Chapter 186
Chapter 186
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 186
Chapter Title: Part 2 Episode 49
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Seol Do-yoon opened his eyes and looked around the dark space enclosing them on all sides.
If Mont Jihel had been scorching hot, this place was bitterly cold. Seol Do-yoon pulled out a liquid hand warmer he had brought and clicked it on. Warmth instantly spread through his palm.
"Is this Tronrop?"
"Yeah."
Seol Do-yoon glanced at the mutated creatures surrounding the dungeon and himself.
The mutated creatures had organs specialized and refined for survival.
The seal's teeth with pincers had become even sharper and larger, the three-eared fox's ears had grown several times bigger, and its claws were sharp enough to slice diamonds.
'Mind's Eye.'
[Monster detection activated!]
Seol Do-yoon closed one eye and activated his ability.
A blue light swirled in his open eye, and all living beings appeared as black silhouettes.
Monster emotion stones, previously invisible inside the creatures, now became visible within the mutated beings.
Seol Do-yoon turned his head to look at Dun. As always, nothing was visible. The same went for the Primavera Emperor.
He had no idea how the Black Ghost Knight had extracted a soul stone from him, but it seemed impossible to access vital information between the same species or fellow Bachinums.
"You've become a monster?"
Seol Do-yoon picked up the three-eared fox that had turned into a monster and began examining it.
[Kyaaah!]
As the monster flailed its small front paws to attack Seol Do-yoon, he pretended to dodge by raising a finger, then grinned brightly and booped the fox's nose with his index finger to tease it.
"Stop tormenting it and let's head deeper to look around."
Dun Ryukrian jerked his chin and walked toward the deeper part of the dungeon.
"Shall we?"
Seol Do-yoon carefully set down the fox monster he had been playing with and replied with a smile.
* * *
Frustrated with the stuffy dungeon, Seol Do-yoon personally checked out each suspicious area.
One was a massive igloo, but when he went inside, it turned out to be a dungeon itself, so he immediately turned back. Another was underwater, and upon inspection, it housed psychic monsters in an aquatic dungeon, so he obliterated it.
It was intriguing that this world had dungeons similar to Ninapinta. He had thought only gates existed here.
While diligently searching for the last spot, he arrived at a place called the Snow-White Forest.
Countless trees stood tall, blanketed in pure white snow.
Bizarrely shaped creatures, nearly frozen solid, swarmed into the forest.
Walking sticky rice cakes, piglets with octopus legs—creatures of all sorts of strange forms.
There was a small river nearby, completely frozen from surface to bottom, yet uniquely shaped aquatic creatures swam within it.
Voices chattering nearby caught his ear.
People who looked like locals, dressed in thick fur clothes, were chopping wood.
One might expect them to marvel at the bizarre creatures in the forest, but they didn't spare them a glance and kept chopping.
"Excuse me, do you know where those creatures are heading?"
"?"
[Skill acquired: [Tinu Tribe Language lv.1].]
Seol Do-yoon tried speaking again.
"Excuse me, do you know where those creatures are heading?"
"Grunter! A foreigner who speaks our language. Rare, super rare. Can you speak more? Make it easy to understand."
"What the hell are you saying."
Seol Do-yoon scratched his head and opened his mouth again.
[Skill: [Tinu Tribe Language] level up!]
"Excuse me, do you know where those creatures are heading?"
"Creatures? What creatures are you talking about?"
"Don't you see that herd of creatures? Even the weird plants are moving."
Seol Do-yoon pointed at the group of moving creatures. The fur-clad woodcutter tilted his head.
"I don't see anything."
"Look over there. Right there. The fish walking on two legs!"
"No matter how I look, I don't see it."
"You're saying you don't see it? Your eyes must be messed up."
The fur-clad woodcutter twitched his red, stubby nose. Then he gripped his axe tighter.
"Sigh, Ice Mountains, forgive us. We encounter a madman with ice in his head. Grant us judgment and reckoning."
