Playing in the Snow
Kwajik!
Oh Hyeon-seong shattered the monster that had frozen solid like a statue and walked on.
There had been so many of them that they'd clogged the tunnel outright.
The monsters, breaking apart with laughable ease, scattered across the ground in fragments.
Joo Ji-hye, picking her way along behind him, stared down at their remains.
...What even is this guy.
Just witnessing what had happened moments ago had been enough to make her hair stand on end.
Power that defied all reason.
But at the same time, a question gnawed at her. Why would a hunter of this caliber retire — and take up farming in some backwater village, of all places?
"Why'd you go quiet all of a sudden?"
"...I will never act up again."
"Huh?"
The two of them passed through the frost-covered corridor.
Not all of the creature's minions had been wiped out, it seemed — black hounds emerged and barred their way. But with far fewer of them than before, Joo Ji-hye stepped forward and picked them off one by one.
"I think it's that passage up ahead, sir."
"Looks like it. We're getting close to the thing now. Stay sharp."
The tunnel where the miasma thickened with every step. They approached the chamber at the very end, sealed off by black vines, and she made short work of them with her telekinesis before stepping inside.
"Th-there are people in here!"
The abducted villagers and hunters lay unconscious, bound tight in the vines.
They hurried over to check on them.
"They're all still breathing."
"No sign of the boss, though... I'll get them out first."
Joo Ji-hye moved in and began tearing the vines away. The dense tangles ripped apart under brute strength, oozing black filth that stained clothes and faces alike, but she paid it no mind.
Using her ability would have been simpler, but the shock could do real damage to a fragile civilian body.
Based on the miasma concentration, this has to be the heart of the nest. So where did the boss go?
Oh Hyeon-seong scanned the room, thinking. Everything from the state of the chamber to the layout of the burrow marked this as the spot where a lurker-type monster would have first slipped in, settled, and made its home. Even if it had relocated somewhere else, there was no way it could have missed the commotion in the tunnels.
Uneased by the strange stillness, he sharpened every sense he had.
"Joo Ji-hye, get back!"
KWAAAAAANG!
A razor-sharp tail erupted from the ground, aimed straight for her heart. It was blindingly fast and utterly silent — she didn't even have time to react.
But the instant the tail came flying in, Oh Hyeon-seong seized her by the nape, yanked her back, and drove his foot into the earth with all his strength.
CRASH!
She sprawled where the momentum had thrown her — and her heart, mercifully, remained un pierced.
Oh Hyeon-seong slid backward across the floor, putting distance between them.
"Hah... hah..."
Joo Ji-hye gulped down ragged breaths.
I almost... died just now.
If he hadn't pulled her out, she would have died right there on the spot. Whether you were a Grade 10 high hunter or anything else, death on the battlefield didn't bother with ceremony — it arrived in a single heartbeat.
The monster's tail, having burst up from below, swayed lazily as it settled.
"Not prey. Bait."
A frugal little thing, wasn't it. Using one human as a lure to draw in more of the same before eating any of them.
By then, Joo Ji-hye had scrambled back to her feet.
"Okay. Fine. Let's take it on together!"
Fighting an S-Rank boss with just two people was a reckless gamble — but she was certain they had a real chance, as long as it was with Oh Hyeon-seong.
She had seen his skill with her own eyes mere minutes ago.
Yet for some reason, no answer came, and she turned around — to find him retreating rapidly into the distance.
"Uh... excuse me?"
"Sorry — to hurt that thing, I need to prepare something big. Buy me some time up front, will you?"
KWAAANG!
In that instant, the boss monster burst up out of the ground.
A massive black beast, its bulk a spectacle in itself. It resembled the hounds in shape, but the spikes bristling across its entire body and the far greater number of eyes made it many times more grotesque.
Above all, what struck her most was the suffocating pressure it radiated.
"Insane..."
Taut with tension, Joo Ji-hye swallowed hard.
Unlike other grades, S-Rank gates had no ceiling. That meant no matter how strong a hunter was, death could come for them at any moment inside an S-Rank gate. The reason teams were mandatory was precisely to secure a minimum margin of safety in such extreme conditions — and at the national level, the loss of any high-tier hunter above Grade 10 was a matter of extreme sensitivity.
More than that, this was her first S-Rank-level deployment since the grievous injury she'd suffered at the Busan gate a year ago.
She wasn't even sure she could fight at her old capacity — and now she was supposed to stall a boss. Alone.
"Don't panic. Think about the training you've done. You can't feel it yet, but you're far stronger than you were before."
"R-really?"
"Probably."
How was he supposed to know, when he'd never even seen the Joo Ji-hye of a year ago? Her face crumpled into a look of pure despair.
Oblivious or indifferent, Oh Hyeon-seong kept calling out advice from behind her.
"That thing's called a Grimhell. It's good at brawling and quick on its feet, which makes it a nuisance — but its weak point is its belly. See the patches where the coloring's a little different? Aim for those as you fight. It'll have to split its focus on defense, and you can pin down those fast legs to a degree."
It was a very old memory, but he had faced one before, in China. Back then it had gorged itself on an entire city rather than a village and grown far larger than this one — but the creature's nature itself never changed.
In the meantime, the Grimhell stamped its foot and came barreling toward her.
"Ugh, whatever!"
Irritated, she raised both arms and unleashed her ability. A crushing force immediately bore down on the beast. Her plan was to flatten it outright and burst its entire body apart, and with a grinding crunch, its frame began to sink lower and lower.
PAENG!
But the creature shook off the pressure entirely and charged.
Magic resistance far beyond its minions'. Ordinary levels of telekinetic force simply didn't work on it.
