The White Room
I turned Hwa-ryeong’s overly grandiose greeting right back at her.
“Well, if it isn’t the nameless wanderer from Mount Hwa.”
Hwa-ryeong burst into cheerful laughter. After we finished trading those ridiculously long-winded self-introductions, she sheathed her sword and extended a hand toward me.
“To meet again like this… it must be fate.”
“Yeah. I didn’t expect to run into you so soon either.”
“So, what do you say? Shall we travel together?”
“You’re asking me to team up?”
“Indeed. Shouldn’t we frail humans join forces?”
At Hwa-ryeong’s words, I glanced down at the orc corpse sprawled on the ground. Its muscles were ridiculously developed. I definitely wouldn’t want to fight that thing one-on-one.
“…Says the guy who killed something like that without breaking a sweat. Spare me the dramatics.”
“Dramatics? Those sorts are mere small fry who wouldn’t last a single day before vanishing from the roadside.”
“Small fry, huh.”
I had suspected she was strong, but not this strong. If I could team up with someone like her, I had nothing to complain about. With that thought, I grabbed the hand she offered and stood up.
“Alright, fine. If you’re proposing an alliance, I’m all for it.”
“Are you here to complete a mission?”
“That’s right. The base occupation mission.”
“If that’s the case, you simply need to enter the room deeper inside.”
Just as Hwa-ryeong said, I stepped into the occupation zone and claimed the base. My phone immediately rang with a notification.
Mission cleared. 500,000 points acquired!
That’s 500,000 credits, then. Even if I steadily cleared missions like this, it wouldn’t be enough to reach 100 million credits. To hit that goal, I’d have to aim for the sponsorship money given for first clears. But before that, there was one thing I needed to prioritize.
Obtaining the treasure supposedly hidden beneath the church.
I checked the map that had been sent to my terminal and located the church’s position.
“Found it.”
The map provided to the applicants was from before this street had been destroyed, so the current terrain was quite different. Ironically, that made finding the church easier. The moment I spotted the distinctive cross typical of a church, I started heading straight for it. But as I stepped outside the building and looked out over the street, I realized I had gotten the first button wrong from the very beginning.
While I stood there staring at the street, Hwa-ryeong seemed to think I was coming up with some kind of plan and spoke up.
“Oh? Do you have a plan?”
“I did. Well, one just came to me. But it’s not going to be easy.”
“Not easy? Now I’m even more curious.”
The street was still engulfed in Asha’s flames. However, because Asha had begun moving, there were areas where the fire was gradually dying down. And the church was built right in one of those zones. In other words, to reach the church, I would have to cross a pit of fire that was currently blazing at full strength.
“Over there. Can you see it? The spot where the flames have calmed down.”
“I see it.”
“I’m heading there from now on.”
“…Even if the flames have calmed, that only means they’re calmer compared to the surroundings.”
“I’ll just have to endure that much.”
Since I couldn’t come up with any particularly sharp ideas, I honestly explained my plan to Hwa-ryeong to organize my thoughts. After hearing it, she tilted her head in confusion, then suddenly stopped as if she had realized something.
“No, what exactly are you planning to do there? The only things present are charred corpses…”
When I looked at her in confusion after she abruptly fell silent, Hwa-ryeong muttered as if she had figured it out.
“Slash-and-burn farming. So that’s what this is?”
“Slash-and-burn?”
“In the place where I lived, we would set fire to the mountains in spring. Then we would farm on the burned land. Isn’t what you’re trying to do the same? You intend to gather magic stones from the area scorched by flames, yes?”
“Magic stones… Well. Yeah, sure?”
Listening to Hwa-ryeong’s reasoning, I finally understood what misunderstanding she had come up with. She seemed to think I was targeting the magic stones that had survived unburned in the areas Asha’s flames had swept through.
“That too. And I also want to move to an area with fewer competitors.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
Obviously, I couldn’t tell Hwa-ryeong about the church matter. Why would I reveal anything to someone I had only just met?
“Very well. Then let us move.”
Fortunately, Hwa-ryeong seemed convinced by the magic stone gathering plan and took the lead without further questions. As we headed toward the place where the flames had first erupted, I could see magic stones scattered here and there.
“They’re glowing bright red. Touching them carelessly could cause big trouble.”
