Chapter 17

Chapter. 17

Kim Min-seok wiped his damp palms against the lining of his coat.

He felt the smooth touch of a gem.

[Artifact: Return Stone]

An item that teleports the user and anyone touching them to a designated location.

In the Republic of Korea, where Artifacts could not be obtained, it was an incredibly rare item.

But in Pandemonium, which possessed numerous low-floor Towers, it was an extremely common one.

He had to throw himself into that monstrous battlefield, grab Han Seol-ah, and fly out with her.

The sentimental mood was over.

Kim Min-seok was a man like a hyena.

No one knew better than he did how to survive.

Admiring Han Seol-ah’s nobility and having his lifeline cut were two entirely separate matters.

‘If Han Seol-ah dies, I’m finished too.’

He could not allow his life and future to be buried in those ashes.

‘…The boss’s request. How exactly did he kill the Frost Dragon? I can find that out later, little by little.’

As long as Han Seol-ah stayed alive, there was still a chance.

Kim Min-seok began to watch for an opening.

***

Death shimmered before her eyes.

If she loosened her grip on the thread of tension she was barely holding, even for an instant, she would die.

More than ever before, Han Seol-ah keenly felt the threat of death.

Boom!

She scattered Scathach’s casually cast spell just before it could fully take shape.

It was not easy.

She had spread out a dense web of Mana in all directions.

It was Frost Type Mana, especially sensitive to changes in temperature.

Whenever Scathach used magic, the temperature changed ever so slightly.

Sometimes it grew colder, sometimes warmer.

It was such a tiny difference that she would never have noticed it without her Mana detection net.

Scathach scattered exactly ninety-nine points of difference.

Out of those points, only one would lead to an actual spell.

All the rest were traps.

She had to find the correct point before the spell was completed.

If it was heating up, she had to make it colder.

If it was cooling down, she had to make it warmer.

At the exact temperature, at the exact point, she had to mark it precisely.

The core of magical combat… what she had learned in that world…!

Boom!

She got the answer right.

The spell went out.

And if she failed to get it right?

…She shoved that thought aside.

So far, 0.1 seconds.

Repeat that action ten times, and one second passes.

Repeat it a hundred times, and ten seconds pass.

The Apostle’s ‘mission’ was to endure for two minutes.

Two minutes was 120 seconds.

…That meant she only had to repeat this 1,200 times.

—Can I do it?

The question raised its head.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

What was terrifying was this.

For Scathach, this was all just ‘play.’

The fact that there were exactly ninety-nine points.

The fact that a spell’s manifestation progressed once every 0.1 seconds.

It was a game whose rules were obvious to anyone who looked.

The stake was Han Seol-ah’s life.

And perhaps the fate of the Republic of Korea as well.

For Han Seol-ah, it was a game she absolutely could not afford to lose.

It was hard.

But—

“Hoo-”

She could endure it.

Experience with death drawing near?

She had already gone through it countless times.

In ‘that world,’ at ‘that person’s’ hands.

The one-sided battles carried out under the name of sparring rose in her mind.

If she used Frost Type magic incorrectly, she died.

If she failed to react to magic, she died.

If her spellcasting was too slow, she died.

Death, death. Those countless deaths.

Even if she was revived immediately after her breathing stopped for a moment, the feeling of dying and being brought back was something only a person who had experienced it could understand.

But it had also been the time in which she learned what a ‘true magical battle’ really was.

And it had been a valuable time in which she learned what ‘death’ truly meant.

The greatest fear death held was ignorance.

What was death? What awaited after death?

By experiencing countless deaths, Han Seol-ah had come to understand what death was.

“Hoooooo-”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

And even in this very moment, with death standing right before her eyes, she was able not to go mad.

Drip—

A nosebleed flowed slowly, very slowly.

That was only how it felt because her sense of time had slowed.

“Hngh.”

Her limit was approaching.

Regardless of Han Seol-ah’s will, her body and brain were clearly being overloaded.

The senses that had allowed her to find the right answer within 0.1 seconds were slipping to 0.11 seconds, 0.12 seconds…

They were gradually slowing.

—How much time has passed?

By her reckoning, it felt as though more than a week had passed.

‘There.’

Upper right. Coordinate 36.

Success.

‘Next.’

Lower left. Coordinate 82.

Success.

‘Ah.’

Rear lower left. Coordinate 14.

…Too late.

Boom!

She failed to completely neutralize the spell.

The aftershock of the explosion grazed her cheek. The pain of flesh being torn away.

But she did not even have time to scream.

That one had been close.

0.1 seconds.

Scathach was keeping the rhythm with the precision of a metronome.

No, it was growing faster.

‘More.’

0.09 seconds. 0.08 seconds.

A vicious cycle in which Han Seol-ah was slowing down while Scathach sped up.

The end was drawing near.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

She could hear Scathach laughing.

It was as if he were saying, ‘This is fun. Shall I make it a little faster?’

