LIGHTNOVELONLINE
Chapter 36
[Translator – Pr?ks]
[Proofreader – Pr?ks]
Chapter 36: The Snow Yeti (1)
1.
“Ah, finally some comfort.”
Dibo, Kiri, and Ralph were resting inside an igloo.
It was surprisingly comfortable.
Firstly, the interior of the igloo was warmer than they thought. Not enough to make them sweat, but for those who had been fighting a fierce battle in the intense cold, it felt like paradise.
“Kiri, can I ask you a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can I hug you for a bit?”
“W-what are you talking about!”
“No, nothing weird. It’s just that you’re so warm with that Sun Stone thing. I just want to use you as a heater.”
Kiri herself was also giving off a lot of heat, making the igloo even warmer.
Of course, just because the temperature was comfortable didn’t mean everyone’s mood was.
“Pull yourself together. This place is hell.”
Just as Kiri said, their current location was no different from hell.
It wasn’t simply because it was covered in snow and the Cold Eye had appeared.
The two of them were no longer threatened by those things.
But they knew.
“Who knows how many people have failed here.”
If the snow-covered land and the Cold Eye were the only dangers here, there wouldn’t be so many scars.
There must be a monster far more dangerous than the Cold Eye lurking here.
“There must be piles of bodies.”
Ralph continued where Kiri left off.
“And just as many items.”
A chilling statement.
Dibo gave a bitter laugh at the statement.
“What makes you so obsessed with money anyway? Huh? Trying to buy a huge house? Or rare items? Or maybe you’ve got a family member dying from the Black Plague back home?”
Ralph answered Dibo’s question calmly.
“Not really.”
“What?”
An unexpected answer.
“If I had something I wanted to buy, or a family to protect, there’s no way I’d be risking my life like this for money, right? Those things are more precious.”
Dibo and Kiri didn’t respond further.
Silence settled over the igloo.
Kyuuu!
The silence was broken by the Snail Mano inside Kiri’s armor.
The little creature, hiding from the cold in Kiri’s armor, had emerged as the igloo warmed up.
Of course, it wasn’t just the rising temperature that brought it out.
There’s only one reason Snail Mano moves.
Kyuuu!
“Hey, why’d you come out?”
Kyuuu!
“The floor? Here? You don’t mean…”
Only when it wants to find an item.
“There seems to be a corpse down here?”
And those items were usually found on the corpses.
As if he had been waiting for this moment, Ralph took out a shovel from his bag and began to dig through the snow.
Swish!
His shoveling was at an almost divine level.
‘How much shoveling does it take to get like that?’
It was hard to gauge his experience.
Thanks to him, Dibo, Kiri, and Ralph were able to see it quickly.
The corpse that had been sleeping under the snow.
And the moment they saw it, everyone’s expressions, including Ralph’s, hardened.
“This person?”
“Yes, it’s someone who came in with us.”
It was a familiar face.
“The body looks intact.”
Moreover, the body was in good condition. All its limbs were attached.
That’s why everyone’s expressions hardened even more.
“There are no bite marks.”
A corpse is intact in this place, the Cold Eye’s paradise?
“No wounds either.”
Not even a scratch could be seen.
Ralph was the first to come up with an answer to this fact.
“He was poisoned.”
Why there were no wounds, why the Cold Eyes didn’t even lay a finger on this tempting corpse.
The moment the answer came to him, the first one to react was Dibo.
‘It’s dangerous.’
Dibo immediately grabbed his Polearm and rushed out of the igloo. He then shouted,
“Boss! It’s dangerous! Come back!”
He sent a warning message to El Paume, who was searching the area.
It was a dangerous move.
Making a sound in the snow-covered forest full of Cold Eyes is like inviting their attention.
It was something that a veteran adventurer would never do, and Dibo knew it too.
“Boss! There’s a trolling here!”
But Dibo didn’t stop.
“It’s one that uses deadly poison!”
Warning El Paume, the boss, was more important than his own life.
Dibo is shouting desperately.
“Boss! Where are you!”
“I’m here.”
“Yes?”
At that moment, El Paume appeared from behind Dibo.
“Boss?”
Surprised by his appearance, El Paume quietly told Dibo,
“Don’t make a fuss.”
The warning from their first meeting.
“Oh, no, I mean, boss.”
Only then did Dibo lower his voice.
Of course, he couldn’t stop talking.
“There’s big trouble! A corpse has been found, and it’s one of the adventurers who came in with us. He was poisoned!”
The situation was very urgent.
“Just like that time, there’s someone among our adventurers who’s working with the trolls!”
There were many reasons to be excited.
“I know.”
“Yes?”
But Dibo’s excitement quickly turned cold at El Paume’s words.
“Oh, you know?”
“I’m on my way to handle it now.”
“Yes?”
The moment he heard the following words, his thoughts froze.
It was that shocking.
“H-how?”
“He was following us.”
“Us?”
And the moment he heard that, Dibo’s previously cold expression hardened into a fierce glare.
He had figured it out.
“Who among us left a trail?”
In this snow-covered world, where even corpses are hidden, it would be impossible for pursuers to follow so easily unless someone had deliberately left a trail for them.
And it wasn’t difficult to identify the one who did it.
Dibo glared at Ralph.
“I did it.”
Under Dibo’s gaze, Ralph immediately confessed the truth.
