Chapter 129: Paid in Suffering
Its power surpassed any skill Walfred had ever activated. In the blink of an eye, everything within a half-mile radius was buried under a field of snow.
The ground that had squelched like mud, the air, even the black fog itself froze over, stark white.
And then,
[Ambient temperature dropping.]
[Some skills are being activated.]
▷Frost Domain
▷Blessing of the Snowfield
He regained the power he’d lost.
Feeling as if he’d finally set down a heavy load he’d been carrying, Walfred gazed past the frozen white fog.
Because something conspicuously out of place had come into view.
"So that’s where you were hiding."
A body as huge as a house.
A monster wrapped in hundreds of its own tentacles, trembling violently. The moment he pinpointed the Soul Eater’s location, Walfred kicked off the ground.
"Accelerate."
Walfred vanished as if teleporting.
The Soul Eater whipped its tentacles around in a frenzy, trying to block his approach.
But,
Craaack!
the moment Walfred reached out his hand,
hundreds of tentacles froze solid all at once with [Rapid Freeze]. Then Walfred spun his whole body and swung the axe.
Crunch! Thwaaack!
The tentacles shattered into pieces.
Now nothing stood in his way.
Walfred closed the distance in a single bound, fully intending to carve up the creature’s body until he found the mana stone.
Just then, dozens of holes sprouted once more across the Soul Eater’s hide. No doubt it meant to blast Walfred away with a shockwave, as it had before.
’I won’t fall for it twice.’
Walfred immediately dropped low.
Then he used [Rapid Freeze] again.
He froze his own body and the Soul Eater’s main body together, fusing them into one.
Now there was no blowing him away.
Whoosh! Rrrrrumble!
The shockwave erupted, but just as he’d expected, his body didn’t budge. The moment the shockwave subsided, Walfred moved to resume his assault.
That was when it happened.
Flash!
From the slime-coated hide, the gigantic eyeball Walfred had split in two earlier sprouted anew.
’It regenerated its eye?’
No, this looked more like it had grown an entirely new eyeball. And the instant his gaze met the creature’s eye, the surrounding space warped.
Moments later, a familiar voice reached him.
"Mister? Are you okay?"
A schoolgirl in a thin coat.
It was Lauren. She looked at Walfred with slightly startled eyes and smiled awkwardly.
"You were just spacing out all of a sudden, so..."
She never got to finish.
Before Lauren’s smile could even fade, Walfred swung his axe and blew her head off.
At the same moment, the surroundings returned to normal.
[⳥⳦Ⳣ⳩⳨Ⲫ⳦─!?]
The Soul Eater’s scream followed.
Walfred’s axe was buried deep in its body. But it must have just barely missed the eyeball, because the hallucination triggered once again.
"Let’s all just calm down for a moment."
"The enemy is gone. You can relax."
"Walfred! It’s over. You’re okay now!"
Jonah. Bauer. Margaret. And more.
The people he’d crossed paths with since the world froze over appeared one after another.
It was probably recreating figures from his memory at random, trying to bait an opening. Not that any of it worked on Walfred.
Whack! Whack whack! Kraakrack!
With every phantom he cut down, the Soul Eater’s body became more of a mangled wreck.
Yet even so, the creature desperately protected its eyeball above all else. As if it believed hallucinations were its last and only means of standing against Walfred.
And moments later,
"Daddy!"
a familiar face appeared.
A girl of about ten with silver hair and blue eyes. A face that was the spitting image of Jenna.
It was Elsa.
"Stop it. Daddy."
Big tears welling in her eyes, Elsa spread her arms wide.
"It’s over now, so please, stop..."
Elsa approached, on the verge of tears.
And in that instant,
Whoosh! Thwack!
Walfred’s axe came down like lightning, splitting the phantom of Elsa in two. As the hallucination dissolved, what appeared in its place was a gigantic eye cleaved in half.
The Soul Eater’s eyeball.
[──!? KYAAAAAAAARGH!]
With a blood-curdling scream, the creature’s entire body convulsed.
