Solo Leveling : Ragnarok - Chapter 57

In Gangnam, there are numerous exclusive spaces accessible only to VIPs.

**Queen Bee.**

This salon, meaning “queen bee,” was one of them.

However, Queen Bee was unique in its own way.

It catered solely to Hunters, those who had awakened supernatural abilities.

Of course, due to the incredibly high prices of the drinks, it was mostly mid- to high-ranking Hunters with lucrative incomes who frequented the place.

Vice President Lee Minseong first discovered Queen Bee only a few months ago.

But before he knew it, he had become a regular.

‘…When did it start?’

Despite his confusion, Lee Minseong realized that he was currently trapped inside a golden jelly-like substance.

‘It’s sweet.’

The familiar taste on his tongue.

It was honey.

Lee Minseong soon realized what this familiar taste was.

**‘Royal Jelly.’**

It was the same fragrance he often detected from the premium alcohol he enjoyed at Queen Bee.

A conversation he once had with the Madam crossed his mind.

– “Madam, what exactly is this drink? I’ve looked everywhere, but no one else seems to sell it.”

– “Hehe. It’s a trade secret.”

Despite asking several times, the Madam always avoided the question with a mysterious smile.

Normally, with his temperament, he could have easily pressured her to spill the secret by force. However, he found it amusing that even someone like him, an A-rank Hunter, couldn’t break her proud demeanor, so he decided to play along.

Looking back now, though, he wondered if he’d been under some sort of spell all along.

Through the sticky, golden vision, Lee Minseong weakly gazed at the figure of the Madam.

She was still smiling at him.

His anger boiled to the top of his head at that smile.

But something felt strange.

As time passed, his anger gradually faded.

And filling the void of that emotion was…

‘What is this feeling! What the hell is this?!’

Lee Minseong clenched his teeth, trying to reject the emotion.

But the Madam murmured as if even that resistance was endearing.

“It’s no use resisting. You’ve already consumed too much Royal Jelly. So, just let go…”

The Madam’s delicate hand gently stroked the necklace he always wore around his neck.

The green gemstone embedded in the necklace shimmered brilliantly.

**[Obey, my worker bee.]**

“…!”

Gurgle!

The moment the Madam—or rather, the Queen’s—whisper hit his brain, Lee Minseong’s eyes widened, and his body trembled violently.

And then, an instinct he never had before sprouted in his mind.

‘…My Queen.’

—

Long ago, there was a monarch.

The King of Vermin, the Lord of Pestilence, **Quesha**.

Quesha’s dimension was a world swarming with billions of poisonous insects.

In that world, Quesha had originally been just another insect.

A weaker, smaller bug than any other.

By all rights, Quesha should have been eaten by a bigger predator or rotted away from the poison of stronger insects.

But Quesha survived in that horrible place.

Not merely by running or hiding, but by consuming the carcasses of larger and stronger insects, gradually growing stronger, bit by bit.

Absorbing the abilities of those insects.

Accumulating that deadly poison within her body.

As Quesha grew stronger and stronger, eventually, the poison she stored within her became more potent than that of any other insect.

At that point, Quesha became the ruler of that world.

And.

The Queen Bee **Arsha** had once lived in that world.

‘…I was truly shocked when the great and powerful Quesha died.’

The existence of a monarch in any dimension is significant.

The insect world, once a breeding ground for strife, had been held together as a solid colony centered around Quesha.

But the moment Quesha died, the remaining insects began to reveal their ambitions, vying to fill the void left behind.

‘They dared to, despite their insignificance…’

In the midst of that chaos, Arsha realized her fate.

As a Queen Bee by birth, Arsha believed she was the rightful heir to the throne.

If there was anyone who could succeed Quesha, it was her and no one else.

However, the world, now without a ruler, was torn apart and scattered through the rifts between dimensions.

Arsha, drifting through those dimensional rifts, ended up on Earth by sheer coincidence.

‘No, it was fate.’

Upon arriving on Earth, Arsha disguised herself as a human.

And unlike other dimensional beasts, who tried to invade Earth by force and ended up dead, Arsha, true to her insect nature, chose to adapt.

Or rather, to put it nicely, she adapted. In truth, it was parasitism.

‘For a queen like me to fall to this level…’

Arsha felt a deep sense of shame.

She had no worker bees.

A Queen Bee without worker bees was nothing more than a hollow shell.

In her original dimension, Arsha commanded an army of worker bees. But of all those bees, only she had managed to escape through the dimensional rift.

‘I need to increase my worker bees.’

Other beasts from different dimensions would have lost patience and acted rashly in such a situation.

Because they were ignorant.

‘Simply relying on brute strength will only lead to death.’

Arsha had learned that painful lesson from Quesha’s death.

‘Even the great and powerful Quesha perished.’

The war of the monarchs she had witnessed from afar had been a clash of titanic and powerful beings.

But Arsha knew her limits.

‘I haven’t even reached the level of a monarch, and I don’t even have any worker bees. Acting rashly would be foolish.’

This patience was Arsha’s true strength.

With this patience, she dug deeper and deeper into Korean society.

She made efforts to understand human society.

‘It’s nothing special.’

