Monkey Habitat Zone
Cha Uyoon's Monkey Habitat Zone. When Cha Uyoon crossed the portal, warm sunlight greeted her. She took a deep breath and spread her arms. “Clear air! It's been so long since I've had this.”
Uyoon had taken this mission very lightly. She was already at Stage 6, after all. The number and strength of her summons were in a completely different league, and her user level was incomparable. She could crush a failure like him with her bare hands.
“Feels like a business trip to Southeast Asia. Never been, but still.”
She savored the past stage for a moment before kicking off the ground and leaping into the air. Small wings unfurled from her back—the [Swallow's Wings] she had obtained in Stage 5. Stage 4 might be a vast, complicated maze, but that only applied to those still walking on foot. For someone who had advanced further, it was little more than a leisurely stroll. The occasional walls posed no problem either; the item [Sticky Soles] let her leap across them as if they were flat ground.
“By the way, where are all the monkeys?”
Uyoon felt a brief moment of confusion before understanding. Since the starting point was the monkey habitat, they must have fought their way through this entire area. The thought of Baek Suhan desperately hunting monkeys just to survive made her laugh.
“Oh my, how pathetic…”
She kicked off again, following the direction indicated by the red thread. By the time she passed the monkey habitat, Seabird's Bath, and Crocodile Rock, irritation began to creep in.
“Seriously, how far did he go?”
Eventually, Cha Uyoon changed direction and stopped by the Sea Lion's Feast. There was no grand reason. During Stage 4, she had started near this area. She had once wandered into the sea lions' territory and suffered a major loss—the first defeat she had ever experienced. Though she had recovered, the sea lions had remained an unpleasant memory until the day she left the maze.
“Time for bloody revenge.”
But when she reached the feast area to vent her frustrations, she encountered something even more unpleasant than in Stage 4. The feast area was completely empty as well. Standing in the vast rocky expanse with not even a single corpse in sight, Uyoon ground her teeth.
“This… son of a bitch…”
She felt a crack forming in her pride. She couldn't accept that someone like Baek Suhan had become stronger than her own Stage 4 self. The lighthearted mood she had carried turned heavy.
“I'll kill him… I'll definitely kill him.”
She would smash the head of this inferior Stage 4 insect who had trampled her pride. Then she would skewer it on a stick and feed it to the goblins. Cha Uyoon accelerated northward even faster, determined to kill Baek Suhan.
***
I retrieved the devices I had set up around the ruins. The simple contraptions I made using timers bought from the [Shop] were meant to track the cold wave cycles. And as it turned out, I had been right.
“As expected of community information…”
Community information was more accurate in safer zones because more people had verified it. Conversely, the closer you got to dangerous areas, the greater the margin of error became. People who reached their limits during exploration would often post half-baked information that they had simply pieced together. That was why, once an area was marked as off-limits, you couldn't trust anything unless it came from a named player. If something had been properly analyzed and a strategy was known, it wouldn't have been tagged as off-limits in the first place.
“But this… it's almost like they're trying to mislead people…”
According to the community, a major cold wave was supposed to blow once a day. However, looking at the frozen timers I had placed everywhere, the cold waves were irregular and repetitive. It was impossible to predict them perfectly. Still, by analyzing the direction and timing of the cold, I could tell that all the waves originated from roughly the same source. At least I had found a clue about where to start.
By cross-referencing the map of the ruins I possessed with the measurement data, I was able to pinpoint a location. A spot slightly southeast of the center of the ruins. A strangely shaped round mountain peak was spewing cold air across the entire ruins.
“If I go there, I'll find the cause.”
At that moment, the red thread on my ring finger twitched slightly. The person on the other end was getting closer.
“Huh? Already here?”
Much earlier than expected. I smiled faintly. Arriving this quickly meant one of two things: either she had a flying summon or a flying item.
“Either way works for me.”
I stood up after organizing the map. It was time to greet my guest.
“Baengnae. Let's go.”
“Arada.”
If she had started from the monkey habitat, there was one zone she had to pass through to reach here: the normal zone known as the “Ice Pits.” The native creatures were ice crabs the size of fists, and they had once lived here in large numbers. Of course, they were extinct now. By my hand. I had prepared them as part of a surprise plan for my guest.
Zombies with excessively low intelligence were useless in combat. The same went for the crabs. Even so, the reason I had turned them all into zombies was simple: I was angry. If the assassin coming to kill me after seeing Hongyeon was someone I knew, then that person had known me since Earth. No matter how much Director Park had ordered it, I found it repulsive that someone could so casually come to kill another person. There were people in this filthy world who struggled to maintain their humanity, yet these people had thrown even that away. Honestly, I wanted to throw a basket full of bugs at them. But since there were no bugs in the snowy mountains, crabs would have to do. Like sprinkling salt on an unwelcome human, I would scatter these crabs that served no purpose other than to annoy.
“Now then, who exactly is coming?”
I sat on the igloo Baengnae had made and waited for the intruder. Soon, the enemy revealed themselves. Judging by their small frame, it wasn't an adult male.
