Chapter 3

Chapter. 3

A hidden quest.

What a heartwarming phrase.

Usually, it means a developer has hidden something away, and a handful of veteran players who know the secret get to scoop up the rewards with ease.

But Lost Honor sees it a little differently.

It is in 4D.

…No, that was not some rotten pun.

Difficult.

Dangerous.

Deep, in the sense of being insidious and buried deep.

And delicious enough to make all of that worthwhile.

That was what a hidden quest meant.

If ordinary hidden quests were no-risk, high-return, then hidden quests in Lost Honor were high-risk, with a great, very, very high return, fully equipped with all four Ds.

‘Those who seek great rewards must accept great risks… something like that.’

Of course, honestly taking on the risk was something only beginners did.

Once you had become a veteran like me, your instincts developed to the point where you could sniff out loopholes that let you dodge the danger entirely.

And that was exactly what I was planning to do now.

I had already laid out the guidelines for it.

And the first step was—

—item carry.

‘Items. The essence of an RPG.’

The time it took Han Seol-ah to consume all those elixirs.

A full day.

I had not spent that entire time twiddling my thumbs.

‘Anyone fooling around while the Republic of Korea stood on the brink of ruin would be insane.’

I had liquidated part of my assets and crafted a set of absurdly powerful gear for Han Seol-ah to wear.

It was the Winter’s Ruler set, the best-in-slot set for Frost Sorcerers.

And now, it was time to make the final piece of the set.

The weapon.

[Unique—The Forge of the Blacksmith God: Kardanium is beginning operation.]

I clicked the anvil, which shone with brilliant rainbow light, and began crafting.

[Primordial Four Elements confirmed—Hidden Mode activated.]

[Mode: Hidden—Arctor of Genesis]

[※This mode may result in the user’s death!※]

A red warning window filled my vision.

In this mode, a mistake did not make the weapon explode. It made the character’s head explode.

And in Lost Honor, death meant character deletion, so the risk was far too great to take lightly over mere item crafting.

But still—

[Would you like to begin crafting the Genesis-rank Staff—Eternal Winter?]

[1. Yes] [2. No]

‘It was a risk that had to be taken to create a Genesis-rank item.’

Besides, to begin with—

I just had to not make any mistakes.

“With my skill, it is no risk at all.”

It was time to show what I could really do.

***

“Heh heh.”

After dragging myself through the tedious and pretentious crafting minigame—

[Crafting Great Success!]

Perfectly.

Without a single mistake.

I had finished it.

Flash!

Ba-da-bam!

[The fifth ‘Genesis-rank’ item in the world has been born.]

[An astonishing achievement!]

[Your renown echoes across the entire universe.]

I briskly closed the overexcited notification windows,

and there it was, resting atop the anvil—

a single staff.

A rod that looked as though it had been carved from transparent ice crystal, while a luminous aurora-colored chill coiled around it like a serpent.

A Genesis-rank item exclusively for the frost-type mage class, Frost Sorcerer.

Eternal Winter.

Including Eternal Winter, which had just been completed, there were now only five Genesis-rank items in the entire world.

And since each of those five weapons possessed a unique power, that meant there was only one weapon permitted at the summit of all Frost Sorcerers.

“In other words, it is practically the final weapon.”

Its stats were every bit as glorious as that implied.

“Let us see how well it turned out.”

Increased magic attack power, increased frost damage, increased mana recovery speed… and so on.

“Even a receipt would be shorter than this.”

The option list stretched endlessly downward.

It had so many effects that if I wondered, ‘Does it even have that?’ The answer was probably yes.

‘Let us skip past the basic stuff.’

Because for a Genesis-rank item, that ridiculously long receipt was considered the bare minimum.

The real point was this.

‘Genesis Trait.’

An absurdly overpowered passive skill attached only to Genesis-rank items.

Its name was Genesis Trait.

‘Let us see whether it rolled well.’

And when I checked—

it was perfect, just as expected.

‘As expected of me.’

A man who tolerated no mistakes….

