To the Snowy Mountains
When I returned to the snowy mountains, Bangsil-i and Nareun-i came running with tears in their eyes and threw themselves into my arms. They said it had already been two days since I went missing. To me it had felt like roughly six hours, yet forty-eight hours had passed outside. It was clearly a domain that interfered with the mind. ‘And here I thought I might finally get some rest…’
Now there was a mountain of work waiting. The storage device had long since hit 100 percent, and the number of zones where I needed to harvest Fruits of Good and Evil had climbed into double digits. I had thought finishing one major task would bring relief, but the leftover chores towered like a mountain. Still, my heart felt light. At least the maze would no longer spawn any [Event] variables. There was no longer any chance of suddenly losing zombies.
“Both of you, come here.”
I decided to spend a little time soothing them. Stroking their chins with both hands for thirty minutes each, I watched them gradually settle. Their bodies had grown, yet they remained unmistakably dogs.
“Bangsil-i will be in big trouble without Jjuin.”
“I… knew you would come back…”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry.”
Once Bangsil-i and Nareun-i had calmed down, I headed for the kiln. Forty-eight hours meant I was long overdue for the Fruits of Good and Evil—and I had skipped two full days of training. Recovery came first.
Crunch—crunch—
“Huk…! Baengnae is hungry too!”
“Yeah, come eat quickly. And get some exercise.”
“Huk…?!”
The jar now held a total of 100,000 gold. Most users who graduated Stage 6 carried around 50,000 gold. In terms of wealth alone, I had become a high-ranker. Converted into troops, that fortune would buy me an army capable of surpassing Stage 6 itself.
‘At least I’ll have some preparation against Director Park…’
Qualitative reinforcement through the Fruits of Good and Evil, quantitative expansion of the legion through gold, and the strengthened [Golem Ring] had all greatly increased my personal combat power. Each [Event] was troublesome, yet the rewards they offered were undeniably valuable.
‘Of course, I have no intention of experiencing any more of them in Stage 4…’
[Events] demanded far more than raw strength; they required interpretation, planning, and mental strain. The brain tired even when the body did not. Repeating them without rest invited mistakes and catastrophic losses.
‘Times like this call for simple, repetitive work.’
From the next day onward I threw myself into labor. I expanded the unit and sent zombies on longer expeditions while I focused on harvesting. The paths were already cleared, so I simply walked to each location and collected the fruits. Although the number of high-ranking zombies consuming them had risen, supply still outpaced demand. I deliberately held off on increasing the number of consumers, however; another witch-like anomaly could appear at any moment.
Repeating the same straightforward tasks, I recovered my stamina and mental strength while gathering every remaining Fruit of Good and Evil from the cleaned zones. Working day and night, I finished in only two days.
Now, for the final task in this area, I gathered the zombies at the Relic Temple.
“Everyone, take your positions!”
It was time to deal with the elves inside the last relic. There would be no more relic throwing. The surrounding native creatures had already been wiped out, and even if zones had remained I would not have used them. The situation had changed.
The combat strength of the dark elves sealed inside the relic was roughly equivalent to the total danger rating of one high-risk zone. Back when I had been throwing relics, high-risk zones were still no easy prey; core zombies or bull beastkin had to be committed and every approach handled with care. But the zombies had grown tremendously by devouring native creatures. Most of the monkeys had evolved, and with proper equipment secured they now formed a proper zombie army. There was no longer any need to outsource with unpredictable corpse damage rates.
“Everyone, swarm them the moment they are summoned!”
The battlefield was the center of the Relic Temple—a place of towering stone buildings, beautiful murals, and a strange pond. After activating the relic I quietly set it down among the zombies.
Uuuung—
Soon the ancient elves would arrive across time. There were no variables. The weak would be consumed; the strong would join our march.
Death’s Cat watched the Zombie Summoner from inside her box. While being scolded by her superior she had heard something startling: the Zombie Summoner was the one who had opened the first door.
“The first door, huh…”
The cat stared blankly at the screen. His behavior was unusual. Up to [Maze Monster] it could still be understood—summoners who disliked slaughter sometimes made that choice. But from [Exit] onward things were different. Fewer than five percent of all summoners had even opened the [Exit] event, and fewer than thirty percent of those had completed it. Yet none of them had forced an [Event] to manifest the way he had.
