Puppet Play
I conquered the Mountain Peak in less than an hour. After all, if you can simply scale the walls, a maze’s difficulty plummets far below expectations.
Much easier than I thought.
The peak is the highest point of the mountain range. Yet because of the snow mountain’s characteristics, the elevation differences between each summit weren’t that great. Even so, this place earned the name “peak” because it simply felt like the highest point. Unlike most snow-covered terrain, where gentle slopes suddenly shoot upward, this area featured both steep descents and ascents. It was as though someone had dug endless pits. The constant shifts in elevation tricked explorers into thinking they were climbing higher. On top of that, aggressive lightning frequently struck the summit. The cause was unknown. That was why the Mountain Peak had been declared off-limits.
But to me, who possessed the Wings of a Swallow, even the most treacherous terrain was essentially nonexistent. When I landed on the lightning-struck summit, a single yellow Snow Goblin was glaring at me. The Mountain Peak had always been a source of Snow Goblins, so its presence wasn’t surprising. The creature was subdued far more easily than expected. It was designed to snipe targets slowly scaling the rugged slopes from a distance. When I came flying in at high speed through the air, it never anticipated the approach and simply let me get close.
This will make fine chimera material.
I blew the whistle, signaling that the peak had been conquered as well. Without the lightning, the entire Mountain Peak zone could be handled with zombies alone. With this, the pipeline for Black Goblins was complete.
Now for the last one.
I spread my wings and flew toward the final off-limits zone in Stage 4—the Vast Ocean. If Pinwheel Village was the smallest zone, the Vast Ocean was the largest in Stage 4. Despite the name, it was no ocean. The terrain and climate here could still be called a snow mountain region. Have you ever heard of tundra? Tundra refers to the moderately cold polar regions where vegetation cannot take root. The Vast Ocean possessed exactly that environment.
The climate here, maintaining temperatures between -10°C and 10°C, was ideal for moss to grow. Because it was neither too cold nor too hot, the moss that appeared never rotted and grew endlessly. Numerous unfrozen pools of water formed as well, leading to massive swarms of certain insects. The representative insect that thrives in moderate temperatures and high humidity: mosquitoes.
The Vast Ocean had no special native creatures. Only endless stretches of maze filled with house-sized clumps of moss and countless swarms of mosquitoes. Users who unluckily started here had complained of horrific suffering.
Even I would have felt a bit lost if I’d started here.
Crossing the Vast Ocean led to a small safe zone called the Green Belt. Literally translated, it meant a development-restricted zone. To users, it served as a kind of warning area before entering the Vast Ocean. Beyond that lay the monkey habitat once more. The long maze was finally nearing its end.
Well then, shall we?
The Vast Ocean was indeed a dreadful place, but I was using items that exceeded Stage 4 standards. Did you know mosquitoes can only fly up to 8 meters at most? I deliberately maintained an altitude above 20 meters while quickly traversing the Vast Ocean, focusing solely on collecting Fruits of Good and Evil. Since there were no native creatures worth mentioning, I had no intention of deploying zombies into the zone.
After spending an entire day harvesting every last Fruit of Good and Evil in the Vast Ocean, I made a firm resolution.
Never coming back here again.
The endlessly swarming mosquitoes were bad enough, but the moss itself was no less of a headache. Contrary to what was known, this place wasn’t populated by mosquitoes alone. It was an insect paradise. Though individually weak, their sheer numbers made them extremely troublesome to deal with one by one. And they all lived inside the moss. The clumps of moss, dozens of meters across, scattered throughout the maze were essentially masses of insects. When any living creature approached, they would scatter hundreds of bugs in every direction. Not only insects, but the stench was overwhelming as well.
This place is truly the worst…
Some idiots on the community boards had even shared methods for catching and eating the moss and insects. There really were all kinds of people in this world. But that was absolutely not to my taste.
Anyway, with this, I had cleared most of my backlog. Now it was time to prepare a modest event for my former superior, with whom I shared such a deep connection. He had gone so far as to insist on coming all the way to my house—how could I, as his former subordinate, be anything less than attentive?
Park Gibeom ground his teeth with an irritated expression. If he could just kill the boss, he could move on to the next stage, yet here he was, held up by one annoying subordinate. Three days of this grating annoyance. Finally, the date Yeon had announced arrived. Park Gibeom, who had made every preparation, immediately demanded the door be opened. But the response he received was entirely unexpected.
[Ominous.]
What the hell did that mean? Ominous? He acknowledged that Baek Suhan was a bit stronger than the average Stage 4, but compared to what he possessed, the man was still lacking. He couldn’t understand why they would let some vague sense of unease ruin his plans.
Swallowing his anger, Park Gibeom spoke calmly.
“Haha. What do you mean by that? It sounds as if you think I’ll be defeated by some Stage 4 insect.”
[…]
It was true that Yeon had high expectations for Park Gibeom, but he was still just a single summoner. Even if he entered Stage 4 and died, there was no reason for the mid-sized company Yeon to feel any sense of foreboding. Their omens concerned far greater matters. But Park Gibeom, unaware of this, simply kept repeating his demand to open the door.
