Cold World
Baengnae and I walked along the snowy trail. If the monkey habitat had been summer, this place felt closer to winter. Frost clung to the leaves of the plants, and every breath we exhaled came out as a white plume. The deeper we ventured into the snowy mountains, the lower the temperature dropped. We wore the winter clothing we had bought from the Shop. Thick coats, fur-lined earmuffs, and gloves made the cold almost unnoticeable. But this chill was only the beginning.
The entire snowy mountain region wasn’t unbearably cold. If it had been, every user who started nearby would have frozen to death. The real problem was that my destination was the Perpetual Snow Ruins, a zone declared off-limits because of the cold. The freezing temperatures were caused by specific areas. Since I was heading straight for the source that had frozen this entire region, the air grew colder the closer we got to the ruins.
“Five walls northeast and we’re there.”
The usual way to reach the ruins was to follow the drifting cold air. But I had a map. It wouldn’t be long before we ran into Yetis. Heh, I’m looking forward to this…
I already commanded a zombie army. Still, I had high hopes for the Yetis because I had recently tested the hybrid zombies. Among my undead, there were a few whose genes matched closely enough to receive a “brain transplant.” You know how it is—monkeys and monkeys share over 99.99% of their genes. Obvious, maybe, but the implication was huge.
Monkeys had evolved in two directions so far: the Spectacled Monkey and the Monkey King. What would happen if I transplanted a Spectacled Monkey’s brain into a Monkey King’s body? Exactly. The result would be an ideal monkey zombie. I named the new entity Double Monkey. Two of them could take down a single Bull Yeti zombie. They were monkeys who possessed both brains and brawn.
Of course, I didn’t yet have the means to mass-produce Double Monkeys. The boots were the bottleneck. Each brain transplant drained too much stamina, so there was a hard limit on how many I could perform. That didn’t mean I shouldn’t prepare the materials, though.
“Oh, looks like we’re entering the zone.”
Roughly an hour after leaving camp, we stood atop the fifth wall. Below us, all kinds of creatures were frozen in place like exhibits. Once those ice statues started appearing, we had officially entered the Perpetual Snow Ruins zone. The Yetis seemed to be the ones maintaining the frozen displays. Every morning they emerged from their caves and repositioned the iced-over animals. The behavior was observed across the entire zone, yet no one knew why they did it. Exploring the Perpetual Snow Ruins was simply too difficult.
Because the zone scattered cold air throughout the snowy mountains, it was struck once a day by a terrible cold wave that swept through everything. The freezing wind left death in its wake. That was why the area had been declared off-limits. Even the Yetis, covered head to toe in thick fur, turned into ice statues if they were caught in the wave. Hence the name: anyone who faced the cold wave would freeze and remain part of the ruins forever.
Whoooosh— A gust of icy wind brushed the tip of my nose. This place was literally walking on thin ice.
***
Cha Uyoon lay flat on the ground, trembling. Beside her, Alexander, the Goblin King she had raised with such care, lay wounded and collapsed.
“Manager! I was wrong. Please, just this once—forgive me!”
Park Gibeom gave a bitter laugh as he watched her press her forehead to the floor. Back on Earth she had always acted high and mighty, flaunting the fact that she was Director Hong’s son’s girlfriend. Now that the world had changed, so had her attitude.
She was weak. Reaching Stage 6 put her above average, but compared to Choi Kiryang, whom Park Gibeom had met recently, her forces were pitiful. It wasn’t just because she was a Goblin Summoner. From the look of things, Cha Uyoon had simply pushed through the stages safely without any sponsorship. Park Gibeom clicked his tongue.
“This is… barely Stage 5 level.”
He had known she was vain, but he hadn’t expected her to be this feeble. It almost made the days he had spent preparing to capture her feel ridiculous.
No, wait. This is actually better.
Because she was so weak, he had been able to subdue her without losing any of his own forces. After all, Cha Uyoon was nothing more than a long-term piece he planned to send to Baek Suhan for the sake of the show. Since she had preserved most of her troops, there was no need to insert a puppet. He could just send her as she was.
Yeah. This turned out well.
She had no sponsor either. Even if the “Connection” tried to interfere, it wouldn’t matter. Having finished his calculations, Park Gibeom spoke in a magnanimous tone.
“There is one way you can stay alive… Shall I give you the chance? I’m still debating whether I should.”
Cha Uyoon crawled across the floor and grabbed the hem of his pants. Looking up at him, she begged.
“I’ll do anything. Please, just let me live. Manager, we were at the same company. That has to count for something, right?”
Hearing her call him “Manager” only made him want to kill her more, but he held back for the sake of the performance. He corrected her gently.
“Not Manager. Chairman. The world has changed, hasn’t it? And what I need you to do isn’t difficult. Do you remember someone named Baek Suhan?”
“Deputy Baek Suhan…?”
“That’s right. He killed your boyfriend, Deputy Hong. So you’re going to go take revenge for him. How about it? Think you can manage?”
