Chapter 6

The Swordmaster Wants to Live Peacefully - Chapter 6 (6/390)

The Swordmaster Wants to Live Peacefully Chapter 6

The Qualification of the Living

The Frost Forest was always covered in frost, making it easy to spot the disordered footprints of people.

The two followed the trail of footprints and moved forward.

They encountered the monsters that lived in the Frost Forest.

These creatures, about the size of an adult male, were draped in frost, resembling white-furred quadrupeds.

The beasts, with their yellow eyes gleaming, bared their teeth and poked their heads out from the thick trunks of large trees.

"It's a White Puff."

"It means 'white ball.'"

He extended his hand and softly called out a name.

Then, a blood-red sword gripped his hand and immediately scattered a dazzling flash.

At the same time, the head of a White Puff, which had poked out from behind a tree, rolled on the ground, spewing blue blood.

Yu Jiwoo, who had taken a stance to join the battle, was left speechless in that position.

As the heads of the White Puffs fell like a harvest, she could only narrow her brows in astonishment.

"What, what just happened?"

"It's swordsmanship."

"Isn't it some kind of superpower?"

"I can't use such things. I can't even use magic."

"…This is no joke."

"That's why I said you need to know how strong I am."

With that, Yu Seongwoo stepped over the corpse of the White Puff and continued on.

While Yu Jiwoo could easily deal with a White Puff, she couldn't do it as effortlessly as Yu Seongwoo.

She replayed the movements Yu Seongwoo had shown in her mind and followed him.

The footprints of the people were still disordered.

From the sight of the White Puff corpses covered in frost in the distance, it seemed they had engaged in a battle there before moving on.

The two stepped over the corpses of the White Puffs again.

There were no human corpses yet.

When they reached what they thought was the center of the Frost Forest, a snow flurry began to fall.

Looking up at the sky, small snowflakes were scattered.

"The environment changes drastically as we enter the center."

With that, Yu Seongwoo swung his sword.

The sword, swung like a flash of lightning, knocked the head of a White Puff, which had leaped from a tree, to the ground.

He easily killed six White Puffs as if pulling items out of a bag, then wiped the blue blood off his sword and said:

"From the state of the White Puffs we've encountered so far, they seem quite famished. This means no one has been hunted yet."

"You can tell that much?"

"It's a survival skill I've honed. And the footprints split in two ahead. Something must have happened around here. It doesn't seem like they were dealing with White Puffs; they probably panicked and split up. Don't divers learn this kind of thing?"

"…Usually not. Divers learn combat techniques, not tracking. What kind of variable has appeared in a 5th-grade dungeon?"

Yu Jiwoo bit her nails again.

These were the people she had sent in.

The research team, the guards, and the rescue team. She couldn't afford to lose even one of these precious comrades.

If she could handle it on her own, she wouldn't have sought Yu Seongwoo's help, but human lives were at stake.

While she was ruminating on her mistake, Yu Seongwoo decided their path.

"We'll go right. There are more footprints this way. The depth of the prints suggests there are civilians mixed in."

From now on, it's a race against time.

* * *

"Uuuuuu…"

In the deep part of the Frost Forest, where everything is covered in frost.

From a natural cave formed under a large tree root, a painful groan escapes.

"Just hold on a little longer. The rescue team will come soon."

"Damn…"

Inside the cave, five people sat in a circle around a lantern made from a 'glowing heat stone' that emitted light and heat, swallowing their saliva.

Four were ordinary members of the research team, and one, lying on the ground in pain, was a B-rank diver from the guard team.

During their escape to this place, one member of the guard team went missing, and another was injured and collapsed.

"There's no way the rescue team will come. Even an S-rank diver would struggle if they're stuck out there!"

"Trust the leader. He's never let us down before."

"No matter what, it's too much this time. Too much…"

They spoke negatively, overwhelmed by fear.

When one of them turned his head to look outside the cave, a fierce snowstorm filled his vision.

Fortunately, the snow didn't penetrate the inside of the cave, but it was a blizzard that could be called a whiteout, filling the vision with white.

They couldn't leave the cave until the snow cleared.

The blizzard was taking their lives, reducing the sound of their voices and settling into silence.

The white hell slowly enveloped them, seeping cold into their bones. As the heat from the glowing heat stone lantern began to wane.

"…We have to go, we have to go! We have to go! We have to go!"

One of the researchers suddenly stood up and looked outside the cave.

It was a form of madness that people saw in the white hell.

One of the guards had similarly run out before.

And, as expected, the guard, driven by madness, did not return after running into the blizzard.

It was unknown whether he was still wandering in the blizzard or had frozen to death.

The others looked up at him and tried to grab him, but he had already run out of the cave.

The people did not think to chase after him. Or rather, they did not.

When he looked outside the cave, his eyes.

What he saw in the white hell, his eyes were filled with gold and madness.

There was an invisible monster outside. A monster that was trying to drag them out of the cave and push them into white despair.