Then, Yeon’s patron, the Master of White Ghosts, took Park Gibeom’s side. He was Park Gibeom’s exclusive patron—the very one who had first discovered him and brought him into the project. As Manager Park repeatedly produced great results, the Master of White Ghosts’ standing within Yeon had risen. He too had shared Yeon’s sense of foreboding, but had been blinded by the profits Park Gibeom had brought in. Now that Park Gibeom was about to cross into the servers and accomplish greater things, there was no need to hold him back over something so trivial. And so, at the patron’s request rather than the summoner’s, Yeon permitted Park Gibeom’s departure.
The portal to Baek Suhan’s stage opened.
Woong—
Park Gibeom smirked.
“That’s right. You made the right call.”
The Puppet Summoner stepped proudly through the portal into Stage 4, where the Zombie Summoner awaited. It was time to punish his arrogant subordinate.
As someone experienced with crossing spaces dozens of times, Park Gibeom concentrated his mind the moment he passed through the door. That fleeting instant was when one was most vulnerable. And just as he expected, the moment Stage 4 began to appear, a dagger came flying at him.
Clang—
The Puppet Summoner drew the sword at his waist like a flash of light and deflected the crude attack. When he turned to look at his attacker, a very familiar face stared back at him with empty eyes.
“Cha Uyoon…”
Cha Uyoon’s condition was far from normal. Part of her face had been torn away, and several body parts were missing. The Cha Uyoon zombie slowly opened her mouth.
“Master’s orders… Attack the bald man here.”
Park Gibeom’s face twisted violently. He rushed at Uyoon in an instant and severed her head. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Ha! Bald man? What the hell are you talking about? Can’t you see how thick and luxurious my hair is? Did you lose your eyesight after I gouged out one of your eyes? Huh?”
In truth, Manager Park currently had long hair. He had performed a miracle of hair growth using the famous Stage 5 item, the Potion of Illusion. It wasn’t just his hair. He had even regained the skin and face of his younger days. But his mind was still that of a man in his late fifties. After lecturing the corpse about its insolence for quite some time, he suddenly realized he was scolding the wrong person.
Baek Suhan… You bastard…!
Park Gibeom gnashed his teeth and checked the red thread wrapped around the ring finger of his left hand. At that moment, the ground began to tremble.
Rumble—
A massive fortress began to rise behind the spot where Park Gibeom stood. The earth shook and hills surged upward. Soon, structures rose even where he stood, and the map itself began to be reconstructed.
This is…
Park Gibeom, already rich in combat experience, knew exactly what this phenomenon meant. Baek Suhan had just pressed Combat Start. And not just any combat—the boss round of Stage 4.
Hah, so you’re trying to tie me down with a boss?
In the past, he too had been an elite who cleared Stage 4 while raising the difficulty by a full ten levels. After that, he had devoured other users and smashed through Stage 5 and Stage 6 with elevated difficulties as well. A mere Stage 4 boss was no threat to him now.
Rumble— Rumble—
But just how many difficulty levels did this bastard raise?
When he himself had raised the difficulty by ten, he had only faced a single massive fortress in the maze. But what had appeared around him now were three castles. And between those fortresses, strange spire-like structures he had never seen before rose tall.
Park Gibeom let out a chuckle. Seeing the quaint enemy architecture in a Stage 4 setting after so long felt almost cute. To him, who had reached the end of Stage 6, the maze was nothing more than child’s play.
“How amusing…”
Just as he was about to sweep the enemies away, he paused and began tapping his scabbard with his finger. Soon, he grasped the situation.
Huh… Huhuh? Look at this little bastard.
No matter how much the difficulty had been raised, Stage 4 was still just Stage 4. To Park Gibeom, who had already reached the edge of Stage 6, these were merely slightly annoying obstacles. And Baek Suhan would never have been unaware of that fact. So then, what was their purpose?
Park Gibeom’s face crumpled like a demon’s.
How dare he… How dare he play puppet games with me?
Cha Uyoon played the role of Hong Jiu. Sending some of his own trash troops to shake the opponent once. And the Dark Elf played the role of Cha Uyoon. Borrowing external forces that weren’t his own troops to gauge the opponent’s abilities. Baek Suhan was toying with him in exactly the same manner Park Gibeom had once used against him. Whether damage occurred or not didn’t matter. The goal was simply to make Park Gibeom feel as though he himself had become a character in the play.
“You… You son of a bitch!”
Realizing the intent, Park Gibeom let out a roar. An unbearable rage boiled up from deep within him. At the same time, the archers in the fortress who had spotted Manager Park unleashed hundreds of arrows in his direction.
Thwip-thwip-thwip—
Park Gibeom summoned puppets around him and ignited blue aura at the tip of his sword. Then he deflected every single arrow.
“Fine. Just you wait.”
The play Baek Suhan had prepared for his former superior had only just begun.