Flower of Snow (7)
Surprisingly, Lee Jun-ho didn't care much about his public image. Of course, an explorer smoking wasn't a particularly negative issue. Given the nature of the job, it was understandable.
Besides, with looks like his, smoking could easily pass as a stylistic choice.
“Ah... I was seriously about to lose my mind. Thank goodness.”
Lee Jun-ho still seemed weighed down by guilt, but if my theory was correct, he had absolutely no reason to blame himself.
“Why are we walking so far?”
I led him quite a distance away from Jin Ho-seung's shelter. Once we were far enough that our voices wouldn't carry, I pulled out my pack of cigarettes.
Lee Jun-ho blankly held out his hand. Pretending to hand him a cigarette, I spoke.
“Listen carefully.”
“...Wait, why do you keep speaking so casually to me? Do you think I use honorifics with you because I actually want to?”
Lee Jun-ho furrowed his brow.
I pulled the cigarette back.
“...Then again, getting closer this time might not be a bad thing.”
“Listen carefully.”
I toyed with the unlit cigarette in my hand as I continued.
“Eighty-five to ninety percent of the world's population is right-handed. It's safe to say nine out of ten people are right-handed.”
I raised my right hand, holding the cigarette. Lee Jun-ho's gaze remained locked onto it.
“But all four of them over there are left-handed. While it's perfectly normal for a group of four to all be right-handed, all of them being left-handed is highly unusual, don't you think?”
I didn't have much interest in the other ninety-five participants. I didn't know whether they were left-handed or right-handed. Even so, this was incredibly suspicious.
Lee Jun-ho's brow furrowed deeper.
“You think it's strange that all four of them are left-handed?”
“Yes.”
I gestured toward Jin Ho-seung's shelter with my chin. Lee Jun-ho still looked utterly clueless, his eyes glued to the cigarette.
“It could just be a coincidence. But ignoring coincidences is a quick way to end up in a coffin.”
He had a point. The probability was low, but it was technically possible for them to all be left-handed by sheer chance.
Except for the last one.
“The patient you slashed. His heart was beating on the right side of his chest.”
“What are you even talking about now? Just give me the cigarette, please.”
“The guy they have lying down in there as a patient. His heart is beating on the right.”
“...Sigh.”
Lee Jun-ho ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it in frustration.
“Look, a heartbeat can be felt from anywhere. It's just slightly more pronounced on the left.”
“Then go check for yourself.”
The patient's heart was undeniably shifted to the right.
This was a defining characteristic of Labyrinthians. They always possessed at least one physical discrepancy that set them apart from humans, and they shared that trait among themselves.
“Go see whether his heartbeat is clearer on the left or the right.”
With that, I handed him the cigarette. He snatched it eagerly. I placed one between my own lips and flicked my lighter.
I needed to smoke at least one to keep him from suspecting anything.
Ssssszt!
Lee Jun-ho scraped his blade against the scabbard. He brought the tip of his cigarette to the sparks that bloomed like falling petals.
“Phew...”
Lee Jun-ho exhaled the smoke, savoring the moment. A relaxed smile returned to his lips, his expression noticeably clearer.
“So, what are you trying to say?”
I looked back toward the shelter and replied.
“Those guys. They're Labyrinthians.”
“...Labyrinthians?”
“Yeah. If I had to guess, they're mimicking the eliminated contestants. Have you ever heard of the Jangsan Tiger?”
A beast that mimics human voices to lure its prey.
“......”
Lee Jun-ho smoked in silence. His breath drifted sideways like a misty shroud of snow.
“You slashing that patient was likely your instincts at work.”
Encountering someone in the middle of a raging blizzard—no matter how much of a battle maniac Lee Jun-ho was, he wouldn't just slash a survivor without reason.
His animalistic senses—that incredibly sharp intuition of his—must have detected an uncanny discrepancy that set the creature apart from humans.
“...Labyrinthians.”
Lee Jun-ho let out a dry chuckle and pointed a finger at me.
“How are we going to confirm it?”
“We'll use the excuse of gathering food. We'll leave one bait behind, and they'll show their true colors on their own.”
The bait would be Seo Ji-woo.
Once targeted by hostile Labyrinthians, running was no longer an option. They were incredibly persistent creatures; the moment they marked their prey, they would pursue them to the ends of the earth.
Besides, I was curious.
In MoMo, killing hostile Labyrinthians granted a special bonus. I wondered if the same rule applied here.
“Using Ji-woo as bait... I don't really like the sound of that, but...”
