Chapter 465: Beast's Road (3)

Tap! Tap! Tap!

'What is that cute-sounding noise?'

Seo Jun-Ho's ears perked up at the approaching sound, and he stared at the door.

"...!" At last, he finally remembered what he had forgotten. A drop of cold sweat dripped down Seo Jun-Ho's neck as the door to the Office of the Association President was flung open.

Bang!

"Frost—" Seo Jun-Ho tried to greet the Frost Queen warmly upon seeing her, but he was forced to stop speaking.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

The Frost Queen scanned the room as if she were a beast searching for prey.

It didn't take long until her fierce gaze landed on Seo Jun-Ho.

"You, you...!"

The Frost Queen's eyes were bloodshot as she breathed heavily out of anger.

'What is she holding in her hand?'

"Is that an iron mace?"

The Frost Queen was holding an iron mace riddled with nails.

'Is she going to hit me with that thing?'

"You—bad! You meanie!"

'Wow, I guessed that right.'

The Frost Queen charged toward Seo Jun-Ho with the iron mace in tow. Seo Jun-Ho got a bit nervous at her charge, and he instinctively summoned Seo Jun-Sik.

"Huh? Ahhh!"

Seo Jun-Sik was struck by the iron mace as soon as he was summoned, and he collapsed to the floor with a scream of agony.

Seo Jun-Ho quickly appeared next to the Frost Queen.

He took her iron mace away and lifted it above his head.

Hop! Hop!

The Frost Queen stretched both her arms out and jumped.

"You punk! Give me back my iron mace!"

"Tsk. This thing is dangerous, you know? You can't just swing this recklessly," Seo Jun-Ho said in a firm voice as he pointed at Seo Jun-Sik. "Look. Can't you see that Jun-Sik is in pain?"

"It should have been you, you bastard!" Seo Jun-Sik kicked Seo Jun-Ho in the butt and grumbled. "It should have been you, not me! What did you even summon me?"

"...Shared pain is half the pain."

"Yes, but why does it have to be me?! Besides, I wasn't going to mention this because I didn't want to look petty, but when you were still in the Hole of Repentance...!"

"Bad Contractor! How dare you disappear without telling me! And when you finally returned, you didn't even tell me right away."

Seo Jun-Sik and the Frost Queen flanked Seo Jun-Ho as they complained.

'My head's starting to hurt...'

Seo Jun-Ho massaged his temple and said, "All right. Jun-Sik, you can go back in now."

"What—" Seo Jun-Sik disappeared like smoke. He didn't even manage to complete his sentence.

"Frost, I'll give you a cake sprinkled with Spirit Crystals, so please don't be mad at me anymore."

"No, thanks! Do you think I'm a kid or something? You have always been like this, Contractor!"

'The cake card isn't working anymore?'

Seo Jun-Ho was a bit surprised.

'Come to think of it...'

Seo Jun-Ho could see that the Frost Queen had grown a lot taller than before.

'When we first met, she was as small as my palm...'

Now, the Frost Queen looked like she was in her second year of middle school, so she had definitely grown a lot bigger compared to when they first met.

'She'll become even bigger when she evolves once more...'

Seo Jun-Ho smiled bitterly.

The Frost Queen saw that and stopped kicking up a fuss.

"..."

Flinch!

'Gasp, why does he look like he's about to cry?'

The Frost Queen was genuinely surprised to see Seo Jun-Ho looking like he had lost something precious. She pondered for a while before eventually deciding to calm down.

"Hm, well, I guess this is enough. I'm sure you already know what you shouldn't do. I wasn't yelling at you because I was mad at you. It's just that—" the Frost Queen said in a panic.

The Frost Queen was trying her best to console him so that he wouldn't cry, and the sight convinced Seo Jun-Ho once more that she was truly adorable. He wanted to tease her more as a smile unknowingly appeared on his lips.

"Huh? You just smiled, didn't you?! I saw you smile, Contractor! I saw it!" The Frost Queen finally sighed in relief as she muttered, "Sigh, I feel like raising an adult child,"

'Look who's talking...'

