body, nor around him; I couldn’t feel even the slightest trace of the artifact’s energy.
‘Looks like this sense has a weakness too.’
Nothing in the world was perfect.
Just as the Latino man had exhausted himself, there were things even my senses could not find.
‘By now, I can even feel energy flowing over people’s bodies. Even now, I can feel the energy flowing over the businessman’s body… huh?’
There was a place where I couldn’t feel energy.
Around his waist, the energy flowing over his body was abruptly cut off.
A small area, empty of energy.
It was shaped like a small rod.
While the others were at a loss, the businessman kept shouting.
“Damn it, stop harassing people without evidence and hurry up! The monsters will be on us soon!”
I walked up to the businessman.
“What are you now? Fucking—are you going to say something because I’m the one being suspected instead of you? Who do you think you are, butting in when you’re not even American?”
As soon as I approached, he hurled curses at me.
Instead of answering his abuse, I reached toward his waist.
He couldn’t react to my sudden movement, and I grabbed the empty air beside his waist.
I couldn’t see anything, and it didn’t feel as though I had caught anything in my hand.
There was nothing in my grasp.
But I knew for certain that I had grabbed something.
It was impressive.
It wasn’t just deceiving my sight and my senses.
It had deceived my sense of touch and even the muscles of my arm.
His ability wasn’t merely the power to make objects invisible.
It was a high-level ability that deceived a person’s mind.
I pulled hard with the hand grasping empty air.
Snap!
With the sound of a cord breaking, a rod appeared in my empty hand.
It was the metal rod that had disappeared.
The moment the rod became visible, I felt the rod in my hand, and it registered in my senses as well.
“It’s the artifact!”
At Huiwon’s cry, everyone stared at my hand in shock.
“It definitely wasn’t there just a moment ago.”
The Latino man looked back and forth between the metal rod and the businessman.
“So that bastard really was the culprit?”
“My God. Then that bastard Benedict has been luring the monsters this whole time?”
The macho middle-aged man and the Black youth tore into the businessman.
And David stood in front of him.
When David stared at him, Benedict shook his head frantically, his face deathly pale.
“No. It wasn’t me.”
Despite his vehement denial, David spoke with an expressionless face.
“Now that there is evidence, I can pass judgment.”
At David’s words, Benedict grabbed his arm with a face as dark as death.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lure the monsters. I just planned to secretly take one artifact.
My sponsor told me to smuggle just one artifact back to Earth, and I had no choice but to listen. I needed money to revive my business.”
He clung to David’s arm and poured out his story in detail.
“I’m not interested in your reasons. We’ve found the culprit, so all that remains is punishment.”
Unfortunately, his story failed to interest David.
David raised his spear.
“N-no!”
The moment he swung the spear, Magreta stopped him.
“Wait. It would be a waste to simply throw away manpower, wouldn’t it? We found the artifact, so once we find a method, we can use him then.”
After stopping David, she looked at me with a smile.
“Since Mr. Hyeon found the artifact, perhaps there’s a way to deal with those monsters too?”
It wasn’t as if I were some all-purpose problem solver.
Just because she said so didn’t mean I could solve everything every time.
However.
This time, I did have one plan.
The monster-luring artifact in my hand and the trap I had destroyed.
If we used those two, it seemed we might find a way.