“…They’re vengeful spirits.”
When Seo Jun-Ho stared at them for a while, the blue spirits slid away behind a building.
“They said the Ice Witch is a banshee. Contractor, do you know what kind of an existence a banshee is?”
“A crying ghost.”
Hissss!?
Seo Jun-Ho lit a Gate-use flare and threw it hard toward the ceiling. The flare attached itself to the high ceiling and lit up the dead city.
“They’re also known as the omens of death,” finished Seo Jun-Ho.
“That’s right. There’s a saying that if you hear a banshee’s sobbing, you’ll likely die.”
In truth, a banshee was not a monster. That was why the Frost Queen also asked Seo Jun-Ho if he knew what kind of ‘existence’ it was.
“Normally, those that died an unjust death will become a banshee. And they’ll look for someone who’ll listen to them…”
If a banshee was lucky enough to find someone who it could communicate with, it would ask the person for help. If the person agreed to do the request, the banshee would let go of its lingering feelings in this world and move on.
‘In Korean terms, it’s kind of like a virgin man or a maiden ghost.’
Naturally, as time went by, a banshee was likely to become an evil spirit if they didn’t manage to move on. This could happen if they couldn’t find someone to do their request, or even if they did…
“They still can’t let go of their regrets and end up being stuck.”
Kim Woo-Joong said that the banshee here was a spirit that had lived for hundreds of years, so long that it had even become a boss monster.
“Fortunately, it’s not a difficult opponent. This kind of opponent suits me well.”
The Watchguard of Darkness was very good at devouring spiritual bodies. Seo Jun-Ho looked across the city with cold eyes as he went down the stone stairs. Many of the vengeful spirits he had seen a while ago were nowhere to be found by now.
“Can you feel it?” asked Seo Jun-Ho.
“Do you mean the spirit energy?” the Frost Queen asked back.
“Yeah, it’s not just the banshee here. Right now… I feel strong negative energy from the city itself.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”
Darkness fluctuated around Seo Jun-Ho, who had come all the way down the stairs.
“I’m going to destroy them, starting with the ones who appear in front of me. What do you think? Simple, right?”
“…Contractor, if you cannot think of a plan, just say you do not have one.”
“It is a plan. This is said to be a Dungeon, but it’s actually a dwarven city.”
Seo Jun-Ho clumped the darkness and knocked on the wall of a building.
“It means we don’t have to be careful of traps like a normal Dungeon.”
The opponents were spiritual bodies that could not exert physical force. As such, there was no way they could set up a trap or anything.
[Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come! If you come, you’ll die!]
A gloomy voice rumbled from inside the city. The sound reverberated throughout the underground city, echoing.
[…Come! …Come… Die!]
The Frost Queen gulped. She held a spike made of ice in each hand. Seo Jun-Ho looked at her with an astonished expression and asked, “What are you going to do with those? Stab them?”
“I’ll stab them when they show up!”
“I told you the opponents are spiritual bodies.”
“I’ll imbue it with magic and stab!”
“Don’t use my mental strength carelessly.”
Carrying the very nervous Frost Queen on his shoulder, Seo Jun-Ho moved leisurely.
‘I was lucky.’
If Kim Woo-Joong had the ability to resist the cold, Seo Jun-Ho couldn’t have possibly gotten this chance.
‘This is like getting a dwarven weapon for free.’
At best, they were just spirits and a banshee. They were existences that would get erased like blackboard doodles if he used the Watchguard of Darkness.
“There they are…”
Four vengeful spirits were gathered in the new city square of the new Del Ice of the White Anvil tribe and there was a single banshee standing in front and holding them back.
“…They said she’s hundreds of years old, but she looks much younger than I thought.”
The Frost Queen was right. The banshee’s appearance made it seem that she was in her early twenties. The banshee was probably maintaining the appearance she had from when she died.
[You, human! Why won’t you listen?! I told you not to come!]
The banshee, Ice Witch warned with a contorted expression.
[Don’t come any closer! If you come, you’ll die!]
