Chapter 14

Chapter. 14

‘…He really was the Apostle.’

Even after hearing Min Ji-hee’s explanation, Han Seol-ah had remained half doubtful. An ordinary man without Mana. Could he truly be the agent of a transcendent being?

But the sight before her shattered every last shred of doubt.

The authority to tear open dimensions, carve a path through them, and summon a vast world as though stepping in and out of his own home.

Could something like this even be called magic?

Should it not instead be called a ‘miracle’… something that ignored even the laws of the System, something only the representative of a god could wield?

‘To think I doubted someone like this…’

Han Seol-ah arrived at the familiar place where she had once drunk the elixir and sparred, and saw the equally familiar flag fall into place.

Beyond it, she felt a cold, immense Frost Type Mana gathering.

‘Frost magic?’

Han Seol-ah had naturally assumed that the same ‘ominous, unidentified power’ she had experienced before would come crashing down on her, so confusion flickered across her face.

But at the same time, relief washed over her.

This was, after all, the element she was most familiar with. The one she handled best.

If the Mana’s flow was like this, then she could track it perfectly.

Han Seol-ah sharpened her senses.

She wove her EX-rank Mana together like threads and spread a detection net so dense that not even the movement of a speck of dust within a hundred meters could escape her notice.

‘Come from wherever you want. This time, I will not miss—’

FLASH—

Her vision went black.

“…Huh?”

There had not even been any pain. She had not even realized she had died. The detection net? Mana sensing?

All of it had been useless. She had not even been given time to react. Absolute ‘death’ had merely brushed past her.

‘…What was that just now?’

Inside the black space where she waited for resurrection,

in the middle of a beautiful cosmos where clusters of stars drifted below her, Han Seol-ah replayed the spell that had just struck her.

‘It was fast. And efficient. It cut away everything else and maximized nothing but speed… and lethality.’

Could she imitate it?

Flash.

Her consciousness returned.

Once more, both feet touched the cold floor of the arena.

Resurrection.

It was an astonishing miracle, returning from the space of death to reality, but since she had already experienced it once, she was not surprised.

Nebula did not move, as though giving her time to gather her thoughts.

It felt as though she had grasped the clue to some revelation.

Not wanting to lose this moment, Han Seol-ah stretched out her hand and focused.

Her experience of moving Mana under Frozen’s guidance proved to be a great help.

Just as the Mana inside her began to stir, trying to draw a complex mandala—

‘No.’

Han Seol-ah boldly skipped the process.

Why had a complex magic circle been necessary in the first place?

For stabilization.

Frost Type Mana was no different from deadly poison.

Simply flowing through the Mana Road, it could freeze the blood vessels and destroy the body.

The faster and harder it was fired, the more fatal the backlash became.

It was an innate limitation of the human body, something a human could not endure.

Frozen had said it.

‘Primitive Mana control.’

So Han Seol-ah had developed her magic in the direction of firmly protecting and reinforcing the Mana Road, minimizing the cold that built up in the body even when Frost Type Mana flowed through it.

But Frozen’s method was different.

Faster. Even faster.

Before the user’s body grew cold enough to die—

kill the opponent first.

And the spell Han Seol-ah had just experienced with her own body…

was like a spell forged from Frozen’s teachings pushed to the extreme.

‘Faster.’

Han Seol-ah rammed Frost Type Mana straight into her Mana Road.

BOOM!

Her blood vessels froze from within, swelling until they burst apart.

With a scream, her left arm was torn to shreds like a rag.

The moment the droplets of blood touched the air, they froze, turning into pink ice dust that scattered like flower petals.

Her flesh froze like jewels, and her bones crumbled like glass.

“Ghhh!”

Han Seol-ah swallowed her scream.

But she did not stop.

CRASH!

The potion Nebula threw shattered at her feet, and the energy of the elixir splashed onto her wound.

Immediately afterward, bone and flesh intertwined, and her arm regenerated.

The instant it was fully restored, she rammed Mana into herself again.

BOOM!

“Huff, huff….”

It was madness. A torture in which she blew off her own arm, regenerated it, and blew it apart again.

But Han Seol-ah's eyes were not filled with fear. If anything, they were burning brighter and brighter.

‘I will learn it. I will master it no matter what.’

If she missed this chance, Republic of Korea was finished.

She would make this brutal blessing granted by the Apostle her own, no matter what.

***

“Aaagh!!!”

Han Seol-ah had gone insane!

“No, what are you doing?!”

I hurriedly snatched up a potion and threw it.

BOOM! BOOM!

This was insane!

I hastily summoned a healing tub.

I stuffed Han Seol-ah into the tub filled with sloshing pink liquid.