[Ugh….]

At that moment,

Han Seol-ah, who had finally recovered from the aftereffects of collapsing with a choking sound, came to.

“It is time for your gift.”

I started dropping the items one by one in front of her.

“Crown of Extremes.”

[Huh?]

The head piece of the Winter’s Ruler set.

“Ice Cloak of the Snowstorm Lord.”

[Gasp.]

The outer layer.

“Scale Armor of Eternal Snow. Bracelet of the Bitter Cold Contract. Roar of the Winter God.”

[H-huhhh?]

Chest, hands, and belt.

“Greaves of the Ice Fortress. Shoes of Eternal Ice.”

[Eek?!]

Legs and feet.

Seven crimson pillars of light, the mark of myth-grade items, rose into the air.

Han Seol-ah stared back and forth between the items strewn across the floor and my character.

[Ah, ah…. Wow.]

Her eyes widened. Her nostrils flared slightly, her breathing quickened, and her face reddened.

She looked like she was thinking, ‘Why this?’ and ‘Surely not for me?’ at the same time.

I took a few steps back.

[A-are you giving these to me?]

She hesitated for a moment, watching my reaction.

Then, when my character showed no sign of moving,

Han Seol-ah began firing off grateful ninety-degree bows one after another.

[Th-thank you! Thank you so much!]

She hurriedly gathered the items from the floor and began carefully putting them on, starting with the shoes.

Every time she equipped another piece, it seemed to breathe life into her body, and she kept gasping in amazement.

Before long, once she had equipped all seven pieces, Han Seol-ah looked like a sovereign who ruled over the Arctic itself.

‘She looks beautiful.’

“There is still one final blow left.”

The core of the Winter’s Ruler set.

The Genesis-rank staff, Eternal Winter.

I dragged the brilliantly shining staff from my inventory and dropped it onto the floor with a light thud.

A rainbow pillar of light blossomed before Han Seol-ah.

“Take it, Han Seol-ah. Claim your destiny….”

And then—

[Ghk.]

Han Seol-ah saw the item and fainted again.

“…What?”

***

There was a god.

In the darkness, Han Seol-ah thought that to herself.

‘Ah, I fainted.’

The space she had named the mindscape was a place she occasionally visited whenever she lost consciousness, whether by sleeping or fainting.

‘Why did I faint again?’

As she traced back her memory, Han Seol-ah remembered muttering something about a “god.”

A sacred radiance.

A beautiful light that could only have been emitted directly by a god.

Not an artifact, but a divine relic.

The moment she saw that majestic form, the tension left her body and her mind went blank.

The stress had been too overwhelming, and the thread of her consciousness had simply snapped.

Like a fuse blowing from too much voltage and plunging everything into darkness.

And the reason for that tension?

That part was obvious.

Tremble—

Without realizing it, Han Seol-ah began to shake.

After falling into this world, she had come face-to-face with something terrifying.

It wore the form of a human, yet everything about the aura it gave off denied that appearance.

From the black armor it wore, instead of the sound of clashing metal, there came the ghastly wails of tormented spirits.

Its breath was steeped in a malice so thick it felt as though it could paralyze the mind.

And it was wrapped in a vicious aura that felt like blood stench and killing intent had been kneaded together.

And what of the strength she sensed from it?

…It was of a different species altogether.

Even the surrounding air felt heavy enough to crush her, to the point that merely breathing hurt as though her lungs were tearing apart.

And she felt a primal terror, as though grotesque tentacles might suddenly stretch out from within that abyss-like helmet and devour her whole.

Simply knowing that such a being existed made her mind scream.

The fact that she was with that being was enough to drive Han Seol-ah mad.

It was cosmic horror in the truest sense.

That was why seeing the divine relic, which gave off the all-too-familiar mana of the frost attribute, had loosened the tension in her.

‘Still, I have to wake up.’

She knew how to leave the mindscape.

All she had to do was focus her mind and think of opening her eyes.

‘Hah!’

And Han Seol-ah snapped her eyes open.