Suddenly, the fur-clad woodcutter swung his axe at Seol Do-yoon's neck, but Seol Do-yoon flicked a finger and shattered the blade.
"What?"
Stunned at how effortlessly Seol Do-yoon destroyed the axe, the Tinu tribe resident cried out in shock.
"Uwaaah!!! It's the Fire Mountains!!"
[Skill: [Tinu Tribe Language] level up!]
[[Tinu Language] New record discovered. Add language information to autobiography?]
[Not affiliated with the World. Cannot add the information.]
[1 critical error occurred.]
[1 critical error occurred.]
[1 critical error occurred.]
....
"Dizzying. What now."
Seol Do-yoon frowned at the barrage of warning windows popping up before his eyes.
Lately, the system window had been glitching frequently.
When he brandished a club, scattered opinions converged; when he smacked an electronic device, it fixed itself cleverly to avoid breaking.
Seol Do-yoon raised his fist and swung at the system window spewing infinite error messages.
Ego, poor Seol Do-yoon....
[Problem resolved!]
[Discarded 1 piece of information.]
As the problematic system window quieted, record parchments floated up one after another in the air.
{Hidden tribe, <Tinu> tribe's language recognized by Bachinum (dc143c-O).}
{[Tinu Language] New culture discovered. Record in autobiography?}
{Recording impossible. Information saved to appendix.}
"Nice."
He had wrinkled his brow fearing the records would cause a fuss, but everything resolved itself.
Whenever errors occurred like this, swinging his fist made the system window snap to attention cleverly.
With the system fixed but failing to get info from the locals, Seol Do-yoon moved his feet and followed the mutated creatures absentmindedly.
'By the way, can the people here not see the mutated creatures?'
From the earlier vibe, ordinary folks seemed unable to see them.
When he asked about the creatures, they treated him like a hallucinating lunatic.
If they could see them, the world would be in chaos, so perhaps the world itself made them invisible?
How did that Mont Jihel mastermind gain power before mass-producing gates and dungeons?
Lost in thought as he walked, Seol Do-yoon soon arrived at a black tree.
Placing his hand on the black tree's surface, a chill emotion surged through him. His mind calmed, and his drive and basic desires cooled instantly.
Removing his hand, suddenly everything felt fun again. He wondered how he could have been so passionate.
It was truly bizarre.
Seol Do-yoon placed his hand on the tree again and summoned the info window.
[Legendary+] Nagolrai Ivanov's Tree
Description: Tree grown from soil left by Vaccine #630, Nagolrai Ivanov, upon death. Possesses error correction function.
{Legend+} Bachinum's Tree
Description: Decaying because the era of World Arrangement has arrived.
Seol Do-yoon compared the two info sources. He recalled Ryukrian's tree from Mont Jihel earlier.
It gave a very similar vibe. Even the sense of mana gathering around the tree felt the same.
'Bachinum means vaccine in this world...?'
It was a bit shocking.
With a disconcerted expression, Seol Do-yoon calmly read the rest of the info window. The description of a lifeform grown from soil left by a dead Bachinum was intriguing.
The idea that something could grow from the soil composing his own body was fascinating. What did "era of World Arrangement" mean, though?
[T-System Window usage detected.]
[Welcome, Vaccine #746.]
Rumble!
Lost in thought, a small earthquake hit, and blue light swirled between the tree's grains. Soon, the entire Snow-White Forest glowed blue.
The area's light soon enveloped and swallowed Seol Do-yoon.
"Hmm?"
When he opened his eyes, he was in a completely different zone. Scratching his head in an ice crystal cave-like darkness, Seol Do-yoon muttered.
"It's been a while since I've felt cold...."
A blast of chill hit him. Shivering slightly, Seol Do-yoon straightened up and looked around.
[Entered Tronrop.]
{Entered unknown location.}
"Tronrop?"
The discovered area's name seemed to be Tronrop. It felt like this world's error processing zone.
