The winter tundra—the theme from the 11th floor to the 20th.
We returned to the place that had nearly become our graves.
A message window appeared in midair as soon as we entered.
[You have entered the 11th floor on “Hard” difficulty.]
[Clear Condition: Slay 2 large demonic beasts and 10 medium-or-smaller demonic beasts.]
[Failure Condition: Total annihilation.]
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Bewilderment spread across the faces of the unit members.
Each of them gripped their weapons tightly and looked around.
“Hard? We came to Hard?”
“Captain, didn’t you pick the wrong one?”
“Did it even give us time to choose just now?”
“Let’s just escape like this. It’s too dangerous.”
“Quiet.”
Pyo Yeojeong silenced the mercenaries in a low voice.
“It says our abilities are at Hard level.”
“.......”
“It’s probably because of these rings. That means it’s not impossible for us to clear it.”
“D-does it?”
“It’s not like they get stronger just because the difficulty went up. The number of beasts we have to hunt just increased.”
Pyo Yeojeong drew the claymore greatsword that was as tall as she was.
She seemed desperate to raise the morale of the unit somehow.
Of course, to my eyes, her own flustered state was plain to see.
Her voice trembled faintly, and traces of dialect slipped into her accent here and there.
The captain continued, doing her best not to let it show.
“It’s good since we’ll get plenty of practical training, isn’t it? What do you think, vice-captain?”
“I’ll do whatever the captain says.”
“What about you guys?”
“……We’ll follow your lead too, Captain.”
Satisfied with their answer, Pyo Yeojeong nodded.
“The basic grand strategy remains the same. We start with the southern coniferous forest and move clockwise.”
The 11th floor also granted climbers a high degree of freedom.
The trolls in the east, the snowmen in the west, the glacier birds in the north, and the frost wolves in the south. You could choose which of them to hunt.
Our initial plan had been to head south and deal with the frost wolves.
On Normal difficulty or below, clearing out the mother and her pups in a single cave was enough to meet the clear condition.
“If we take the cave in the Coniferous Canyon, we fulfill one large and seven small all at once. After that, we move to the small pond and eliminate the large snowman specimen.”
“Understood.”
“Move out.”
At the captain’s order, the scouting squad set off immediately.
The combat platoon and support platoon followed behind them.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been an operation where we deployed only the combat platoon.
But starting today, they needed to learn combat centered around cold weapons.
The support platoon, armed with firearms, tagged along to back them up.
“Will this really be okay?”
Intaek lowered his voice and asked.
He must have been anxious.
After all, ordinary people carrying spears and swords were saying they were going to hunt a pack of giant wolves.
“Normally, no. It wouldn’t be okay.”
“....”
“What scares me is that Yeojeong came up with this plan before she even knew about the rings.”
If I hadn’t been an Awakened.
If we hadn’t had artifacts like the mana barrier rings.
I would have stopped Pyo Yeojeong with everything I had.
What kind of sane person thinks of hunting wolf-type demonic beasts by stabbing them with knives instead of using arrows?
Even Paleolithic people probably didn’t square up with wolves.
“……S-still, we have the rings this time. And we trained hard.”
“That’s true.”
Still, the reason I could be at ease was because—
We had shield-bearers who had trained quite diligently during the rest period.
We had artifacts that could block most damage for three minutes.
We had spears and swords that could stab into a wolf’s flank while someone else drew its attention.
Behind them, we had a support platoon armed with firearms.
And there was me, the secret weapon nobody knew about.
“Everyone, prepare for battle!”
Before long, we arrived at the entrance of the wolf cave.
Perhaps sensing our presence, the wolves were waiting for us outside the den.
Thuk—!
When a shield-bearer stopped a lunging wolf, blades stabbed in from the left and right.
They had decent posture, as expected of people who had rolled around on battlefields.
The small frost wolves were quickly dealt with.
“Focus! The mother wolf will come out soon!”
Pyo Yeojeong shouted after bringing her weight down in a chopping strike and slicing off the last wolf’s neck.
“Front! Square formation! Rear! Establish a field of fire!”
“Anyone used up their ring?”
“No, ma’am!”
The unit members formed up again.
While the combat platoon formed a square facing the cave entrance, the support platoon moved to both wings.
Thud, thud—!
Soon, heavy footfalls approached, shaking the ground.
What appeared was a wolf with a head as large as a person.
It was big enough to smash a square formation to pieces with a single kick.
At the frost wolf’s howl, mountain birds fled high into the sky.
My knees went weak on their own.
“Stand by!”
At the captain’s shout, the combatants dug their feet into the snow.
The mother frost wolf charged through the snow toward us.
“Throw!”
Dozens of javelins shot toward the wolf’s head.
About half failed to pierce its hide and bounced off.
But the other half dug into softer spots.
The mother wolf writhed in pain.
It did not stop running, but its momentum had diminished greatly.
“First row, lower spears! Thrust!”
Pshk!
“First row, recover! Second row! Thrust!”
Pshuk—!
Pshk, pshk—
Into its gaping maw.
Between the exposed nape of its neck.
Sharp spearheads sank in.
The wolf’s movements slowed even further.
It seemed to stagger once, then collapsed just like that.
Thoom—!
Even that alone made the ground tremble faintly.
“Proceed with confirmation kill.”
“……Kill confirmed.”
Only then did everyone’s tension loosen.
The combat platoon lay sprawled in the snow, savoring the relief of survival.
