COTBC 06

Chapter 06

It was a bright moonlit night.

‘The waxing moon is turning into a full moon.’

Isaac searched his memory.

It was around the evening when the priest delivered the news that all the children of Black Goose Village had died.

He couldn’t recall much else, but he clearly remembered that the full moon was out.

He had stared at it for a long time while hearing voices in the courtyard.

‘At most five days. At the earliest, two.’

Unlike other illnesses with clear symptoms based on condition, mana poisoning varies widely depending on the person — the symptoms, incubation period, and survival time.

Whether one is an adult or a child.

How much mana resistance one has.

What condition their body is in.

And what kind of environment they live in.

The only certain thing is that optimism is useless when lives are at stake.

‘Even if I’m late by two days, I must finish everything within that time.’

Isaac stepped off the road and entered the forest.

The dense undergrowth was pitch black, but thanks to a light spell, he had no trouble seeing.

The hard part was something else.

“Where the hell is it?”

The ground was buried in snow.

The soil was frozen.

Finding the necessary herbs in such conditions wasn’t easy.

He needed to buy time if he wanted to save even one more child.

For that, he had to find the herbs, and that was anything but easy.

‘Maybe I should’ve brought Hans.’

He regretted even not having a cat’s paw of help.

But Isaac quickly shook his head.

Hans would’ve been helpful, but because of the mana explosion, a lockdown was in effect.

Hans, being diligent, would’ve reported it to the butler, and the butler wouldn’t have let it slide.

In a situation where even time spent persuading was a waste, it might have led to stricter surveillance.

It was something he had to do alone.

Steeling his resolve, Isaac searched every corner of the forest.

He stumbled over rocks, got scratched by trees and thorns, but didn’t mind.

Between thick rocks in a shady, damp place covered in moss.

On a sunny patch of land near a clear stream just clean enough to drink from.

It was described as natural and obvious in books, but finding it in reality was anything but easy.

“Phew.”

Isaac’s breath turned into a puff of mist.

The moon had clearly shifted westward.

After stubbornly seeking places that matched the herbs’ habitat, Isaac finally secured enough of two herbs.

White stoneflower.

Moonring flower.

White stoneflower helped with cold symptoms.

Fever, cough, phlegm, and so on.

Moonring flower temporarily increased resistance to mana.

However, both effects were temporary, and they didn’t cure mana poisoning.

They were merely a way to buy time.

“Ugh. This should be enough, right?”

Isaac stretched his stiff back.

He worried his back might hunch before he even finished growing.

Still, seeing the sack full of herbs filled him with reassurance.

If the herbs worked on the children as the books said, then relying on what he knew, even defeating the winter spiders might not be such an impossible task.

From afar came the sound of wild dogs barking and wolves howling.

Wild beasts encountered at night could be as dangerous as monsters.

Having finished his task, Isaac quickly found the road and left the forest.

***

After walking for several more hours, Isaac finally arrived at Black Goose Village.

He struggled to find the path, relying on his hazy memory.

“Young master?”

A nanny peeked her head through the door crack.

She had covered her nose and mouth with a worn cloth, showing only her eyes.

Even from just her eyes, it was clear she was flustered.

“You look tired.”

Isaac mumbled as he looked at the nanny’s face.

Ever since he had been locked in the mansion’s underground vault, her face had appeared vividly in his dreams for decades.

It hadn’t changed.

He wanted to embrace her in joy, but Isaac suppressed the emotion boiling up inside him.

This was a time to suppress feelings as much as possible.

At least until he could be certain that a mana explosion wouldn’t occur.

The more precious someone was, the more he had to keep his distance.

He couldn’t leave any room for weakness.

“Why are you here so late? Did something happen at the mansion? And what’s with your appearance? Did you fall down somewhere?”

Dark circles hung under the nanny’s eyes.

Her cheeks, barely visible between the cloth, were sunken.

Yet her flood of questions toward Isaac hadn’t changed a bit.

“You hadn’t shown up for a few days, so I came to check.”

“You’re coming inside?”

As Isaac tried to step into the cabin, the nanny panicked.

“Why? I can’t?”

“The doctor said it’s pneumonia. What if you catch it?”

Isaac pulled out a handkerchief from his rucksack and tied it around his mouth.

“This should do, right?”

“But still…”

Isaac gently brushed off the nanny’s hand and stepped into the house.

“Did you get permission from the master?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do!? What if you ran into bandits on the way here?”

“I didn’t.”

“It’s not just bandits! What if it had been a monster or wild animal?”

The nanny continued scolding him for a while.

She spoke with the concern of someone worrying over her own child.

She was just as Isaac remembered her.

He almost burst out laughing but held it in.

“Enough, take this first.”

“Yes?”

Isaac handed over a sack full of herbs.

Without another word, he walked toward the bed closest to the fireplace.

The nanny’s son, Hinder, was lying there.

Bluish spots, like bruises, were scattered across his face.

Around the eyes, neck, and forehead — places where the skin was thin.

It was a definitive sign of mana poisoning.

