Return of the Frozen Player
chapter-146

Chapter 146. A Lead (1)

“Did I get him?” Nino muttered to himself, looking up. He probably had, considering that his spears had stabbed through from every angle. There would not have been any space for someone to dodge.

‘But why…’

Why couldn’t he see Seo Jun-Ho’s corpse? His eyes narrowed.

Just as he was about to say something, all his hair stood on end, his body reacted to the immense amount of bloodlust and magic energy behind him.

‘Shit!’

The main weakness of his magnetic field was that he couldn’t sense anything when he was out of charge. Just like now. “Gouf…!” He cried out for help.

“...?!” But Gouf said nothing and pushed Nino away.

Stab!

Black Dragon Fang burrowed through Nino’s chest.

“Kal Signer chose his right hand well. As expected of a fiend.” Seo Jun-Ho wasn’t surprised that Gouf had betrayed the comrade he had just been fighting with. Or rather, Gouf was only able to do that because he had never considered Nino as his partner in the first place.

Seo Jun-Ho punched Nino’s bloody face. Nino flew to the side and his body rolled over as he died. Watchguard of Darkness was already moving inside his body as Seo Jun-Ho had released it into Nino’s body when he stabbed him.

“...What did you just say?” Gouf’s face darkened. He hadn’t expected Seo Jun-Ho to say Kal Signer’s name, because that implied that the Player knew of his identity.

“Did you already forget about Signer? He saved you from the Cave of the Dead Gate 6 years ago.”

“...!” Gouf’s eyes widened. Even among the fiends, there were only a few people that knew of this. And there was no way they would have run into Seo Jun-Ho. “Who told you that?”

“Signer did,” Seo Jun-Ho replied, shaking some of the blood off his sword. “His death was pathetic. He got on his knees and begged me to spare him, saying that he would tell me everything he knew.”

“That’s… Impossible.” Gouf trembled. The Kal Signer he knew was a proud man. He would have faced death with dignity, not humiliation. “Quit the nonsense and come at me.”

“Are you sure it’s nonsense?” A low laugh came from inside Seo Jun-Ho’s helmet. “How else would I know your name and story if he hadn’t told me himself?”

“...” Gouf’s face contorted with conflict. He refused to believe that his superior would have acted like that, but at the same time, Seo Jun-Ho’s words were convincing.

“I’ll tell you this. He never thought of you as a comrade… No, he never even thought of you as his subordinate. You were just one of his obedient lackeys.”

“You sure talk a lot!” Gouf yelled, furious. Seo Jun-Ho had poked a sore spot. Deep down, he had also been wondering if Kal Signer even considered him a brother like Gouf did.

‘As I thought, he’s insecure.’

Seo Jun-Ho smirked. He wouldn’t let a fiend die an easy death. He would make it as painful and as cruel as possible.

‘Kal Signer was always worried about Gouf.’

Unlike how he appeared, Gouf was very emotional. Kal Signer had thought that Gouf would let his anger get the best of him one day.

‘He was right.’

The Isekai Battlefield faltered, shrinking and trapping him. But Seo Jun-Ho was much faster.

‘Isekai Battlefield sure is a powerful skill.’

If Gouf hadn’t lost his composure, Seo Jun-Ho would have been in trouble. The fiend only needed to create a safe area to hide in and snipe Seo Jun-Ho from that safe zone.

As such, Seo Jun-Ho taunted him even more. The more Gouf lost his reasoning, the higher Seo Jun-Ho’s chance of winning.

Pow!

Seo Jun-Ho flew like a flash of light and struck Gouf in the face.

“...!” The force was so powerful that Gouf couldn’t even cry out. He instinctively raised his hands to protect his face.

That was his final mistake. If Gouf had tried to counterattack, Seo Jun-Ho would have been forced to fall back.

Shing!

Black Dragon Fang stabbed through his defenseless chest.

“Have fun burning in hell with Signer.”

“Urgh…I’ll… Be waiting…”

“Bullshit. Why would I go there?” At this point, Seo Jun-Ho practically had a free pass to heaven.

With a twist of his sword, Seo Jun-Ho thoroughly crushed Gouf’s insides before kicking his chest. Gouf's body fell and slowly sank into the ground, and the world around them started to collapse.

Seo Jun-Ho blinked against the bright sunlight, and his eyes settled on a familiar cabin.

“Jun-Ho!” And on a familiar face…

“...Skaya? Why are you here?”

“The lucky coin!”

Coin? Ah, the coin that she gave him when they parted.

“I put a spell on it. It alerts me when the owner gets attacked by demonic energy.”

“Oh, no wonder.” Seo Jun-Ho had been wondering why she gave him a coin.

Skaya observed him from top to bottom with a worried face. “Are you okay? How about the fiends? Did you kill them all? Were they strong? How many were there? Should I beat them up for you?”

“I’m okay, I killed them all, and I already beat them all up by myself,” he said coolly.