Lee Jun-ho crushed the nearly burnt-out cigarette in his fist. *Crackle.* It crumbled into fine ash between his fingers, sinking into the snow.
“We have to secure our screen time, after all.”
Before long, night fell.
“Yaaawn.”
Seo Ji-woo let out a massive yawn. Lee Jun-ho and Seol Ha-woon had left under the pretense of gathering food, leaving her behind to gladly nurse Lee Yong-seung at Jin Ho-seung's shelter.
It had been hard for her to just walk away. Lee Yong-seung had been her classmate back in Explorer High School.
*Clatter, clatter.*
But these people had been acting strange for a while now. She couldn't tell if they had lost their minds from hunger, or if the cramped space was getting to them.
“What are you doing?”
*Clatter, clatter.*
Jin Ho-seung was repeatedly washing something. In fact, ever since the sun went down, everyone in the shelter had been repeating the exact same actions over and over.
One person kept drawing something on the floor, while another continuously paced around the perimeter of the shelter.
“......”
To Seo Ji-woo, it looked incredibly bizarre. It was starting to give her goosebumps.
“When are those guys coming back?”
She stood up, making a quick excuse.
“Did something happen to them?”
It was entirely possible.
“Mr. Jin Ho-seung. I'm going to step outside for a moment. Just in case something happened to them.”
It was at that exact moment.
Without a single warning sign, the people suddenly lunged at Seo Ji-woo in a chaotic rush.
“Wh-What the—!”
Her limbs were pinned in an instant. Seo Ji-woo looked into their eyes. There was no light in them—only dull, grayish-white pupils. Her instincts flared with cold dread.
The thing that had been Jin Ho-seung unhinged its jaw. It was an anatomically impossible angle.
“Are you crazy?!”
Seo Ji-woo unleashed her mana. She tried to wrap her lines around Jin Ho-seung's neck like a lasso, but they passed right through his body. The severed surface sloshed like liquid.
*Riiiiip.*
Just as Jin Ho-seung's massive maw was about to swallow Seo Ji-woo's head whole...
──bang.
A gunshot erupted from somewhere. A magic bullet pierced through the wooden planks of the shelter, boring straight through Jin Ho-seung's temple.
*Crash!*
At the same time, Lee Jun-ho burst onto the scene. Slicing the door to pieces as he entered, he swung his sword at Jin Ho-seung and his teammates.
But the blade passed right through them. Their bodies sloshed like slimes. Lee Jun-ho shouted:
“They won't cut!”
“Hey, hey! What is going on?!”
“Can't you see?! They're all Labyrinthians! Get out of there, now!”
Lee Jun-ho grabbed Seo Ji-woo and dragged her outside.
*Whoooooosh—*
Lee Jun-ho and Seo Ji-woo stood their ground amidst the howling blizzard. From the shadows of the storm, the five figures trudged forward.
There was not a single trace of the humanity they had shown during the day. The patient, Lee Yong-seung, was no different.
“They're fluid bodies.”
Seol Ha-woon materialized behind them. A pair of rimless glasses rested on the bridge of his nose.
Lee Jun-ho bit his lip.
“I've never seen monsters like this before.”
He muttered, slicing his longsword through the air. No sword qi manifested.
To execute high-level techniques like Sword Qi or Sword Gang, one had to ignite their mana first. In freezing environments, that process took time.
“......”
Seol Ha-woon observed them through his Reinforced Compressed Rimless Glasses. As his perception expanded, the Labyrinthians' weak points came into view.
However, their weak points were constantly moving—hundreds of times a second. On top of that, they were so incredibly small that physical shooting was practically impossible.
This item is garbage.
Before he could dwell on it, the creatures lunged.
Seol Ha-woon spoke.
“Ji-woo and I will take one each. Jun-ho, you take three.”
“Why do I have to take three?”
“Because you're a warrior.”
Seol Ha-woon fired magic bullets at one of them. *Bang, bang, bang, bang!* He aimed directly for the weak point, but the bullets merely passed through its body.
The enemies accelerated rapidly. Lee Jun-ho took on three as agreed, while Seol Ha-woon and Seo Ji-woo handled one each.
The patient, Lee Yong-seung, lunges at Seol Ha-woon.
Their attack pattern was simple.
Cling, then swallow. Because they were fluid bodies, this was their most lethal method of attack.
“...Get the hell off me!”
This was especially true for a spellcaster like Seol Ha-woon, whose mobility was severely compromised.
“Hey! Are you okay?!”
Seo Ji-woo called out. Seol Ha-woon tried to push the creature away, but the fluid body tried to swallow his hand the moment it made contact.
No choice, then.
