Chapter 250. Above the Frozen Land (1)
[Wow, Earth has a cool place like this!?]
“This is your first time in Antarctica, Ruyue?”
[Un!]
It’s the first for me too.
Of course, the last time Event Dungeons spawned, there were some in Antarctica. However, I was stuck training in Beyond at that time, while Hwaya and the other Revival members had taken care of the Event Dungeons in Antarctica. That’s why I didn’t have to go all the way to Antarctica last time. It seemed I was paying the price this time as I was even assigned the Antarctica Ocean.
Licorice, Lotte, and Plene were all frowning, while even Peika, who wasn’t affected by the environmental effects that much, was feeling uncomfortable. Only Sharana, who lived in a place full of freezing energy, and Ruyue, who was an ice elemental, were happy.
[There’s cold wind here, Master!]
[Let’s come play here often!]
“Mm, I’ll consider it.”
Being an elementalist, it seemed I would have to go on vacations to Antarctica…! Of course, Antarctica’s temperature couldn’t affect me in the slightest, but what was there to do in Antarctica!? Do I shave off an icy mountain to make shaved ice? I seriously considered making a special facility for Ruyue in Antarctica as I began to clean up the Antarctic Ocean’s Event Dungeons.
Most of the Antarctic Ocean’s Event Dungeons were deep underwater. Even if I wasn’t affected by the cold, being in a below ‘zero-degree’ freezing water wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling. One positive thing was that monsters seemed to prefer warmth to cold as they weren’t often seen in the Antarctic Ocean. As such, we could mostly just focus on clearing Event Dungeons.
[You cleared an SS rank Event Dungeon! You gained 2 bonus stats!]
There was nothing that could stop us, as we breezed through the Antarctic Ocean’s Event Dungeons. As there were less Event Dungeons in the ocean than on the continent, we could finish in just ten days. The reason I hoped to finish in ten days was because the eleventh day was the sixth rest day I designated.
When the rest day came, we went to the Residential Area, took baths, and rested our bodies. Even after soaking in a warm bath for three hours, Licorice complained repeatedly.
“The cold in my body hasn’t left even now. This is the worst.”
“I hate the cold ocean too. There’s nowhere to swim and it’s not a good place to sing in.”
Plene pouted like a duck. I asked Sharana to dry them off as I replied.
“Don’t worry. Once we go to Antarctica, you’ll think the Antarctic Ocean was warm.”
“It’s not a blaze fitting for this Blaze Queen!”
“I followed Dear Husband all the way to this cold place! I’ll get mad if I don’t get rewarded!”
Lotte only complained, but Licorice dug into my arms with only a towel around her. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spoil her a bit, but I still pushed her away with a wry smile.
“I can’t even do this much? Just a little bit, okay?”
“I have to go the dungeon.”
Licorice who was acting cute frowned at my response and shouted.
“You’re going to meet that woman!”
“If people heard, they’d think that you’re my wife and that I’m going to go cheat on you with someone!”
“It’s the same thing!”
“How!? Plus, I’m not going to meet Loretta, I’m going to enter Beyond.”
“Rather than that, play with me! Dear Husbaaand, please?”
I admired Licorice’s persistence in wanting to spend the rest of the day with me, but I couldn’t concede either.
“There’s an important battle, so I can’t just relax and fool around.”
“Then should we do something more intense, Dear Husband…? I’d love to!”
“No.”
Right, as I had finished grinding the 75th Floor Master today, I had to fight Beyond’s 25th Floor Master today.
“Hero is really different than other men. Strangely different. So different that it’s annoying.”
“Shin is kind and nice!”
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about, stupid.”
“I didn’t want to think this way, but could Dear Husband be impo…”
“Stop there.”
I first grinded the 75th Floor Master in the rest day. I had somewhat expected it when the 71st floor had bats like the 61st floor, but what appeared from the 73rd from onward were vampires. They possessed magic power vastly stronger than succubi or incubi, as they moved extremely quickly while transforming to multiple forms, and aimed for my neck from the most unexpected places. However, the First Dungeon still couldn’t catch up to my level yet, as I still passed with ease through them.
As I had to make time every night while everyone else was asleep to climb the dungeon, it took a few days to climb each floor. Of course, as I needed to wait for the rest days that came once a week to enter Beyond, the fact that it took a few days to climb each First Dungeon floor wasn’t that big of a problem. I broke through floors with Giant Wolfs, Wendigos, or both, then made time to beat up the 75th Floor Master, Vampire Lord, during the fifth week.
First, I unfortunately couldn’t get the Vampire Lord Master title. It seemed one of the past Beyond explorers, who were used to defeating Floor Masters solo, had taken the first achievement.
As the solo clear reward was Mistification, I couldn’t fathom what the first solo clear reward was. But since the Mistification skill was meaningless to me, I didn’t think the higher class version of Mistification would be any more useful. After all, there was no reason for me to turn to mist.
