Chapter 65

Chapter 65
The creature standing in front of me was a yeti completely coated in white fur, identified as a legendary-grade monster known as the Snow Giant. Ordinarily, such a beast had no business being in this vicinity because humans were far too small to interest it as prey. In normal circumstances, it inhabited areas far away from any Zone, feeding on large-class monsters, and was well-known for controlling weather through a central jewel embedded right in its forehead. This meant the sudden blizzard was its doing as well. A weather-altering entity functioning more like a spirit beast than a standard monster raised the question of why it had traveled all the way out here to target newly commissioned officers, leading me to wonder briefly if it might actually be a player.

Just to be thorough, I used Character Inspection on the Snow Giant, but the system remained completely unresponsive, proving it was not a player. As the gap between us narrowed, the creature remained completely motionless, staring intently at something across the snowfield—which had to be the new officers. Without slowing my motorcycle, I jumped off, as my legs were too short to bring it to a safe halt anyway. The vehicle crashed directly into the monster’s backside, and the beast barely reacted, casually scratching the impact point with a densely furred hand. Even so, I felt confident because, at its core, it was still just a monster.

Tumbling across the snow twice, I regained my footing and pulled the largest firearm from my inventory. Although it lacked a burst-fire mode, its specialized ammunition was designed to melt monster hide and flesh, allowing a clean shot to pierce straight through a thick torso. As long as its anatomy was that of a monster, any spot struck by these rounds would melt away without resistance. Naturally, that kind of offensive power meant nothing if you failed to strike the jewel, which was why large-scale subjugation campaigns had always been necessary despite weapons development. I had not anticipated that, even with tracking tools to find the jewels, almost nobody except a homebody like Yeobom would actually know how to use them. Fortunately, this specimen’s jewel sat conveniently on its forehead, though the drawback was that its forehead loomed impossibly high above.

“Get down!” I shouted, pulling the trigger while targeting its abdomen. A massive, nail-shaped round tore through its hide, melting the flesh as it punched entirely through to the other side.

“Uwaaah!” The creature felt the impact this time, its entire body shuddering violently. Through the gaping hole torn into its torso, I caught sight of Lucas looking startled and Bones crying with a tear-streaked face. Seeing Bones’s expression nearly forced a dry laugh out of me, but Lucas immediately shouted in my direction, “Heydam! Above you!”

Since my current weapon could not fire again without reloading, I dropped it immediately and pulled a smoke grenade from my inventory, launching it straight up. A dense cloud blossomed overhead, obstructing the monster’s vision, and the massive hand that plunged down through the smoke ended up clawing at empty air instead of me. Seizing that window, I pressed flat against the creature’s body and sprinted around to the other side to regroup with the new officers. While running, I finally pieced together why the beast had wandered so far inward in the first place. Through the organs still melting from my gunshot, half-digested carcasses of large-class monsters came spilling out in a wet cascade. These strange creatures had fled across the crevasse zone and run straight into the path of the Snow Giant on the other side; to avoid being eaten, they had turned and rushed back toward our Zone, leading the Snow Giant to follow them all the way here while feeding along the way.

Consequently, I would not be gaining any further insight into those strange monsters today. The one detail I had verified was that this Snow Giant was definitely not a player, as an actual player would not have food sitting undigested in their stomach. True to its identity as an otherworldly monster, however, the hole I had blown through its torso was already sealing back up at an incredible speed. Even after I looped behind it, the creature continued thrashing wildly inside the smoke cloud, still hunting for me. While its focus remained diverted, I poured all my energy into a sprint and reached the new officers.

“Heydam!” Lucas greeted me, his expression an odd mixture of relief and despair. While Lucas still gripped a gun, Bones was flat on his back on the ground, blood pooling from a wound on his shoulder.

“Why is that bastard still sprawled out like that?” I asked.

“Ah, well…” Looking deeply awkward, Lucas glanced sideways at Bones, who mumbled in a voice barely audible past his throat, “Just… leave me and—”

Before he could finish telling us to run away, I struck him sharply across the face. Lucas stared at me, completely horrified that I had hit an injured man. “Heydam!”

“Stop acting, Bones. You can still move.” Even after taking the blow, Bones showed no anger or indignation, simply letting his head drop.

“I’m just this kind of person. That’s why my father abandoned me, isn’t it.”

“Bones.” This time, instead of hitting him, I rested a hand on his shoulder. “Do you genuinely believe Lieutenant General Max—your father—tried to have you killed?”

At those words, Bones snapped his head up, his eyes turning sharp. “You’re going to take some maniac’s word for it and start doubting your own father?”

“Th-then…”

“I don’t know the exact truth either. But at the very least, I am going to verify it myself. Whether my father truly abandoned me.”

