Chapter 61: To the Snowfield (6)
“What? What’s going on?!”
Sa-hyeok asked, startled.
[Uh…… I think something fell outside.]
“Fell? What do you mean?”
[I don’t know. I’m inside the bag right now, you know.]
“Ah……”
[But from the sound of it, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Well, I don’t hear any urgent voices……]
“Alright. If anything seems to be happening, let me know.”
[Okay.]
Sa-hyeok hung up the phone and turned toward where Bang-ul-i was.
At that moment.
“Hmm?”
Something strange caught Sa-hyeok’s eye.
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Meanwhile, the raid party without Sa-hyeok.
They had just entered the edge of the forest.
Of course, it would take another full day to reach the center of the forest.
In front of them lay a huge lump.
It was a heavy piece of wood that had just fallen from overhead.
And it was also the cause of the loud noise Sa-hyeok heard over the receiver.
Looking at this piece of wood, which was 1 meter in diameter, the raid leader, Ui-jun, said,
“It’s a relief that no one was hurt.”
“Is this…… a trap or something?”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
At that moment.
Thud!
Boom!
More pieces of wood began to fall from the sky.
A moment later, the three Combat-type Hunters who had climbed up the tree came down.
“It’s a trap. There were drop traps set up at the top of the trees.”
“Did you dismantle them all?”
“We’ve dismantled and dropped all the traps we could see for now.”
As expected, the identity of the suddenly falling pieces of wood was a trap.
The Hunter in charge of dismantling the traps asked Ui-jun,
“Raid Leader-nim, the fact that there are traps means……”
“It means the Snowmen have made their move, right? The only ones with the intelligence to set traps in a snowfield-type dungeon are those guys.”
“Snowmen……!”
Snowmen.
Humanoid monsters that live in the depths of the forest.
Although not at the human level, they were considered to be difficult to deal with among the snowfield monsters due to their relatively high intelligence.
“But I’ve never heard of Snowmen setting traps. Have you heard of it, Raid Leader-nim?”
“No. But they’re definitely the type that could set them. They even carve and make their own weapons.”
“But the possibility of them doing it and them actually doing it are two very different things, aren’t they? There’s definitely something different about this dungeon.”
“That’s why we’re here to investigate. Who doesn’t know this place is strange?”
“Hmm……”
After a brief moment of contemplation, the raid leader gave a general order.
“From now on, we move while being wary of traps. Earth Sorcerers, keep scanning the ground, and everyone, watch your feet and overhead as you move!”
The raid party started moving again.
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Sa-hyeok spoke into his phone.
“The Snowmen set traps?”
[Yes. The raid leader said so.]
“I didn’t see anything about that kind of behavior in the monster encyclopedia……? Well, I mean, they’re smart enough to do it, but……”
[They’re intelligent?]
“They say they have a pretty good learning ability.”
Crunch.
Sa-hyeok took a bite of the fruit he was holding.
It was a long, red, glossy fruit that looked like a zucchini.
It tasted like a mix of apple, watermelon, and cucumber.
[But, Hyeong-nim, what are you eating?]
“Snow Red Fruit. I had a craving for something sweet.”
[What’s that?]
“There’s a fruit that only grows inside snowfield-type dungeons.”
[You’re going to d*e young eating random things like that, Hyeong-nim.]
“This one’s safety has been proven, you punk. Besides, they say it’s super expensive to buy outside. Gotta eat it while I can.”
Normally, he would have craved caffeine, but his stimulant was currently in his backpack.
So he had picked and eaten this to at least satisfy his sugar craving.
“But…… the fact that there’s a fruit grove like this means there are beasts nearby.”
Woong!
Sa-hyeok emitted telekinetic waves around him.
And……
“Found them.”
Pew!
Sa-hyeok fired spider silk towards the back with his Flame Pointer.
The spider silk flew and stuck to the body of a monster.
“You guys again?”
The giant bear monster covered in thick ice armor, the Ice Armor Bear.
This time, there were even three of them.
Sa-hyeok quickly scanned the surroundings.