“I’m sorry, but I was asked by the owner of this city to get rid of you.”
The darkness that rose like smoke from Seo Jun-Ho’s body bloomed like a flower and tainted the air. The clumped darkness spread like a viper and grabbed the banshee’s neck.
[Ack! Ahhh…!]
A spirit didn’t have to breathe—it was the same for a banshee. The reason she was in pain was simple.
‘Darkness has the property of ignoring everything and attacking the target directly.’
This concept also applied to spiritual bodies. A spiritual body was vulnerable to attribute-based attacks, but among the attributes, the best was the dark attribute. The banshee was directly injured by the attack.
[Ahhh…]
[Ahhhhh…]
When the banshee was caught, four blue spirits flocked over to Seo Jun-Ho. However, he didn’t bat an eyelid since they had no offensive power anyway.
[Ahhhh!]
[Ahhhh…]
In fact, the vengeful spirits could only try to disturb Seo Jun-Ho by flapping their arms, but they didn’t manage to inflict any physical damage at all. Seo Jun-Ho walked over to the banshee, ignoring them.
“So why did you come into a perfectly fine house and cause trouble for the owner?”
It was nothing personal. However, her existence was a horror to the residents of the nearby areas. Whenever the Ice Witch went, there would be severe snowstorms all year round, turning the place she migrated to into a lifeless land. Her existence was a nightmare that had been going on for hundreds of years now.
[Why… did you… not freeze…?]
“I’ve had enough of being frozen.”
Crack!
Seo Jun-Ho’s hand was covered with a pitch black aura as he held the banshee’s face tightly. His knuckles slowly tightened.
“Now let go of all the lingering feelings… and ascend at peace, Ice Witch.”
He had no idea how deep her resentment was that it kept her from ascending after hundreds of years. To be honest, he didn’t even want to know. He didn’t have a single good memory regarding banshees.
‘The banshees I met in Gates had always been evil spirits.’
Regardless of what banshees were supposed to be like, banshees were just an enemy to Seo Jun-Ho. They were horrible enemies who had bewitched the party members who entered a Gate together with him and drove them to their deaths.
“Goodbye.”
Cruush.?
Just before her head could explode, the banshee let out a thin voice.
[Oh, Ice… Witch… That’s not… me…]
“…What?”
Seo Jun-Ho frowned. Between the fingers clutching the banshee’s face, he could see eyes filled with grievance.
“…”
They were just the words of a monster. There was no reason for him to believe her, and if he got rid of her here and went back, the mission would be over.
‘But if she’s really not the Ice Witch…’
It could be dangerous when the White Anvil tribe migrated here.
“Contractor, she doesn’t look like she’s lying.”
“…”
Seo Jun-Ho hesitated for a while, but he slightly relaxed his fingers. He decided to invest a moment to find out the truth. When Seo Jun-Ho’s forceful banishment of her to the heavens up above momentarily stopped, the banshee spoke in an urgent voice.
[Th-thank you for believing me. If you ask me anything… I’ll answer…]
“I don’t need answers, ”Seo Jun-Ho responded coldly and continued. “I can just find out for myself.”
To be honest, he had sensed something fishy, but he had believed that there was no use to confirm his theory—he could just deal with the banshee and get it over with.
“Confession of the Dead.” 𝘦𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝑙.
[Confession of the Dead]
Grade: B
Effect: Allows you to look into the memories of the target. However, it only works on dead lifeforms.
The Confession of the Dead began on a body that had already died hundreds of years ago.
***
Whooosh.
Even the sturdily-built brick house could not completely keep out the cold of the snowstorm. In front of the fireplace in the house, three sons and two daughters huddled together to share their bodies’ warmth with each other.
“Ugh, it’s cold… Noona…”
“Unni… When are Mom and Dad coming?
“Waaaah.”
“Wait just a little longer. Just a little longer.”
From the wooden floor, they could feel the coldness of the ground. They threw books and fabrics in the house into the fireplace to keep the fire going, but the temperature kept dropping.
Piiik.
“N-no.”