“Huh…? Who is that?”
Since the red thread was connected, it had to be someone I knew. But even as they approached, I couldn't recognize her. I could tell she was female, but she wasn't anyone in my memory. I went through the women I knew in common with Director Park, applying process of elimination. Finally, I landed on one name.
“Cha Uyoon, the accountant?”
You might ask how I couldn't recognize someone I wanted to beat to death, but this was unfair. Back at Barosoft, all the women wore makeup. Cha Uyoon was the type who wore it heavily. Without the power of modern cosmetics, her natural appearance was quite different from what I remembered. That wasn't all. The woman walking toward me now had a very slim figure, as if she had been exercising consistently. Cha Uyoon had been closer to plump; that athletic build was definitely not hers.
“Ah… Did she eat one of those in Stage 5?”
Anyway, now that I knew who she was, my blood began to cool rapidly again. I had been worried about what to do if someone I didn't particularly want to kill showed up, but that concern had been unnecessary. She was definitely someone I had wanted to meet. We were now close enough for me to clearly make out her face. Cha Uyoon stopped walking and her expression twisted.
“You filthy little bastard! So you were hiding here? You ran pretty far! But that's over now!”
“What the hell is she talking about…?”
I had no memory of running away. But then I remembered that she was Hong Jiu's girlfriend, and it made sense. She was just spouting nonsense without logic or evidence. Instead of replying, I signaled the Double Monkeys. I ordered them to drop the crabs. I commanded the crabs to charge, and they crawled out of the pits in a swarm, heading straight for Cha Uyoon. The area became a writhing field of crabs.
“What the— What the hell is this now?”
Looking annoyed, Cha Uyoon stomped on the approaching crabs with her feet. Crunch— Crunch— Of course, they had no attack power. The already weak crabs had been zombified; what strength could they possibly have? Still, if it annoyed her, that was a success.
“Agh! This is so annoying!”
Cha Uyoon leapt into the air and summoned grotesque creatures one after another. Green-bodied monsters about 1.5 meters tall. As soon as they appeared, they began stomping on the crabs just like she had.
“Goblins?”
Once most of the crabs had been dealt with, I spoke to Cha Uyoon.
“It's been a while, Accountant.”
She raised one corner of her mouth and laughed while her eyes trembled.
“Assistant Manager Baek? What is all this nonsense?”
I shrugged.
“The crabs are native creatures here, aren't they? Projecting everything onto others isn't a good habit.”
Cha Uyoon looked like she was grinding her teeth before suddenly bursting into laughter.
“Ha! As expected of a failure. You were still holding onto that old grudge like some pathetic loser? Oh my, I didn't know you were like that. How small-minded.”
For a moment, I thought I had misheard. After flipping the blame for something I didn't do and making a fuss, she was now calling me a loser for bringing up the past? Cha Uyoon had a filthy way of speaking, different from Hong Jiu's. If a crazy woman wanted to make personal attacks, I could do the same. A suitable memory had just come to mind—one I couldn't say at the company but could now say without restraint.
“I think the small-minded one here is you.”
I pointed my finger at her chest.
“You seem a bit healthier after becoming a user… but I guess there are some things that can't be fixed no matter what you do? Did you know? Hong Jiu used to complain to the male employees that your chest was too disappointing.”
Cha Uyoon's eyebrows twitched.
“Shut your mouth.”
“Are you denying it? But you know it yourself. You used to be the accountant for the Future Planning Department, right? Then one day, the accountant changed… What was the reason again?”
It was true that it was nonsense. Cha Uyoon had simply been pushed out of the Future Planning Department due to lack of ability. But the new accountant who joined happened to be significantly superior in a certain area compared to her.
Tap— I snapped my fingers, signaling Nareun-i, who had been hiding inside the igloo, to come out. She had originally been hiding for a surprise attack, but I judged that now was the perfect timing. Nareun-i, who had been listening to our conversation, bent at the waist and lifted a certain part of her body with her arms as she emerged from the igloo. She had already been superior to Cha Uyoon, but she had also cleverly used “partial gigantification.” Nareun-i straightened her back and looked down at Cha Uyoon with a mocking smile.
“Did you call for me, Master?”
I walked over to Nareun-i and roughly pulled her waist into an embrace. Then, looking down at Uyoon, I spoke.
“Cha Uyoon… is disqualified.”
“You… You… You! You bastards!”
In an instant, goblins were summoned around her in a frenzy. She must have been self-conscious about it all along. Cha Uyoon let out a shriek.
“Kill them! Kill them all!”
“Right. No need for conversation between us.”
I summoned my zombies as well and ordered them to attack. The two groups clashed, sending ice from the pits flying violently into the air.
“By the way… she really is ugly.”
I hadn't known because I had never seen Cha Uyoon without makeup before, but she was uglier than I had imagined. Nareun-i was a zombie with skin peeling off in places, yet compared to her, she looked like a top-tier beauty. Maybe the real reason she had been kicked out of the Future Planning Department was her face? I should ask the company executives about it later when I meet them.