Chapter 7
Hunting the Queen
It hadn’t even been a year since Hans died.
Spring had come even to the North.
For a brief time, the weather was mild.
But in Isaac’s heart, it was a season of endless blizzards.
Tormented by nightmares every day, he had devoted himself to magical studies without regard for day or night.
One day, loud voices echoed from the courtyard right beneath his bedroom window.
“What on earth were you doing while things got this bad?!”
“Mind your words. You stand before His Excellency.”
“Who here doesn’t know he’s the Count?! I’m asking the lord of this territory why he failed to protect his people! Why did you abandon so many precious lives?!”
Three people stood in the courtyard.
His father, Count Goethe.
The head servant, Schiller.
And a priest in clerical robes.
The Count remained silent from beginning to end, while only Schiller and the priest exchanged heated words.
The topic was simple—the children of Black Goose Village had all died from pneumonia.
Isaac had paid it no mind.
No—he hadn’t had the time to care.
His mind had been consumed entirely by fear and anxiety—that those he cherished might continue to die from mana explosions.
So he hadn’t known.
Why the nanny hadn’t come to work for months.
Why she sometimes looked at him with such sadness.
Why she occasionally sobbed quietly in the kitchen.
Isaac didn’t know.
He was young.
And foolish.
Months later, only after the nanny had managed to compose herself and calmly spoke of Hinder’s death with her own lips did he finally understand.
The village where the children died was Black Goose—the place she lived.
Her last remaining son, Hinder, had died of pneumonia.
Isaac couldn’t even remember Hinder’s face.
He had only seen him a few times.
He didn’t feel sad.
He was only confused.
He hadn’t even thought to consider the nanny’s feelings.
It was only when she was nearing death that he finally understood.
— “By now, my child would’ve been about the same age as you, young master. When he left first… it felt like my heart was being torn apart.”
— “This time… I get to go first. I’m glad.”
Only then did he realize—far too late—that she had lived each day barely surviving, carrying a shattered heart.
Several more years passed.
He heard that Black Goose Village had been completely destroyed by winter spiders.
He also heard there were no survivors.
But Isaac had felt not even the slightest concern.
By then, Hans, the nanny, and two maids had already died from mana explosions.
A Black Goose Village without the nanny meant nothing to him.
***
‘Not anymore.’
Isaac opened his eyes.
He straightened his knees from meditation and stretched.
The spiders still surrounded him, but their movements were no longer the same.
Some were even twitching on their backs, legs curled upward.
They hadn’t noticed the Frost Belladonna hidden within the acrid smoke.
Their respiratory organs—called “book lungs”—were primitive, like gills, and had no ability to filter toxins in the air.
Slowly, their bodies became paralyzed, their breathing organs relaxed, and they eventually lost the ability to breathe.
Meanwhile, Isaac remained in meditation, focusing on the changes within his body.
The air, filtered once through the damp cloth over his mouth and nose, was purified again by the mana within his body.
At the same time, he maintained the fireballs guarding him.
The advantage of the multi-circuit system.
Purification. Fire magic. Phase manipulation.
Being able to do all three simultaneously allowed him to buy time until the spiders succumbed to the poison.
‘Aside from the main tunnel… there are two more passages.’
By observing the movement of the smoke, Isaac estimated the paths connected to the cavern.
Sensing airflow alone had limits, but now he had a clearer understanding of the surrounding structure.
After finishing his calculations, he stood up.
“Goodbye.”
Whoosh!
The fireball orbiting him shot toward a nearby winter spider.
Screeeech—!
The spider ignited instantly, thrashing in agony.
It burned like kindling.
The flames quickly spread to other nearby spiders.
Their oil-coated fur made them highly flammable.
In an instant, all the spiders surrounding Isaac were engulfed in fire.
The burning spiders began moving in the same direction.
‘There must be water over there.’
Isaac nodded.
It was one of the two passages he had inferred from the smoke’s movement.
Whether monster or beast—
all living things needed water.
And when it came to a monster colony—
“the most important thing” was usually located nearby.
Screeeech—!
Isaac sent flames at the remaining spiders that hadn’t caught fire.