SHAAAA—

As the solution in the healing tub soaked into her, pink steam rose up.

BOOM!

SHAAA!

“Ugh, what a horror show.”

I had watched mobs freeze and burst apart literally tens of millions of times.

Han Seol-ah's condition was identical to the status effect I had seen on mobs: Frost.

But mobs were just lumps of 0101 placed inside a game.

Han Seol-ah was a living human being.

That one fact alone made the shock feel worlds apart.

BOOM! BOOM! SHAAAAAAAAA!!

“Fuck.”

I wanted to mute the sound.

It was making my skin crawl.

‘Is she trying to copy it?’

At the same time, I understood why Han Seol-ah was acting like that.

‘It is not going to be easy.’

The spell I had used was Glacial Flash, the Frost Sorcerer’s level 80 spell.

A spell that dumped everything into speed and lethality.

It had the weakness of a short range and narrow area, making it unusable against large-type monsters.

But against humanoid monsters, it was absolutely devastating.

‘Which is exactly why it will be even harder for her to imitate…’

BOOM!

…Just how many more times had that skin-crawling sound repeated?

By the time I started thinking I could not keep waiting forever—

Flash!

“Oh.”

Han Seol-ah succeeded in activating the spell, clumsy as it was.

It was slow, and its power was pitiful…

but this was the first time Han Seol-ah had ever used a spell other than Ice Arrow and Permafrost.

[I did it…!]

Han Seol-ah was practically bouncing with joy.

It had to have been painful and exhausting, yet the sight of her face flushed red with happiness was honestly heartwarming.

“You did it.”

THUD!

[The spar is beginning.]

“Then now we move on to the next stage.”

***

From Ice Missile, the level 1 basic spell,

all the way to Heavenly Icefall, the top-tier level 90 spell, I let her experience each one once.

Han Seol-ah was overflowing with enthusiasm, as though she wanted to learn every spell…

but I cut her off.

‘We do not have time.’

If I took into account Han Seol-ah's sleeping time, as well as the ‘mock exam,’ there was no way I could devote too much time to magic training.

The two hundred sparring matches I had prepared.

What Han Seol-ah really needed to learn from them was only one thing.

The basics of mage combat!

‘If it were up to me, I would have liked to make her rebuild the fundamentals of frost magic from the ground up, but…’

This was more urgent right now.

Even if she relearned frost magic, she would not be able to use it against Scathach anyway.

So then,what was the single most important thing in a fight between one mage and another?

Based on my experience of hunting named-class mage monsters too many times to count, there was only one answer.

Stop them from being able to cast.

Hum—FLASH!

The Ice Arrow Han Seol-ah had ambitiously prepared scattered uselessly in midair.

[Huh?]

Han Seol-ah's eyes widened into circles. Her expression said she had no idea what had just happened.

The moment she tried to gather Mana and cast again—

TING!

Right before the arrangement of Mana was completed, the minute Mana wave I fired touched her magic circle.

CRASH.

The spell shattered like broken glass before it could even activate.

[W-What is this…?!]

Flustered, Han Seol-ah tried to cast it again and again.

TING! CRUMBLE. TING!

No matter how much Mana she poured into it, the result was the same.

Failure. Failure. Failure again.

“Not coming out, is it?”

I gave a crooked smile and flicked my finger.

“I am not blocking it. I am making it impossible for you to cast.”

This was the technique I had mastered: Dispel Magic.

In truth, it was not officially registered in Lost Honor as a proper ‘spell’ or ‘skill’…

It was more like a trick. A technique. A bug.

And I intended to engrave this technique into Han Seol-ah's body.

How?

“By getting hit until it works.”

***

BOOM!

[‘Heavenly Icefall’ has been canceled.]

“You are getting the hang of it now.”

Click. Click.

I tapped the mouse and hotkeys briskly.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The high-speed mage battle continued so rapidly that the sound effect of impacts overlapped into a blur of explosions.

And whenever I sensed Han Seol-ah about to cast—

“Nope.”

I canceled it immediately.

BOOM!

[Kgh…!]

Han Seol-ah, suffering internal injuries, staggered backward as blood streamed from the corner of her mouth.

“You lost your concentration.”

Even so, she had to interfere with my spellcasting.

“Then die.”

A gigantic ice meteor crashed down on Han Seol-ah, who had failed to dispel it.

[The spar has ended.]

Today’s last spar—the fiftieth—came to a close.

[…Thank you.]

“You worked hard.”

Not that she could hear me.

I installed another healing tub for Han Seol-ah over in the corner.

Han Seol-ah ran over and lowered herself into the tub…

BOOM!

“Good grief.”

The sound of ‘something’ exploding started up again.