In the end, Arsha realized that human society wasn’t so different from that of insects.

‘It’s also a world where the more vicious ones win.’

The only difference was that, instead of poison, humans measured power in terms of money.

This was why Arsha hadn’t immediately turned Lee Minseong into a worker bee.

Although it was necessary to gradually addict him to her Royal Jelly to turn him into one, there was no rush.

‘It’s better to use him for other purposes first, then make him a worker bee later.’

Arsha’s patience allowed her to make this choice, unlike others who would have transformed him right away.

In fact, this decision had led to Lee Minseong bringing more Hunters to the Queen Bee salon as a human.

His social status and fame had proven extremely useful.

‘I was especially surprised when he brought Stardust.’

The moment Arsha saw Stardust, she realized.

That it was a creation of demons.

And she understood its use as well.

‘So demons, too, have infiltrated this world, just like me.’

However, it seemed the demons had chosen a different method from hers to adapt to this world.

As a Queen Bee, she had hidden in the shadows, slowly growing her worker bees.

The demons, on the other hand, were using humans as raw material to create Stardust and amplify their own power.

‘…This could be useful.’

If she could enhance humans with Stardust and then turn them into worker bees…

She would have stronger soldiers.

But the current version of Stardust was too weak.

So she waited again.

Waited for the demons to continue their experiments and improve the quality of Stardust.

And the one distributing the most Stardust was none other than Lee Minseong.

The tragic conglomerate heir whose inferiority complex exploded when his own driver awakened as an S-rank.

Arsha clicked her tongue as she watched Lee Minseong, trapped in her Royal Jelly, transforming into a worker bee.

“…What a pity. I had hoped you would one day become an S-rank.”

Had he done so, Lee Minseong would have become an even more prominent figure in the Korean Hunter community.

And controlling him from the shadows would have elevated her position as well.

More Hunters.

More power.

More influence.

And eventually…

“I would have had a worker bee with the power of an S-rank Hunter.”

But, well, this outcome wasn’t bad either.

After all, this was the first time she would have an A-rank worker bee.

She had refrained from turning Lee Minseong into a worker bee until now because the sudden disappearance of an A-rank Hunter would attract too much attention.

“Ugh…”

Inside the golden Royal Jelly, Lee Minseong gritted his teeth in agony.

His eyes were glowing gold.

“Grrr…!”

“Hmm?”

What was this?

Arsha’s face showed a hint of surprise.

A reaction clearly different from the worker bees she had created before.

Was it because he was an A-rank?

Lee Minseong was forcibly moving his body inside the Royal Jelly.

“Resisting the transformation?”

“Grrrrr! Gahhh!”

Lee Minseong was no longer in his right mind.

But even in that state, his body was moving instinctively.

‘I, I am… I am…’

He gritted his teeth so hard that the veins in his neck bulged.

“…I am Lee Minseong!”

Boom!

In the end, Lee Minseong exploded out of the Royal Jelly.

Though his body was already undergoing an insect-like transformation, he was rampaging, refusing to obey Arsha’s commands.

“Argh!”

The Queen’s order to obey echoed incessantly in his mind, but Lee Minseong writhed on the ground in pain, rejecting that command.

‘How dare someone… someone like you…!’

Give me orders?

In the end, two pairs of wings sprouted from Lee Minseong’s back as he stood up.

Crash—!

“Wait! Where do you think you’re going?!”

Arsha stared in shock as she watched Lee Minseong fly off, crashing through the wall.

—

Ding!

[You have completed ‘Daily Quest: Physical Conditioning Training.’]

Push-ups 100 times: Complete (100/100)

Sit-ups 100 times: Complete (100/100)

Squats 100 times: Complete (100/100)

Run 10km: Complete (10/10)

*Note: Must be done while carrying Ammit.

[Your reward has arrived.]

[Would you like to check your reward?] (Y/N)

“Haaa… Today was brutal.”

[Ohhh! My lord, you have worked so hard again! But as much as you’ve suffered, you’ve grown stronger, so today has been a productive day…]

“Shut up.”

Suho collapsed onto his bed after returning from his daily quest with Ammit.

Though the reward had instantly healed him, the mental fatigue from such high-intensity training—where his bones broke, and muscles tore—was not so easily erased.

Buzz, buzz!

His phone, lying beside his bed, vibrated endlessly.

“…What is it now?”

Frowning, Suho picked up the phone.

It was an emergency alert message.

**Emergency Alert**

[Hunter Association] An A-rank villain, Lee Minseong, has appeared in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul. Evacuate and be on alert for further attacks.

“What?”

Suho’s eyes widened as he sat up in bed.

[Breaking news! A-rank villain Lee Minseong attacks other Hunters!]

[A-rank villain preying on Hunters emerges!]

“A situation where a wanted A-rank villain abandons escape and instead attacks other Hunters is unprecedented in Korea.” – Expert A

The internet was ablaze with news of the sudden incident.

As Suho scrolled through the articles in surprise, his phone rang again.

“Hello, this is the White Tiger Guild. Is this Hunter Sung Suho? We’ve been trying to reach you, and we were worried when you didn’t answer.”

“Yes?”

“Vice Guild Master Baek Miho is asking for you.”