Chapter 119

SHREEEE!

Quay, transformed into a black arrow, flew forward through the bitterly cold blizzard raging like a typhoon.

Had ordinary archers seen this, they would have cursed him for wasting perfectly good mana. It was a shot fired completely blind.

But Suho's arrow had eyes.

"Quay! Hit whoever you see first and come back!"

[Yes, Master...!]

Quay's voice faded into the distance, swallowed by the blizzard.

At the same time, Suho put Quay out of his mind. What mattered right now was his own situation.

WHOOOOOSH!

Even as all this happened, Suho and every Scavenger hunter continued plummeting after passing through the Gate.

"Everyone, use your mana to brace for impact...!"

Far away, the guild members' voices answering Thomas Andre's commanding order grew fainter.

The merciless blizzard blurred everything in sight. He couldn't even see Esil or Rio Singh, who had been right beside him, but trusted them to handle this much on their own.

WHOOSH!

Following Thomas's advice, Suho protected his entire body with mana and pushed his senses to their limits. At last, a landscape below began emerging through the pure-white blizzard.

WHOOOOSH!

"...!"

A tremendous gust buffeted him, and his eyes widened at the sight.

A forest.

Below him lay a frozen forest of pure white.

Rivers of ice and snow-covered trees. Ice crystals glittered in the stream winding through the densely wooded mountains. Spring water flowing down a small valley gathered into a little lake, blending naturally with the frozen forest.

[Young Monarch! You must summon Quay back! If you keep falling...!]

As Beru's urgent cry warned, continuing to fall like this was dangerous. But even Quay's wings could never have carried him through such a fierce blizzard if he hadn't been fired as an arrow.

This was no mere weather phenomenon, but a storm of space and time itself—a mana-laden blizzard that tore through even dimensional rifts.

Yet even as he heard Beru's urgent cries, Suho couldn't help being captivated by the wondrous landscape rushing into view through the swirling snow. It was a spectacle beyond comparison with any dungeon he had experienced before.

There was just one unfortunate detail.

He was plummeting toward that beautiful scenery from high above, with nothing to support him.

'So the ice elves live in that forest?'

At any rate, he understood the situation. Now it was time to act.

"Gray, Spirit Possession!"

AWOOOO!

[Activating Spirit Possession with 'Pet: Gray.']

WHOOOO!

Even amid the fierce blizzard, a sacred wind blew in and wrapped around Suho's entire body.

[Activating 'Skill: Wind of the Grasslands.']

[Wind of the Grasslands frees the shaman's body.]

[Movement speed temporarily increases by 30%.]

[Attack speed temporarily increases by 30%.]

SWISH!

His hair turning silver in an instant, Suho swiftly opened his inventory and changed his equipment. A faint smile rose to his lips as he gripped a Vulcan's Horn in each hand.

If his opponent was a storm...

'I'll just cut it.'

WHOOOSH!

[Activating 'Skill: Storm Slash.']

The savage blizzard coiled around Suho's twin swords. He twisted that wind in the opposite direction, forcibly slowing his fall.

WHOOSH!

He began descending slowly toward the heart of the forest as though gliding. Spotting a large tree nearby, he drove Vulcan's Horn straight down into it.

CRAAAACK!

The enormous tree split spectacularly in two beneath Vulcan's Horn, slowing his fall even further.

TAP.

"Well, I'm alive for now."

Thanks to the tree's noble sacrifice, Suho landed safely on the thick snow and calmly surveyed his surroundings. All he could see were white snow and trees. None of the hunters who had fallen with him were in sight; they must have landed elsewhere.

"Stranded out of nowhere."

[Now I understand why so few hunters have returned alive from this place.]

"Yeah. Like this, they'd fall to their deaths right off the—no, wait."

As he nodded at Beru's words, a question suddenly occurred to Suho. He raised his head and gazed up at the dimensional rift in the sky, looking puzzled.

"Then how did the survivors get back? Don't tell me they flew up there?"

[Kieek?]

Only then did Beru narrow his eyes and look up at the Gate. Of course, hunters with flight skills could have managed it. But there was another issue to consider first.

[Hmm. Come to think of it... I doubt those Ice Golems smashed the ground like that every time.]

If every hunter who had come to raid the Glacier Dungeon had passed through the Gate this way, all of Pasad Island should already have been devastated. Surely they hadn't covered it over with earth again each time after dropping people through.

[Perhaps there is more than one entrance.]

"More than one Gate?"

[Yes. Look at the sky. Humans simply call them Gates, but dimensional rifts naturally widen as time passes.]

As Beru said, the Gate Suho had passed through looked less like an ordinary hole and more like space torn to shreds. Pasad Island was already so uncontrollably contaminated with mana that it would hardly be strange for holes leading into the dungeon to have opened all over it.