Seo Jun-Ho and Shim Deok-Gu glanced at each other and chuckled.

In the end, the Frost Queen and Seo Jun-Ho reconciled, and they promised to keep in touch with each other from now on.

***

"Well, I'll get going now."

Seo Jun-Ho got into the Association's Dimensional Elevator after successfully making up with the Frost Queen.

Shim Deok-Gu saw them off.

"Take care. At my age, I could get a heart attack if I hear bad news, you know?"

"What? What about age? What's wrong with my age?" Seo Jun-Ho asked frantically.

"Huh? What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, never mind."

'These days, the mention of age sets me off for some reason. I just have to remember that I'm twenty-eight years old—I am a twenty-eight-year-old young man.'

Seo Jun-Ho repeated the sentence in his head a couple of times.

"You said it will take some time for the rest of the party to prepare themselves, right?"

"Yes, but it shouldn't take them that long," Shim Deok-Gu said with a smile.

Apparently, Kim Woo-Joong and Gong Ju-Ha were currently training with Shin Sung-Hyun.

'And Skaya...'

Meanwhile, Skaya was currently carving her own name in the history books of Frontier and the Magic Tower as a talent that was even greater than the Archmage who had created Blackfield.

In fact, rumors had already spread about her unprecedented talent.

"Anyway, don't worry too much about them."

"I'm not worried..."

"Jun-Ho. What do I always tell you?"

"Goodness. Are you my mother? I feel like you're checking my homework here."

"..." Shim Deok-Gu stared at Seo Jun-Ho with narrowed eyes. Seeing that, Seo Jun-Ho sighed and eventually answered, "I shouldn't try to carry all the burden on my own. Is that good enough?"

"Good. Glad to hear that you did your homework." Shim Deok-Gu smiled and waved his hand dismissively. "All right, go on now. Go up."

"Damn, you're so cringey," said Seo Jun-Ho. He then closed the elevator door and pressed the button for the 6th Floor.

"I won't be abducted again, will I?"

"No way. Something like that won't happen twice," the Frost Queen answered.

A message popped up and eased Seo Jun-Ho's worries.

[This is the 6th Floor. The door is opening.]

[Bringer of Spring's effect has been activated. All stats increased by 30.]

"Nice." Seo Jun-Ho finally saw what the 6th Floor looked like.

As they exited the phone booth, the Frost Queen started explaining. "You probably already know this from the report, but there are dangerous beings lurking in this city."

"Are you talking about those so-called True Vampires?"

A True Vampire was a monster who managed to remain unscathed despite facing most of the scout team at once.

Seo Jun-Ho nodded and looked up. "So that's the red fog..."

Seo Jun-Ho looked stared at the strange red fog that would always envelop the city whenever the sun went down. Skaya and Cha Si-Eun seem to have done their research, and they discovered that the red fog couldn't harm Players.

'So why does that red fog exist?''

It was hard to imagine that red-colored fog was a natural phenomenon.

It had to be a man-made fog.

'I need to figure out who made it and for what purpose. These two questions have to be answered.'

Seo Jun-Ho walked with purpose after making his decision.

"Contractor. Where are you going?"

"I have an implicit promise with the others." Seo Jun-Ho scoured the alleys and the walls of the buildings. "We promised to do it in case the five of us were separated by unfortunate events."

It was a magical mark that only five people in the entire world would recognize.

"...I found it."

Seo Jun-Ho's eyes shone upon discovering the mark that Rahmadat left.

"Let's move."

***

"Orca, What do you think?"

"What do you mean out of the blue?" asked Orca. As usual, he was guarding the entrance of their tribe in the rugged mountain range.

"I mean that guy Rahmadat. He drank so much of that alcohol. What do you think? Will he wake up?"

"I made a bet that he won't be able to even open his eyes."

"..."

