The Frozen Player Returns

Chapter 154. Maze Hunter (4)

‘His fist… Is it faster than my eyes?’

Wang-Heon immediately took out a dagger and cut the swollen flesh beneath his left eye. It stung as blood flowed out, but the swelling went down and his vision was restored.

‘Piercing Eyes allows me to see my opponent’s movements and intentions.’

In other words, it was the same as seeing into the immediate future.

But Seo Jun-Ho was fast enough to render his skill useless…

“...You’re dangerous,” Wang-Heon said. The warning bells finally started to go off in his head.

He had thought of Seo Jun-Ho as nothing more than a mere newbie who had debuted less than a year ago, but his opinion of the Player was quickly changing.

‘If he’s this powerful after merely a year…’

The new Kim Woo-Joong? The new Shin Sung-Hyun? It really was bullshit.

‘He’s way better than either of them.’

Both Kim Woo-Joong and Shin Sung-Hyun had been much stronger than other rookies back in their time, but Seo Jun-Ho was already more skilled than a member of a prestigious squadron.

‘I have to let them know.’

He had to tell the Association that such a monster was growing.

Wang-Heon made a choice.

Rrrrip!

He poured demonic energy into his fist, punching a hole through the Curtain of Darkness. He cried out.

“Clear it! Clear the Dungeon! Kill the boss!”

“Huh?”

“Wang-Heon-nim? What are you…”

“Right noooow!” He roared, furious. Unnerved, Stan and Banjo nodded and ran out of the maze.

“Phew...” Wang-Heon let out a sigh of relief as he watched the two fiends run off through the shrinking hole.

‘That’s one less thing to worry about.’

It might take some time with just the two of them, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for Stan and Banjo to defeat the boss. Now, all he had to do was fight Seo Jun-Ho.

But Wang-Heon seemed to have forgotten something...

“So you can’t...” Jun-Ho let out a low laugh from inside his armor.

“What?” Wang-Heon demanded.

“You don’t have a way to contact someone outside of the Dungeon. That’s why you ordered them to defeat the boss as fast as possible.”

“...!”

Seo Jun-Ho had immediately grasped the situation the same way Wang-Heon had been able to deduce all the information just from one tip-off.

‘He doesn’t have a way to contact the outside world.’

This also meant that he had no other way of getting out the information he had gathered about Seo Jun-Ho. If Wang-Heon did have a way, he would have called the other fiends over for a pincer attack.

‘So he thinks that he can’t defeat me alone.’

It was a little surprising. Seo Jun-Ho had thought that all fiends were selfish, but Wang-Heon seemed to have a deep sense of trust. Well, he would find out everything once he read Wang-Heon’s memories.

‘I can’t drag this out either.’

If too much time passed, those two might really be able to clear the Dungeon.

‘Let’s go.’

Seo Jun-Ho had already finished adjusting to his change in stats. He summoned a tremendous amount of magic and ran toward Wang-Heon.

“Hup!” Wang-Heon’s fist flew toward him, wavering.

‘He’s nervous. His body’s all stiff.’

It was an opening for Seo Jun-Ho. He followed Wang-Heon’s fist with cold eyes. He caught it in his hand and slammed the fiend to the ground.

Crack!

The Frost Queen made an ice coffin in tandem, freezing his limbs.

“Ugh!” Wang-Heon was caught off-guard. He felt like the black sword above him could come down and cut his head off at any moment, like a guillotine.

But Seo Jun-Ho merely looked down at him once before he turned around and walked away.

‘...Why?’

Wang-Heon could still fight, so why did Seo Jun-Ho leave his back open? Was he being careless? Perhaps this was an opportunity. He started to prepare a powerful attack, hoping to overturn the situation.

Rrrrip!

The ground below him was torn apart, and he started to fall.

“Huh?!” The sight of wolf-like fangs filled his vision.

‘Fangs of Darkness… Wolves…?’

Wasn’t this…?

Wang-Heon’s eyes blazed red. He looked up.

“Ahhhh!”