A scream echoed in the white world, gradually fading.

As the people became more powerless, the fear that was consuming their minds grew. They could do nothing.

Just as they were about to lose their minds, a sharp voice cut through the white world.

"Everyone, gather here."

"Everyone, we've come to rescue you!"

Entering the cave under the tree roots were a tall man and a woman.

Despite the blizzard, they entered the cave without a single snowflake on their heads, and threw two people they had been carrying to the ground.

One was the missing guard, and the other was the researcher who had run out.

"Leader, Leader!"

"It's the leader! How did you get here?!"

"I just walked here. We're going to escape now. Help the injured."

"Wait, Leader. I don't know how you got here, but it's impossible to escape. There's a huge monster outside, and we're trapped here."

"A huge monster?"

"Yes. And the snow is so fierce that we can't see anything…"

"Fierce snow? But it's just a snow flurry."

"Huh?"

The researcher, hearing Yu Jiwoo's words, tilted his head in confusion. What was she talking about?

He looked outside the cave, where the fierce snowstorm continued.

The snow was so fierce that he couldn't see a thing.

But Yu Jiwoo and Yu Seongwoo looked at the researchers as if they were talking nonsense.

"There's a huge snowstorm outside… but you don't have much snow on you. It's incredibly cold, but are you okay in that outfit?"

"Are you talking nonsense? Have you been trapped here too long and gone mad?"

"Hmm. It seems like a snowstorm to them, but a snow flurry to us. It must be an illusion."

"Illusion?"

Yu Jiwoo's question was met with a nod from Yu Seongwoo.

Since entering the Frost Forest, he had been feeling a strange gaze.

It seemed to come from far away and close at the same time, making it impossible to pinpoint.

But the gaze made him feel uncomfortable.

Based on his years of experience, such a gaze was often associated with illusions that aimed to scatter one's mind.

'…Is it materializing fear in the form of a snowstorm?'

That's why the plants in the Frost Forest were all covered in frost.

The plants were covered in frost due to the killing intent emanating from the ruler of the Frost Forest.

And the same applied to those who entered afterward.

Endless fear of the unknown materialized into fierce winds and snow.

'My mental strength must have negated the snowstorm for me and Jiwoo. Her fear couldn't overwhelm my mental strength.'

Even S-rank divers can't help but fear the unknown.

If she hadn't been with Yu Seongwoo, she might have fallen into the Abyss's trap and been trapped in a fierce blizzard like them.

The Abyss was that malicious and evil.

Yu Seongwoo, who had seen through the secrets of the Frost Forest through his years of experience and knowledge, nodded.

He couldn't dispel their fear this way.

Even if he forced them to go, it would be a very troublesome task.

The only option left was to kill the ruler of the Frost Forest.

"You should wait here until I deal with it. Jiwoo, let's go."

"Ah, okay. Follow their advice and wait here."

"Huh? Huh?! You're not taking us?!"

"We'll be back soon."

"We can wait until the snow stops. You'll just be a hindrance if you come with us."

"No, no! Even if the leader is an S-rank diver, and the person with you is also an S-rank, it's not enough! We need at least ten people, including at least one S-rank diver…"

"Be quiet and wait."

Yu Seongwoo barked and left the cave with Yu Jiwoo.

The two figures disappeared into the white hell from the researcher's view.

Their steps were confident, but to the researcher, they looked like they were heading to their deaths.

* * *

A snow flurry in a frozen forest.

Romantic on the surface, but those walking inside are standing on thin ice.

Yu Seongwoo, who had left the people who were madly wandering in the forest in the tree root cave, exhaled deeply and clicked his tongue.

"The trees are blocking the view. I can't see well."

"Then what do we do?"

"Like this."

Yu Seongwoo took a short breath and swung his sword.

A blood-red flash of light. At the same time, a fierce wind blew away the snow and swept away all the trees in front.

As the trees fell, the view in front opened up.

Yu Jiwoo's facial muscles twitched in disbelief at the suddenly widened view, and Yu Seongwoo stretched, feeling refreshed.

"How strong are you, really?"

Yu Jiwoo finally realized that what she had seen in the testing room was not all of Yu Seongwoo.

There were the things he had shown so far.

Invisible strikes. Sweeping away the forest in an instant.

Subduing a B-rank diver who had gone mad and attacked him in the blink of an eye.

"I'll show you soon."

With that, Yu Seongwoo lifted his head. Behind the open view, a snow-capped mountain stood majestically.

The snow-capped mountain, without a shadow, looked both alien and beautiful, a sight that could make one lose their mind just by looking at it.

But Yu Seongwoo pointed his sword at the mountain.

"That's not a snow-capped mountain. It's a disguised monster."

"That's…?"

"Yes. I've felt a gaze since we entered, and now that the view is clear, I can feel it more clearly. That snow-capped mountain is the ruler of this Frost Forest."