“We’re going to inject them anyway, so does it matter?”
“What a dangerous thing to say. If you take those flames into your Mental Image, your entire Mental Image will burn up.”
“Ah, right. I suppose that makes sense?”
Perhaps because they had been engulfed in flames, the magic stones—which should have contained gray mist—were instead filled with a vivid fiery color. Just as Hwa-ryeong said, injecting these could lead to who knows what. So for now, I simply collected the magic stones lying around and continued toward the spot where the flames had first appeared. Soon, a dying wall of fire blocked our path.
“Looks like the fire is starting to die down.”
At this level, if I covered my face and jumped over it while accepting a little burn, I should be able to get through, right? With that thought, I carefully shielded my face and leaped over the wall of flames.
“Good. Made it.”
The green protective suit I was wearing was slightly singed, but it was still well within an acceptable level. Having judged that, I gestured for Hwa-ryeong to come over.
“Whoa?!”
The moment Hwa-ryeong approached the flames, they roared back to life with even greater intensity. It was as if fresh fuel had been thrown onto a dying fire.
“W-what is this?”
Hwa-ryeong looked bewildered by the unexpected situation. Seeing her reaction, I shared the information that had just occurred to me.
“That flame is probably burning on fear as fuel. You’ll have to erase your sense of fear to pass through.”
“Fear? Aha, so that was the problem. Wait just a moment. I will correct it shortly.”
Correct it? That sounded oddly out of place for the situation. Before I could dwell on the doubt, Hwa-ryeong stroked her face once, as if swapping out a mask.
“There. Behold. This is the realm of a clear mirror, still water.”
“O-oh…?”
She walked straight through the fiercely burning flames without any trouble. When she emerged on the other side, there wasn’t a single scorch mark on her body.
“What the—how did you do that?”
“I told you. The realm of a clear mirror, still water. A swordsman who has reached the pinnacle of the sword knows how to control their own heart.”
“Hmm…”
No matter how I looked at it, that didn’t seem like the kind of technique she was using. I wanted to ask more, but it didn’t seem like she would give me a proper answer. Once we crossed the wall of flames, the street appeared completely blackened.
“It’s burned to nothing.”
“Hmm. It seems the firepower was even stronger than expected.”
Burned. Could that word even describe this scene? Even the reinforced concrete had completely melted, leaving no trace of the original buildings. All that remained before us was a wasteland covered in black glass. The only things flickering across that wasteland were will-o’-the-wisp-like flames that seemed to burn the very mist itself.
“At this rate, even the magic stones must have all melted away.”
“What a shame.”
We moved across the black wasteland, heading toward the spot on the map where the church had once stood. There, we saw the church—somehow still standing despite all the destruction. It had melted and twisted completely, but the cross that identified it as a church remained intact.
“That building was quite lucky. To still be standing like that.”
“Yeah.”
To an ordinary person, it might seem like luck. But knowing there was something beneath that church, its survival didn’t look like mere coincidence to me.
“Shall we see what’s inside?”
I was subtly guiding Hwa-ryeong toward the church when—
“…Kgh! Dodge!”
“W-what the…!”
A massive monster burst up from beneath the black wasteland. This wasn’t one of the human-sized fusions we had seen before. It was elephant-sized, a grotesque amalgamation of countless beasts fused together.
“Hup…!”
Hwa-ryeong pulled me out of the monster’s range and immediately brought her sword down on its defenseless neck. The strike was so precise it was hard to believe she was just a wanderer. However, her attack was blocked by—
“Kgh?!”
A hazy brown membrane that looked like paint dissolved into the air. The moment I saw its shape, I realized what this monster was.
“A 3-Star fusion…!”
A 3-Star fusion. A monster that had absorbed countless Mental Images even after becoming a monster and reached the 3-Star realm.
Those who reached 3-Star could project their Mental Image outward. That was exactly what the shell surrounding the monster was. To break it, you either had to strike a weak point somewhere on the Mental Image shell, attack it with a Mental Image of the same color, or simply smash it with overwhelming power.
It was a good thing I had been constantly browsing the message boards and sorting out useful combat tips to save. I immediately shouted the method to break a 3-Star fusion’s shell to Hwa-ryeong.
“Hwa-ryeong! To break that shell, you have to aim for the weak point! Or prepare a brown-colored attack!”