‘Just a little more.’

…Her mind was beginning to drift away.

—How much time has passed?

“Hngh…”

Boom! Boom!

How much… time is left?

***

“I feel like I’m dying.”

All I had managed was a few brief naps snatched in the short breaks between everything.

And after enduring even the backlash of Synchronization, my body was in the worst condition possible.

But I could not rest…

The time had come.

“Hoo. Let’s go.”

I activated Synchronization and ran toward the Appraisal Center as fast as I could.

On the rooftop of the Appraisal Center, they had built a platform by stacking massive containers on top of one another.

And at the highest point sat a massage chair covered in all kinds of wires and mechanical devices.

The name of this grotesque chair Min Ji-hee had introduced was… the ‘Ultra-Long-Range Ballistic Calculation Seat.’

It was a custom-made item I had asked Min Ji-hee to prepare.

This chair had exactly two roles.

First, it would serve as the ‘eyes’ that would drive the out-of-spec firepower I poured into it straight into a heart 200 kilometers away.

Second, it would serve as the ‘support’ that dispersed the recoil I would have to withstand upon firing.

‘She said it would synchronize with the Association’s observation satellites in real time and lock onto the target on its own, right?’

I sat in the chair and put on the goggles.

Then I tapped the microphone attached to them.

[Standing by.]

“Bring up the display.”

Coordinate data synchronized with the Hunter Association’s observation satellites poured in.

[Aiming system activated. Beginning coordinate lock.]

On one side of the goggles, I could see the full view of Pyongyang.

In preparation for Scathach’s Demonic Energy destroying the cameras, the perspectives of countless optical cameras installed all across Pyongyang were being linked in real time.

‘There you are.’

I could see Han Seol-ah too, her face set and resolute.

I slotted Eternal Winter into the mount extending from the side of the chair.

Click.

With a heavy sound of friction, the barrel of the massive sniper cannon locked perfectly into place.

[Aiming.]

Whirrr—

The chair rotated toward ‘the place where Scathach was.’

Pyongyang was very, very far from Incheon.

No matter how much it was reinforced with Mana, it was impossible to see Pyongyang with the naked eye from Incheon and take aim.

So I borrowed the Hunter Association’s power.

I told them I was going to make an ultra-long-range shot.

So they needed to handle the aiming themselves.

At my ‘second request,’ Min Ji-hee had nodded with a stiff face, and in just a day or two, she had put together this ‘whatever-it-was seat.’

‘She really is capable.’

Craaack!

‘Oh… now that is one hell of a cutscene.’

Like the screen of a monitor covering the entire sky being torn apart, flashy cracks of ominous light streaked across the heavens over Pyongyang.

At the far end of that grand spectacle, enough to make everyone in the world think the world was ending,

a gigantic Ice Dragon crawled out through the gap.

‘So that is the real Scathach.’

It was my first time seeing him in person, but…

‘He looks exactly the same.’

He looked no different from how he had in the game, so the excitement drained right out of me.

Soon after, Han Seol-ah began the battle.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Just as planned, Scathach remained where he was and began ‘playing with’ Han Seol-ah.

‘She’s holding out well.’

I checked the timer.

[01:58]

‘…Hang in there, Han Seol-ah.’

I never once thought she would fail to hold on.

I simply cheered her on in my heart,and used ‘magic.’

Just as Han Seol-ah gathered all of her Mana to use her ‘finishing move—Permafrost,’they said every Hunter on Earth possessed a move like this sort of ‘finishing move.’

A final and strongest trump card capable of killing a powerful Demonic Beast by mobilizing every means available.

Lost Honor also had such a ‘strongest technique.’

Each class had only one.

A spell that could only be unlocked after reaching level 99 and completing a special quest.

An ‘Ultimate Skill.’

The Frost Sorcerer’s Ultimate Skill was a spell designed to grow infinitely stronger according to the amount of Mana poured into it, while its range also extended infinitely.

“—Absolute Zero.”

The moment I roused my will and spoke the starting incantation…

[Beginning charge.]

The message I had seen in Lost Honor appeared before me.

The instant I saw it,

I began circulating Mana at full power.

“Hoooooo…”

It felt as though my organs were being ripped out.

I gritted my teeth and endured it.

My lifeline of 50,000 MP.

…I passed it.

‘More.’

Nebula’s total MP, 99,999 MP.

I passed that too!

‘More!’

I kept cramming more and more into it.

There was no danger of Synchronization shutting off.

Because I was not drawing on ‘my’ Mana, but on the ammunition I had stored inside Eternal Winter, the surplus Mana I had packed in tightly like reserve batteries!

“Kh, khhahaha.”

Even so, blood surged up from my insides in thick waves.

To think I was suffering this much Internal Injuries even while protecting my body with dense EX-rank Mana!

‘This is thrilling.’

But—

I was still far from done.

The total Mana I would pour in was…

300,000 MP in all!