Crackle—crackle—
The eggs on the ceiling met the same fate.
As the eggs burned, hundreds of baby spiders burst out in panic—only to be consumed by the licking flames.
“They burn well.”
For a brief moment, the cavern was lit as bright as day by the spreading fire.
‘At this rate, I’ll suffocate from the smoke too.’
Leaving the blazing cavern behind, Isaac followed the path the spiders had fled through.
The passage was a narrow downward slope—a natural cave.
Because it was lower than the cavern, the smoke didn’t reach it.
Breathing became easier, though the air remained thin.
His head throbbed.
He couldn’t stay long.
‘I need to finish this quickly.’
Isaac threw off his fur cloak.
He was drenched in sweat rather than cold.
He moved without stopping.
The tunnel was littered with spider corpses that hadn’t made it to their destination before burning to death.
As he neared the end, he began to hear the sound of water dripping.
‘Close to an underground water vein.’
Just as he expected.
The light he conjured at his fingertips reflected off the water’s surface.
Countless stalactites and stalagmites stretched from the ceiling and floor, and water up to his knees filled the ground.
Though smaller than the cavern, it was still a large space.
Isaac regretted throwing away his fur cloak.
The deeper he went, the more sharply the temperature dropped.
The water sloshing at his feet soon froze solid, turning into ice.
A bone-chilling cold made his body tremble.
This wasn’t natural.
With no other choice, he switched from light magic to fire magic.
The heat eased the cold somewhat, but it wasn’t a fundamental solution.
“…Nothing ever goes outside expectations.”
Isaac clicked his tongue.
Things going as expected was good—but sometimes, he wished they wouldn’t.
The eggs covering the cavern ceiling—
There had been at least hundreds.
A female winter spider laid at most two or three eggs a month.
Especially in the northern winter, they didn’t lay eggs at all.
Before reaching adulthood—before growing insulating fur and protective body oils—they would freeze to death.
Considering the number of spiders Isaac had seen so far, it was impossible for them to have filled the ceiling with eggs.
There was only one answer.
And he had hoped he was wrong.
The Winter Spider Queen.
Across the frozen ground lay numerous corpses of adult winter spiders.
They weren’t the ones Isaac had burned.
From their thick, angular chelicerae, they were all males—and there were no burn marks.
Their bodies had shriveled to half their original size.
They had all been drained of bodily fluids—consumed by the queen.
‘Right… They said the numbers were overwhelming before the extermination.’
In a colony numbering only a few dozen, a queen does not appear.
There’s no need for one—and they wouldn’t be able to sustain her appetite anyway.
But once the number begins to reach the hundreds, a queen is born to maintain the colony.
The current queen was one that had survived the extermination two months ago.
To rapidly restore the colony, it needed nutrients—and when devouring beasts wasn’t enough, it turned to consuming the males.
Thud.
Thud.
Something heavy was approaching Isaac.
Srrr—
Within the range illuminated by his fire magic, the queen revealed herself.
She was easily two to three times larger than any winter spider he had seen.
All eight of her eyes were fixed on Isaac.
She showed no fear or caution toward his flames.
Whoosh—
Crackle.
Isaac hurled a fireball at her—but it fizzled out uselessly.
‘I wish this part wasn’t exactly as I knew it.’
Isaac let out a sigh.
A monster.
A being with mana.
More plainly—a creature imbued with mana.
While ordinary winter spiders had inherited abnormal size and strength from their progenitor of the demonic realm, the queen was closer to the essence of a true monster.
The freezing aura she emitted—and her resistance to flames—proved that.
Something far closer to magic.
She was the very origin of the name “winter spider.”
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The only consolation Isaac had was that, despite her massive size, the queen was not particularly fast.
Her purpose was reproduction.
Combat was not her domain.
Whoosh!
Keeping distance from the icy ground, Isaac launched another fireball.
Screeeech!
His phase calculation was slightly off.
He had aimed for the head, but the fireball struck the joint between her body and leg.
Still—it had an effect.
The queen’s leg, unlike before, could no longer support her weight and dangled limply like a withered leaf.
