The Death Hidden Beneath the Snow

On the far side of the screen, beyond the field of view the hunters could see, snow was falling in thick, heavy sheets.

"......"

Even now, whenever snow falls, the memory of that day comes back to me. Close my eyes, and I can almost hear it still.

The muffled thud, thud of boots sinking into a snowfield. The lung-searing bite of air so cold every breath felt like frost creeping in.

And threading through it all, a faint, fishy smell of beast.

It was back when my father was still alive. One winter day, on a morning I'd skipped school, my father woke me before dawn, while my mother still slept.

"We're going hunting."

I was a high schooler who fancied myself fully grown. I'd said my share of reckless things, and in that restless, blood-hot season I'd nagged him again and again about tagging along on hunts and expeditions. Apparently, it had gotten under his skin.

Those were different times. The Tower had just risen, and everything was in upheaval. Modern weapons barely worked anymore, and people were regressing into an age of barbarism and violence—an age of the hunt, all for the sake of prying loose a magic stone. Back then, a light expedition was thought of as no different from heading out to the countryside for a wild boar hunt.

That was the kind of man my father was. The kind who'd chip a magic stone off some corner of the Tower like a man knapping flint, socket it onto a spear tip, and walk out hunting with no thought for his own life.

That day was no different. Seven of us waded bare-armed through snow that swallowed us to the calf, and I—the youngest, the least experienced—could barely breathe under the ten-kilogram pack crushing my shoulders.

Hours slipped by like that. An endless stretch of brutal cold. With no trace of the great beast we'd hoped to find anywhere in that dungeon, our exhausted party finally decided to rest inside a large cave that would at least block the wind.

That was where it happened.

"Wait—aren't those tracks?"

Enormous footprints leading deeper into the cave. The party erupted in cheers. Blinded by greed at finally finding their quarry, at the money waiting at the end of it, they raised their torches and pressed inside.

But how could I have known, with such certainty, that what waited there was no bear-shaped monster we could handle?

I don't know. The process of awakening—the abilities granted by awakening—remains as poorly understood as the mysteries of the brain itself. Only one thing I do know: the sensations of that moment are still vivid.

Thud.

Something struck my brain. The world bled red, and an inexplicable sensation crashed over me.

"Move!!"

In that instant, like a matador whipped into frenzy by seeing nothing but red—I shoved the man leading our party.

And from the cave ceiling—no, from the darkness beyond it—something came slamming down. CRACK!!

Pure white fur. Blue veins writhing along its spine. A monster raised in the snow.

A creature no one could call a bear. An Irregular. A Yeti.

In the instant its suffocating mass froze everyone where they stood, its arm swept out—and a storm of massive icicles came raining down like arrows.

Chaos. Confusion. Darkness.

Even though my father could never have anticipated danger like this, I felt him desperately pulling me behind his back—

It hurts.

My head burned as if it would split open. Pain that felt like it was clawing through my brain whited out my vision, flickering. And when I opened my eyes again, my world had finally changed.

A grayscale world. Dozens of blood-red solid lines, shining in brilliant relief.

And in that instant, I understood: those lines were every path of 'death' that could unfold inside that cave.

"Dad!!"

Dodging the red line, I roughly shoved my father's back and knocked him aside. BOOM—! The Yeti's massive foot came down on the spot where we'd been standing, punching a deep crater into the stone.

I had felt it. Some unknown new sense had wrapped itself around me. Before I'd even recovered from the shock of it being absolutely right, I was screaming like a madman.

"Get down! Now!"

"Two steps right!"

Every time a red line threatened to graze someone, I shouted toward the safe ground that would let them slip past it. And the men crossed the brink of death again and again, like a miracle.

It wasn't simply reading the trajectories of attacks and moving first. It was a kind of prophecy—seeing the future before it arrived and whispering the optimal moment, the optimal way to survive it.

It was a miraculous scene. Like watching someone possessed, like watching an illusion unfold. We were impossibly small, slow, and weak—and yet the beast, for all its speed and savagery, was thwarted by the terrain, its focus wavering so that its blows split empty air.

Finally, as if wearied by our refusal to die, the Yeti let loose a roar that filled the entire cave. And in the next instant, I saw it.

A single white solid line, gleaming from its chest, stretching out toward one wall of the cave.

I couldn't have said what it was. But as if that light were guiding me, I sprinted along the line without a second thought.

"Doyun!"

The Yeti lunged after me, but I ran for the wall without a shred of doubt. A dead end ahead, a monster at my back. Erratic, incomprehensible behavior—or so it must have looked.

But the moment my hand touched the wall and I dropped to the ground—

KRRRR-KOOOOOM—!

Colossal icicles that had hung from a ceiling of unknowable height came crashing down all at once, and the Yeti's chest was painted a vivid, terrible red.