The location of the Ice Armor Bears.
The trees growing here and there.
And the surface of the trees, dried out by the cold.
A strategy naturally formed in his mind.
‘This will be easier than the last fight.’
When he first encountered the Ice Armor Bears upon entering the dungeon, there was no room to create distance.
But now, there was a gap of over 10 meters between him and them.
It was a situation where he could utilize his specialty, long-range combat.
“Kwaaang!”
A roar and a charge.
The Ice Armor Bears started running towards Sa-hyeok.
Pew pew!
Sa-hyeok quickly created distance while simultaneously s*ooting spider silk at them.
The spider silk couldn’t deal damage, and it couldn’t stop the movement of creatures this size.
Therefore, they didn’t even care about the spider silk sticking to their bodies.
And that was their downfall.
“Krrrk!”
One of them crouched down and then leaped forward in a single bound.
Almost twice the speed as before.
The distance closed rapidly, but Sa-hyeok didn’t panic.
Because this wasn’t a plain, it was a forest.
Bang!!
The leaping bear slammed into the ground.
Sa-hyeok wasn’t there.
Whoosh-
Sa-hyeok was above the bear’s head.
He had used his telekinesis to pull himself up to a tree above and moved upwards at high speed.
On the plains where there was nothing to pull, upward movement was limited.
But here, filled with trees, he could move upwards as well.
Swish swish swish!
While floating in the air, he sprayed spider silk onto the back of the Ice Armor Bear.
And he moved from tree to tree, from the ground to the trees, entangling the three Ice Armor Bears with spider silk.
All the while, maintaining a distance where their attacks couldn’t reach him.
A while later.
Swish!
Sa-hyeok stopped, sliding on the snow.
The three Ice Armor Bears were growling at him, and Sa-hyeok sensed that all the groundwork was done.
Enough spider silk was wrapped around the three of them, and all the spider silk was connected.
It was time to light the fire.
The Flame Ring flashed.
Whoosh!
Flames ran along the spider silk.
The flames engulfed the three Ice Armor Bears one after another.
Whoosh!!
Flames spreading along the spider silk.
Even their thick ice armor melted and crumbled helplessly in the blazing flames.
“Krrrk!”
“Kwaaang!!”
If it was a roar before, now it was a scream.
Watching the monsters burn to death, Sa-hyeok muttered,
“It’s nice not to get any blood on my hands.”
It wasn’t that he wasn’t confident in close combat, but he found the bloodstains that resulted from it to be a nuisance.
“Krrrk!”
The largest of the Ice Armor Bears started to thrash around in a final act of desperation.
Dragging its burning body, it charged……
Thud-
Thump!
With a blade embedded in its neck, it collapsed to the ground powerlessly.
It was a Mubuchamdo that Sa-hyeok had thrown.
Its defensive power had plummeted because its ice armor had completely melted away in the flames.
Thus, he had completely finished off one, and he checked the status of the other two.
They were done too.
Their limbs were twisted and sprawled out, their muscles contorted by the heat.
Rustle-
At that moment, a few embers from the burning monsters fluttered like pollen.
Crossing the white landscape, the crimson embers landed on the surface of an old tree.
Flicker-
A flame flickered on the dry bark.
“Oh, s*it……!”
Splash!
Sa-hyeok immediately grabbed a handful of snow and extinguished the flame.
The trees here were extremely dry due to the cold and dry climate of the snowfield.
Therefore, if he carelessly scattered flames while fighting, he could end up trapped in the fire himself.
“It seems like I’ve dealt with all the monsters here……”
Sa-hyeok pulled out a scalpel from his waist.
“Let’s quickly extract the magic stones and get going.”
Sa-hyeok started extracting magic stones from the charred Ice Armor Bears.
As Sa-hyeok was cutting open the bellies of the monsters.
“Huff, huff……”
The raid party was in the midst of being defeated by the Snowmen.
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‘Why?’
Ui-jun couldn’t understand this current situation.
‘Why are we being pushed back?’
While passing through the forest, they were attacked by a group of Snowmen.