The support platoon skinned the wolves and collected the byproducts.
“You prepared well. How did you drill them like this in just a few days?”
“They all had the basics. And if you work hard, it works out somehow.”
Pyo Yeojeong answered while gulping down water.
Despite the cold weather, her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat.
“Should we rest before going?”
“The snowfall is getting heavier. We can’t rest for long.”
“We should at least catch our breath before moving. Let’s move in thirty minutes.”
Perhaps she couldn’t refuse even that much, because the captain agreed in silence.
“I’ll light a fire for you.”
I had a platoon member gather fallen branches nearby.
In the meantime, I took out a thin metal rod and struck it with a hammer.
In less than a minute, the end of the rod glowed red.
When I touched it to the paper I had prepared in advance, it caught fire at once.
“Guys, come take some fire.”
“But why do you always light fires like that? We have lighters.”
“…Just because.”
It’s romantic.
And so, after the thirty-minute rest ended, we set out on the march again.
Our destination was the small pond in the west, as originally planned.
It was the route for hunting the snowmen.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a distance we could cover quickly, but—
“The weather’s getting worse.”
“The next fight is going to be rough.”
“Can we finish it quickly? Our movements have gotten really sluggish.”
Our steps were slower than expected.
The weather had worsened while we were taking a short breather.
Our feet sank deep into the growing snow, and the snowfall obscured our vision.
We lost our sense of direction without realizing it and had to correct our route several times.
Naturally, the gap between the front and rear slowly widened as well. Combined with the deteriorating visibility, the rear of the combat platoon was soon only a blur.
“Rear, pick up the pace! Front, slow down! The rear’s fallen behind!”
I shouted to the front to slow the march.
But perhaps my voice did not reach them, because the front actually sped up instead.
‘Damn it…!’
Even if we had the barrier rings, we couldn’t move recklessly.
The combat platoon and support platoon were currently structured to protect each other.
If they got separated, there was a high risk they would be defeated in detail by an unexpected ambush.
Then Intaek, who had run ahead to communicate with the forward platoon, returned.
“Vice-captain! The front was ambushed by snowmen! We have to link up with them right away!”
“What? Support platoon! Pick up the pace!”
“A pack of wolves is approaching from the rear!”
“Why the hell are wolves coming here!”
Fuck, that wasn’t important.
In an instant, we were surrounded from both directions.
I had to make a quick decision.
“Use suppressive fire to keep the wolves from closing in as much as possible!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Our top priority is linking up with the front! Don’t slow down!”
Every platoon member moved as if running.
We linked up with the combat platoon quickly.
The situation was not good.
Their formation had already collapsed, and each of them was fighting the snowmen based on improvised judgment.
Mana barriers had activated all over the place.
Someone’s barrier had already run out of strength and gone dark.
“Anyone whose ring is gone, fall back to the rear!”
“Engage while slowly retreating and gathering up! Support platoon! Focus on covering fire!”
Wolves tried to dig into our formation, and snowmen swung their massive fists wildly.
Because the heavy snowfall shortened visibility, they couldn’t provide covering fire aggressively either.
In three minutes, the remaining unit members’ rings would all shut off too.
We couldn’t hold out like this.
‘Let’s take the head immediately.’
I untied the pouch hanging from my waist.
Feeling its heavy weight, I plunged into the battlefield.
“Where’s the leader?”
“It went to the eleven o’clock direction! It’s chasing Captain Pyo!”
Yeojeong, why are you being chased again…!
I headed in the direction the combatant pointed.
Before long, I found the leader snowman. It stood out because it was two heads taller than the other snowmen.
Pyo Yeojeong must have already used up her ring, because she was busy doing nothing but running away.
I focused my mind and started the mana ignition.
After connecting the nodes, I roughly poured mana in, and the hammer began to vibrate.
“Hey, Pyo Yeojeong! Just run!”
“You crazy bastard! Why are you here!!”
“I’ll handle this, so if your ring’s gone, get out!”
Please, just run.
That way, I can fight without worrying.
But Pyo Yeojeong, unaware of my condition, only hesitated and continued the meaningless fight.
‘Haa….’
I don’t care anymore.
I grabbed Pyo Yeojeong by the nape of her neck and threw her backward.
“Urk?!”
Behind me, I heard the sound of a person rolling through the snow.
Now I could focus on the battle.
“Krooooo!”
The snowman roared, spraying spit everywhere.
Sorry, but I had no intention of fighting you directly.
I gathered as much mana as I could and slammed the ground at an angle.
Kuuuuung──!!!!
A tremendous shockwave spread out in a fan shape.
The snowman staggered and dropped to one knee.
‘It didn’t die in one hit?’
The leader snowman shook its head as if it couldn’t get its bearings.
There was no time.
This time, I had to end it for certain.
I charged at the snowman.
Whoosh—
I dodged the blind fist the snowman swung with a forward roll.
Then I fired another seismic wave at the snowman’s knee.
Kuuung──!!!!
The recoil from the impact sent my body floating up before I crashed into the snow.
The snowman was gasping for breath, barely hanging on.
I couldn’t wait for it to die.
With all my remaining mana, I brought the hammer down on its enormous head.
[You have cleared the 11th floor on Hard difficulty.]
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[You will return in 1 minute.]
A message window appeared before my eyes.
Everyone was probably looking at it.
Drained of strength, I sank down onto the ground.
“Wha… what the hell are you…?”
Pyo Yeojeong stood in front of me, her eyes trembling.