Return of the Frozen Player-Chapter 321: Another World (4)
Vrrr.
“Shall I go to Jongro~ Shall I go to Myeongdong... Huh?”
Holding the noisy vacuum cleaner, Skaya suddenly stopped on the street and tilted her head. She had spotted a familiar face nearby.
‘It’s the Sword Saint.’
He was standing still in the middle of the street with his eyes closed. At first, she thought he was pushing out his magic to look for marbles, but that wasn’t it. Skaya didn’t sense a single drop of magic energy around him.
“...!”
Just then, Kim Woo-Joong’s eyes opened as fast as lightning. He walked into the nearby knife noodle restaurant and rummaged around. Shortly after, he came trudging out with empty hands.
“What are you doing?” Skaya asked him.
“...” Kim Woo-Joong completely avoided the question and asked a question of his own. “...Weren’t you at the department store? Why are you using a vacuum cleaner on the streets?”
“This isn’t a vacuum cleaner.” It was the Magic Detector 4.0. “This little genius alone found 70 marbles today. I went off on my own because it’s so efficient.”
With her explanation finished, Skaya asked him again, “So, what was that weird thing you did just now?”
Kim Woo-Joong squirmed when she pressed him and eventually caved.
“Hmm... Ah, a-ha... So, Jun-Ho found marbles using that method?” Skaya asked. As soon as he told him the story, she knew that it was probably Keen Intuition.
‘But had Keen Intuition always been that good?’
According to what Kim Woo-Joong had told her, Skaya thought that the skill would find Seo Jun-Ho more marbles than the Magic Detector 4.0.
She stared blankly at her vacuum cleaner before making a decision.
“I’m going to make the 5.0 tonight at the hotel.”
“...”
Vrrr...
The Magic Detector made a sorrowful sound in her hand.
***
- Break the floor tile in the third row.
“Ooh, fifteen marbles.” Seo Jun-Ho grinned in joy. He was collecting marbles without a hitch. “This is so convenient.”
- I told you that I would be of more assistance than that child.
“...By ‘that child,’ you are not referring to the Queen of the great kingdom of Niflheim, are you?” The Frost Queen had been trailing behind Seo Jun-Ho in silence. Her face grew cold. If she were an adult, the look on her face would have been very intimidating, but since she had the appearance of a child right now, it was just cute.
“Stop it. Why can’t you guys go one minute without bickering?” Seo Jun-Ho scolded them with a sigh. The Frost Queen looked at him with great bitterness.
“Why are you looking at me? That rude little...”
“Be nice...”
“The mannerless skill started it first.”
However, Seo Jun-Ho couldn’t help that he couldn’t see Keen Intuition, so he was scolding Frost who he could see. He sighed and sat on the toilet, counting the marbles he had collected so far.
‘125. That was really fast.’
Even taking into account the fact that he had no competitors, he was still very fast in collecting marbles. “I’ve cleared the second Quest, too.”
After the first Quest, which required him to collect ten marbles, the next one required him to collect a hundred. And now, it was time to clear the third Quest.
[Third Quest]
Requirements: Use a marble vending machine 1 time.
If he continued with this pace, he would be able to go over to the next city within a week.
“Now, now, stop it. Stop fighting, and tell me where I need to go next.” Seo Jun-Ho stood up and exited the bathroom.
- Above you!
Just as Keen Intuition warned him urgently, the ceiling caved in and three giant bugs fell through. Thanks to Keen Intuition, Seo Jun-Ho was a beat early and had already unsheathed his sword.
Slice!
The jet-black sword aura covering the Sword of Ambition cut straight through one of the cockroaches in the blink of an eye.
“Kieee!”
“...”
The other two prepared to counterattack, but just as Seo Jun-Ho turned toward them, they suddenly froze like toys that had run out of battery.
“...?”
Were they trying to make him let down his guard? Seo Jun-Ho eyes narrowed. He had no idea what was going on.
And then, a completely unexpected message appeared before him.
[The effects of Title ‘Exterminator’ has been activated.]
[Bugs are afraid of you.]
It hadn’t been some sort of battle tactic. The two cockroaches had merely frozen up in fear upon seeing their natural predator. Their antennae shivered finely, as if they were praying for him to pass by.
“Exterminator?” Seo Jun-Ho said.
This was the Title he had received after defeating Janabi. At the time, he had been pretty salty, thinking that it had such a useless effect.
‘But it actually works on the cockroaches on the 4th floor?’
Because the description mentioned ‘bugs,’ Seo Jun-Ho thought that it would only apply to the tiny ones like flies and mosquitoes. He never thought it would work on a cockroach that looked big enough to eat a cow.
The cockroaches stood as still as statues, and Seo Jun-Ho severed their heads in a flash similar to lightning. They died without even resisting.
“...”
As he looked down at the dead monsters, Seo Jun-Ho’s face grew unclear.
‘This is... A good thing, right?’
As long as the Title was effective, he would have no reason to fear the monsters on the 4th floor.
‘Let’s read their memories for now.’
Seo Jun-Ho approached a bug covered in green fluid and held out his hand. “Confession of the Dead.” His hand shone brightly, and a message appeared.
[The skill has failed to activate.]
“...?!” Seo Jun-Ho stared blankly at his hand. ‘It failed?’
It didn’t say that he couldn’t read the memories in detail because his skill rank was too low. This was the first time the skill itself had failed to activate. Just to be sure, he tried to use it on the other two.
[The skill has failed to activate.]
[The skill has failed to activate.]
“...”
At that, his face turned grave.
‘Why in the world can’t I use it?’