‘Aaaah!!!’

“Ghk.”

The moment she saw him staring straight down at her,

she was driven right back into the mindscape.

‘I-it is too scary!!!’

She felt as though she was losing her mind….

Tap. Tap.

The mindscape trembled.

He was calling to her from outside.

Telling her to get up.

Because if she did not….

‘W-wake up!’

“Ghk.”

‘P-please…!’

“Grrk.”

***

…After waking her up only for her to faint again several more times,

I finally managed to get Han Seol-ah conscious by applying a mental protection buff.

Though seeing her tremble from head to toe and gasp so hard she could barely breathe made me question whether “conscious” was really the right word…

“No, pick it up. What are you doing?”

But Han Seol-ah only knelt in front of the staff and bowed to it, unable to bring herself to pick it up.

She was muttering something in an incomprehensible alien language.

[#@!$#@…!]

“What exactly is happening here?”

Apparently even the system could not interpret that dialect, because all it produced was a stream of corrupted characters.

The text flashed in and out so quickly that it looked like it had been set to ten times fast-forward.

Then, after a while, the translator finally seemed to kick in, and the sentence began displaying properly.

[…Jesus, Buddha, Allah, my ancestors, spirits of heaven and earth… mumble mumble.]

‘A prayer?’

Han Seol-ah’s bizarre behavior continued for another ten full minutes after that.

After praying so fervently that her entire body was soaked in sweat and she was still trembling like an aspen leaf, she asked my character where the bathroom was.

When I pointed it out, she darted off like an arrow, bathed and purified herself, and then returned.

Silver hair shining with droplets of water.

Pale hands extended with all the reverence of someone reaching out to receive a holy relic.

“She is pretty.”

With movements so devout they could not possibly have been more solemn, Han Seol-ah finally picked up Eternal Winter.

[This is… incredible. It is unbelievable…!]

She caressed the staff with such care that it looked as though she were afraid it might break.

I picked Han Seol-ah up like that—

[Eh?]

—and immediately opened a portal.

[U-um, Nebula?]

The moment we passed through the portal,

a world of snow spread out before us.

[Where is this…?]

The northernmost edge of the world.

A region overflowing with frost-attribute monsters.

I crossed the hunting grounds with Han Seol-ah in tow.

[Frost Dragon]

Kraaah—!

Sensing intruders in its territory, the ruler of this area, the Frost Dragon, came flying at us with a shriek.

[Gasp! The Ice Dragon?!]

This was just a Frost Dragon, one of the ordinary field mobs in Lost Honor.

Still, I could understand why Han Seol-ah had mistaken it.

Because the Frost Dragon that had appeared in reality, the one the Hunter Association had named the Ice Dragon, looked exactly the same.

“…Wait.”

…Han Seol-ah had crossed over into the game.

Did that mean beings from the game could cross over into reality too?

Now that I thought about it, the monsters’ stats were exactly the same as well….

Could it be?

‘…No way.’

[Notification: Party member ‘Han Seol-ah’ has fallen under the status ailment: Fear.]

While I was distracted by that stray thought,

Han Seol-ah had frozen in terror.

“Oh dear.”

[….]

She was clearly frightened enough for it to count as a status ailment, yet her face remained expressionless.

Maybe that was the bearing of someone who had spent years fighting bosses on the front lines.

She probably understood better than anyone that she could not afford to show weakness.

“Well done, Han Seol-ah.”

I lightly removed the crowd control with mental protection.

Click.

Then I killed the noisy Frost Dragon with a single skill.

[Gasp. You killed the Ice Dragon in one hit…!]

“That is not the Ice Dragon.”

The title “Ice Dragon” was not something that could be bestowed upon a mere Frost Dragon.

The real Ice Dragon was someone else entirely.

‘I will let you see it soon enough.’

When we reached even farther past the end of the northernmost region,

an enormous black gate came into view.

An Otherworld Gate.

A piece of content that lets you offer a sacrifice, summon boss-class powerhouses from other worlds, and enjoy raid battles against them.