"Tch...! Come on, just die already."
TAENG!
Joo Ji-hye set down the weapon case she'd been carrying on her back. She kicked open the heavy, upright case with a resounding thud.
Sshhhk!
Dozens of swords spilled into view inside the unfolded case. Her telekinesis flared, and every blade rose into the air at once.
They were her custom equipment — made for enemies against whom raw telekinetic projection barely registered.
One of the floating swords accelerated and shot forward, striking the Grimhell precisely in its foreleg. This was a creature that ordinary attacks couldn't even wound, but a blade carrying telekinetic force focused into a single point produced vastly amplified power.
A volley of swords followed, raining down on the beast.
The Grimhell weaved between the blades, closing the distance in a flash, while Joo Ji-hye gave ground steadily, keeping the range under strict control.
Its movement's even better than I expected.
Oh Hyeon-seong watched, visibly impressed.
Few hunters alive could solo an S-Rank gate. Unless one cherry-picked easy gates, of course — and the Grimhell was anything but an easy opponent. By any reasonable measure, Joo Ji-hye was performing brilliantly.
As expected — training under Han Su-yeon could never have been wasted.
When it came to mana, Han Su-yeon was an instructor without peer in the country. One week might sound like nothing, but anyone who knew her abilities would say an entire week — and the results were on full display now. Joo Ji-hye was controlling her swords with far finer precision, wringing greater power from less mana expenditure. Everything she'd learned was being put to work on the battlefield, exactly as taught.
"Ggh... when the hell does this thing die?!"
But as the fight wore on, the one being pushed back was Joo Ji-hye. She had landed fully accelerated strikes again and again, yet the creature showed no intention of going down easily. She'd tried targeting its weak point, but while it would allow wounds elsewhere, it defended the discolored patches at all costs.
And with the distance closing bit by bit, anxiety began to creep in.
Whoosh!
Then, the tail coiled around her leg. It had struck from a blind angle, piercing straight up through the ground.
I got. Hit—!
KWAAAAAANG!
Flung through the air, Joo Ji-hye slammed into the ground. Her head rattled violently, a ringing spreading through her skull. Leaning on hunter's instinct, she scrambled upright — but the Grimhell was already upon her, claws raised high.
Trying to recall the swords she'd lost control of was already too late.
KRAK!
But the beast's descending leg froze solid mid-strike.
Its gaze, which had been locked on Joo Ji-hye alone, snapped sideways — and there stood Oh Hyeon-seong, arm raised.
"That's enough. Good work."
Oh Hyeon-seong gave a small nod. Reading the signal, she threw herself clear — and in the same breath, a ferocious cold came roaring down.
CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
An overwhelming torrent of frost poured onto the Grimhell. The energy coiling around Oh Hyeon-seong was funneled entirely toward the front — unlike when he'd frozen the minions, this was far more concentrated, far more lethal.
A cold so savage that even the boss, with its towering magic resistance, felt its skin necrotize and its marrow freeze solid.
KUUUNG!
And yet, astonishingly, the Grimhell planted one foot forward. Then another. It was driving straight through the face of that glacial torrent.
The creature knew that if it could just get close to an ability-wielding human, it could kill them with ease. And so, even with its whole body freezing over, it came on driven by a single obsession: to tear the human apart and devour it.
But the very moment it was truly within arm's reach —
Shff!
A sword appeared in Oh Hyeon-seong's hand.
"Did you think I was some frail weakling who hides behind his spirits?"
Toward the Grimhell, frozen to perfection, he kicked off the ground with full force and swung.
The monster's head shattered into fragments, and its massive body split cleanly in two.
But none of its filthy blood came raining down on him — only brilliant white crystals, scattering on the air.
Seo Jae-ho, a hunter with the Disaster Management Bureau, raced through the mountains.
As Oh Hyeon-seong had instructed, he had reported the situation here to headquarters — and received unexpected news. A civilian hunter closer to the site than the government strike team, which had already withdrawn, was rushing to provide support.
And the one who arrived on scene was someone far beyond anything he could have imagined.
"This is the spot, sir! Right here!"
Reaching the nest's entrance, Seo Jae-ho turned around.
There stood Choi Jeong-il, CEO of Aegis Entertainment — not even out of breath, a single hair out of place.
"The two of them really went in alone?"
"Yes, sir. They went in first to rescue the people who'd been taken."
"...Then no further support is needed. Make sure no one else comes in."
Leaving Seo Jae-ho behind, Choi Jeong-il entered the nest alone. He began tearing through the dark tunnels at astonishing speed, his face set in a deep frown.
Please... let them still be safe...
By any objective measure, far too much time had already passed. Joo Ji-hye was strong, but facing a lurker-type boss monster alone was beyond her, and his senior, Oh Hyeon-seong, suffered from the aftereffects of a devastating old injury — the final battle had cost him every one of his spirits. In that condition, even the Oh Hyeon-seong of legend couldn't handle an S-Rank gate.
Choi Jeong-il's fists clenched tight.
He could not let the two of them die such a hollow death.
At incredible speed, he located the region where the miasma was thickest and stepped into the heart of it.
TAENG!
"...?"
But what spread out before his eyes was a chamber filled with drifting white crystals.
The corpse of an enormous monster, split clean in half — and Oh Hyeon-seong sitting atop it.
"You're a bit late."
Oh Hyeon-seong sat there, utterly at ease, without a scratch on him.
At that sight, Choi Jeong-il let out an involuntary, hollow laugh.
"Haha..."
He felt like a fool. Who exactly had he been worrying about? Only now, at this late hour, was it dawning on him all over again.
"You haven't lost a step, Sunbae."