If Mont Jihel was sweltering, this was freezing.
A river ran right nearby, with cold white steam rising from it. An ambiguous substance between gas and liquid flowed steadily along the path.
Kreeeek!
While observing the scenery, a mutated creature swept in with him suddenly leaped into the river and shattered into pieces.
Mutated creatures that didn't jump in wandered occasionally, slowly freezing over.
'What an odd place....'
To grasp the unknown space, Seol Do-yoon walked forward, eyes fixed ahead for a moment.
He soon faced what looked like Tronrop's end wall. Touching the wall made icicle flowers bloom sideways.
'Already the end?'
Seol Do-yoon looked deeply disappointed at reaching the area's edge so soon. He had expected it to be vast, but he hit the first wall already.
Sighing, Seol Do-yoon leaned against the wall briefly to catch his ragged breath.
The moment he leaned, sharp icicle flowers sprouted where he touched.
'...An ordinary person leaning on this wall by mistake would get pierced and die instantly.'
Clicking his tongue, Seol Do-yoon pulled away from the wall, snapped off an icicle flower, and scraped along the wall as he walked.
Dozens of sharp icicle flowers sprouted wherever the flower touched.
Seol Do-yoon circled the entire area, hand on the wall.
No hidden paths appeared as hoped, and spacing out while walking brought him back to the start.
Back at the origin, Seol Do-yoon pouted in dissatisfaction.
Tronrop wasn't as big as Mont Jihel. In fact, it was incomparably small.
More underwhelming than expected, his enthusiasm deflated. Ice floor, walls, and river.
Mutated creatures freezing and vanishing upon arrival. That was it.
Looking around, Seol Do-yoon suddenly spotted a small indentation in the center. Brushing away snow with his foot revealed a handprint-shaped hollow.
'This just makes me want to put my hand on it.'
Spreading his palm, Seol Do-yoon placed it on the hollow.
The hollow glowed brightly, and Tronrop's floor began emitting a soft light.
Soil gathered at Seol Do-yoon's fingertip, and the floor absorbed some of it.
[Unauthorized entity!]
[Commencing removal.]
Amid countless alerts, waves from the nearby river engulfed Seol Do-yoon.
"What is this, freezing."
His hair began icing over, sharpening into deadly points.
Seol Do-yoon roughly brushed off the bizarre gas-liquid substances with his hand and headed back the way he came.
'I should tell Seol Do-yoon about this place.'
Since this world's vaccine was Seol Do-yoon, bringing him here seemed necessary to explore further.
Regretful at not seeing more, Seol Do-yoon trudged out of Tronrop.
* * *
Arctic base.
Upon arriving at the base, Seol Do-yoon collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath. Today's activity had been overwhelmingly taxing.
'Seol Do-yoon's probably in the ops room.'
After a short five-minute nap on the floor, Seol Do-yoon staggered up and headed to the ops room.
"Grindmaster~"
Bursting through the door, he called out to Seol Do-yoon, who should still be calculating positions boringly.
But no sign of Seol Do-yoon anywhere he looked.
The complex equations on the whiteboard were erased, and all materials pinned to the walls were neatly organized.
"Huh?"
Candid camera?
Seol Do-yoon's brow twitched.
They were supposed to work together, but did he sneak off to Korea without a word?
Knowing Seol Do-yoon's penchant for rootless pranks, it seemed plausible he'd return to Korea just to piss him off.
Right on cue, a message arrived.
Sender: Seol Do-yoon.
[Save me ㅠㅡㅠ]
It looked genuinely urgent, a contextless plea for rescue.
[Where?]
[Igloo Dungeon]
Politely asking location, Seol Do-yoon clicked his tongue upon hearing igloo dungeon. He had checked it earlier—truly an easy one.
[Just die, it'll be easier lol]
Exhausted from wandering everywhere, Seol Do-yoon sent a curt reply and flopped onto the sofa.