48
The role assignment was finished quickly.
"Miss. Please make sure the ember doesn't go out."
"……."
Hong Yeonha, whose casting took time and who struggled to exert her full power at close range, was effectively of no help in the current situation, so she was assigned the role of guarding the ember on the branch.
Of course, the person in question seemed to have quite a lot of dissatisfaction about this.
However, I understand. Accepting something and feeling good about it are entirely separate domains.
"11 o'clock relative to our front. Up in the tree."
As Baek Woojin indicated the direction with his halberd, Lee Dayoung's whip tore through the air and instantly shattered the pointed-out tree.
At the same time, Baek Woojin saw it.
The bizarre creature descending the tree shattering into pieces along with the tree and disappearing.
Though invisible and unable to be sensed through presence, it seemed that like beings born in dungeons, it was helpless against magic-infused attacks.
"Did it work?"
"Yes. It shattered cleanly."
"That's a relief."
"……."
As Baek Woojin and Lee Dayoung exchanged conversation, Hong Yeonha's eyes, caught between them, narrowed before her walking pace quickened slightly. Of course, that was by a mage's standard.
"Wait."
Baek Woojin, who had been walking along the footprints to gather the scattered raid squad, stopped the group.
"Multiple enemies?"
"No."
Instead of a detailed answer, Baek Woojin cut off a thick branch from a tree right next to him, picked it up, and threw it forward with all his might.
The moment the flying branch landed on the snowfield covered in footprints, the ground collapsed.
"What?"
At the incomprehensible situation, Hong Yeonha furrowed her brow.
She had no choice but to.
The collapsed ground was clearly covered with traces of numerous people having passed through. Yet when a thick branch fell on that spot, the ground instantly gave way.
Generally, once a trap is disarmed, it doesn't function until someone restores it. And if the footprints ahead were traces left by the scattered raid members, the ground should have already collapsed.
That was because the trap before them wasn't some complex mechanism—it was simply a dug-out pit covered up.
"This is definitely not normal."
Unlike the greatly annoyed Hong Yeonha, Lee Dayoung, who was in the position of practically being responsible for all of their safety, had a face even stiffer than before.
"We will return to the rendezvous point."
"Is that okay?"
"Even if it's not okay, there's nothing I can do. The miss's safety is my top priority. Above all, since we have flares, it won't be too late to follow after seeing them."
"Understood."
Under Lee Dayoung's judgment, the group retraced their steps to return to the place where the knight's body had been laid.
'Things might actually turn out better than expected.'
Unlike the two serious individuals, Baek Woojin, who had maintained a consistently calm expression, was in a considerably better mood compared to when he first heard about the Ghost Castle.
Judging from the situation so far, Lee Dayoung before the regression hadn't been able to sense these beings at all, and her sacrifice was highly likely influenced by that fact.
'But this time, there's me as a variable.'
As the knight had called them, the things referred to as evil spirits could not only be sensed with expanded perception but were also visible to the naked eye.
I didn't know if my attacks would work on those evil spirits, but at least from what I confirmed earlier, Lee Dayoung's attacks definitely worked.
There's no reason to be afraid of an opponent you can kill, unless it's one you can't. The reason people fear ghosts in reality is because they can't touch them.
If that were possible, eight out of ten horror movies out there would have changed genres from horror to comedy.
While walking with such thoughts, Lee Dayoung stopped the group.
"Why?"
"Here."
"Here?"
As Hong Yeonha looked around and asked back, Lee Dayoung nodded once.
"The body is gone."
"The equipment too."
That wasn't all.
Even the footprints created by the raid squad and Baek Woojin's group wandering around had been cleanly erased. As if it were a place visited for the first time.
If the person making this claim right now weren't Lee Dayoung, they wouldn't have easily believed it.
Lee Dayoung checked the time on her wristwatch.
"About two hours left until the rendezvous time."
"That's too much time left."
At Hong Yeonha's words, Lee Dayoung nodded and continued speaking.
"We're abandoning the raid squad."
Baek Woojin also agreed with this part.
"Fine. Anyway, if we just clear the dungeon, everyone alive gets ejected, right?"
"Exactly as you say. So we'll move to find the clear conditions as quickly as possible. Rest to a minimum, or rather, we'll keep moving until we discover the scattered raid squad members."
