Dead Man's Snowfield

The moment I reached the lobby, I went looking for the skill merchant.

A new skill was up. Holy Fire. In plain speech, a sacred flame.

Burning, explosion, expansion, purification, melting—of those five domains, this was the one that belonged to purification. Learn it, and sanctity would settle into the flames I already had.

"Think carefully."

The Hispanic skill merchant curled his lip as he said it. Something about the man grated, but he wasn't wrong. Four thousand four hundred points was a steep price, and the skill only showed its worth against the undead, evil spirits, and the cursed. Plenty of hunters skipped Holy Fire for that reason alone.

I didn't have the luxury of skipping it. I had to master all five fire-school spells before I could learn magic of the next attribute. There was nothing to weigh.

I called up a fireball. A faint white light seeped through the crimson flame, and just looking at it set something in me at ease.

Pft.

That was as far as it went. True to a purification skill, simply casting it did nothing for the level. Proficiency piled up only when I actually purified something, and there was nothing I could do about that right now.

I thought about spending the remaining points and browsed the shop, but nothing worth taking caught my eye. Circling the Labyrinth was out of the question too. I'd put Ternish down cleanly enough, yet the pressure of that thing hurling itself at me at a monstrous speed, wounded leg and all, had been no small thing. I left the lobby. Today had been enough.

For the Awakened, level 100 carries real weight. Set aside the social meaning of finally tearing off the novice label, and what remains is simpler: your mana pool swells all at once, and your sensitivity to skills sharpens. Put plainly, you can use magic harder, and finer. Even driving had grown smoother for it.

Vroooom!

I rested a full day after coming down from the Tower, then took the car out along the Han River. Yeouido was far too crowded. A little farther northwest, I finally found a stretch where people were scarce. I parked and looked around until I spotted a low underpass with no one at all on the ground above it. Even if a fire started, it didn't look as though anyone would be hurt.

...This'll do.

The foundation of fire skills is destruction, and erasure. Using them in earnest where people come and go is impossible. The last few days my training had been light enough that a moderately empty spot was plenty, but today was different. I meant to drive Crimson Flame's Shape Alteration into my hands for good—not perfect, maybe, but at least sound enough to use in a real fight.

The flaw was obvious. The startup was far too long. Shaping a single arrow took a good three seconds. Against an orc that never caught my presence, that was enough. Against another Awakened, my head would be off my shoulders before the arrow was finished.

I dropped down, sat at my ease, and watched the Han River while I thought. Crimson Flame is called the essence of the fire skills, and among its uses Shape Alteration boasts the highest difficulty of all—a realm permitted only to Awakened of the very highest level. Precise information on it was scarce for that reason. I had only two references. One was the footage the top-ranked Awakened posted, a kind of public service. The other was the archive I'd opened with the code Administrative Officer Lee Hee-yeon had given me.

All of yesterday I'd gone through both with care and laid down a theoretical foundation. A feel for it had come of that. Now it was time to test the feel.

Fwoosh!

A crimson flame rose before my eyes. A fireball. I meant to begin with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the most basic skill of all.

Bzzzzzt!!

My phone buzzed. The sender was Yu Seo-ha.

It had taken a day longer than we'd agreed, but that was fine. I needed the time to grow used to Shape Alteration anyway. Perhaps because Crimson Flame had reached its highest level, the results of the training weren't bad. No—fairly good, if I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠honest about it.

I sat up in bed. More precisely, I raised my body on mana threads, but the threads' own sense had grown so much keener that there was hardly any difference. Outside of a fight, it wouldn't matter. I could pass for an ordinary person perfectly now.

...Ah. The Awakened would still see it, of course.

I washed up quickly and crossed Seongsan Bridge, parked behind the office, and stepped inside. In the somewhat dim light, Yu Ji-seong and Yu Seo-ha broke off their conversation and turned toward me.

"You're here, Mr. Seong-han?"

Yu Seo-ha greeted me brightly. Yu Ji-seong's face, by contrast, did not look particularly pleased.

If that was true, it was no good news for me. The Cursed Heart. I needed that thing.

"...Ah."

Catching his own stiff expression a beat late, Yu Ji-seong smiled awkwardly.

"It isn't that it went badly. It's only that, looking at it with a merchant's eye, there's something I don't care for."

"The margins don't work. Would you sit for a moment?"

Yu Ji-seong drew a chair over and began the explanation in earnest.

"Fortunately, to start with, the client still had the Cursed Heart."

"Mm-hm. Of course he did. Who'd buy that thing, oppa?"

"...The mage said he needs it."

"...Ah."