The starved fangs feasted on his body. The ceiling closed above him.

“A member of the Pride Squadron… His skill was more useful than I thought.”

Wang-Heon had been a difficult enemy while the Curse of Bitter Cold’s effects were ongoing, which reduced Seo Jun-Ho’s stats by 50%. But after it was dispelled, Seo Jun-Ho became confident that he could even defeat someone a full step above Kal Signer, not to mention Wang-Heon who was merely half a step above Kal Signer.

Ptoo!

A moment later, the ground opened up and spat Wang-Heon’s tattered corpse.

“Ugh, disgusting.” The Frost Queen wrinkled her nose in disgust, but Seo Jun-Ho merely shrugged, seemingly unbothered.

“You gotta do what you gotta do.” He held out a hand toward the body. “Confession of the Dead.”

[Confession of the Dead has been activated.]

[Wang-Heon’s memories are being replayed.]

***

“...”

They said that people who spent a lot of time together would end up resembling each other sooner or later, but this also seemed to apply to Spirits.

Seo Jun-Ho and the Frost Queen blinked in unison, crossed their arms, and exhaled.

“Hmm…”

“Hm…”

As expected, Wang-Heon was quite the catch.

“We found a great lead,” Seo Jun-Ho said.

“The problem is… We thought we found the tail of a snake, but the body’s much bigger than we expected,” the Frost Queen remarked.

“Exactly.” Seo Jun-Ho narrowed his eyes.

He had expected the Seven Squadrons to be a little bigger than the Watchdog Corps, but they were actually much bigger.

“They are reminiscent of the Players’ Guilds,” the Frost Queen noted.

“They had probably modeled it off of the Guild system.”

But the Seven Squadrons weren’t just like any Guilds. They were at the level of the Guilds ranking immediately below the Big 6.

“Of course, the Big 6 are stronger in some ways.” The Squadrons had fewer members than the Player Guilds. But it was hard to tell if their individual members would be able to win against each other.

‘At that level… The victor would be decided based on the skill match-up and how they’re feeling that day.’

Objectively speaking, both sides only harbored monsters. Even Wang-Heon, whom Seo Jun-Ho had considered highly, seemed adorable compared to some of the higher-ranking members of his squadron.

Seo Jun-Ho started to sort through the information about the Squadrons that he had retrieved from the fiend’s memories.

“Pride, Despair, Wrath, Silence, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth.” Each of the Seven Squadrons had the power of a major Guild. “Members within the same Squadron sometimes exchange information… But other than that, there’s not much sense of camaraderie. And like Player Guilds, they barely know anything about the other Squadrons. This is so that they won’t be able to give up much information if they get captured by an enemy.”

And the reason for the squadrons’ existence was simple.

“Each one is a weapon for one of the seven executives of the Fiend Association.” Each Squadron Leader was one of the few people who could contact the executives. Not only that, but the Squadrons were more cooperative with each other than the Guilds or the Player Association.

“So that’s what separates them from the Guilds,” the Frost Queen commented.

“They’re all under one organizational structure.”

This was going to be harder than Seo Jun-Ho had expected. If they were that big, it would take a long time to break them down one by one.

‘The best-case scenario would be destroying a key piece and having the whole thing tumble down. But that probably won’t happen.’

The Squadrons were organized the way they were precisely to avoid such a disaster. Like a cat with nine lives.

“Contractor, I believe that this is a success. We found more than expected.”

“Yeah, we got a lot of info about the members of the Pride Squadron.”

Wang-Heon had known several sunbaes. If Seo Jun-Ho ever ran into them, he would recognize their faces.

“Still, I’m a little disappointed. It would’ve been nice if we were able to find out where each Squadron is and what they’re doing.”

“A Squadron Leader may be in possession of such information,” the Frost Queen said.

Seo Jun-Ho tapped on the Curtain of Darkness, and it melted downward, disappearing along with Wang-Heon’s corpse. Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes started to sparkle as he looked up at the maze.