“Huff… Huff…”
But there was no time to celebrate.
Even after being hit, the queen did not ignite like the other spiders.
More importantly—
Isaac felt a wave of dizziness.
He was reaching his limit.
‘So this is all I can do for now… At most, two more casts.’
Having no real combat experience, Isaac finally realized how important mental and physical stamina truly were.
Mana still surged through his circuits—but controlling it as he wished was another matter entirely.
Using magic beyond his capacity brought backlash.
Fatigue. Irritation. Emptiness.
His body felt heavy and drained.
At just twelve years old, he had burned dozens of winter spiders and hundreds of eggs in the deepest part of an abandoned mine.
All after staying awake the entire night.
“This is a mess.”
Isaac muttered irritably.
Had he been too hasty?
Should he have prepared more?
Was there a better way?
His weakening resolve kept pulling his thoughts backward.
Thud.
Thud.
Meanwhile, the queen steadily advanced toward him.
“…Hoo.”
Isaac took a deep breath.
He thought of what he wanted most right now.
Surprisingly, it was something simple.
The wheat bread Hans had given him yesterday.
He hadn’t had the time to savor it properly—but thinking back, it had been delicious.
‘When I get back, I’ll ask the nanny to make me as much wheat bread as I want… with fresh apple jam on top.’
His mouth filled with saliva.
He felt a little better.
Isaac pulled a small trowel from his pack.
The queen closed in, her venomous fangs right before his face.
‘Queen or not… it’s still just a type of spider.’
Just as her fangs were about to reach him—
Isaac blocked them with his pack.
The pack instantly froze and shattered like glass.
But that brief moment was enough.
Isaac drove the trowel into her eye.
Screeeeeech!!!
The queen reared up, shrieking in agony.
Isaac immediately dove beneath her body.
As she thrashed violently, he was knocked around, crushed and struck several times.
Fortunately, the queen had no stinger at her rear.
If she did, this strategy would’ve been suicide.
Isaac remained focused.
Decades of meditation in his past life were paying off.
With the last scraps of concentration he had left, he searched for the optimal move.
He lacked the accuracy to hit a moving target.
He didn’t have the stamina to fire multiple fireballs.
Even if he landed one, a single fireball wouldn’t be fatal against something with flame resistance.
‘Then…’
Gathering the last of his mental strength, Isaac ignited a spark at his fingertips.
This wasn’t an ordinary fireball.
Before, it had been creation, compression, and phase manipulation.
This time—
Creation. Compression.
And compression once more.
A blue flame, not the usual crimson, formed in his hand.
Normally, he wouldn’t have even considered it—let alone attempted it.
This wasn’t how mages fought.
This was close combat.
“Just—die already!!!”
With all his strength, Isaac thrust the fireball into the queen’s abdomen.
The blue flame pierced through her glands and ovaries, tore through her intestines, and reached her heart.
Whoooosh—
Blue fire erupted from inside her body.
SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!
The queen twisted violently, letting out a horrific scream.
Boom—!
In panic, she rushed toward unfrozen water.
“Ghk!”
Isaac, his arm still lodged in her abdomen, was dragged along.
His shoulder and arm slammed repeatedly into rocks and stalagmites.
Up to that point, he had been lucky.
But in the end—
The queen’s thrashing slammed his head into the ice.
Darkness swallowed his vision.
***
“…Ugh… my head.”
Isaac opened his eyes to throbbing pain.
He had no sense of how much time had passed.
Every part of his body ached so much he couldn’t even pinpoint where it hurt.
“My arm’s going to come off…”
His arm was still stuck inside the queen’s abdomen.
The blue flames had long since disappeared.
All that remained was the charred corpse of the queen.
Crack—
As Isaac pulled his arm out, the queen’s body crumbled into ash.
“…?”
Inside the broken remains, a faint light glowed.
Without thinking, he reached toward it.
Something solid.
A stone.
“Ah—cold! …Wait… a cold stone?”
A stone emitting frost.
Isaac immediately recognized it.
A Frost Mana Stone.
A rare magical stone he had only ever seen in books.