The Frost King's Trap
Mina narrowed her eyes as she observed the man. The green hat he wore, decorated with what looked like a tree, reminded her of the one the village chief supposedly wore. They hadn't explored the village much, yet she couldn't help wondering how someone who had never even shown his face could know about them and come looking.
"What brings you here?" Seok-jun asked. The man, who had been breathing harshly, immediately grabbed his hand and shouted in desperation.
"A monster! A monster has appeared!"
Mina instantly thought of the Freeze Golem. It had been a long time since the last gate outbreak, yet a monster had suddenly shown up. Wondering if this might be the same kind, she glanced at Seok-jun, but he simply watched the middle-aged man in silence.
"Did you post a request on the guild board or the app?"
"W-well, it happened so suddenly. I had no idea when it might attack the village, so I came straight to you folks."
He answered as if flustered by the question.
"If you post the request directly on the bulletin board, a hunter suited to the rank will come find you."
Seok-jun spoke indifferently, glancing at Mina and Jun.
"Let's head back."
She wondered if they could really just leave like this, but Seok-jun seemed to have made up his mind, and Jun nodded while adjusting his grip on the shovel. She had no choice but to agree—until the man cried out again.
"Wait! Just wait a moment! What on earth is the problem here?! You people are hunters! Isn't a hunter's job to kill monsters?"
Seeing that they truly intended to leave, he rushed closer and grabbed them.
"Money! I can pay whatever you want! So please, just take care of the monster!"
"Um, Mr. Seok-jun… He really does seem desperate…"
Mina's heart wavered at the man's frantic plea. Seok-jun let out a sigh and turned back toward the middle-aged man. The man's face brightened, thinking he would listen, but that lasted only a second.
"Then let me ask. What does the monster look like?"
"I-it was big and white, at least."
"Without knowing its appearance, we can't identify what kind of monster it is."
"I saw it from far away! How was I supposed to see it clearly?!"
As Seok-jun kept pressing with questions, the man finally exploded in anger.
"This is a matter of people's lives! We should be rushing over there right now, yet you're nitpicking every little detail?!"
Is this any time for a young punk to be so damn stingy?!
The moment the words left his mouth, Seok-jun's lips curved upward for the first time. But Mina couldn't possibly call it a smile. The expression was so twisted it reminded her of warped scrap metal. If she had to name it, "murderous grin" would be most fitting.
"You called it trivial?"
It wouldn't have been strange if he killed someone right then. A chill ran down Mina's spine, and she realized this was what people meant by killing intent.
"W-what?"
The middle-aged man must have sensed something was wrong; he stumbled backward. Seok-jun didn't pursue him.
"Monster rank, gate rank, hunter rank. Why do you think those standards were created in the first place?"
After all, he was the one asking for help.
"Some call it discrimination, but every single one exists for safety."
A hunter's abilities varied wildly, and each had clear limits. Not everyone could move freely inside gates, and plenty of people couldn't even face monsters at all.
"The strategy changes depending on the monster type, and the methods you can use change too."
There are monsters you simply can't defeat no matter what you try because of mana limitations.
"That's why gate and monster types are the most critical information of all."
Because a hunter had to fight that monster directly, such information was literally a matter of life and death.
"Hunters aren't volunteers."
The reason even weak hunters earned good money was because their pay always included the price of their lives.
He had dismissed that as trivial and petty simply because they were in a hurry.
The man facing Seok-jun directly had gone deathly pale. Jun was the one who placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Tsk, I know."
At Jun's head-shake, Seok-jun clicked his tongue and returned to his usual blank expression.
"But it does seem urgent, so we'll at least perform an observation. Once the rank is measured, submit a formal request."
"Th-then?"
When the middle-aged man asked back in a daze, Seok-jun nodded.
"Guide us to where you saw the monster."
"Understood! Follow me right now!"
The man finally brightened and strode off. Watching his back, Mina spoke up.
"Mr. Seok-jun, are you really okay with this?"
He had been furious just moments ago, so she wasn't sure.
"It's only preliminary observation. It's not much of a problem."
His voice was perfectly calm, as if the anger had never existed. Mina blinked. The previous expression had vanished so completely she wondered if it had been the same person.
"If you were planning to help anyway, was there any need to act that way?"
She asked carefully, sensing he had deliberately provoked the man.
"Because if you don't draw a clear line, there are countless cases where no record is left at all."