"Then the other hunters must have come in through different holes—"

Suho started. Cutting himself off, he immediately twisted at the waist and swung his sword.

SLASH!

"Krrk...!"

[You have defeated an Ice Kobold.]

That single slash severed the head of a magic beast that had crept up on him under cover of the blizzard.

Suho immediately scanned his surroundings with a faint smile.

"Guess I made too much noise coming down."

[You are already surrounded.]

WHOOOO!

Murderous gazes now surrounded Suho throughout the blizzard-swept forest.

[Ice Kobold]

[Ice Kobold]

...

The mana-infused blizzard disrupted sight and hearing, but that apparently posed no problem for the magic beasts native to this place.

"... Interesting."

Suho merely smiled. A situation where he had to rely entirely on his Perception stat. For now, his enemies were only kobolds, but how much stronger were the foes lurking beyond them?

And of all times, he had been separated from the companions he had gone to the trouble of bringing along.

[All the better.]

Beru smiled too. With visibility cut off and Suho alone, wasn't this the perfect opportunity for him to level up without a care?

[The time for leveling up has come.]

"Mino, Tau. Come out."

WHOOOSH!

At Suho's command, two enormous shadow beasts rose from his shadow.

[Shadow Minotaur Lv.1]

Knight Grade

[Shadow Minotaur Lv.1]

Knight Grade

The Frenzied Blood Bulls Suho had personally killed and stored in the Demon Realm had become his dependable soldiers.

[MOOOOO!]

Black vapor billowing from their entire bodies, the Shadow Minotaurs spread their muscular arms and bellowed savagely. The Ice Kobolds, which had looked ready to pounce on Suho at any moment, instinctively trembled before their might.

Suho pointed at them and gave his order.

"Trample them all."

[MOOOO!]

[MOOOOO!]

RUMMMMMBLE!

[You have defeated an Ice Kobold!]

[You have defeated an Ice Kobold!]

[You have defeated an Ice Kobold!]

...

The ensuing battle was utterly one-sided. The kobolds emerging ceaselessly from the forest numbered in the hundreds, but each was trampled to death beneath the Shadow Minotaurs' brutal violence the moment it appeared.

Only then did the real threat, which had been lying low behind them, finally begin to show itself.

[Ice Troll]

"GRAAAAH!"

A magic beast comparable in size to the Ice Golems they had seen above swung a log held in one hand, smashing the Shadow Minotaur Tau across the head.

CRUNCH!

The blow was powerful enough to shatter the log, and Tau's neck snapped.

But...

"...!"

[Moo?]

It was useless.

Wreathed in black vapor, Tau's broken neck returned to its proper position, his eyes savage. The Ice Troll felt a chill before that gaze.

Tau was smiling horribly, as if to ask whether that was all it had.

He immediately raised a fist toward the Ice Troll, the muscles in his arm swelling as though about to burst.

[Mooo...!]

Just as that overwhelming violence was about to descend on the Ice Troll—

SHUNK!

"...!"

A black spear suddenly pierced the Ice Troll's back and burst out through its chest.

SHWICK!

When the spear was pulled free, the Ice Troll died and crumpled on the spot.

[You have defeated an Ice Troll.]

The spear belonged to none other than Quay. Having been fired as an arrow and returned straight to Suho, he stepped on the Ice Troll's corpse and gave Tau a pointed smile.

[I was faster.]

[MOOO!]

[So what? You're just a slow-ass cowhead who can't even talk.]

Ignoring Tau's angry snorting, Quay walked straight to Suho and dropped to one knee with a crisp motion.

[Lancer Quay has returned.]

But Quay had not returned empty-handed. A curious gleam entered Suho's eyes. Something unconscious dangled from Quay's hand, held by the ankle.

"What did you catch?"

[The ice elf I struck when I flew off.]

Astonishingly, Quay had brought back a young ice elf who looked about ten years old. Of course, Suho recognized it as an ice elf at a glance.

What caught his attention instead was the name tag floating above the elf's head.

[Sirka, Guardian of the Baruka Tribe]

'Guardian of the Baruka tribe?'

This magic beast had a rather significant-sounding title attached to its name. For one thing, it was proof that the ice elves lived in tribes, just as Rio Singh's information had stated.

Even more curious, however, was the fact that this ice elf was still breathing.

"Still alive?"

[Yes. Forgive me, but I could not bring myself to kill this one.]

"What?"

Suho was genuinely astonished. Those were truly remarkable words to hear from Quay's mouth. Surely he hadn't suddenly discovered the sanctity of life at this late stage.

But what Quay said next was even more astonishing.

[This ice elf recognized me. Asked whether I knew the Shadow Monarch. So I thought this might be a lead...]

"What?"

Suho's eyes widened.

Quay had landed a big one.