Chapter 59
Chapter 59
Mad Black Mage's Tower Strategy
Chapter 59
After the Hunting Dog disappeared, a heavy silence settled inside the bunker.
Ha-yeon seemed unable to hide her complex feelings even with her rabbit mask, scratching the cheek area and carefully asking.
"By any chance, do I not have to reveal it?"
"It's too late now."
Having stirred up things this much, trying to make excuses would mean one's conscience had run away.
"Then promise me just one thing."
"Let me hear it first."
The voice that followed carried an earnestness different from her previous playful attitude.
"Even if you know my identity, treat me exactly the same as before."
Ha-yeon's eyes wavering behind the mask. Seo-jin looked directly into those eyes and said.
"Whoever you are, I'll treat you the same as I have until now."
Since I already knew anyway.
At Seo-jin's refreshing answer, Ha-yeon tilted her head slightly and opened her eyes drowsily.
"......You don't actually already know, do you?"
"Your tongue is long. If you don't want to reveal it, don't."
Seo-jin scolded her persistence and responded as if he wouldn't care.
Rather, Ha-yeon felt reassured by that indifferent attitude and asked back.
"Really?"
"Yeah, do as you're comfortable."
Seo-jin shrugged his shoulders as if it didn't matter and looked at Ha-yeon.
'Regardless of the truth, Ha-yeon thinks her status and identity are obstacles to forming relationships with others.'
This was probably because many people had treated her not as the human Kwon Ha-yeon, but only as Hanseong's youngest daughter or the Tower's Saintess.
What she needed was a friend with whom she could reveal her true self without reserve.
From that perspective, Ha-yeon's current words about revealing her identity meant she was prepared to give up one newly made friend.
Therefore, Seo-jin didn't pressure her to reveal her identity.
At this, Ha-yeon asked Seo-jin several times as if she couldn't believe it.
"Really, really?"
"Yeah."
Seo-jin answered with a sigh.
He felt sorry for deceiving her when he knew everything, but this was all Seo-jin could do for her right now.
'No.'
Actually, Ha-yeon herself probably knew too.
That her identity had been discovered.
There was only one person in this Tower who possessed overwhelming strength and divine power, and could make Hanseong's Hunting Dog retreat with just a word.
But the important thing wasn't whether the truth came out of their mouths or not.
Knowing each other's intentions but deliberately not confirming them, maintaining a comfortable relationship like this.
A relationship maintained while hiding one's identity could also be called a false one, but this relationship maintained while tacitly acknowledging each other's intentions also had its own meaning.
Hyeon-wol, who had been silent until now, looked at Seo-jin and said a word.
[You really live in a tiresome way.]
'That's just how people are originally.'
At Seo-jin's response, Ha-yeon expressed her sincere gratitude.
"Thank you. Really."
"Don't mention it. Rather, I'm the one who's grateful."
Without Ha-yeon's intervention, it could have been dangerous.
"Let's go out now."
***
Coming out of the underground bunker, Ella was waiting with an anxious expression, accompanied by Primgard forces.
The entrance to the greenhouse that had become a complete mess, the smell of blood, and the bunker with its iron door completely blown open.
And Seo-jin and Ha-yeon, the instigators of this incident.
Ella looked at the two in great shock.
"Wh-what on earth happened here......"
"I went and did it."
"I couldn't hold back."
Ha-yeon and Seo-jin answering simultaneously.
Ha-yeon patted Ella's shoulder and calmed the flustered her.
"I've captured all the heads of the three families. The guards are all subdued too. We just need to search their homes and collect evidence."
It was ridiculous to cause such destruction first and then look for evidence later, but since the enemy had made the first move, it was justified.
'If they didn't want this to happen even though it's annoying, they should have stayed still.'
Once the investigation began, evidence would come pouring out.
Starting with those supplies stockpiled in the underground bunker, which were evidence of illegally embezzling the Association's support, the charges could be proven just by referencing some data from the central office.
"You know what to look for, right?"
"Of course."
The magic stones and food supplies they had diverted were important evidence to prove the charges.
Additionally, various quests they had controlled and monopolized information on, and the cores and Fire Seeds they had secured in the process.
Hiding important items necessary for maintaining the semi-permanent engine without the supreme leader's knowledge was a serious crime equivalent to national subversion.
Was that all? They would also need to find evidence of what they had pocketed while contracting with Hanseong.
Records of their opposition to building a Tower climbing test site on the 10th floor would also remain.
Handling all of this alone would certainly be a burdensome task, but that was the fate of a leader.