His mind quickly came up with two possible explanations.
The first explanation was that the bugs weren’t living creatures. Confession of the Dead was a skill that only let him look at the memories of living creatures.
‘And second... Their memories have been erased.’
If that were the case, it made sense that the skill would fail to activate. After all, there were no memories to look at.
“...”
However, there could be another explanation he hadn’t even thought of at all.
Seo Jun-Ho’s chest grew tight with frustration.
“Let’s go. There’s nothing more to see here,” he said.
“...”
When the Frost Queen didn’t reply, he turned around and scratched his cheek.
‘Man, I guess the cockroaches weren’t the only ones who had met their natural enemy.’
The Frozen Queen had also went stiff, as if she were a toy that had run out of battery.
***
Seo Jun-Ho returned to the hotel before sunset. The other party members were already gathered in the lobby and were betting on who had gathered the most marbles.
“Ehem.” Skaya looked more haughty than usual. She looked at Seo Jun-Ho nervously. “...How many did you get?”
“214.”
“Dammit! If I used the 5.0, I would have beaten you!” Still looking angry, she told them that she had gathered 155.
“Now, I feel depressed...”
“Why are you so upset that you lost?”
“It’s not that,” Skaya said, letting out a long sigh. “There was a vending machine in front of that school over there.”
“Yeah, I saw them all over the place.”
“I happened to be passing by, so I put in the marbles I collected today.”
The vending machine required a hundred marbles per use. They all looked at her eagerly, afraid that they would miss a single word.
“So what did you get? A skill? Stat points?”
“...Nothing.”
“Nothing came out?”
“Yeah, it was one of the broken vending machines Wei Chun-Hak had mentioned.” Skaya looked like she was about to cry. “Now, I’ve lost one of my chances.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can only use the marble vending machines nine more times. Why should it count when it was bugged?”
“Hm...”
Vending machines that ate marbles without giving out any rewards. They wouldn’t be there for no reason at all.
“Since you have already lost a chance, can you try using it nine more times?” Seo Jun-Ho proposed.
“Do you wanna die? Do you want to eat Mio’s cooking tomorrow?”
“...?”
They ignored Mio’s confused face and continued the conversation.
“I found forty-nine.”
“Rahmadat and I collected about sixty each. With our current pace, I think it would take us about two weeks to collect a thousand.”
Aside from Cha Si-Eun, who had found the least number of marbles, their numbers didn’t differ much.
“I’ll lend you the Magic Detector 4.0 tomorrow,” Skaya said to Cha Si-Eun.
“What about you, unnie?”
“I’ll be fine since I’m gonna make the 5.0 tonight.” If Skaya lended the Magic Detector to the other party members, they would be even faster in gathering marbles.
“There’s something I need to tell you all,” Seo Jun-Ho said. He told them about Exterminator.
“So, the cockroaches couldn’t even move? -yo?” Kim Woo-Joong asked.
“Yes. They were all frozen up.”
The look in their eyes changed. They recalled the myriads of cockroaches they had seen covering the city on their first night. If Seo Jun-Ho was telling the truth, they could hunt them easily and level up.
“It may be too early to say for sure. Test it out a few more times while you’re collecting marbles,” Gilberto advised coolly.
If the results were the same as today, they would no longer need to hide at night. They would spend the day collecting marbles and spend the night collecting EXP.
***
It seemed that Keen Intuition had some sort of trick up his sleeve. After finding 214 marbles on the first day, he found a whopping 150 on the second day before it was even noon.
“That’s 364,” Seo Jun-Ho said. With this, he could use the vending machine three times. He looked around for the machines to fulfill the third Quest.
‘Now that I want to use them, I can’t find any...’
He continued walking down the street and finally came across a vending machine.
“Oh, but this is...” Seo Jun-Ho looked around. After going running around all over to find marbles, he had somehow ended up in front of a school. This was the broken vending machine Skaya had mentioned last night. Strangely enough, it did capture his attention, but he didn’t really want to use it himself.
- Wait. Try using that vending machine.
“...Weren’t you listening last night? It’s broken.”
- I am well aware. However...However, I sense something.
As always, Keen Intuition’s advice had no basis.
‘All he does is tell me what he senses. But...’
Seo Jun-Ho stroked his chin. Just as monkeys sometimes fell off trees, there were times when Keen Intuition was incorrect.
‘Actually, some of the places he told me to go to yesterday didn’t have any marbles.’
Despite those moments, Keen Intuition’s probability of success was still high, but that didn’t mean Seo Jun-Ho could trust him a hundred percent and follow him blindly.
“You’re saying that you sense something special about that vending machine, right?”
- Of course; however, the decision lies in you.
All Keen Intuition did was expand Seo Jun-Ho’s options. He never forced them onto him.
‘Putting my marbles in there knowing that it’s a broken vending machine... That’s not an easy decision to make.’
Wei Chun-Hak had warned them to immediately go to another vending machine if they came across a broken one. Out of the 20,000 Players, not a single one had gotten anything out of those broken vending machines.
“...Let me think about it a bit more.” He couldn’t make a decision right away, on the spot. He didn’t see any reason to go as far as giving up a guaranteed profit from another machine.
“And this is a school.”
Seo Jun-Ho studied the vast grounds of the high school.
‘A school that big should have an underground parking lot.’
His goal for today wasn’t just to collect marbles. It was also important for him to test the effects of Exterminator a few more times just to make sure it was working.
“Let’s go.”
“Must we do this?”
“I’ll give you cake back at the hotel.”
“...”
He could hear the Frost Queen quietly trailing behind him.