Covered in white fur, twice the size of humans, and possessing relatively high intelligence, the Snowmen.
Their attack was sudden, but it was still within the expected range.
Ui-jun quickly reorganized the formation to respond, and the raid members followed his instructions without delay.
‘But why are we being pushed back?!’
Because Hunter Min Sa-hyeok wasn’t there?
‘No, Min Hunter is just unusually strong, it doesn’t mean we’re weak. We’re definitely skilled……!’
But why are we being pushed back?!
Crack!
At that moment, the healer was hit in the head by a flying rock and collapsed.
The healer’s retirement.
It meant that the raid party’s ability to maintain formation decreased exponentially.
Ui-jun’s face turned pale as he saw that.
‘This is strange.’
Everything was strange.
‘These Snowmen bastards, they targeted the healer with pinpoint accuracy!’
The healer position is always located in the safest spot in the formation, the most difficult place for monsters to attack.
Therefore, they are the most free from the monsters’ aggro, and monsters rarely pay attention to the healer.
But these Snowmen were different.
From the beginning, these Snowmen persistently targeted the healer.
They targeted the one in the hardest-to-reach position, even at the risk of injury.
Besides this, they dealt with the Hunters as if they were very familiar with them.
It couldn’t be considered a normal monster behavior pattern at all.
This was……
‘Don’t tell me.’
The traps they saw at the entrance of the forest, seemingly aimed at intruders.
Their understanding of the formation and positions centered around the healer.
When all these circumstances were considered together, only one hypothesis came to mind.
‘These bastards, they’ve already experienced fighting humans!’
Snowmen are basically monsters with excellent learning abilities.
If they had fought humans once, they were capable of devising new countermeasures.
That meant……
‘Another raid party passed through here before us……!’
There was no other hypothesis that came to mind.
But……
‘How is that possible?!’
The only entrance to the dungeon was that stele-shaped gate.
‘Is there another entrance to this dungeon besides that gate?!’
At that moment, Ui-jun suddenly remembered the Snow Wolf that disappeared from the location tracker.
‘Could that spot where the wolf disappeared be……!’
Crash!
The front tanker line collapsed.
A large Snowman, who had joined them late, started to rampage.
“Raid Leader-nim!!”
“D*mn it……!”
Grab!
Pak!
Ui-jun took out all the fireballs he had stocked up.
The tanker line had collapsed, and a giant monster was on a rampage.
Ui-jun fired all his fireballs at the large Snowman.
Whoosh!
Dozens of golf ball-sized fireballs flew towards it.
Boom!
Boom!!
The flames quickly engulfed the large Snowman.
“Kwaaang!”
It started to d*e, writhing in pain.
Neutralization was definitely successful.
But……
Thud-
With its body engulfed in flames, it collapsed, clutching a nearby old tree as if embracing it.
Whoosh!
The fire quickly spread to the dry old tree.
As one tree started to burn entirely, the fire spread to the next tree through its widely spread branches.
“Oh no……!”
Only then did Ui-jun realize his mistake.
The flames began to slowly surround them.
Of course, Snowmen were weak to fire.
But the problem was that humans weren’t particularly stronger against fire.
Whoosh!!
Uncontrollable flames.
Whether monster or human, they were all in danger of being burned to death if things went wrong.
“Run!”
“Let’s fight for now!”
“We need to put out the fire first!!”
“We don’t have any means to extinguish it!!”
The Hunters were in a panic.
The Snowmen, who hadn’t let down their hostility even in the midst of the chaos.
And……
[Hyeong-nim! I think we’re all f*cked here!!]
“What?!”
Bang-ul-i was relaying the whole situation to Sa-hyeok.
“I’ll be there as soon as possible!”
Whoosh!
Sa-hyeok started moving at top speed, jumping between trees.
“Hey, before I get there, isn’t there anything you can do?!”
[Me? I’m just a drone?!]
“Think of something! It’ll take me some time!!”
[Uh, well, uh……]
Ah.
[……I think there might be a way, Hyeong-nim.]