Suspicion had struck me the moment I heard the Team 2 leader’s story. Having cleared every Zone, I knew perfectly well that the Team 2 leader had never done anything that would give Lieutenant General Max grounds to blackmail him, and during my own run through the Cola Area, he had acted as a thoroughly loyal officer aligned with the pro-Hayden faction. My assessment was that the Team 2 leader had targeted Bones while dropping Max’s name specifically to frame the general. Max enjoyed such immense popularity that even ordinary rank-and-file soldiers trusted him deeply; if someone of his stature had attempted to murder Bones simply for defying orders, the other sponsored cadets would have turned against him instantly. Therefore, this had to be a conspiracy cooked up by the pro-Hayden faction, and a scheme of this scale went far beyond what a mere colonel could mastermind on his own. It appeared Yosef had no intention of retiring quietly either.

Either way, as I had told Bones, the quickest resolution was to return and verify the facts ourselves. “Use this for first aid for the time being,” I said, pulling a first-aid kit from my inventory and holding it out.

Lucas stared at me with a look bordering on terror. “Where on earth did you pull that from?” As if he would believe me if I mentioned having an inventory system.

“Just treat him. We have to go save the Commander.”

“What?!” Both of them yelled at once. Bones, who seemed to have largely recovered his wits, stopped reaching for a gun and stared at me. “You mean the Commander is in danger too?”

“He fell into a crevasse over that way. Fortunately, it isn’t a deep drop, so he isn’t badly injured. We have to go pull him out.”

“I’ll treat him right away.”

“Hurry up. Our lives are on the line as well.” Even with a Snow Giant looming right in front of us, learning that the Commander was in danger drained all color from Lucas’s face. He practically poured disinfectant over Bones’s wound, causing Bones to shriek, “Son of a—! Are you trying to kill me?!”

“Weren’t you just telling us to leave you to die?!”

Watching them argue, I concluded that both had regained their mental footing, at least to some degree. The real dilemma was the Snow Giant standing right before us. Neither Lucas nor Bones understood what a Snow Giant was, which explained why they remained relatively calm; they had watched me cut down large-class monsters as easily as a cat catches mice, leading them to believe that even an oversized adversary was something I could handle. But reality was different—that outcome was not happening. Unless the creature deliberately lowered its head for me, hitting the jewel on its forehead from ground level was virtually impossible. I could attempt to shoot out a leg to topple it, but there was no guarantee we wouldn’t get crushed beneath its falling weight. More importantly, while I could punch holes through its body, landing a blow heavy enough to knock it off balance was an entirely different challenge, and any wound inflicted on a leg would heal long before I could sever the limb.

What should we do now? Then an unexpected development occurred. The Snow Giant, which had been thrashing blindly through the snowy field inside the smoke cloud in search of me, abruptly ignored us entirely and began hauling its massive frame back toward the direction I had originally come from.

“It must think you ran that way, Heydam.”

“Shit. That took ten years off my life.” Bones was already back to his usual self, muttering curses under his breath out of relief that the beast had chosen a different path. My own expression, however, remained tightly locked. A monster of that size typically possessed low intelligence, so its departure was fortunate, but heading toward my previous path meant the Commander was situated right at the end of that route.

The other two read my expression and grasped the situation instantly. “Don’t tell me… the direction it’s taking leads straight to the Commander?”

I nodded, and the moment I did, Bones sprang into action, hauling the motorcycle out of the snowbank where it had been buried after crashing into the Snow Giant. “What are you standing around for?! We have to follow it!”

That rascal Bones—just a minute ago, he had been crawling helplessly on the ground. Still, as long as his wits were about him, his ability to pull his weight was a genuine relief; otherwise, risking my life to rescue them would have been pointless. Leaving the driving to Lucas, I mounted the front of the bike while Bones squeezed on behind, and the machine accelerated instantly. The Snow Giant was already maintaining some distance ahead of us.

“So what the hell is that thing?!” Bones bellowed over the rushing wind as we rode.

“A Snow Giant! A legendary-grade monster!”

“Legendary-grade? Those actually exist?!”

“It isn’t even native to this region!”

“My eardrums are going to burst! Both of you, shut up!” Squeezed between us while we yelled at the top of our lungs, Lucas finally snapped and shouted back.

Although the Snow Giant’s strides were exceptionally long, its actual travel speed was slow enough for us to catch up quickly. The difficulty was that closing the distance did not provide us with any sort of viable plan. We halted the motorcycle a short distance away from the creature’s path and watched it move.

“…How do we stop something like that?” Lucas asked, craning his neck backward just to catch a glimpse of the beast’s head.

“Should we ram it with the bike?”

“I already tried that,” I replied to Bones, keeping my eyes locked on the entity. At this rate, it would reach the crevasse where the Commander was located at any second. There remained a slim possibility that nothing catastrophic would happen; I had chased after it out of fear that the violent tremors of its footsteps might cause the crevasse to collapse further, but the creature had slowed down considerably, scanning the snowy expanse as if still hunting for me. It would be ideal if it simply wandered back to its own territory without incident. We trailed it at a cautious distance, preferring to pray it departed quietly rather than risk provoking it into triggering a cave-in.

Yet, as if mocking that fragile hope, the moment the monster reached the edge of the crevasse, it began lowering a massive hand directly toward the cliff below.

“What on earth is it doing right now?” Lucas and Bones looked bewildered by the sudden motion. I, however, knew precisely what it was doing, because I knew exacty who was waiting at the bottom of that outstretched hand.