The colors that filled my vision.
The colors of that magic power varied,
but what stood out was how heavily green dominated.
‘There are this many green-grade monsters?’
It wasn’t just one kind of monster, either.
There were monsters that looked like beautiful fairies,
and there were grotesque monsters made of nothing but tentacles,
and there were monsters that looked like Earth’s beasts,
and there were even things that looked like a squirming mudflat, to the point where you had to wonder if it was even a living creature.
Countless monsters.
That incredible number, and the magic power contained within them.
When I saw it,
I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed.
‘Even if the Legion came, we couldn’t win.’
No, it’s worse than that.
Even if the Legion swelled to ten times its size, I doubted it could last even a day against numbers and strength like this.
The Chair said he saw what was inside.
And that he despaired and gave up because of it.
‘Yeah, I can see why, damn it.’
At first, I thought it was absurd that he threw people away for such a reason,
but seeing it with my own eyes, I could understand why he decided to betray.
‘That’s why I’d been saving the Droplets...... for what might be inside here.’
I thought it was a waste that I used them too early.
It was a ridiculous misunderstanding.
Against numbers like that, a few dozen Droplets
would only be the difference between me lasting 0.1 seconds alone,
or lasting 0.2 seconds with them.
‘Ha...... so this is my end?’
Tears leaked out,
and goosebumps rose over my entire body.
“......I’ve held on like a dog this whole time, and it ends like this?”
If those monsters start attacking me,
the me right now won’t last even a few seconds before dying.
But.
“......I can’t let that happen.”
With a trembling body, I gripped the dagger and thought.
It’s certain these are enemies I can’t beat.
But even so.
‘Dying in a place like this is something I’d hate, even if I died.’
I had no intention
of dying without doing anything.
‘If I use [Blade of Sacrifice, Victimia] inside the shadows, I won’t die instantly.’
The plan was simple.
First, the one that charges from the very front.
Even if it’s just that one,
I cut it down somehow,
then confirm its ability.
‘Who knows? Maybe it’s a monster with an ability that can break this situation......!’
With that thought,
I set my stance and stared at the enemies.
“Hoo, hoo......!”
Even if it meant flailing ugly like a dog,
I survive somehow.
With that thought, I was bracing myself, when......
“......Huh?”
How should I put it.
The fierce battle I expected......
didn’t really happen.
“These guys.......”
No.
Rather than the battle not happening—
“Why aren’t you moving......?”
The countless monsters before my eyes
weren’t even twitching in the slightest.
*****
They were monsters trapped inside something like massive ice.
Normally, not being able to move would be natural,
but I’d seen those [Belsnickel] move just fine in states like that more times than I could count.
Even that Chair did, too.
So.
When I entered this Gate and saw these monsters,
I thought they would attack me immediately, but......
“......What is it with these bastards.”
I walked right up to one of the monsters,
and muttered while staring into its eyes.
“It’s not focused.”
And that wasn’t all.
They weren’t moving at all.
Even though they were monsters that held such powerful magic power,
their state was no different from dead corpses.
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]
[Shallow-Water Drifter]
[Freshness - High]
Carefully,
I looked at the massive serpent-like monster in front of me.
‘Freshness is high.’
If you compare it to a human,
it would be about the level of having an ordinarily good condition......
but—
[It is an excellent ingredient whose freshness has been kept high by being stored in a low-temperature state. For preparation, first.......]
“......?”
The actual content shown by [Ingredient Identification] was different.
Freshness is clearly high,
but rather than being alive, it was literally—
‘Just a well-preserved «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» ingredient.......’
And.
Only then could I realize it.
-We originally had mighty bodies we had seized in our homeland, but.......
The one that had taken Jang Ji Han’s body said that.
At the time, I’d just let it pass by.
-In the process of leaving our homeland, we lost everything.
The fresh, preserved corpses in front of me,
and the explanation about this Gate.
After reading that,
only then did I understand.
“So these are the bodies they said they’d possessed.”
Things that looked benevolent and things that looked evil.
Monsters that seemed suited to live in water, beasts that seemed suited to live on land, even beasts that looked like they should fly through the sky.
An awkward scene where everything was tangled together in one place.
‘No wonder the types felt so all over the place.’