“Understood. Then…!”
Apparently that simple piece of information was enough. Hwa-ryeong stroked her face once more and dove straight into the fusion’s body. The moment she raised her sword and slashed upward, the shell enveloping the fusion’s body shattered. I didn’t know exactly what she had done, but my instincts told me this was the perfect opportunity.
Taking advantage of the moment the fusion focused on Hwa-ryeong, I thrust my spear straight toward its eye. The spearhead tore through the air and sank deep into the beast-type fusion’s eye. The monster let out a pained roar. At the same time, the fur covering its body transformed into stone spears and exploded outward in every direction. There was no room to dodge, but Hwa-ryeong rushed in front of me and deflected the barrage.
And then—Hwa-ryeong shifted her stance and delivered a horizontal slash that severed the beast’s leg. The fusion, which had lost its leg in an instant, exposed its defenseless neck to me. I didn’t miss the opening.
“…Got it!”
I drove the spear into its neck. As life drained from the fusion’s body, a notification arrived on my terminal.
◈ 33.33 million credits acquired
“33.33 million?”
33.33 million credits? Just how much sponsorship money had been riding on this thing? While I was rejoicing over the pleasant extra profit, Hwa-ryeong pulled a magic stone from the dissolving fusion’s abdomen.
“Huh, no wonder it seemed injured.”
“Injured?”
“Look at this. The magic stone is glowing bright red. It must have been on the verge of death after being swept up in those flames… Whoa?!”
Whoosh. Flames suddenly erupted from the fusion’s corpse. So that’s why even someone like me could take it down. I was just coming to that understanding when—
“Tsk, am I a step too late?”
“You’re…”
Drake and his party, covered in ashes, appeared before us. Had this guy been aiming for the 3-Star fusion?
“Since it’s come to this, I suppose I’ll have to hunt you instead.”
Unfortunately, it seemed they had switched their target from hunting the fusion to hunting humans. Considering what Drake had said earlier, there was a very high chance these guys were 3-Star ability users. And there were four of them in total.
Could the two of us fight them? Absolutely not.
The only reason we had been able to defeat the 3-Star fusion was because it had already been on the brink of death. Fighting a 3-Star ability user head-on was impossible to win.
“It’ll hurt more if you run, so don’t bother resisting.”
Everyone present knew that fact, so Drake leisurely conjured violet ice in one hand.
Could we run? I was desperately racking my brain when Hwa-ryeong stepped in front of me.
“I will hold them off here, so you go do what you need to do over there. I don’t know what it is, but…”
“…You knew?”
“Of course. Well, I don’t know exactly what you’re trying to do, but I had a feeling there was something in that building.”
I was taken aback by Hwa-ryeong’s declaration that she would buy me time.
“We only met today for the first time, didn’t we?”
“That is true. But aren’t we friends?”
“Ha.”
“Helping a hero who will grow greatly in the future is not a loss at all.”
“…Thank you.”
“What for? If you’re grateful, just buy me a drink later.”
Overwhelmed with gratitude for Hwa-ryeong’s help, I silently nodded and ran toward the church.
“Let’s meet again alive.”
“What are you saying? I have no intention of dying here. This one has her own plans as well.”
After muttering those words, Hwa-ryeong touched her face once more and reached out toward the burning fusion corpse beside her. The flames immediately transferred onto her body.
“What…!”
“If you wish to pass through here, you will have to kill this body first! Hahaha!”
“Damn it, you crazy bitch!”
The flames that had transferred to her blocked the church entrance I had entered and began turning the entire area into a sea of fire. Drake’s group spat curses as they began fighting Hwa-ryeong. Leaving the battle behind me, I descended into the underground area of the church buried beneath the rubble.
“…Found it.”
I discovered a secret passage leading even deeper underground beneath the church and continued downward. Before me appeared a pure white wall, like the interior of a spaceship. As I slowly stood in front of it, letters appeared on the white wall just as the post had described.
What is recorded with sincere and true words?
“Behold, I will make all things new.”
The moment I spoke the answer to the white wall’s question, the wall split open and revealed what lay inside. Just what was the treasure hidden beneath here? With my heart pounding, I stepped into the white room.
“That’s…?”
Inside the pure white room, a black box floated gently in the air. Was that the treasure beneath the church?