Yu Seo-ha, who had been needling him, clamped her mouth shut. Yu Ji-seong went on.

"When I told him someone wished to purchase the Cursed Heart, Old Man Choi seemed tempted at first. Then he changed his mind and said we should wait just one day."

...So that was the extra day. I had a fair idea why.

"...Sharp of you. That's correct. His son hasn't come back from the Labyrinth."

"The truth is... the workshop is the larger problem. Everyone except Old Man Choi's son made it back, they say. But the moment he brought his son up, there was nothing beyond a sudden disappearance. No explanation that would account for it."

"It is. So Old Man Choi filed a formal commission. Find his son, and he will give up the Cursed Heart."

Yu Seo-ha brought a screen up on her pad.

"The problem is the location. The workshop people went somewhere fairly troublesome."

Northwest of the open field. A place I had seen through Administrative Officer Lee Hee-yeon's archive.

"Yes. They traveled with a private security team called Raymond, but we couldn't ask that side. They've already gone back into the Labyrinth for their next job."

Listening to Yu Seo-ha's briefing, I went carefully through the materials Yu Ji-seong passed me. The disappearance of Old Man Choi's son, Choi Geon-woo. He had entered the Labyrinth five days ago and still had not returned. The place they believed he'd vanished was a zone where attacks were restricted. Hunters turning on one another was unlikely. The workshop members' excuse—that a person had simply disappeared inside a restricted space—looked clumsy, and yet it was not an easy thing to press them on.

Perhaps he really had... gone missing by chance. The Labyrinth was a place where nothing that happened would be strange.

"Yes. The life-signal device Old Man Choi carries is still green. We linked one in parallel and brought it along."

I took a small receiver from Yu Ji-seong. On the palm-sized machine, a tiny green light floated up.

"......"

An old man who had spent his whole life in a junk shop might stare at that light all day long—relieved that his son was not dead, and at the same time sick with the fear that the boy was suffering something worse than death. I felt it every time. An Awakened's work is not beautiful. A gloomy shadow of death is always circling somewhere close.

"To be honest with you, this isn't a commission I'd particularly recommend. It's difficult to get a clear picture of what happened. But I'm sure you have your own clear reason for seeking the Cursed Heart."

Yu Ji-seong shrugged and held out a thick file.

"Along with the conversation we had, these are the compiled routes of the workshop members and the Raymond security team. If you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠need support, our office can..."

Having seen the Cursed Heart, I couldn't walk away from it. Perhaps this had worked out for the better. To raise Holy Fire's skill level, I would have to stop by the undead zone anyway. I looked at Yu Ji-seong, who had fallen silent, and inscribed my mana.

This commission. One way or another, I was going to see it through.

I entered the Labyrinth. The open field spread wide before me. The undead zone lay to the northwest, but I didn't strike out for it blindly. The Labyrinth's sense of direction does not work that way.

Fwoooosh!!!

I cut down goblin scouts as I moved west, simple work. Green dots and brown showed here and there along the way; I passed them without a second thought. You have to weigh what matters and set an order to it. Right now, money came second. I had to find Choi Geon-woo and bring him back.

"Mage, would it be all right if I asked where you're headed?"

"If you're bound for the troll zone... we could serve as your escort..."

As I walked, a fair number of hunters came up to me. They must have read the level of my Crimson Flame from nothing more than the way the fireball's flames spread. I shook my head. I felt no need to do anything alongside them. Not yet.

Hssssss...

I arrived at Nehemis's Tree of Life. Unlike the last time, the wind off the swaying branches felt a little dank. What role did this bizarre living thing play in the Labyrinth? I was curious, but I had no time to spare. I turned due north and kept on.

There was no danger in it. If anything, it was far safer than before. Life didn't teem here the way it did in the forest, so I opened my detection as wide as it would go. The board lit clear out to two kilometers. At some point my shoulders jerked.

Hoooo...

A grotesque sound rang faintly in my ears. How to put it. Like the sigh of some dank living thing. A chill crawled over my skin and was cut off at once, thanks to Traveler Naizen's robe. Only then did it feel real—that I had stepped into the undead zone.

There was something I couldn't make sense of. A few Awakened passed me, moving their feet with blank indifference, as if they had never heard that sound at all.

...Is it only me, because of the detection skill?

There was no way to check. No time to check, either. I hurried north. Before long, black dots began rising one by one across the board. Around there I put the compass away. Unlike the canyon, where I'd had to travel due south in a straight line, this place required nothing of the sort. I lifted my head. A massive ice wall spread before me like a folding screen.

A single snowflake drifted slowly down out of the sky.

Dead Man's Snowfield. This was where I had to find Old Man Choi's son.