Ordinary werewolves would usually only take a sip of that special alcohol whenever they were about to take on the Arch Warrior Trial. In addition to the fact that the tribe couldn't produce much of it, it was also because their body wouldn't be able to handle it.

'But that human poured the entire thing down his throat...'

Orca tried to imagine what would happen if he were in Rahmadat's shoes.

'I would have died the moment I drank that much.'

It was only natural that Orca thought that way. After all, that alcohol was strong enough to melt his organs in the blink of an eye, not to mention hurting his throat.

'But that human managed to survive through it.'

It had been several days since Rahmadat fell asleep. If he managed to enlighten himself on emancipation and opened his eyes once more, he would surely become a warrior that Orca wouldn't even dare to fight.

'However, if he fails to open his eyes on his own, and we have to wake him up...'

The backlash would be dozens of times more horrible than usual.

'And if that happens...'

"It'll be merciful to end his life with our own hands."

Orca figured that dying would be better for Rahmadat than spending the rest of his life in terrible pain.

"You guys are talking about something interesting."

"...!"

"Who's there?!"

The startled werewolves instantly sprouted fur all over their bodies.

"Who are you?" Orca asked the silhouette standing not too far away. They didn't discover the stranger at all until it was already too late. Even worse, the stranger was emitting overwhelming energy that Orca didn't even dare to face.

'His energy is too strong...!' Orca gulped upon realizing that the opponent was stronger than him. 'Is he a vampire? Mone, that punk! I thought she said she erased her traces completely!'

Orca immediately transformed into a werewolf and shouted, "Attack!'

"Awoooo!"

A dozen werewolves scattered while howling loudly. The way they moved as they scattered throughout the woods of the base of the mountain clearly showed that they had been training together for a long time.

"I thought the 6th Floor is the world of vampires..." Seo Jun-Ho muttered.

Unfortunately, the werewolves chose the wrong opponent.

"Dark Pole."

Fwooosh!

A wave of darkness rose and crushed the escaping werewolves at once.

"Argh!"

"I've never seen that kind of attack before... h-he must be one of the True Vampires!"

"Howl louder! We need to let the rest of the tribe know about this!"

Crackle!

The werewolves' long snouts abruptly froze.

Seo Jun-Ho warned coldly. "I don't remember allowing you to open your mouths."

"...!"

Seo Jun-Ho was strong.

He was overwhelmingly strong that the werewolves couldn't even touch him.

Orca furiously glared at Seo Jun-Ho.

"You're pretty good, so you must be the leader of this group."

Seo Jun-Ho knelt and looked down at Orca.

"I would like to know a bit more about the human you were talking about earlier."

"Piss off! Bats like you don't deserve to know anything."

"All right. Then, I guess I'll have to figure it out on my own."

Seo Jun-Ho stood up and closed his eyes.

'Dignity of an Emperor.'

Seo Jun-Ho's five senses expanded and soon covered the entire mountain. A few moments later, he captured and memorized the auras of hundreds of werewolves.

Seo Jun-Ho slowly opened his eyes and said, "Found it. It's that way."

Seo Jun-Ho was now capable of maintaining Dignity of an Emperor (S) for a much longer time than before, and it was all thanks to the training in the Hole of Repentance. Of course, he still couldn't maintain the emperor's all-encompassing aura for a long time, and the backlash of overusing Dignity of an Emperor (S) was still there.

"What, but how...!" Orca's eyes were stained with fear.

"W-what is that energy? Don't tell me that y-you're the legendary True Vampire Tepes...?"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Seo Jun-Ho frowned. "As you can see, I'm human."

"...What? If you're human, then why are you attacking us?"

"Because you were talking about my friend..."

"Wait. Rahmadat Khali is your friend?"

"And what if he is?"

Orca let out a sigh of relief.

Then, he looked up at the ridiculously strong human and said, "Release us. I'll guide you myself. We're not Rahmadat's enemies."

Seo Jun-Ho thought about it for a while before replying, "Sure. Lead the way. However, I won't release your restraints."