While he could break unreasonable shackles for her, he couldn't spoon-feed her everything.
"We have to do what we have to do."
Now let's leave the natives' affairs for them to handle among themselves.
Now it was time to follow a climber's duty, defeat the boss monster, and climb the Tower.
***
The next day.
"It's completely blocked."
While Ella was busy handling the aftermath.
After getting sufficient rest, Seo-jin's party visited the Eternal Snow Ice mine again.
But they couldn't immediately enter the mine.
The entrance was completely blocked by piles of dirt and large rocks that had poured out when the mine shaft collapsed.
It was in a dangerous state where attempting to restore it carelessly could cause an even bigger collapse.
"At this rate, it would be better to dig a completely new one."
When Seo-jin shook his head, Baduki, who had recovered his magic power through sufficient rest, began digging into the ground.
PABABAK-.
Baduki drilling down into the ground rapidly like a drill.
In an instant, a sloped mine shaft was created.
Seeing this, Ha-yeon pestered him to make her a summoned creature like Baduki too.
"Make one for me too."
"I can make one, but you won't be able to control it."
Because undead only follow their creator's commands.
Ha-yeon looked at the hole Baduki had dug down into and tilted her head.
"But that one follows me very well?"
"That's...... a bit different."
The reason Baduki ran to Ha-yeon happily despite her divine power was probably because his master was Seo-jin.
Summoned creatures are greatly influenced by their master's emotions.
"Stop talking nonsense and look at this."
Seo-jin took out the steam drill he had borrowed from Tito and entered the tunnel Baduki had dug.
This was a drill equipped with a function to detect and track the energy of Eternal Snow Ice.
Indeed, when he headed inward with the drill in front, the drill's direction moved on its own like a dowsing rod.
Seo-jin went in the direction the drill's tip pointed and operated the drill.
TUDADADADA-.
The steam drill drilled into the rock with such a violent vibration that his whole body shook.
But no matter how much he dug, he couldn't feel even cold air, let alone Eternal Snow Ice.
"How is it?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe it's because we haven't reached the point where Eternal Snow Ice exists yet?"
Seo-jin shook his head and moved to the opposite side of where the drill had pointed.
And he told Ha-yeon.
"Try digging here directly with your hands."
"Me?"
"Nothing is more certain than digging and checking directly."
Baduki was digging a mine shaft, and if he used the steam drill, they might suspect there was some manipulation.
Ha-yeon clicked her tongue as if displeased, but seeming to reluctantly accept Seo-jin's words, she began tearing apart the hard bedrock with her bare hands.
KWAJIK-. KWAJIK-.
Ha-yeon produced power surpassing a drill even with bare hands.
Seo-jin was astounded by her strength.
"......"
Even when they quarreled over trivial matters in the past, he couldn't make a peep because of that strength.
If things went wrong, his bones and flesh could separate just like that.
Moreover, most black magic didn't work because it was blocked by divine power, so they were complete opposites.
"Huh?"
Ha-yeon, who had been tearing out rocks, gradually felt the cold air getting stronger.
She continued digging out rocks with a surprised expression, and soon succeeded in mining a fist-sized piece of Eternal Snow Ice.
Ha-yeon held the blue stone emitting cold air in her hand and her eyes sparkled.
"It's, it's real?"
"What did I tell you."
It was the moment when Seo-jin's hypothesis was partially proven - that the steam drill's Eternal Snow Ice tracking function was false, and was actually guiding the mine shaft structure in a strange direction.
The three families had conspired to induce a decrease in Eternal Snow Ice production, which was indirect evidence of a deal with Hanseong or the boss monster.
Rather than a slight decrease in Eternal Snow Ice production, concealing the boss monster's existence was important, and such a production decrease was a trivial matter for Hanseong, which held exclusive mining rights.
"Now let's continue going down."
The path of Eternal Snow Ice continued toward where Baduki had dug down.
Seo-jin and Ha-yeon went straight down following the slippery slope.
The temperature dropped rapidly as they went down, and bone-chilling wind whirled from inside the cave.
The party continued forward while chewing Fire Grass.
UJEOKUJEOK.
And.
After a long search, they finally reached their destination.
What unfolded before their eyes was a sight beyond imagination.
A vast underground palace where massive ice pillars supported the ceiling.
In the center of the palace where everything was frozen in blue light, a giant form was in deep sleep.
A giant emitting cold air from his entire body. The 10th floor's boss monster and the source of winter that had swallowed Primgard.
It was Ice Queen Glize.