Cha Uyoon didn’t answer. Her eyes darted around. Baek Suhan had been the crazy bastard who worked out every single day after work back on Earth. If he had come to this world, she couldn’t even imagine what kind of hulking monster he had become. Park Gibeom, reading her thoughts, kicked her.
Thud—
“If you don’t want to, fine.”
“No, I—”
“Deputy Baek is only Stage 4. Still not confident?”
The moment she heard Baek Suhan’s stage, Cha Uyoon’s expression changed instantly. She was Stage 6. He was Stage 4. Logically, there was no way she could lose. She clenched her fists like a model employee and shouted.
“I want to do it! How dare he kill my meal ticket—no, my boyfriend! That bastard! I’ll definitely go crush that worthless trash!”
Park Gibeom smiled in satisfaction. She had always been this kind of person, so the sight wasn’t particularly surprising. Having secured her agreement, he gave the order.
“Get yourself ready first. Tomorrow at this time, I’ll open a gate to where Deputy Baek is. If you fail… well, you’ll probably die to him. You do have sins to atone for, after all. But surely you won’t lose to a Stage 4?”
Cha Uyoon didn’t agree that she had wronged Baek Suhan, but she nodded vigorously at the rest. No matter how cautiously she had climbed the stages, losing to a mere Stage 4 was unthinkable.
“I’ll definitely succeed! Thank you for believing in me!”
“Good. Ah, right.”
Park Gibeom grabbed her by the collar and yanked her forward. Startled, Cha Uyoon froze in place. He drove his finger into her left eye and plucked it out.
Crunch—
The pain would have made an ordinary person faint, but Cha Uyoon, who had become half-superhuman while reaching Stage 6, only let out a short groan.
“Ugh… ngh…”
“Stay still.”
“Ngh…”
Park Gibeom summoned an artificial eye and pushed it into the empty socket. The eyeball spun and settled into place. From now on, he would share Cha Uyoon’s field of vision.
“Tomorrow at this time.”
“Y-Yes! I’ll definitely succeed!”
Park Gibeom lightly patted her cheeks and gave her a deep smile.
“If you complete the job well, I’ll give you a suitable position in the new world I’m going to create. Just like you said—we have a past connection, don’t we? Hmm?”
With that, he created a portal and vanished. To Cha Uyoon, who knew nothing, it simply looked like one of his abilities.
“H-He’s gone…”
Cha Uyoon pressed her new eye a few times and let out a long sigh. At least her vision was fine. Then she turned and began kicking the fallen Goblin King repeatedly.
“You useless piece of trash! Do you know how much I invested in you? And you can’t even do your job properly? Huh? Because of you!”
After venting for a while, she pulled out a potion and poured it over him. With a hissing sound, Alexander began to heal. Still not satisfied, she kicked the Goblin King again.
“Aaaagh! I worked so hard to get this far. This is so annoying! Aaaagh! So annoying!”
Cha Uyoon had been quite content with her life here. She had spent every day indulging herself while the goblins treated her like a queen. She had only raised her stage to increase the number of obedient servants. She avoided danger and moved safely. And today, that brief happiness had come to an abrupt end.
She wasn’t particularly talented, but she knew how to latch onto the right people. To her, Park Gibeom looked like a golden rope. Her life as a queen was over, but at least she could see a future where she stood beside a ruler.
Still, it’s a relief I pushed all the way to Stage 6.
She believed she had been chosen because of her stage. If she could get rid of one insignificant Stage 4 bug and become one of the Chairman’s close aides, it was a good deal.
No, wait. If I play my cards right, maybe I can even wrap the Chairman around my finger and become queen myself? The dirty old man clearly likes pretty things. He was always staring at me, so of course he came looking for me in the end!
Cha Uyoon licked her lips and began preparing for her next leap in life. She had no doubt that her goblin army would sweep away the dead weight and bring her glory once more.
***
I had set up a device in the Perpetual Snow Ruins that could predict the cycle of the cold waves. Even if I could endure the cold, there was no reason to take the wave head-on, so I planned to avoid it. On the way back, I turned a few Yetis into zombies and brought them along. Since the zombie squad that had returned from the “Mountain Waist Cave” had also brought back some Yetis, I immediately called for the boots.
With a pounding heart, I cut apart the two zombies and began the synthesis. The result was a failure.
No way… That can’t be right!
The Yetis and the Yetis had similar fur colors and similar facial structures. Anyone could see they were distant relatives. Yet in the end, they were unrelated species. The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment—especially after the success of the Double Monkeys.
I stared blankly at the map of the snowy mountains, trying to think of other combinations.
I… I don’t know…!
The physically strongest creatures in the snowy mountains were the Yetis, the Snow Goblins, and the Snowflower Rhinos. But the problem was finding ones with high intelligence. The Yetis weren’t goblins or rhinos, were they?
Ah, is there anywhere decent material might just drop?
It was a futile hope. Where in the world would a highly intelligent goblin or rhino suddenly fall from the sky? I could only let out heavy sighs of regret.