To make matters worse, the fire that provided them with warmth eventually died down. The girl’s eyes were filled with a sense of hopelessness when she looked at the fireplace full of black ashes.
“It’s cold…”
“Unni… I’m sleepy…”
“No! Don’t fall asleep. Our parents will be back soon. Just hang in there.”
The girl hugged her younger siblings tightly and whispered. She dressed her younger sibling in her own clothes and animal skins, hoping that even a single extra layer would keep them from freezing, but their bodies had already become as cold as ice.
“They said they’d go ask the Ice Witch politely, so it’ll be warm soon. They even took the tiger skin. Do you know how expensive it would be if they sold it on the market? I’m sure even the Ice Witch will be tempted.”
“…”
The children’s parents were hunters. As hunters selling high-quality wolf, bear, rabbit, and tiger skins, they were a fairly famous couple. Unfortunately, it took only about a month for the peaceful lives of the family to change completely.
“The Ice Witch…”
Originally, the snowfield where they lived hadn’t been this cold. In fact, they would even feel hot in the morning because of the warm sunlight. However, everything changed since the Ice Witch had come to Hamel Ice Canyon. The temperature had dropped day by day after she had arrived, and eventually the parents had to make a major decision.
“We have to move.”
“…Why don’t we try meeting and asking her once before we move? She could be human too, so she probably won’t just tell us off.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to communicate with her? She seems suspicious considering she entered this deep canyon on her own.”
“Let’s take the tiger skin we hunted last time. Even if we move, we have to do it after winter. Otherwise, it would be too dangerous for the youngest.”
“Hmm… Let’s do that, then.”
Their parents took the expensive tiger skin and went into the canyon to ask for the Ice Witch’s favor. It had already been 15 days since they went out and the food had already run out. The girl tried to get food with the hunting technique she had learned from her parents, but due to the severe snowstorm, both wild animals and monsters were nowhere to be found.
“I want to eat the mushroom soup that Mom made. How about you? You’ll be able to eat it when they get back soon.”
“…”
“Won’t Dad grill the hind leg of a pig again? You guys always fought to eat that first.”
“…”
“Hey kids, are you sleeping?”
“…”
“You’re sleeping, right? You shouldn’t be sleeping… Then just a little… Only sleep for five minutes, okay?”
The girl began to cry. She could feel it against her skin which had already begun to go numb. But she did not want to face reality so easily, so she kept talking to them.
“When our parents come back… If they come back…”
She spoke that sentence for a long time like a spell as if she was brainwashing herself.
How long had it been?
– Chirp, chirp, chirp.
When the sounds of birds chirping entered her ears, the girl slowly opened her eyes. At the same time, the sound of snow being crushed with each step could be heard outside the door.
“Mom? Dad?!”
The girl opened her eyes. She carefully laid her sleeping siblings, then staggered over to the front door.
“Why are you so… Why did you come so late…?”
Tears flowed nonstop and her cheeks felt hot. The moment she opened the front door with her skinny hands, however, was the last time she had memories as a ‘human.’
***
“…”
“…”
Seo Jun-Ho and the Frost Queen kept their mouths shut.
[Ah… Ahhh… Ah…]
Still in his grasp, the banshee didn’t cry. A spiritual body couldn’t shed tears. When Seo Jun-Ho carefully released her face, she hugged the four blue vengeful spirits and sobbed.
Watching the scene, the Frost Queen finally opened her mouth to speak. Her voice was as cold as the first time Seo Jun-Ho had met her in the Nest.
“Contractor, the Ice Witch is someone else.”
“…Yeah.”
“I do not know why, but the Ice Witch was being chased. She needed a stand-in to act as a decoy…”
“…Yeah.”
“After hurting that girl and her family, the Ice Witch afflicted an ice curse on her.”
“Yeah.”
When Seo Jun-Ho slowly turned around and was about to leave quietly, the banshee questioned him.
[Where… are you going?]
At the question, Seo Jun-Ho stiffened. He turned his head slightly. “To the Ice Witch.”
A ferocious look was on his face.