No.490 Winterhalt (2)

Even at this very moment, the enemy was steadily closing the distance.

At the sight, Hong Yeon-hwa immediately used her Rank Boost. Bright light poured out of the magic scroll and sank into her body.

Something along those lines must have flashed up before her eyes, give or take.

I was planning to use mine a little later. My skills were on the short-ranged side, so either way I had to wait until the enemies closed in on the walls.

Hong Yeon-hwa summoned the giant phoenix yet again. Flaming feathers rained down, stitching patterns across the sky, and countless small flames bloomed in their wake. Fwoooosh! Each time, hundreds of the ice monster legion burned away in clumps. There were simply so many of them that, taken as a whole, the horde hardly seemed to shrink at all.

"Keep going."

"Okay."

Still, there was no reason to stop. We would have to fight them sooner or later, so why not thin their numbers before the real siege began? Hong Yeon-hwa would want to squeeze every last drop out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her Rank Boost while it lasted, too.

Fwoooosh! Pouring magic down on them that one-sidedly, there was no way the enemy could fail to notice us. The Ice Witch was no different—even from that great distance, I could feel her gaze locked squarely on us. She spurred the ice monster legion's advance to a faster pace.

Before long, apparently judging that we had entered their range, the orc shamans and the Ice Witch began chanting spells.

"……!"

Sensing the ripple of mana rising from the enemy lines, Hong Yeon-hwa reacted instantly. She cut off the large-scale spell she had been casting and chained defensive magic in its place.

Fwoooosh. Flames wrapped around her—one layer in the shape of a rounded sphere, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the other taking the form of armor. And Hong Yeon-hwa did not stop there; she brought a third spell into being as well.

A burning shield floated up into the air, smoldering. Looks like she learned a new one. Taking my advice to heart, she now had three layers of defense stacked on top of one another.

If she went head-to-head with Seo Ye-in like this, how would it play out? The gunner would hold the comparative edge, but I couldn't swear to a hundred-percent winner without seeing it with my own eyes.

Still, one thing was certain right now.

Nothing is getting through that.

Shhhhhk—!! The ice orc shamans loosed volleys of ice spikes, and the Ice Witch hurled a colossal ice spear—with enough force to smash apart the very wall we stood on. But Hong Yeon-hwa simply held her burning shield forward and stared the barrage down with haughty eyes.

The next moment, the incoming ice spells struck the shield, and with a long hsssssss— they evaporated on the spot without leaving so much as a scratch.

"Hmph."

Hong Yeon-hwa's lips curled upward as though she found the whole thing laughable. She must have expected exactly this. After all, she had lightly neutralized Bukgung Han-seol's every technique in their PvP assessment. The elemental matchup between Aqua Flame and the ice attribute was simply that absolute.

The ice spells poured in a few more times, but Hong Yeon-hwa seemed to judge that simply maintaining Blaze Shield was enough. She switched back to the offensive and focused on summoning the phoenix.

Fwoooosh! She kept up that barrage for a good while, and gradually a trace of fatigue surfaced on her face. I could roughly gauge her condition, so I asked.

"Out of mana?"

"Yeah, almost……"

She had spammed large-scale spells dozens of times over; her mana was bound to hit rock bottom. The enemy had all but reached the walls, but right now she needed rest, even if only for a moment.

Several blue magic circles rose beneath Hong Yeon-hwa's feet. Thin threads of light stretched out from the circles and linked into her—a mana recovery spell that absorbed and refined the mana of the surrounding area, feeding it back to the caster.

"……?"

Still channeling, Hong Yeon-hwa turned her head my way and arched an eyebrow—because I was lounging back in a folding chair, comfortable as a man could be.

I offered her the empty chair standing beside mine.

"Sit down and rest."

"Oh—okay. Thanks."

Though a touch hesitant, Hong Yeon-hwa obediently settled into the seat next to me. Then her eyes kept darting sideways; the camping stove sitting there seemed to have caught her attention. It was part of a set with the folding chairs we sat in, borrowed from Dang Gyu-young.

"And what exactly are you borrowing it for?"

"I have to protect world peace."

"Ugh, fine. Take it, take it!"

World peace and two hundred graduations were all-purpose cheat codes. At least, they had been so far.

"……"

Seeing that the stove was off, Hong Yeon-hwa stole a glance at me, then lit it herself.

Fwoosh! I had been just about to ask; she read my mind. Thanks to her, things warmed up considerably. I set the teapot on the stove, and before long the water came to a boil. The tea set, for the record, was on loan from Shin Byung-cheol.

I poured hot water into the Geumyeong Merchant Guild Teacup (E) and handed it over.

"Coffee?"

"……I'll have some."

Circumstances being what they were, there would be nothing elaborate to eat, but a cup of coffee during a short break couldn't hurt. I stirred a packet of instant coffee mix into the hot water, and a fresh cup was ready. Then I held out a handful of coffee mix to Hong Yeon-hwa as well.

"Put some in yours too—as much as you want."

"Okay……"

Her manner was timid, but her measure was anything but. She took the entire handful and dumped every last stick of it into her own cup.

That's practically straight concentrate at this point. Come to think of it, she always piled on a mountain of extra shots whenever she ordered coffee at the campus store. It looked like caffeine overkill, but since that was how she liked it, I said nothing.

For a while we sat in the folding chairs, sipping our coffee. Between sips, I asked after her progress.