[Raid List]

(…)

[Ancient Azure Dragon Lord — Ice Dragon Scathach]

(…)

“Found it.”

The gate opened wide and swallowed both Han Seol-ah and me.

And then—

the field shifted into an ice cave,

the growl of an apex predator echoed through the air,

and—

[‘Ice Dragon’ Scathach has appeared.]

[Ancient Azure Dragon Lord]

[‘Ice Dragon’ Scathach]

An Azure Dragon.

The strongest breed among the water-element dragons.

Ancient.

A dragon that had lived longer than any other Azure Dragon.

Lord.

The most powerful individual among all Ancient Dragons.

…To the greatest dragon that possessed all three of those attributes,

a name was bestowed in reverence, drawn from the element itself.

That was Ice Dragon Scathach.

Compared to it, a Frost Dragon was no more than the difference between a worm and a true dragon.

—KRAAAAH!

“Good grief, look at that fear.”

Just facing it caused chunks of my character’s mana to drain away.

That meant the mental barrier I had cast on Han Seol-ah was desperately resisting the fear aura.

Ah, my character had mental immunity, so it did not affect me.

[…Gasp.]

“This is the real Ice Dragon.”

[It is incredible….]

After unleashing a tremendous roar of fear, Ice Dragon Scathach simply stared at us without moving.

That was because the battle had not officially started yet.

Thud.

I took out a different kind of elixir and tossed it in front of Han Seol-ah.

Red this time.

An elixir that increased health.

[Huh?]

Without the slightest suspicion, Han Seol-ah picked it up and drank it.

The moment the flash effect faded, her eyes widened.

[This is…?]

Thud.

I tossed another elixir.

This time a little farther away.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Farther and farther.

Flash! Flash!

And just like that, picking up the elixirs one by one and drinking them like a hamster nibbling sunflower seeds,

Han Seol-ah unknowingly wandered straight into Scathach’s detection range.

[The Otherworld Boss Raid will now begin.]

[…Huh?]

At that same moment, the system message appeared.

A transparent hemispherical barrier, huge enough to cover a house, expanded around Han Seol-ah and Scathach.

Han Seol-ah turned back, her face gone deathly pale.

“Go, Han Seol-ah!”

[…Fight? Me?]

—KWOOOOOOOO!!!

[…Against that?!]

The boss fight had begun.

From the speakers I had cranked up to maximum volume, the majestic roar of the Ice Dragon thundered through the room.

[I-I cannot win! The Ice Dragon is immune to frost magic… my spells will not work on it…!]

Han Seol-ah fell into a panic.

I understood.

Even the Frost Dragon, which was far weaker than Scathach, possessed high frost resistance.

But “resistance” at least left room to scrape away at its scales.

Scathach, on the other hand, had complete frost immunity, which meant it took no damage at all.

It was impossible for frost magic to ever wound Scathach.

—There was no way to win.

Of course that was what she would think.

It was not an incorrect judgment.

Even if Han Seol-ah had become EX-rank by increasing her mana capacity,

her chances of defeating Ice Dragon Scathach were still zero.

How could Han Seol-ah, a frost mage, possibly defeat an opponent immune to frost magic?

‘…This is the image of the destruction the Republic of Korea would one day face.’

…But now,

there was no danger at all.

To begin with, there was absolutely no chance of losing.

Because she was holding Eternal Winter.

‘…Though she does not know that yet.’

Han Seol-ah probably still had no idea how absurdly powerful the staff in her hand really was.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Scathach charged at high speed.

[Kh…!]

Han Seol-ah’s response was quick.

She pulled herself together at once and returned to her usual calm, composed expression.

Then—

Flash!

She thrust the staff forward.

“That is it.”

If she gave up just because she thought she could not win, then she would not be Han Seol-ah.

[Permafrost!]

Her finishing move.

Wheeeee—

Blue mana swirled violently before the staff she held out, and in the blink of an eye, an ice sphere the size of a human head formed with a sharp crackling sound.

[Huh?]