Walfred stomped on the remains of the eyeball that had fallen to the ground, bursting it, and his lips curled.
"If you’re going to copy someone, do your homework first."
If that had been the real Elsa, the [Blessing of the Frost Dragon] would have activated.
A cold sneer settled on Walfred’s lips.
"Keep that in mind for your next impression."
Assuming there is a next time, that is.
Walfred raised his axe high.
Thwack! Whack! Whack whack whack!
Slashes rained down at terrifying speed.
Its whole body being carved to ribbons, the Soul Eater shrieked and tried to flee.
But Walfred was not about to allow that.
Craaack!
He used [Rapid Freeze] to pin the Soul Eater’s body completely to the ground. Now it could neither move nor escape.
Just then,
[Chill effect applied.]
[Target’s physical abilities reduced.]
▷Physical ability reduction: -30%
A debuff landed with perfect timing.
And with that as the starting signal, Walfred repeated a simple routine.
Thwack! Krakakrak! Thwaack!
Kick. Stomp. Crush.
Swing the axe, and swing it again.
Until the creature’s body was split into dozens, then hundreds of pieces, Walfred poured out his fury without pause.
How long had it been?
"Huff, huff!"
The result of swinging his axe until his breath caught in his throat: the Soul Eater’s body had been reduced to tatters, mangled beyond any recognition of its original shape.
The only part still intact was the mana stone.
In truth, he’d found the mana stone long ago, but he’d deliberately left it unbroken. The price for prying into his memories had to be paid in suffering worse than death.
Squirm, squirm!
Having lost even the strength to regenerate, the Soul Eater could only twitch its body in fitful spasms.
Looking down at that revolting lump of flesh, Walfred felt his white-hot fury cool. Having vented his anger to his satisfaction, he stared silently at the creature and murmured,
"Let’s end this."
He swapped the ice axe for a hammer, then concentrated cold and mana into it.
And when the charge was complete,
CRAAAACK!
the fully charged hammer slammed into the mana stone.
Under the overwhelming blow, cracks raced across the mana stone in an instant, and before long it shattered into pieces.
Crunch! Craaack!
The mana stone, utterly destroyed.
With it, the creature’s movements ceased.
[······──.]
With a fading whimper, the tattered body slowly began to melt away. The sight closely resembled the way the Skinwalkers had met their ends.
And in the process,
Plop! Patter patter!
a considerable amount of blue snow spilled out.
Snow of pure mana.
Seeing it caked with bits of innards, assorted sludge, and what looked like digestive fluid, it appeared to be residue the creature had failed to digest.
’That looks...’
Not exactly appetizing.
However much experience it gave, the truth was he balked at putting it in his mouth. But leaving it behind would be a waste, too.
Walfred quickly made his decision.
’This time, I’ll let Elsa have it.’
Elsa had an iron stomach, after all.
Enough to dig through Skinwalker corpses to find and eat snow of pure mana.
Using the tip of his boot, Walfred carefully sorted out only the snow of pure mana. Just as he was packing the gathered snow firmly into his backpack,
Ding!
-----
[Extermination successful.]
[Elite: Soul Eater]
[Rank]: A+
[Extermination Rewards]
[500,000 coins]
[Skill Book: Blessing (1)]
[Eye of Illusion Piercing]
[Mark of the Afterimage]
-----
The familiar notification appeared.
The spoils soon came pouring down onto the creature’s corpse.
Not wanting them smeared with bodily fluids, he hurriedly scooped up every last reward.
And the moment he looked at the notification again, he noticed something odd.
"Hm? A+ rank?"
Hadn’t it said A-rank?
Walfred tilted his head.
But his confusion didn’t last long.
’Probably because it devoured a Boss Monster.’
It had already been exterminated, so it hardly mattered now. Walfred quickly set the question aside.
In the meantime, the black fog that had filled the area had cleared away without a trace. Rising to his feet, Walfred turned around.
’Time to head out.’
There was no reason to linger here any longer.
After one final, thorough check to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he stepped forward,
toward the vortex that had turned blue,
as if announcing the gate had been cleared.