He had used the cyclic nature of Stage 4 to drag hidden events out into the open, and the events themselves had warped in response. Guardians that should have numbered only three had become twenty-seven. The difficulty had risen, yet he had calmly devoured the altered challenge and pressed on.
“This won’t do…”
[Hatching] had never been that kind of event. One was supposed to exploit the looping maze to approach its source gradually, catching only a glimpse of beings that dwelt outside the world. Instead he had overlapped drifting concepts, leaped to a higher dimension, summoned [Underground Door], torn open the seal on the far side, and consumed extradimensional insects with conceptual power.
“It’s almost as if…”
‘Doesn’t it feel like watching our own past selves?’
“No…”
The cat bit her lip. Those with power were always forced to bear commensurate responsibility, and responsibility was painful and inconvenient.
‘The time to return is drawing near.’
“No…”
A voice laughed softly in her ears.
‘Then rest a little longer. But some things cannot be avoided. We both know that.’
“…”
The presence whispering in her mind vanished. Her hands trembled.
“Why are you doing this…? If you simply try to exist normally, even the painful things become easier to bear…”
She squeezed her eyes shut and stood. If her sponsored target intended to walk a path of hardship, she had much to prepare. She could not let him suffer the same experiences she had. Beyond lay a hellscape beyond their imagination. A power capable of swallowing even that hell would be required.
We advanced toward the snowy mountains. I had high hopes for this expedition—because of Boots.
Like the other zombies, Boots had been sent out as a squad leader. During that time he had grown close to several monkeys. Just as he cherished his own house, he cherished his squad members and the bonds between them. The battlefield, however, was merciless.
One day a monkey under his care was on the verge of death, limbs severed. Boots fetched a nearby headless zombie and swapped their heads on the spot, transplanting the cherished monkey’s head onto the other body. He saved the monkey, yet the transplanted creature died in the very next battle—outclassed by those who had never been separated from their original bodies.
The important point was that Boots could perform such transplants on other zombies. It was an ability he had never possessed before. He must have evolved by consuming native creatures. Once I confirmed the phenomenon I immediately began testing it.
The issue was critical. I had already eliminated every monkey in Stage 4, and the dark elves were nearly finished as well. The only remaining candidates for high intelligence were the furballs mentioned earlier. But the furballs were now too weak. Even if I mixed a few among the qualitatively superior zombies, they would be culled. Strong creatures were too stupid to recruit; furballs were smart but too weak to survive. That was why Boots suddenly mattered.
After several experiments I reached a conclusion: transplanting was possible without side effects between individuals whose genes matched above a certain threshold. I rejoiced. A suitable pair of populations waited at our destination.
The furballs living in the Mountain Waist Cave and the Yetis of the Perpetual Snow Ruins looked similar, yet their physiques were opposites. The furballs were small and clever; the Yetis averaged over 2.5 meters tall and were simple, brutish creatures.
‘It’ll work. It has to work!’
Running on that hopeful circuit, I finally arrived at the snowy mountains—the last region of this maze.
Though called snowy mountains, the terrain was oddly ambiguous. It began with a gentle downhill slope that repeated endlessly, then abruptly steepened as though one were climbing. The pattern repeated without any net change in altitude, yet every user who passed through felt as if they had scaled a mountain. A snowy mountain drawn across flat land. I had reached the area with the most bizarre ecosystem in Stage 4.
I halted the zombies at a suitable spot.
“Stop. We’ll set up camp here.”
“A temporary one?”
When I nodded, the zombies busily began stacking a tall tower. It rose haphazardly, looking ready to collapse at any moment, but that was fine—its only purpose was to serve as a landmark. The snowy mountains were easy to get lost in; the pure white landscape and repeating terrain made orientation nearly impossible. The tower would guide returning zombies home. There was no need to build it sturdily.
Of course the sudden structure might draw the attention of local creatures. That would be welcome. We were going to find them anyway.
Thud—thud—
Once the tower stood high enough, I called to Baengnae, who was rolling in the snow.
“Baengnae, stop playing. Time to move.”
“Madda.”
Shaking the snow from her fur, Baengnae came running. We were heading for the first access-forbidden zone in the area—the Perpetual Snow Ruins. The neighborhood where the Yetis lived.