For a split second, Han Seol-ah faltered at the unfamiliar feeling of the spell.

And then—

Flash!

The sphere shot forward faster than the eye could follow and struck Scathach.

Boom!

And just like that—

Scathach exploded and died.

[…What?]

[Otherworld Boss Raid — ‘Ice Dragon’ Scathach has been subjugated.]

[MVP: Han Seol-ah (100%)]

“This is it.”

This was the power of a Genesis-rank item.

The Genesis Trait I had bestowed upon the Genesis-rank staff, Eternal Winter—

[The Winter That Announces the End: Absolute Zero]

Whether it was the Frost Dragon’s “Half Frost Resistance,” or Scathach’s “Frost Immunity,”

none of that meant anything before this.

It ignored every resistance and immunity alike and dealt damage exactly as it should.

And that was not all.

‘If that were the end of it, it would just be ordinary resistance-piercing or immunity-negation.’

Not only boss monsters, but even lesser field monsters all possessed innate magic resistance.

Absolute Zero ignored even that magic resistance.

And on top of that,

The weapon was wrapped in one outrageous buff after another, fitting for a Genesis-rank item.

Now—

there was nothing left that could block Han Seol-ah’s magic.

“Proof complete.”

And just as I had expected—

[Hidden Quest: Slay the Ice Dragon has been completed.]

—the hidden quest was cleared.

***

The quest windows in Lost Honor were not kind.

They simply listed the quest name, objective, and rewards, and that was it.

Drawing valuable information out of that unfriendly listing depended entirely on the player’s ability.

If you read the quest window again—

[Emergency Epic Quest]

[Save the Republic of Korea from the brink of destruction]

[Quest Objective]

[Awaken S-rank Hunter ‘Han Seol-ah’ to EX-rank] (Completed)

It looked as though the Emergency Epic Quest would be resolved as soon as Han Seol-ah awakened to EX-rank.

But an experienced player would notice what was missing.

I had supplied Han Seol-ah with mana elixirs and made her EX-rank.

—Would that really save the Republic of Korea from the brink of destruction?

‘Of course not.’

The answer was no.

As long as Han Seol-ah retained both her strength and her limitation as a frost specialist,

there would someday appear another boss she could not defeat.

In other words,

making Han Seol-ah EX-rank, just as the Epic Quest initially proposed, was only the surface-level objective.

‘Like the starting line.’

The reason that objective had been presented—

or rather, the name of the Epic Quest.

The true purpose of this quest.

[Save the Republic of Korea from the brink of destruction.]

…It did not end with simply making Han Seol-ah EX-rank.

The real objective was to give her the power to save the Republic of Korea from the brink of destruction.

That was the true purpose of the quest.

It's a hidden piece.

That was why I had led Han Seol-ah before Scathach.

Difficult.

Dangerous.

Deep.

To deal with those three elements.

…and, while I was at it, to collect the delicious bonus reward as well.

‘Han Seol-ah gets a Genesis-rank item, and I get the hidden reward. That is what you call mutual benefit.’

“Now then, let us have a look.”

[Quest Reward]

[Awakening] → [Awakening+] (new!)

[Possession Ticket]

“…Awakening Plus?”

‘Just how much stronger is my character about to become?’

This time, I pressed Complete Quest and Receive Reward.

Ding—

“…Huh?”

[You have awakened.]

[Awakened Ability: Synchronization (EX)]

The notification message was strange.

It was floating right in front of my eyes.

Not inside the game—

not inside the monitor.

But right in front of me.

In front of the real me, Ha Seong-un.

“…What is this?”

A hallucination?

Had my sanity finally crossed the threshold of “normal” and entered the domain of the “abnormal”?

[Synchronization Ability — Ice Crystal (EX) confirmed.]

[From this moment on, you may use ‘Frost Sorcerer’ through ‘Skill: Synchronization (EX).’]

[First manifestation of the ability confirmed. Beginning trial experience.]

“Gasp!”

At that moment—

an icy-cold frost mana surged through my entire body,

and my vision went dark.