This was probably—
“The original strong ones that existed in their world.”
Those stray specters erase an enemy’s soul and steal its body.
These monsters were from the world they came from.
They must have been that world’s natives.
And.
A [Gate] is a shard of a ruined world.
Just like us, the natives of this world
must have suffered ruin one day.
The only unexpected part was
the reason this world was ruined.
“......Until now, what came out of Gates were natives who escaped from ruined worlds.”
But.
Not these.
[It is a ruined world where an eternal winter arrived, and all life vanished.]
[It is the Frost-Laid Imperial City, the base of the evil spirits that destroyed that world.]
“So you were the ones who destroyed it.”
A world that drifted through space after its ruin.
The ones who destroyed that world
were these bastards.
*****
A Gate is a shard of a ruined world.
I thought the inhabitants inside that shard would naturally be survivors who fled a ruined world.
But to think—
‘There are cases where the very masterminds of that ruin are the residents inside a Gate.’
These guys were different from the residents of other Gates, who were basically victims that suffered an unwanted ruin.
They were the ones who destroyed the world they lived in.
Just like what they did in this Gyeonggi Province,
they stole the bodies of the strong ones in their world and kept growing their power,
until they finally drove an entire world into ruin.
And.
I don’t know what happened to them after they ruined that world,
but—
‘Even these guys had to leave that world, too?’
Because of some incident that happened during that process,
they must have ended up unable to use those bodies.
“......Anyway.”
And.
Looking at a line in the status window floating before my eyes,
I frowned.
[But every world has a lifespan.]
[Even after its ruin, the world that existed for a long time reached the end of its lifespan and, destroyed, began drifting through the gaps between worlds.]
‘A lifespan.’
That meant every world must be ruined someday.
Normally, I would’ve just thought it was a ceremonial line and moved on,
but—
‘The System doesn’t lie.’
Thinking that way,
it was a strangely meaningful line.
‘......No. Don’t worry about that part.’
Don’t they say even stars eventually reach the end of their lifespan?
It was probably a concept like that.
After shaking my head hard,
I looked at the corpses of the monsters in front of me and muttered.
“The Chair said he submitted after seeing these guys.”
The Chair decided to betray because he judged that he could never defeat the true power they displayed.
Sure,
even I could see why you’d betray at this point, but......
I gripped a chef’s knife in my hand,
and stabbed it into the body of a hideous monster standing there blankly.
THUNK.
The blade went in without any resistance at all.
“......You got played.”
If the Chair had known they weren’t alive,
he wouldn’t have betrayed.
‘He said those guys only started moving after summer ended, and they kept increasing their numbers.’
What came from that
was the enormous number of monsters now fighting the Expedition Force outside.
In other words,
it meant they only started increasing their numbers once autumn came.
‘If, when the Chair first brought the Assault Team, he hadn’t betrayed and just pushed in.’
That would have been two months earlier.
If you consider that the Chair’s assault was attempted around autumn,
those stray specters wouldn’t have been able to stop the Assault Team.
“So you deceived the Chair.”
No matter how hard the stray specters that had found bodies tried to charge,
they couldn’t have stopped the Assault Team,
and they would have entered this Gate without shedding blood.
“So you...... deceived humanity.”
The power the Chair saw and submitted to was power they had already lost.
By boldly displaying a power they had already lost,
they were able to build a force capable of taking everything in this huge land,
all of Gyeonggi Province.
And the humanity that had originally lived on that land suffered through a painful time under that cold.
It was too horrific a conclusion
to dismiss as something that happened because one man got tricked.
This is kind of.
How should I put it.
Pretty.
“Pissing me off.”
It was infuriating.
*****
STEP......
Dragging my heavy body, I walked deeper into the Gate.
The countless monsters here were all no different from corpses.
Because they were preserved so fresh, I could still feel powerful magic power inside those bodies, no different from when they were alive,
but that magic power wasn’t the [Belsnickel]’s.
‘So the mastermind that lowered Gyeonggi Province’s temperature isn’t these corpses in here.’
Swallowing my anger as much as I could,
with a heavy body, but as fast as possible,
I kept walking into the depths of the Gate.
As I did, I slowly looked around.