If you don't set boundaries, people will try to resolve everything this way, claiming there's no procedure and it's simpler.
"Ms. Mina, you should also avoid requests that don't leave an official record."
Mina nodded in understanding. Without a proper contract, you might not get paid or could end up doing far more than agreed.
She recalled the small company she had nearly joined before entering Hanshin and broke into a cold sweat. It was a good thing she had noticed the suspicious contract scribbled on scrap paper and quickly sent her portfolio elsewhere. Though, to be fair, Hanshin hadn't exactly been full of good times either.
And so they followed the middle-aged man who led the way to the place where he had seen the monster.
"The measurer and weapons?"
"Right here."
"What kind of four-dimensional pocket is that…"
At Seok-jun's words, Jun opened a panel in his armor and pulled out the Winchester rifle case she had seen before, a revolver, and a small device that looked like a measurer. The sight made Mina think of that raccoon robot that insisted it was a cat robot. No wonder he hadn't carried any weapons when he arrived—it all made sense now.
As they continued following the man, she felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
I've been here before.
Following him, they soon entered the mountain, and the path felt oddly familiar. Assuming the monster must be somewhere along the route they had taken earlier, they kept going until a cave appeared before them.
"Here! I definitely saw the monster here!"
Rank: F
No mana detected in the vicinity.
"The measurer?"
"No abnormalities."
When Seok-jun signaled Jun with his eyes, the armored man shook his head. Mina checked the device as well—the analog red needle pointed firmly at F. That meant there was no mana in the area at all. There was no such thing as F-rank for monsters or gates. The classification existed because no monster or gate was so harmless it could be labeled with the lowest possible danger rating. Normally, if a monster were nearby, the needle would twitch even slightly toward a higher rank. Yet the measurer remained completely unresponsive.
"Are you sure you didn't mistake a wild animal for a monster?"
At Seok-jun's question, the middle-aged man's face flushed red then purple with rage.
"I saw it clearly! It has to be inside the cave! Hurry up and follow me!"
"Ah, wait—!"
Before Mina could stop him, the man stomped heavily across the ground and strode straight into the cave. She looked at Seok-jun and Jun.
"No helping it."
In the end, they had no choice but to follow him deeper inside.
How far had they gone?
"The cold suddenly got much stronger…"
Mina rubbed her arms against the chill that now bit into her flesh far more fiercely than before. Her body was definitely protected by mana, yet this was clearly an abnormal phenomenon. There really did seem to be a monster here.
"I still can't tell what kind it might be."
When Mina spoke, Seok-jun asked Jun again.
"Still the same?"
The measurer Jun showed continued to point at F.
"It seems we should turn back."
"What? Why all of a sudden?"
She asked in confusion as he stopped while following the man. Seok-jun examined the frozen cave walls.
"I was hoping it wasn't the case, but this looks like the worst possible scenario."
"Hmm. It seems there's a creature with quite the brain."
A deep, resonant voice suddenly filled the cave. The moment Mina froze, the path they had walked transformed. With a sound like shattering glass—clang!—transparent ice shot upward at terrifying speed, completely sealing the cave entrance.
"Oh God! I have brought the offerings!"
Following the middle-aged man's cry, Mina finally spotted it. The being he knelt before, prostrating in worship, looked at first glance like a Freeze Golem. But no one could possibly call it a mere Freeze Golem. Unlike the irregular, crude body of a typical one, this creature's every part was formed from translucent, smooth crystal with a blue tint—delicately carved like a masterpiece of ice, sharp and refined in a completely different league.
Above all, the quiet, intelligent eyes that glowed like red lenses could never belong to an ordinary monster. Moreover, Mina recognized the form.
The Frost King?!
It was smaller, but it was unmistakably the same entity she had seen in the videos.
"A hunter, was it? It reminds me of that fellow, Yu Seongjin."
The decisive proof was that it had spoken Yu Seongjin's name.
"It… it spoke…"
Mina couldn't close her mouth at the shock of a monster speaking, but—
"Isn't that a common cliché?"
"In hunter stories they've milked that trope dry. Not being surprised would be weirder, no?"
Seok-jun and Jun simply looked at her with puzzled expressions, unable to understand why she was so startled.
"Am I the strange one here?!"
Then Mina saw it. The needle on the measurer that had pointed at F the entire time had now swung all the way to S.