“I’m sorry. Hinder wasn’t feeling well, so I couldn’t go to work.”

The nanny spoke with a sorrowful expression.

“What did the doctor say?”

“He comes once every three days, but there’s been no improvement.”

“I see. Hinder, Hinder. Can you hear me?”

“…Isaac?”

Hinder opened his eyes with difficulty, face twisted in pain.

‘Yeah, now I remember. That’s what he looked like. A spitting image of the nanny.’

Thick eyebrows and kind-looking eyes.

He inherited every notable feature from his mother.

Even before coming back to the past, Isaac had seen Hinder about three times.

They were the same age, but Hinder was at least a hand taller than Isaac.

He always called Isaac by name instead of “young master,” and every time, the nanny would scold him.

But this time, the nanny didn’t scold him.

She just brushed away her dry eyes and stared at her son with a complicated expression.

“Isaac, no, young master. Don’t kick my mom out. It’s because of me, because I’m sick… cough cough.”

“I won’t. She’s the only one who sneaks me treats. You just focus on getting better.”

Isaac held Hinder’s hand and stood up.

“Grind that up or mash it, then put it in a pot. Throw away the first batch of boiled water — it’s practically poison. Cool the second batch and feed it to the sick kids.”

“This… stuff?”

The nanny asked, looking puzzled as she held the sack.

“Also, are there any hunters in the village?”

Isaac nodded as he spoke.

***

The herbs proved effective.

The nanny, trusting Isaac’s words, diligently brewed the herbs from the sack and fed them to her son.

Thanks to that, Hinder’s cough temporarily subsided, and his fever dropped.

The bluish spots on his body faded slightly as well.

After confirming all of that, Isaac headed to the abandoned mine with the village hunter the nanny had introduced.

He hadn’t slept a wink all night, but he didn’t feel tired.

There was still work to be done.

“This is the abandoned mine.”

In the early dawn, Isaac followed the Black Goose hunter deep into the forest.

Despite the cold, the well-shaped path was overgrown with thick weeds.

In the middle of a dense coniferous forest, there was a small clearing.

Around the mine entrance, shrouded in heavy darkness, broken carts and rusted pickaxes and shovels were scattered.

“Thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

“Be careful. There are a lot of wolves around here. Some people have gone missing too.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

The hunter took the 1 denarion from Isaac and disappeared in the direction he had come from.

‘The start of this mine was said to be a limestone cave.’

Isaac recalled what he had read in books.

He pulled a small shovel from his rucksack, dug through the snow, and scraped away the dirt.

He selected some of the mixed grayish-white soil and tasted it.

There was a faint salty flavor.

“Ptoo.”

According to what he knew, it was calcareous soil.

The abandoned mine was likely a limestone cave, just as he had heard.

When it rains or snows, limestone dissolves and forms gaps, and underground water flows through those gaps to form caves.

Thanks to that, various organisms live in the cave and form an ecosystem, allowing winter spiders to secure ample prey until they become adults.

‘Now I need to get ready to enter.’

Isaac wandered around the area.

He still needed materials to subjugate the winter spiders.

Thanks to his multiple circuit pathways, he could replicate a 2nd-class fireball-like spell, but there were clear limitations.

Overactivated mana circuits could shatter their vessel.

Not knowing how many spiders there were, he couldn’t just recklessly charge in and use magic.

He had to reduce their numbers first and only use magic when truly necessary.

For that, preparation was crucial.

Winter spiders liked to make nests in limestone caves.

Ironically, around such areas, plants grew that were said to be fatally poisonous to them.

Frost Belladonna.

A stem plant whose name means “frost beauty” in the common tongue.

The name originates from the idea that fatal beauty comes with fatal poison.

Its fruit is usually diluted and used as a sedative or anesthetic, but for winter spiders, just two berries are enough to be lethal.

‘It grows in cold, dry, calcareous soil. This place is perfect.’

Of course, there was no way to feed the berries directly to the spiders.

Their survival instincts would strongly reject them.

However, there was one method.

A way to make them taste the berries without them realizing.

‘It’s just like in the book.’

By noon, after investigating areas with calcareous soil, Isaac finally found the natural habitat of Frost Belladonna.

He picked all the blue berries of the Frost Belladonna and put them into the emptied herb sack.

He also added finely broken dry leaves and branches.

Only when the sack was stuffed full did Isaac realize he had lost feeling in his fingers.

‘Should’ve brought gloves…’

Blisters had formed in spots on his fingers.

‘I really should’ve brought gloves. And this thing keeps getting in the way when I move.’

He re-tightened the rune stone pouch that kept bouncing around his waist.

After tying the sack, he melted some snow to wet the handkerchief he used to cover his mouth and nose, then stored it in his rucksack to keep it from drying out.

The preparations were complete.

He carefully stepped into the mine entrance.

Thanks to light magic, securing visibility wasn’t difficult.

However, being an abandoned mine left alone for a long time, there were many hazards.