If I was fighting against opponents that couldn’t wield mana, transforming into a mist would prevent me from being hit and would even let me move easier than with a solid body, but none of the opponents I faced were unskilled in manipulating mana and I had Divine Speed to speed up my movement, so I didn’t need to lighten my body through Mistification. If I used it, I might only end up exposing more weaknesses by becoming more vulnerable to attacks with mana.
Most importantly, if I needed to transform into a mist, I could simply use Sky God’s Play. In a way, Sky God’s Play was a much higher version of Mistification, and it didn’t lower my defense in any way. It was the transformation skill that reigned over all others. Because Sky God’s Play guaranteed that I would never be seen through, I didn’t really need any other transformation skills.
Of course, it didn’t hurt to have more skills. The solo clear rewards were really confusing in some ways. Some skills from lower floors were even better than the skills from higher floors, which meant it wasn’t guaranteed that higher floors would have skills any better than Mistification.
On the other hand, the 75th Floor’s elixir didn’t disappoint me. It was called Vampire Lord’s Blood Essence. I felt a bit weird consuming it, but it still raised my constitution and magic by 3 each time. After the tenth elixir, my constitution and magic rose by 30 points each, and my MP broke through 200,000. Even if I used a Heroic Strike that used 50% of my mana, it would have 100,000 points worth of mana condensed into it.
Finally, the Floor Master set skill was called Blood Curse. It was similar to Deathblood Ring’s ‘blood contamination’ in that it used my health to activate. I could hit a target with my blood and decrease all of his stats and make him fall into massive hemorrhage status effect. It was a good debuff skill to have.
When I was about to leave for Beyond after looking through the gains from 75th Floor, Licorice clung to my back and pretended to sob.
“Sob, I’m being neglected by my husband at such a young age and forced to sleep alone.”
“Don’t say that in front of the other girls, okay?”
Especially Yua. I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if she found out.
“Ei, go already. Hurry back and play with me!”
“I’m going back to sleep. I’m too tired.”
“I’ll also be in the resort area. I know Hero won’t take long.”
I lightly patted Licorice and the others and head to the dungeon. Loretta who was waiting for me on the 75th floor flapped her ears and greeted me happily.
“You came to play with me, right!? Let’s play, let’s play!”
“Is this some new disease going around recently?”
Just how busy was I that everyone started saying this? I swore to wrap up the remaining Event Dungeons as quickly as possible. I wanted to get some rest too.
For now, however, I couldn’t make time just for Loretta. With a bitter smile, I pointed at the gate next to the stairway to the 76th floor.
“Sorry, Loretta. I’ll be back later.”
“Sob, I’m being neglected by my husband at such a young age and forced to…”
“Did you plan this with Licorice!? Now that I think about you, neither of you are that young…!”
Loretta looked up at me with fake tears. She had an axe on one hand.
“Did you say something, Shin-nim?”
“Nothing, Loretta-nim.”
I couldn’t die without even seeing the Floor Master’s face. I kneeled while facing Loretta’s violence then headed to Beyond’s 25th floor with tears. Loretta saw me off with a smile, but if I didn’t come see her afterwards, I would have to face her wrath.
It seemed I might have to give myself another rest day. Damn, curse my mouth…!
The monster I would face had the combined strong points of Giant Wolves and Wendigos. To be honest, neither Giant Wolves nor Wendigos were difficult opponents to face.
The Giant Wolves in Beyond’s 21st floor were bigger than the First Dungeon’s Giant Wolf Floor Master, but I had ample experience fighting massive monsters and was an expert in detecting presences. To me, they were nothing more than sandbags. The Wendigos, who just had more powerful freezing energy, were even easier to deal with than the Giant Wolves. They couldn’t do anything in front of Ruyue’s ability.
Even when I was climbing the First Dungeon, I breezed through the first dungeon 41st to 50th floors. It was the same for Beyond’s 21st to 24th floors. It was almost as if someone was being considerate of me since I was busy on Earth. Of course, with Beyond’s floors being much bigger than the First Dungeon’s floors, I still needed to invest a full day for each floor.
Regardless, Beyond was also… easy!
[Guoooooo!]
Beyond’s 25th floor was a giant snowy mountain similar to the Floor Master room where I fought the Wendigo. There, I met a Skeleton Wolf that was comparable in size to a mountain.
“Each battle rooms are getting bigger… Don’t tell me there will be one in the size of a country soon…”
As I leisurely murmured, I swung the spear in my hand and fixed my grip on it. A golden lightning crackled around the speartip, while Ruyue materialized into her beastgirl form and got ready to receive any attacks. Both offense and defense were perfect.
“Let’s fight. I’ll end this in the blink of an eye.”
[Guoooooooooooo!]