***

Rumbleeeee—

The Appraisal Center building screamed. A bizarre cracking noise filled the rooftop as space itself twisted, unable to endure the weight.

“……!”

Inside the Association’s operations room, Min Ji-hee, who had been watching the Appraisal Center through the screen, doubted her own eyes.

Centered on the ‘sniper chair’ where the Apostle, Nebula, sat, geometric lines of light were stretching outward.

One, two, ten, a hundred… in an instant, thousands of magic circles were drawn in the air.

A sight in which thousands of magic circles meshed, overlapped, and rotated like gears, building a colossal ‘Tower’ into the sky.

“What… in the world…”

Min Ji-hee was not a mage, but she could tell instinctively.

That was magic beyond anything Earth’s common sense could explain.

It was midsummer in Incheon.

But a blizzard was raging on the rooftop of the Appraisal Center.

It was a bizarre phenomenon created as the moisture in the air froze of its own accord in fear.

Kwoooosh-!

The Tower of magic circles that had risen into the sky pierced through the clouds.

The sky above Incheon was turning deathly pale.

“This is insane… You’re telling me this is power a human can wield…?”

A groan of shock slipped from Min Ji-hee’s lips.

It was terrifying.

At the same time, it was too beautiful to look away from.

The Tower of magic circles began to tilt.

Its direction was…

toward the place where Scathach was.

“Q-Quickly! Recalculate the coordinates!”

Min Ji-hee shouted as if screaming.

“T-There’s no deviation! It is perfectly aimed at Pyongyang!”

The operator, glaring at the monitor under suffocating tension, cried out in a hoarse voice.

The Tower’s movement stopped.

The tilted Tower had now taken the shape of an ultra-massive cannon barrel.

The vibrations that had carried even through the screen ceased,

and the sudden snowstorm, which could only have been called an ‘anomalous phenomenon,’ also stopped.

…the stillness before the storm.

Within it,

“Cough, cough. Khahaha.”

only the Apostle’s blood-spitting, frenzied laughter rang out softly.

Gulp.

***

Meanwhile, inside that ‘Tower.’ Within the staff, the core of magical power, Frozen was experiencing a rapture so intense he was on the verge of fainting.

[Ahh… Ahhhah…!]

The humans outside were astonished merely by the ‘shell’ of that enormous magic circle.

But Frozen could see it.

The ‘inside’ of that magic.

[Perfect… It is so perfect it is terrifying…!]

300,000 MP.

It was not simply a matter of overwhelming quantity.

The Great One was dividing that vast river down to the nano level and controlling it.

Every single particle of Mana found its proper place without the slightest error.

Hundreds of millions of gears meshed and turned without even 0.0001 millimeters of deviation.

But what truly sent a thrill through Frozen was not that overwhelming calculation ability.

[Winter Heralding the End: Absolute Zero]

Frozen’s ‘Genesis Trait’ was being forcibly dragged out.

That sacred trait, no different from the Creator’s breath itself, was being seized by the scruff of the neck by the Great One and shoved into the spell as a component!

[Ahh!]

What was a Genesis Trait!

It was a special Authority granted only in limited fashion to Genesis-rank items.

Genesis-rank.

Just as the name suggested, it was the rank of items that possessed infinite energy capable of gestating ‘an entire world.’

And a Genesis Trait was the miraculous Authority that used that energy to wield power no divine artifact could ever approach!

An ordinary user would be dragged around by the Genesis Trait.

It should have been more than enough just to borrow the item’s Authority and struggle while being crushed under that overwhelming power.

But what was unfolding before him now was the exact opposite.

[He is controlling it!]

Mana of Genesis mixed between the ‘gears.’

It twisted, shaved, and compressed.

In the Great One’s grasp, the Mana of Genesis obeyed like a docile lamb, melting into the magic circles as ‘fuel.’

[Behold! The Great One shapes Mana as though forging stars themselves, so how could this be anything but true ‘Genesis’!]

The fear born from a gap too vast to comprehend.

And an even greater ecstasy than that.

[Absolute Zero: Winter Heralding the End]

A mythical spell had been born at the Great One’s fingertips, one in which the Ultimate Skill, Absolute Zero, was mixed with the Genesis Trait possessed by Eternal Winter.

Hummmmmm—

The staff let out a scream of joy.

It had passed the critical threshold.

***

Through my blurred vision, I could see Han Seol-ah’s knees buckle as she collapsed.

At the same time, a black shadow caught hold of Han Seol-ah,

and ‘Dragon’s Breath’ was about to erupt from Scathach’s maw.

A desperate, critical moment.

I calmly turned my gaze and checked the timer I had left displayed.

[Time Left]

[00:00]

—Exactly two minutes.

[Charged Mana]

[300,000 MP]

‘You did well, Han Seol-ah.’

Now, it was my turn.

As though pulling a trigger,I flicked my finger.

—Fire.