A massive building frozen on all sides.
‘This is what they called a castle, right?’
Now that I looked at it that way,
I could see something like antique decorations around the area.
I’m no expert in art, but even I could tell it was a rather beautiful castle.
If there was one strange point—
‘It’s huge.......’
The gate, the pillars.
Everything was unbelievably large and tall.
If it was a castle this massive,
the residents who walked around inside it must have been quite large as well.
Thinking to check that height,
I looked up at the sky.
“Huh?”
That was when
the things up there finally came into view.
-SKRRRT...!
-KRRRKK-KRRK...!
The moment their eyes met mine,
the hazy shapes hurriedly darted around the air, making a huge commotion.
[Frozen Soul, Belsnickel Lower Sentry]
[Frozen Soul, Belsnickel Intermediate Knight]
“......So that’s where you all were.”
Countless souls flying through the air.
They were the true residents of this Gate—the [Frozen Soul, Belsnickel].
Their numbers were considerable, but
thankfully—
“Are you guys the ones who couldn’t join the fight outside because you don’t have bodies? Or maybe you’re the ones who lost your bodies before Han Iseo’s buff spread.”
-KZTZT!! KZTZT...!
“Well, then just keep watching.”
They were in a bodiless state.
It didn’t seem like they could attack me or anything.
‘Neither these corpses, nor those souls, are everything inside this Gate.’
If that were the case,
the cold that blanketed Gyeonggi Province wouldn’t be this strong.
If I go deeper inside,
the fundamental cause of this cold will exist.
Dragging my heavy steps,
I started walking further inside.
-SKREEE!!!
I could feel the souls in the air making a ruckus,
but I ignored them coolly and moved inward.
The inside of the massive fortress was packed—stuffed to the brim—with the frozen corpses of those monsters.
To the point where this wide fortress felt cramped.
An unbelievable amount.
‘Tens of thousands...... no, it might even be hundreds of thousands.’
Well.
These guys are the ones who drove an entire world into ruin.
They must have stolen every last usable body that existed in that world.
Corpses gathered in order of usefulness.
Even if it reached hundreds of thousands, if it was the number you got by searching an entire world,
then the power contained in these corpses made sense.
Just then.
THUNK......
My body collided with one corpse that was blocking the way.
“God, there are so damn many......!”
I was already walking with a body that was exhausted.
It was hard to properly keep myself steady.
And in that state, I was trying to push into the depths as fast as possible.
‘There are so many corpses they’re blocking the route.’
In this Gate, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was literally ‘packed full’ with monster corpses.
I’m walking inward for now,
but avoiding the corpses as I advanced was burdensome,
to the point that it was—
‘Annoying.’
Because there were so many,
I put my hand on the body of one of the many corpses,
THUNK.
pulled that corpse toward me,
and dragged my body forward.
Then—
THUD......
“This is pretty good.”
A frozen body dropping to the ground.
And through that rebound,
I could move forward just a little bit faster.
......And.
At that moment.
“......Hmm.”
That fallen monster corpse.
Seeing it gave me an idea.
“It’s...... damn cold in here.”
This place was incredibly cold.
Like a freezer.
With me suffering the aftereffects of [Rampage] right now,
I couldn’t eat other dishes and worsen my already wrecked condition,
so I had no choice but to grit my teeth and endure it.
And thanks to that—
[Freshness - High]
[Freshness - Best]
“......Fresh.”
The corpses here were unbelievably fresh.
Like ingredients stored in a freezer.
And lastly.
“......There are so many.”
Bodies where each one held powerful strength.
Those bodies were preserved well,
tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.
There were so many they were blocking the route.
The logic that flashed through my head was short.
But the result was simple.
SWISH.
Like the monster that had just fallen,
I reached out to a corpse blocking my path, yanked it behind me, and walked forward quickly.
At the same time,
I adjusted the position where that frozen corpse would fall.
THUNK......
Then—
SLIIIIDE......
The monster corpse
vanished as if melting into my shadow naturally.
“So it works.”
And.
Right at that moment.
-SKREEEEEAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-WHAT?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????!!!!!!!!!!!
The souls that had been stuck to the ceiling and forced to do nothing but watch me.
They began screaming in shock and horror.