"Haah."
At Lee Dayoung's statement, Hong Yeonha let out a deep sigh.
"Look at this mess, all because I tried to hit on one guy."
"……?"
And at Hong Yeonha's statement, Baek Woojin, who had maintained a calm expression, looked at her with somewhat incredulous eyes for the first time.
"I think I'm actually the victim here."
"Shut up."
Hong Yeonha casually dismissed that remark and looked at Lee Dayoung.
"The goal is that snow mountain over there. Depending on the dungeon, impassable areas sometimes appear."
Lee Dayoung said while looking far into the distance as if roughly gauging the distance from here to the snow mountain.
"Excluding such special cases, there's nothing in most dungeons that exists without purpose."
In other words, Lee Dayoung was saying that somewhere on that snow mountain visible in the distance, there would be a key to clear this dungeon.
"Miss."
"I got it. I'll keep my mouth shut now, so let's just get going."
Hong Yeonha broke a new branch on her own, transferred the ember onto it, and answered.
"Please take care."
"Yes."
Baek Woojin and Lee Dayoung exchanged a light greeting once more, and with Hong Yeonha holding the branch with the burning ember in the middle, they walked toward the snow mountain.
**
It had been about 5 hours since they started walking toward the snow mountain.
"Combat traces."
Dark red traces scattered on the pure white snowfield.
Lee Dayoung approached the closest trace among the numerous ones, touched it directly with her hand, and examined it.
"It's hard to guess the exact time, but at least it's not blood shed by our raid squad."
The dark red traces continued coincidentally toward the snow mountain we were heading to right now.
"It might not be combat traces."
Baek Woojin had also been thinking the same thing.
The reason was the knight's corpse, which had blood on it and broken armor, yet no external wounds could be found anywhere on the body itself.
"Let's keep moving forward for now."
Hong Yeonha looked quite exhausted, but without a single complaint, she matched Lee Dayoung's pace and sped up.
Of course, in this case, rather than Hong Yeonha matching the pace, it would be more accurate to say that Lee Dayoung, conscious of her, was adjusting her speed to match Hong Yeonha.
'Did this side just give up?'
One for Hong Yeonha.
One for Lee Dayoung.
The evil spirits that attacked while we headed toward the snow mountain were just those two.
Thanks to that, all I had to focus on was finding the hidden traps along the way and guiding the group to a safe path.
And it wasn't long after discovering the place with the blood traces.
Bright red lights began to appear from a somewhat distant place.
They were the same color as the ember currently in Hong Yeonha's hand.
The raid squad, which had definitely been split in two, headed in completely different directions. So why were the lights pointing toward the snow mountain?
Whistle──!!
When Lee Dayoung blew her whistle, the lights walking ahead stopped.
As the walking of those ahead stopped, the distance naturally closed.
"Senior!!"
Was it Kim Taeseok?
The guy who had received orders from the raid squad leader to lead Team 2 came rushing toward them with a face mixed with urgency and relief, pushing through the group.
"Briefly."
"During the search, some squad members suddenly departed and disappeared toward the snow mountain."
"Why didn't you shoot a flare?"
"Well……."
Kim Taeseok hesitated for a moment, then bit his lip hard once before continuing.
"Before the members departed, they attacked us, and in the process, we lost all our flares. I'm truly sorry……!!"
Whether they suffered because they couldn't harm allies who had suddenly turned hostile, or whether there was another hidden motive, there was no way to know right now. Originally, it wasn't that important in the current situation either.
Perhaps thinking the same thing, instead of probing further about it, Lee Dayoung began examining the faces of the remaining squad members one by one.
"There's no guide."
"One of the deserters."
"So instead of coming to the rally point, you headed toward the snow mountain?"
"Y-yes…."
"Haa."
Lee Dayoung let out a short sigh.
She seemed to be pondering what to do with them.
So, to ease her dilemma a bit, Baek Woojin lightly patted Lee Dayoung's back.
"Did they appear?"
"I'm not sure if 'appeared' is the right word."
In this case, wouldn't it be more accurate to say they were called forth?
Baek Woojin grabbed the hand of Hong Yeonha, who was already exhausted, and hid her behind his back as he spoke.
"It seems like."
The face of an evil spirit wavering like an afterimage over a human face.
"The deserters seem to be those guys."