“He said he’d pay me if I left a trail.”
“Damn bastard! No matter how much you love money, you’d sell out your comrades? What’s wrong with you? How much did you sell us for?”
“5 million mesos.”
“5 million?”
“He said he’d give me 5 million mesos just as a deposit, and I got it. And then we split it half-and-half.”
“The captain? That bastard is who… huh?”
Turning his head to see Dibo staring at him, El Paume readily explained.
“I ordered it.”
El Paume had anticipated that the top brass of Kanaya would contact Ralph and try to buy him off.
So he told Ralph to say okay if they offered him a deal.
And that he would split the profits with him.
Of course, he didn’t make that offer because he was greedy for money.
“Ah, no, boss? Why on earth?”
“Because it couldn’t be easier than having the pursuers follow the trail Ralph leaves behind.”
There was no better way to lure in Kanaya’s assassins.
From El Paume’s point of view, it was a method he had no reason to hesitate about.
At that fact, Dibo could no longer find the words to speak and just stared blankly at El Paume.
To that Dibo, El Paume said,
“The situation has been resolved. The only adventurers left in this snowy hell are our party. The rest have been wiped out.”
The current situation.
“There were at least 50 parties of adventurers who came here, with over 500 adventurers in total. But none of them have found the exit. That means it’s highly likely that the condition for the exit to appear is to defeat the boss monster.”
The current situation that El Paume laid out was indeed grim.
“And the boss monster that appears here is most likely a Snow Yeti, although it’s not confirmed.”
El Paume put the worst possible ending to the grim situation.
“Snow Yeti? If you mean a yeti, are you talking about the monster that appears in the Elnas Mountains? The big snowman?”
“Similar but different. Think of it as a variant yeti. Its vitality is especially special.”
“Regeneration beyond common sense?”
“Think of it as using a healing skill in real time.”
At that explanation, the expressions of Dibo, Kiri, and even Ralph hardened.
They understood.
They had experienced firsthand how powerful healing skills were, so they knew all too well.
Any wound that wasn’t a severed limb could be healed with a healing skill.
But this one used a healing skill in real time?
That meant it was almost impossible to kill with a normal attack.
“The Snow Yeti’s skin is the same as snow. It’s impossible to distinguish it from the snow with the naked eye. And it’s smart. If things don’t go its way, it’ll run away without looking back.”
The fact that a monster with such abilities would even run away was beyond the word ‘nightmare’.
Of course, El Paume’s words were just speculation.
“We need to gather more information to get the details.”
El Paume himself knew this was the truth, but that was only from El Paume’s point of view.
Unless El Paume revealed that he was a regressor and proved it, his companions could not be sure.
But such certainty wasn’t necessary.
The adventurers who had died here had proven it.
“Whatever the case, it seems there’s a formidable monster here.”
That it wouldn’t be easy to survive here.
“So, boss, is there a way?”
The only way to survive in this place was to follow El Paume’s instructions.
And El Paume had a plan.
“It’s not easy to catch it with magic or physical attacks. Even if you deal damage, it will run away if the wound gets deep. The moment we start chasing it, the Cold Eyes will swarm us.”
“A sword won’t work, a spear won’t work, and your boss’s magic won’t work, so what will you use?”
“Poison.”
Ralph’s eyes widened at that.
“Poison? Boss, can you use poison attribute magic too?”
Ralph had never seen El Paume use poison attribute magic before.
So it was no wonder he was surprised.
He already used fire attribute and telekinesis magic, and on top of that, he used poison attribute magic?
The talent to use three attributes could be found in one out of ten thousand mages.
“No wonder you’re the boss.”
Dibo laughed at Ralph’s surprised expression.
“So how do you use poison magic? Do you make a cloud of poison and make them inhale it like last time?”
“That’s not possible against the Snow Yeti.”
“Huh? Then how do you do it?”
“I inject the poison directly into my body.”
With that, El Paume took out a ring.
“I coat the Cold Beam with poison and shoot it into its body.”
The Cold Beam, a ring item with that magic.
“Cold Beam?”
“You can use ice attribute magic too?”
At that fact, Kiri and Dibo’s expressions changed like Ralph’s.
They were shocked.
Was it possible that he could use not three, but four attributes?
‘Four attributes?’
The three of them had only heard of such a case once before.
‘That’s only possible for Heinz, the master of magicians?’
[TL/N: Heinz is the Korean name for Grendel the Old but for consistency’s sake I’ll refer to him as Heinz]
Heinz, the director of the magic library in the city of magic and fairies, Elinia, and the teacher of all mage adventurers!
The only magician with the talent to use four attribute magic in the current Maple World was him.
Of course, El Paume’s talent was different from Heinz, the master of magicians.
He had the talent of an Allmaster, even greater than that.
However, El Paume did not bother to explain it to them.
After all, even if he told them that he could use other attribute magic at this point, it would be useless in battle.
‘It’s about to move now.’
El Paume knew more than anyone else.
‘I’ve set a trap with bait.’
The signal was about to come.
And as El Paume predicted, the signal came.
Krrrraaaa!
A monstrous beast, incomparable to the Cold Eyes, shook the snow-covered hell.
“The Snow Yeti, it’s definitely him.”
[Translator – Pr?ks]
[Proofreader – Pr?ks]
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