That day's snow swallowed every sound, and my world had turned to gray—but only the Yeti's crimson blood seeped into the world in brilliant color. That day, I opened my eyes to a new world where I could see every 'death' the world had to offer.

Snow flurrying across the landscape beyond the monitor. But watching the crimson seep from the red lines blooming across that snowfield, I returned from the memory of the past to the present.

The [Dokkaebi] strategic situation room. On the screen stretched the snowfields of the Twisted Garden of the Four Seasons—beautiful, yet humming with something deeply wrong.

Perhaps my abrupt halt of the exploration, followed by that riddle of a question—'If the snow carries a fire attribute, what season would that make it?'—had left them grasping.

Han Taewoo came back at me urgently.

"Is the reason you stopped us the fire-attribute snow, sir...? You really don't need to worry about that. Our first-line field party's skill level is exceptional, and since we had preliminary survey data on the area, we've prepared fire resistance gear as well."

Good response. That snow was indeed made of condensed fire, but [Dokkaebi] was no fool—they'd have prepared a reasonable countermeasure.

But...

The world I saw beyond the mask pressed to my face told a different story about that snow's danger.

Everyone's looking only at the snow.

Not thinking about what might lie beneath that snowfield.

The ground that looked to every eye like a pristine white field was, to mine, smeared in glistening red, writhing as if alive. Exactly like that day. The dry, flavorless scent of death, betraying every human sense.

"Trust me on this. And... it won't take long. You'll see proof soon enough."

The moment the words left my mouth, the screen switched to another zone. First in line was the joint party of [Ark] and [Cheka].

"Fire resistance readings nominal. Moving in."

Kang Muhyeok of the Special Response Team took point. Behind him came Park Jin-chul and the elites of [Ark], with the Cheka mercenaries following confidently.

There had been some ugly business lately, granted—but [Ark]'s field exploration capability was beyond dispute. And its Crisis Perception in particular ranked among the very best.

Resistance-coated suits valued in the tens of millions of won, plus artifacts that drank in and extinguished flame. A falling snowflake brushed an exposed shoulder and flared into flame for an instant—but it guttered out just as fast, unable to do any harm at all.

"The analysis is accurate. I don't anticipate any real difficulty."

Park Jin-chul stepped out onto the snowfield.

Thump. His foot sank into the soft snow. A strange heat flared through it for a moment—but no problem. According to the survey data they'd already compiled, the snow's newly acquired fire attribute produced reactions that clashed with all prior experience, so the strangeness was only natural.

But... it was precisely because of that strangeness that catching what came next took far too long.

"Huh...?"

Park Jin-chul frowned. Stepping on the snow was fine. Feeling it burn was fine—watching it spread white, ignite, and vanish was fine.

But the new sensation rising from beneath his feet was something else entirely—a slick, yielding softness, like walking through the belly of a beast.

Glub.

Before Park Jin-chul or the [Cheka] and [Ark] response teams could even react, the entire ground convulsed grotesquely.

"Wh-what the—!"

No time to be stunned. KWAAAAAAM—! The snowfield they stood on split apart like an explosion, and from beneath it, colossal red pillars erupted skyward.

No—not pillars. They were the tentacles of a colossal carnivorous plant, glistening with dripping, sticky sap.

"Ugh—AAAAGH! It's—it's burning!"

"No... damn it. Get it together! Rip them off and fall back, NOW!"

Kang Muhyeok's voice cracked with panic. And understandably so. Against the fire-attribute snow, what they'd prepared was heat resistance. But if the thing could gape its maw wide and, along with the physical crush of its tentacles, spray a powerful acidic digestive fluid that melted equipment on contact—

Sizzle—!

The moment the expensive fire-resistant artifact touched the plant's digestive fluid, it melted away without a fight.

"H-help! At this rate we're all dead!"

Hunters tangled in the tentacles were whipped through the burning snowfield and dragged, heels scrabbling, toward ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the plant's gaping maw. The snowflakes falling from the sky, and the snowfield they blanketed—everyone had fixated on the danger of the snow itself, and so no one spotted the thing using it as camouflage.

To be sure, Kang Muhyeok of the Special Response Team did move to contain the aftermath. But at that very moment, the atmosphere inside [Ark]'s main control room had gone ice cold.

"What is this... there was no separate crisis-detection alert?"

Han Tae-seok's pupils trembled violently as he whispered to the subordinate monitoring the AI operator's live operation.

"No, sir. Not particularly..."

"How—how does that make any sense!"

He wanted to grab someone and scream, but with the [Cheka] people watching from behind, he couldn't even raise his voice freely. Director Dmitry, belatedly catching on, was already wearing a face cooled to absolute zero.

"...Managing Director Han. Quite the rare catastrophe you've shown us. That 99% safety rate... are you telling me the remaining 1% just detonated, right before my eyes?"