Skaya let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I was worried that something went wrong… And I couldn’t get into the space he made…”

“You worry too much. You know who I am. You should’ve been more worried about my opponents.”

“...Right, I forgot! There’s never any point in worrying about you.” Skaya grinned. “Oh, it’s the Queen!”

She discovered the Frost Queen, who was desperately trying to hide behind Seo Jun-Ho’s leg. Skaya’s eyes sparkled as she picked her up.

“Hehe! I got you!”

“...Hey, don’t treat her like a Pokemon.”

“U-unhand me. As the Queen of Niflheim, I prefer formalities…” She struggled in Skaya’s grasp. There had been no time for her Skaya radar to go off because they ran into her as soon as they emerged from Gouf’s Isekai Battlefield.

“You’re so noisy, go play over there,” Seo Jun-Ho said, looking around. Thankfully, the fiends had also been expelled from the Isekai Battlefield.

“Are you gonna read their memories?” Skaya asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know about the others, but Signer made Gouf do all the busywork.” In other words, Gouf must know even more about the Fiend Association than Kal Signer. It was because the latter had always ordered him to do the work Kal Signer himself didn’t want to do. “Please, give me a good lead.”

No matter how sturdy a house was, it would come crumbling down if one pillar or brick was taken out. A pillar—that was what Seo Jun-Ho was looking for.

[Confession of the Dead has been activated.]

[Gouf’s memories are being replayed.]

As the sun began to set, cold wind blew around the cabin.

“...” After watching the playback on the side of the road, Seo Jun-Ho slowly stood up. Skaya had joined him at some point, and her eyes flashed.

“Jun-Ho.”

“...Yeah.” He nodded silently.

They had discovered a lead.

***

The monsters in the Canal Mountains were at least level 80, so even the most confident Players only went there when they reached at least level 85. It was impossible to predict what would happen on the field, so it was common practice to hunt monsters a few levels beneath them.

“The Canal Mountains connect to the northernmost mountain range in the continent, the Wailing Mountains.” The Canal Mountains were often called the “northern end” of the Ruben Empire because no one had ever made it past the Wailing Mountains. Beyond it was an unknown region called ‘Blackfield.’

Seo Jun-Ho quickly arrived at the Canal Mountains, thanks to Skaya and the Frost Queen’s help. Even though it was important to adjust to his newfound power, the stuff he had seen in Gouf’s memories was even more important.

Skaya and Seo Jun-Ho were currently eating at an inn in Denver, a city in front of the Canal Mountains. They were wearing masks and hats to hide their identities.

“What do you think is there that they’ve blocked it off?” Skaya asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Beyond the Wailing Mountains. I’ve heard a lot of things in the past few weeks while I was running around… But no one knows about Blackfield.”

Hundreds of years ago a magic seal had been placed on Blackfield by the first Archmage, who had also founded the Magic Tower. According to ancient texts, the seal must never be removed at all costs.

“I dunno. The land of demons?”

“...Did Keen Intuition tell you that?”

“Nope. It’s just a guess.”

“Hmmm.” Skaya was very interested in Blackfield, especially because not even she could place a magic seal over such a huge area.

“You’ll have plenty of time to look around eventually. But we have more important things to focus on right now.”

“Yeah, alright.”

They had found a big piece of information from Gouf’s memories.

‘The rendezvous point.’

Members of the Fiend Association were very thorough and organized.

‘Even on Earth, I could feel that they had become a lot more meticulous than before.’

After suffering such huge losses during the era of the 5 Heroes, they had become even more careful. As such, there weren’t many fiends who could give them leads. Among them were fiends associated with ‘squadrons,’ their immediate superiors, and the eight executives of the Association.

‘Kal Signer had a notorious reputation as the Demon Bow, but he was unable to join a Squadron.’

Of course, this wasn’t because of his lack of skill. Squadron leaders simply wanted members that were both strong and obedient. Kal Signer had the habit of going around, doing whatever he wanted, so the more egotistical fiends didn’t want to recruit him.

‘But there’s always an exception...’

There had been exactly one Squadron leader who wanted to recruit Kal Signer. They hadn’t contacted the stubborn Kal Signer himself but had contacted his right-hand man Gouf instead.

‘Gouf went to that place before.’

It hadn’t even been a year since they met, so it had been fairly recent.

Seo Jun-Ho had also discovered from the old fiend that the Fiend Association had a branch in the Canal Mountains. When considering these two things, they drew a pretty clear picture.

‘There will be at least one fiend in a Squadron in the branch.’

Even if that weren’t the case, fiends still came and went there.

That was why Seo Jun-Ho and Skaya had come all the way to Denver.

“What do you think? Should we go right away? Or do you want to wait it out just to be careful?” Skaya asked as Seo Jun-Ho was buttering his bread.

“Hmmm.” Jun-Ho’s hand stopped. “There are still five days left until the full moon.”

Their meeting dates had always been the nights of full moons on even-numbered months.