The wooden supports groaned ominously, as if ready to collapse at any moment, and collapsed shafts were visible at every fork.

‘If I die in a place like this, it’ll be a pathetic death.’

Isaac quickly moved on.

Soon, he saw a vertical shaft.

Whoooosh—

Warm air rose from the dizzying abyss below.

“Great.”

There was a pulley to move minerals up and down, but it was unclear whether it could support Isaac’s weight.

Besides, there was no one to operate the pulley.

Left with no choice, Isaac threw the sack down the chasm.

After several seconds, he heard it hit the bottom.

At the same time, startled bats and cave birds flapped away in a frenzy.

It was maddening.

Isaac began descending the rope ladder, whose age was impossible to determine.

Perhaps due to the wind blowing from below, or his trembling legs, the ladder kept swaying.

“Hoo.”

After safely landing at the bottom of the vertical shaft, Isaac had to rest for a while.

‘This must be the main shaft.’

Unlike the narrow entrance, it was a wide tunnel.

The air was foul.

Isaac picked up the sack and continued deeper using light magic.

‘This looks like the place.’

He saw shriveled-up corpses that looked like mummies.

Without damaging their outer skin, their bodily fluids had been drained.

Frogs, fish, swifts, nightjars, bats, and so on.

Those corpses were now being eaten by small insects.

The deeper he went into the main shaft, the more skeletal remains he found.

So much time had passed that the bugs had devoured everything.

Among them were human remains — skulls, femurs, collarbones, ankle bones, and more.

They were likely the remains of the people the hunter had mentioned as missing.

‘It would’ve been easier if I hadn’t known…’

He had read too many anatomy books trying to heal his own body.

Now, he felt nothing but a growing unease.

The ruined Goethé Manor came to mind, along with the corpses that had filled it.

‘Focus.’

Isaac shook his head to clear his thoughts.

Tadatak

At that moment—

A strange noise echoed through the shaft.

Tadatak—

The skittering of many legs moving in a hurry.

Isaac felt the hair on his arms stand up.

His heart pounded with tension and excitement.

Fwoosh—

A ball of light floated above Isaac’s hand and quickly turned into a flickering flame.

Fwoosh—

Another fireball bloomed right after.

One hovered over Isaac’s hand, and the other circled around him via a phase-shifted barrier.

It was a type of defensive shield.

The fur of winter spiders is coated with an oil produced within their bodies to retain heat.

That’s why even a spark can make them burst into flames.

Fire is one of the things they fear the most.

Chrrrrr

Soon, a white spider, having noticed his presence, revealed itself.

It was as tall as Isaac’s waist.

‘So this is the sound I read about in the book.’

Even in this tense moment, Isaac internally marveled at how closely the real creature matched the description in the book.

Chrrrrr

A sound winter spiders make when alerting their colony to an intruder.

Clack clack

A threatening click of their chelicerae, where venomous fangs are attached.

Everything was just like the book had said, but experiencing it firsthand was a different matter.

Still, he couldn’t afford to be impressed forever.

‘Already five—no, six. More are coming. Eight, ten, twelve…’

He could hear the winter spiders skittering from all directions.

Fortunately, they didn’t dare approach the fireball circling Isaac, but they were ready to pounce the moment he let his guard down.

The underground heat and thin air were nothing like above ground.

The constant tension of possibly becoming prey at any moment—

Isaac’s back was already soaked with sweat.

He wanted to take off his fur mantle, but he had no time.

He also wanted to flee right now and escape the mine altogether, but Isaac held himself back.

‘A little more. I need to go just a bit deeper.’

Compared to other animals, monsters had relatively high intelligence.

Some species even developed language systems akin to humans.

If he didn’t finish them off in one go, they would learn—and next time wouldn’t be as easy.

“Hoo, hoo.”

Controlling his heavy breathing, Isaac walked between the spiders, each larger than most grown men.

Eventually, he felt it—he had arrived at the spot he was aiming for.

A large chamber much wider than the tunnels.

About twenty adult winter spiders had raised their heads toward him.

Clack clack

Clack clack clack

The sound of their fangs clicking sent chills down his spine.

It sounded like a threat—like they were ready to sink their fangs in and suck out his liquefied muscles and blood.

‘There’s more than I thought.’

Clicking his tongue at the number, Isaac suddenly realized something odd about the chamber.

Its ceiling was low compared to its size.

At first, he thought the jagged ceiling was due to stalactites, but this was a mine shaft.

Absentmindedly looking up, Isaac froze for a moment.

The ceiling was covered in spider eggs.

And above that, another winter spider was wrapping the eggs in layers of silk.

“Hah. Looks like I’ve come to the right place.”

Isaac let out a dry laugh.

No wonder Goethé had struggled for years later, even with help from surrounding territories—

The winter spiders had been breeding endlessly.

He had to sever this cycle before it grew worse.

Isaac set down the sack he was carrying and pulled out the damp handkerchief from his rucksack, covering his mouth and nose.

Fwoosh!

The sack burst into flames and began releasing smoke.

The hunt had begun.