"N-no, sir. It's just—"

Han Tae-seok pounded the keyboard in a desperate attempt at something, but the messages scrolling across the screen were hopeless.

The AI [Ark] had so proudly boasted of was nothing more than a helpless tin can—one that only thought to input a crisis as a variable after the crisis had already happened.

"A plant...? The scanner flagged it as nothing but terrain! That thing was buried under the snow this whole time?"

Han Taewoo couldn't hide his horror. On the far side of the screen, mere steps from that snowfield, [Ark]'s party was being torn apart.

What if the [Dokkaebi] party had matched their pace and pushed in with them? A chill crawled up my spine. But there was no time to sit and shudder.

KEEEEEEE—!

The colossal main body hidden beneath the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠snowfield began to reveal itself, and several of its countless tentacles were already turning—toward the other guilds' parties trailing [Ark], and toward [Dokkaebi].

"Retreat! Everyone retreat! Get outside its range first—!"

The moment Han Taewoo grabbed for the microphone, I lightly stopped his hand.

Tap.

"If I recall, this exploration is a competition over a single Elemental Stone. If we pull back now, we lose our shot at it, don't we?"

"Then what do you suggest?! We didn't prepare for this, so how on earth are we supposed to—"

Han Taewoo's face twisted, as if I were suggesting he stuff the [Dokkaebi] party straight into that thing's maw. But I calmly took the mic.

"Sangwoo, can you hear me?"

Park Sangwoo's voice came back strung tight with panic.

"Don't step on the snowfield. They call you 'Grandson of the Wind,' so I'm trusting that. Three o'clock—you see the rocky terrain? Run for it."

"Three o'clock?!"

Han Taewoo shrieked at my instruction, nearly falling out of his chair.

"Are you insane?! Retreating to get beyond the tentacles' reach isn't even enough right now, and you want them to advance?! Besides, that area is right in the path of the Ice Rain! We've already got an unknown hazard variable on our hands—if they go into that zone, there may be no coming back. Any other guild would call for review and re-exploration at this point. Order the withdrawal, sir!"

Fair enough. As lethal as the fire-attribute snowfall was, flesh-flaying Ice Rain would be just as deadly. Left alone, the whole party would freeze and die out there; and I could understand the caution of someone terrified of ending up like [Ark] if he worried about that instead.

"This is... no different from shoving them off a cliff to die."

And so I agreed that Han Taewoo's objection was perfectly reasonable. From the standpoint of an ordinary person, that is.

"No. This is saving them. And... it's giving the lagging [Dokkaebi] the chance to take first place."

I pointed at the monitor—at the red tentacles gone berserk, and the hunters being steadily pushed back as they fled from them.

"What you see is not all there is. Yes, that summer phenomenon is dangerous, and factoring in the Ice Rain, going in looks like suicide..."

But we had to think about the creature's ecology. Its origin. And there, a simple answer waited—so simple it was overlooked, exactly like the danger buried beneath the snow that no one thought to look under.

"If you're not abandoning this place entirely, then the only zone its roots can't reach—the only true safe ground—is where the Ice Rain falls. Run. Right now."

Park Sangwoo's eyes went wide, as if I'd smacked him upside the head, and he fell silent for a moment. Right before him, a tentacle was bearing down—a limb unfurled from the maw of a plant so vast he couldn't even gauge the size of its main body, a thing that looked ready to swallow them whole.

And ahead of it, something even worse might be waiting.

But Park Sangwoo remembered my back from the [Crystal Cave] broadcast—the one they'd all watched not long ago.

Park Sangwoo threw himself toward the rocky zone where the Ice Rain was falling, without a flicker of hesitation. The snowfield collapsed, revealing the gaping maw of the colossal plant—so wide no one could guess its diameter in meters. If they kept running straight, they'd drop right in...

But sure enough—the moniker 'Grandson of the Wind' hadn't been given for nothing. What unfolded was a spectacular sight: he batted aside tentacles with perfect timing, bounding through the air as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if stepping on invisible footholds.

The party members were screaming the whole way—

The man really does have the skills to back it up.

But every one of them made it into the Ice Rain.

"No. You don't need to worry about the tentacles anymore."

KEEEEEEE—!

The massive red tentacles that came chasing after them over the snowfield hit the Ice Rain—and unable to endure the sudden thermal shock, they began to freeze white in an instant.

And then—

Shatter!

Like shards of glass, the frozen tentacles burst apart and scattered across the ground.

In the distance, [Ark]'s hunters were locked in a desperate fight for their lives, taking catastrophic losses, while the other guilds' parties had fled far away. Only [Dokkaebi], paradoxically, had preserved its full strength—and was able to continue the exploration.

"...How did you know?"

Han Taewoo was looking back at me, his face a map of every question he wanted to ask.