“They really must’ve been in a rush,” he muttered as he looked down at the footprints.

***

“Stan! Distract it!”

“Dammit… I get it, so hit it with something strong!” Stan ran left, increasing the distance between him and Banjo. A monster chased close behind him.

“Kyaaaak!” It was the boss monster of the Dungeon, the Wall Mantis Queen. After leaving the maze on Wang-Heon’s orders, the two fiends quickly arrived at the Boss Room. The walls, ground, and ceiling were all covered in darkness.

“Dammit, even if our eyes are better than the wall mantis’s…”

Swish. Swish.

The Wall Mantis Queen was at least four times as big as a normal wall mantis. Every time it moved, its wings flitted like a shark’s fins. This made it easy to locate, but Stan and Banjo were still on edge.

‘The exoskeleton is insanely strong! How will we pierce through its armor?’

‘It has those spikes on its front legs, and they cut like a Rare-grade sword. If it hits one of us, we’ll be seriously injured.’

That wasn’t all… As it was a boss monster, the Wall Mantis Queen flew off the wall every five minutes and into the open air.

“Now that I think about it… It’s not even a wall mantis!” Stan’s hairs stood on end as he rushed forward, shouting.

Swish. Swish.

He could hear the chilling sounds coming from above his head.

‘Shit!’

Stan instinctively used Homing Intuition and was transported to the Boss Room’s entrance. He gulped. From afar, he could see that the enormous Wall Mantis Queen had made its way over to where he had been standing.

‘If I hadn’t used my skill just now…’

Stan stroked his neck and trembled. Even imagining it made a chill run down his back.

“It’s… ready!” Banjo yelled. Stan’s efforts had paid off. While he had been buying time, Banjo had finished preparing his spell. “Get out of the way!”

Two enormous fireballs blazed next to him. Banjo knew how to double-cast. He was a renowned mage, and it was rumored that he would soon enter the Pride Squadron as Wang-Heon’s successor.

“No matter how tough its exterior is, it’s still a bug in the end.” He held out his hand as he aimed the fireballs. “Burn.”

Woooosh!

Unexpected for their size, the fireballs flew forward at a high speed, demonstrating Banjo’s talent for magic control. They struck the Wall Mantis Queen’s wings.

Kaaa! Kyaaaak!

The Wall Mantis Queen shrieked as the fireballs struck her, and she fell to the ground. The fire quickly spread across her body and started to melt both her exoskeleton and her wings.

“It worked!” Banjo turned toward the Boss Room’s entrance. The Wall Mantis Queen was heavily injured, so he was about to tell Stan that they should finish it up.

“...?” Banjo frowned. Instead of Stan, all he saw was a strangely posed ice statue. It was in the shape of a human covering its mouth with both hands.

‘What’s with that weird statue?’

As soon as the question popped into his head, his mouth froze.

Crackle.

“Mm? Mmph!” Taken aback, Banjo frantically tried to pull off the ice. But as soon as he touched it, the cold started to travel up his fingers and down his arms.

It was then that he had finally realized...

‘Oh, that statue…’

It was Stan.

Seo Jun-Ho approached from behind Banjo’s frozen body with a tired look. “This sucks. I don’t like this skill.”

“What? I am unamused. Did you not tell me yourself that my power looks convenient?”

“I did, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make me feel horrible,” Seo Jun-Ho replied, rubbing his aching temples. It was still too early for him to use such a high-level skill. Even now, he could feel it draining a large amount of his mental power.

‘I shouldn’t use this too recklessly.’

But since they were in a closed-off space, he had decided to test it out. It was okay if he pushed himself in his current situation.

“As for the one and only boss monster…”

The Wall Mantis Queen was still wailing as it crawled on the ground, burning. Seo Jun-Ho gestured with his finger. “Here’s a tip. Always be careful in dark places,” he said lightly.

Because you would never know if Specter was hiding or not.

Crack! Crack!

Dozens of Watchguards of Darkness emerged from the ground and began to feast on the Wall Mantis Queen’s flesh.