“Hang in there.”

Leaving Han Seol-ah to her magic training,

I took Eternal Winter out of the bag.

“…”

For a moment, I simply admired its beautiful form.

Then I turned the large jewel set at the end of the staff back and forth, examining it.

There was something I was looking for.

“There it is.”

An elegantly scrawled crest of the letter ‘N.’

It stood for Nebula.

It was the seal automatically engraved on every item I created.

If that mark was there, it meant the item had been made by me.

“…This really is an item I made.”

The feeling was strange.

An item I had created with nothing more than a few clicks actually existed in reality.

At the same time, my heart pounded.

The countless legendary items lying dormant in my storage.

And the Genesis-rank items…

Did that not mean these could be brought into reality too?

‘When I send Han Seol-ah back this time…’

What item should I send her with? Should I give her some of the legendary gear rotting away in storage?

But that pleasant fantasy was quickly shattered.

[Warning: Upon return, the possessed may carry only ‘one item.’]

“…Ah. Damn it.”

The Eternal Winter I had already handed over was occupying the slot.

If I wanted to give her something else, I would have to take that away, and I could not do that.

“That is a shame. I wanted to give her some proper Item Carry.”

‘Since there are no items above Genesis-rank… I will just have to be satisfied with this.’

It was not all bad news.

Once Scathach was defeated, the Possession Ticket would be replenished.

That meant that if I used it to possess another Hunter, I could send them back carrying a different item.

There were still four Genesis-rank items left.

Excluding the one Nebula was wearing and the one I absolutely had to keep with me, there were still two remaining.

‘I need to make more.’

But I had run out of all the materials required to craft Genesis-rank items, so that was impossible for the moment.

‘Do not think about it too urgently.’

…For now, I just had to focus on killing Scathach.

And there was one more surprising thing.

After hearing the details from Han Seol-ah… it turned out that Eternal Winter contained a spirit named Frozen.

“Hello?”

…But there was absolutely no response.

“…Is it because I am not the owner?”

Ownership of Eternal Winter had already been transferred to Han Seol-ah.

It seemed Spirit Frozen might have some restriction that only allowed Han Seol-ah to awaken him.

“Hm. I was curious. Nothing to be done, I guess.”

And this was also the first time I had learned that Genesis Traits were charge-based.

In the game, Genesis Traits had no such restriction.

If that was the case, then there was probably only one conclusion.

“Some things change when they become real.”

I clicked Synchronization on.

And I began charging Eternal Winter with Mana.

“…Hello?”

I tried speaking to it again, wondering whether it would only respond in the presence of Frost Type Mana, but there was still no answer.

***

The moment he first saw that human, who seemed erased from the world and gave off not the slightest trace of presence,

Frozen, the artificial spirit of Eternal Winter, knew.

This person was not ‘Creator Nebula.’

He did not possess any of the elements that belonged to the Creator.

The aura of death that killed living things merely by being nearby.

The breathtakingly beautiful face.

The laconic silence.

None of it.

And yet at the same time, Frozen knew for certain that this person was connected to the Creator.

And he trembled.

He was horrified that something impossible had happened.

It was a shock so great it felt as though his very existence would shatter.

The lowly humans had called him ‘the Apostle.’

‘That being’ and ‘Creator Nebula’ were connected.

The ‘Nebula’ those humans imagined was transcendence itself.

In their eyes, ‘a single human’ must have looked like some small terminal linked to a transcendent being, nothing more than that.

Foolish, foolish!

No!

You stupid humans.

It is the opposite.

The one you call the ‘Apostle’—

is not a fragment of my Creator, ‘Nebula.’

The being you fear so much.

And the being I revere above all else, my Creator…

‘Nebula’ is a fragment of that great person…!

[Ah… ah.]

Frozen let out a spiritual scream that no one could hear.

Impossible.

There could not possibly exist anything in this universe greater than the Creator!

And so, shaken by that shock, Frozen kept his mouth shut.

Then the moment he first came into the Apostle’s hand…he realized that this ‘impossible thing’ was truly the truth.

[O great one, truly great one…!]

Ah. Above the sky there is another sky.

And above that sky there is the universe.

And above the universe, there truly exists a great one.

But it seemed that the great one could not hear Frozen’s voice.

So while Frozen trembled helplessly inside the Spatial Expansion Bag, the great one took him out in a narrow, dark room.

[Huh?]

From the great one’s grasp, an unbearable light began to pour forth.

WHOOOOOOOSH—!

[G-ghaaaah!]

It was a forced infusion so overwhelming he could not even scream.

As Mana flooded in far beyond his limits, Frozen shuddered.

The great one…

had begun to ‘burst’ him open!