He condensed mana across his entire palm. He visualized an incredibly violent Cognitive Image in his mind.
The manifestation model was a weapon that boasted the ultimate destructive power at point-blank range.
A shotgun.
“Eat this and die.”
*BOOM!*
A thunderous roar erupted like a lightning strike. Mana exploded at point-blank range. Shrapnel from the magic bullets scattered, incinerating the fluid body. The Labyrinthian dissolved into nothingness with the whistling sound of rushing wind.
These things were fluid bodies—essentially liquid. Weak points didn't matter; as long as he had enough raw firepower to vaporize them instantly, it was more than enough.
“...Ah.”
But his hand was burning. Beyond the mere sensation of heat, his bones felt slightly fractured.
“Hey! I took one down!”
Lee Jun-ho shouted. One of his targets melted and dissolved into ash.
“I bound one too!”
This time, it was Seo Ji-woo. True to her word, the fake Jin Ho-seung was securely trapped within her lines.
Whether it was binding a fluid body or slicing one clean in half... they really were geniuses.
Seol Ha-woon limped over to the Jin Ho-seung that Seo Ji-woo had bound.
He pressed his index, middle, and thumb tightly together, placing them against the creature's chest.
Suddenly, a dark memory flashed through his mind, burning his consciousness.
He had executed someone just like this before—kneeling, with their limbs bound.
*BOOM!*
Seol Ha-woon has defeated a hostile Labyrinthian.
After the battle ended, Seo Ji-woo returned to the cabin, nearly buried in the snow. Fortunately, she had connected herself to the cabin with her lines beforehand, so she didn't lose her way.
“Whoa... what is this place?”
Lee Jun-ho let out a dry laugh as he surveyed the cabin. A wolf glared at him from the entrance.
“And what's with this wolf?”
Seo Ji-woo lit the fireplace as if she owned the place.
“Lay him down here.”
Lee Jun-ho laid Seol Ha-woon on the bed. Seol Ha-woon had collapsed the moment the last Labyrinthian was eliminated.
“Hey, Jun-ho. How did you know they were Labyrinthians?”
Seo Ji-woo asked.
Lee Jun-ho pointed at Seol Ha-woon.
“Seol here figured it out. He said they were all left-handed.”
“Left-handed?”
“Yeah. We learned about it in school, didn't we? ‘Hostile Labyrinthians possess distinct characteristics. Explorers must use these as clues to deal with them.’”
Lee Jun-ho recited the textbook passage as he continued.
“This Labyrinthian must have been a ‘mirror of humans’. Since mirrors don't reflect well after sunset, they reverted to their original forms.”
A mirror of humans. They mimicked the eliminated explorers, but because they were mirrors, they moved in a 'reversed' state.
“...No wonder. They were acting so damn weird.”
“Tell me about it. Well, Ji-woo, I'm heading out.”
Lee Jun-ho stood up.
“Why? You should rest here for a day.”
“No thanks. I feel like being around him will just drain my energy.”
“Drain your energy?”
“I don't want to become a sidekick.”
Lee Jun-ho chuckled as he uttered the strange remark. Seo Ji-woo tilted her head in confusion before looking back at Seol Ha-woon. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
Sweat.
Even though it was freezing cold and the fireplace hadn't fully warmed up yet?
Seo Ji-woo's eyes widened.
“...Mana overuse!”
It was a side effect of overusing mana.
In this situation, emergency treatment was vital. She had to calm his mana circuits first.
“Hey, hey! Help me out before you go!”
Seo Ji-woo began stripping Seol Ha-woon's clothes. Lee Jun-ho stepped in to help. From his thick overcoat to his jacket, shirt, undershirt, and thermal wear...
“Seriously, how many layers is he wearing...?”
The moment his upper body was finally revealed.
Both of them froze in their tracks.
“...What is this?”
“...I know.”
Seol Ha-woon's entire body was covered in scars. From stitched lacerations to dozens of stab wounds, eight bullet entry points, and a massive burn scar consuming half his flank... the brutal agony of his past was etched permanently into his flesh.
“Ah, first... I'll go make some ice!”
Snapping out of her daze, Seo Ji-woo hurriedly rushed outside.
“Got it.”
Lee Jun-ho examined Seol Ha-woon and noticed a gray chain around his neck.
“...Dog tags.”
Once a soldier, always a soldier, huh? He chuckled softly and picked them up.
SEO JI-HYUK
“......”
The fire in the hearth crackled, burning a deep red. The warm glow dyed his irises. Lee Jun-ho stared blankly at the name engraved on the dog tags.
His body froze solid.