"Any ranks gone up?"

"Yeah—Phoenix Flutter went up, for one……"

She had done nothing but spam it since we entered the dungeon; it would have been stranger if it hadn't. Then Hong Yeon-hwa pointed at the Blaze Shield hovering beside her.

"And that one, too……"

We had drawn the enemies' aggro so thoroughly that ice spells were still streaming in even now. But reassuringly, that shield of flame turned every one of them away, and its rank had just climbed from E to D, she said. For Hong Yeon-hwa, this was the ideal environment for polishing a whole repertoire of fire magic—stack Rank Boost on top of that, and raising two skills in a short span was only natural.

"You're doing great. Just don't get careless—let's keep it exactly like this."

"Okay, I will."

We drained our coffee at nearly the same moment and rose from our seats. By then, the ice monster legion had finally arrived at the walls, and the true siege opened in earnest.

"FIRE—!!!"

At the commander's bellow, a rain of arrows came sheeting down from the top of the wall. Ice orcs dropped left and right under the arrowfall, but the ice trolls and golems paid it no mind and went about their work—hoisting massive chunks of ice over the wall or clustering at the main gate to batter it down.

"……!"

Hong Yeon-hwa read the shifting battle at a glance and unleashed her fire magic. Where before she had scattered flaming feathers across wide swaths of ground, from now on she concentrated her firepower on the key points to shield them. Red magic circles were inscribed here and there, and pillars of fire roared upward.

KRA-KOOM—!

About time I did some rank grinding of my own.

Standing at Hong Yeon-hwa's side, I planted the Rooted Sapling into the ground.

Whirrrrr— A whirlwind spun up around an ice troll trudging toward the main gate, and the orcs around it were dragged in after—

BOOM!

—as the compressed air detonated.

While I was at it, I gave Octopus Legs a test run. As it happened, Hong Yeon-hwa was in the middle of inscribing Fire Pillar circles at two spots, so I cast my spell on both of them as well.

Whirrrrr— Two whirlwinds spun into being at once, dragging the monsters inward. Soon pillars of fire came spiraling up from the magic circles, and—

KABOOM—!

—the compressed air exploded, setting off an even greater burst of flame. The next instant, everything within the area was wiped out, clean as a whistle.

The synergy really is something else. The combination of Spiral Explosion ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and Fire Pillar—fold wind into fire, and the power multiplies several times over.

"……!"

She must have hit on the same thought, because Hong Yeon-hwa turned to look at me, flushed with excitement. Then she kept stealing glances my way, so I said in an offhand tone:

"I'll handle the timing, so just do what you've been doing."

"……Okay, I will."

Hong Yeon-hwa had a surprisingly wide field of view and a real knack for big-picture play, so I didn't need to give her any further instructions. She would sweep her eyes across the wall, pick out wherever the defense had thinned, and drop a Fire Pillar there—and I would layer a Spiral Explosion on top of it.

KRA-KOOM—!

We kept that up for a long stretch; whenever our mana ran dry, we sat down in the camping chairs to recover, then returned to the battlefield, over and over.

"——!"

Every so often, a roar of pure fury would roll across the field, and its source was none other than the Ice Witch. Two upstarts burning her entire legion to ash—how could she not be livid?

Hong Yeon-hwa asked me,

"Is that…… okay……?"

"Yeah. Just leave her be."

I brushed it off without a second thought. The Ice Witch was a commander-type entity, and her personal strength was nothing impressive. Even the ice spells she was hurling right now were all being turned away by Hong Yeon-hwa. With the gap in power already overwhelming, ignoring her cost us nothing.

"If anything, picking a fight with her would only lose us time."

If we took her down, the dungeon would close on the spot. Better to keep her alive and grind ranks to our hearts' content, then finish her near the end—like pressing the exit switch on our way out.

Hong Yeon-hwa nodded as if she understood, and picked the fire magic back up where she had left off. Once more, pillars of flame bloomed all across the field.

KRA-KOOM—!

For hours on end, we chained our spells together with mechanical rhythm—Hong Yeon-hwa cycling evenly through her repertoire of fire magic, me leaning mostly on Spiral Explosion. By now, our rank grinding had to have made serious headway.

We could probably start wrapping up soon.

This dungeon had one of two clear conditions: hold the defense for a set length of time, or slay the boss monster. By my internal clock, the 'set time' would be up soon and the dungeon would close on its own—but if we brought down the Ice Witch before then, we would pocket one more random box.

She's looking pretty worn out, too.

Hong Yeon-hwa tried not to let it show, but after cycling through mana exhaustion and recovery so many times, her fatigue seemed to have piled up considerably. So just as I was about to call it there—

……!

Something alien, something that did not belong in this dungeon, appeared at the rear of the battlefield. It was a pitch-black, viscous liquid like rotting filth, squirming as though it were a living thing. Flowing along the ground, it crept toward the Ice Witch.

So that thing shows up here, too.

I had known it would come sooner or later; I just never thought it would be this dungeon. Hong Yeon-hwa spotted it as well, and must have sensed how wrong it was, because she shot me an uneasy look.

For the first time since entering this dungeon, I let the seriousness show on my face.

"Remember the last day of midterms?"

"Yeah."

"This is a lot like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that. Focus, starting now."

"……!"

Hong Yeon-hwa's expression stiffened a notch further. And in the corner of my vision, a notification was already printing itself out.