Return of the Frozen Player

Seo Jun-Ho approached Oh Dae-Yang’s corpse—no, the corpse of the monster that had been imitating him.

‘Confession of the Dead.’

A memory projection manifested, but the video was strange.

"Contractor, I cannot see anything. Is it the same for you?"

“Yes, it is the same for me.”

There weren’t any memories to see.

There wasn’t anything else other than pitch-dark darkness.

Seo Jun-Ho fell into contemplation.

‘This is the first time that something like this happened.’

Of course, this wasn’t the first time that Confession of the Dead malfunctioned.

For example, the cockroaches on the 4th Floor, which were members of Erebo’s hivemind, were empty shells, so his skill couldn’t even be cast on them. However, the skill had activated successfully, so it was odd that they couldn’t see anything.

“How about you try fast-forwarding or rewinding it?”

“Sounds great.”

Seo Jun-Ho tried to fast-forward.

Blub, blub, blub!

"C-Contractor! It’s boiling! It’s boiling like water with ramen in it!"

The corpse started boiling before melting into nothingness.

At the sight, Keen Intuition spoke up.

- Partner, that wasn’t natural. Someone intervened.

‘I think so, too.’

What remained of the corpse suddenly melted away.

In other words, someone was trying to stop him from seeing the corpse’s memories.

‘Keen Intuition is right; someone intervened.’

In other words, someone was watching them. Seo Jun-Ho didn’t look around like a rookie. Since Seo Jun-Ho couldn’t detect anyone with his magic, there was no way he could find the perpetrator with his naked eye.

'The first clue is this—someone is watching us. Should I be satisfied with that clue?'

After drawing his own conclusion, Seo Jun-Ho approached the Players.

"Oh, My apologies for getting too excited earlier. We’re in a maze, so it’s impossible to know when you’ll get backstabbed.”

"Well, I attacked you without any explanation."

"Hahaha!” Halgi boisterously laughed. He glanced at the other two Players and exclaimed, “I’m starting to like him!”

"The team was made haphazardly, but I think we’ll be more efficient if we have a leader. What do you guys think? Anyway, I think Specter should become our leader."

Seo Jun-Ho had just shown them that he was capable of critical-thinking and quick action in the middle of a crisis. He was more courageous than them as well. In addition, he was once the leader of all Players a long time ago, so he was the perfect leader.

"I'm fine with that. We’ve overcome that crisis thanks to you.”

"I won't object either. We trust you."

The other two agreed.

Seo Jun-Ho was now the leader of the team.

Before leaving, he decided to talk to them. "I've read your profiles. However, we’re in a special situation, so I want to hear what you can do in detail from your own mouth."

"All right, I'll tell you first." Halgi Goodrickson was a typical tanker. "My Hidden Armor is invisible. The moment the opponent thinks that their attack will go through my defenses, my Hidden Armor will stop their attack."

"What other skills do you have?"

"Physical Enhancement… Hm, I have my proud Viking’s Soul as well.”

Aside from Hidden Armour (A), Halgi’s skills weren’t that useful in a maze.

The unexpected harvest was Alba Mils.

"In addition to finding roads and traps, I can see through enemy weaknesses.”

"Hm, won’t you be able to see through the weaknesses of enemies as you fight?"

Alba snorted at Halgi's words before saying, "We will have an advantage if we know the enemies’ weaknesses before we fight them. Besides, it doesn’t end there. Attacking the weaknesses that I had identified will cause the weak spot to explode."

“That’s a great match for me.”

Nilbas' javelins exploded on contact. In other words, two explosions would occur if Nilbas struck a weakness that Alba had identified.

"Thank you for sharing...” Seo Jun-Ho mulled over their skills for a while before deciding on the formation. "Halgi will be the vanguard, Alba and Nilbas will be the rearguard, and I will go around the battlefield to help Halgi or dispose of the enemies on the rear."

It was a pretty standard formation.

However, Alba Mils tilted her head. "Won’t it be better if I take the lead and search for traps while there are no monsters?"

“We have no time.” They had about 23 hours and 52 minutes left. Seo Jun-Ho’s intuition was telling him that going through the maze wouldn’t be a leisurely stroll.

Seo Jun-Ho stood up and spoke. "We'll leave in fifteen; get ready by then.”

***

The maze was wide enough for ten men to stand next to each other on a T-pose.

The four members of the team explored the wind amidst the cold winds.

'It's not an ordinary maze.'

This wasn’t Seo Jun-Ho’s first time entering a maze-type Dungeon. A few years ago, he even entered a maze with the fiends. At that time, the entire maze was filled with parasitic monsters called Wall Mantis.

'But I don't see that kind of monster here…’

However, there was something else.

Tadadadak!

"Tra—" Alba’s warning was cut short by a wave of darkness that crushed the hundreds of arrows flying toward them.

Seo Jun-Ho said calmly, "Keep running."

"Y-yes…!"

“I’m sorry… I still can’t get used to it.”

The traps were filled with traps that would attempt to kill the intruders. If it hadn’t been for Seo Jun-Ho, the team wouldn’t have been able to walk through the maze at this speed. Alba reckoned that their clear speed would decrease dramatically.

"At this rate, we’ll reach the end of this maze soon! It doesn’t matter how big it is—"

Scratch!

A sharp claw scratched Halgi’s Hidden Armor (A).

"Ambush! I-It’s a monster!"

The goblins managed to hide from the team until the ambush.

'There are three of them. I've never seen goblins like them before.’

The goblins looked bizarre. They were walking on two legs, but they had four arms that were as sharp as a mantis’ scythe. In addition, their faces were missing and had been replaced by rows of sharp teeth.

"Alba! What are their weaknesses?"

"I'm looking for it!" Alba stared at the monsters with her eyes shining brightly in white.

A few moments later, the monsters’ bellies started shining in the same white light.

"Their stomach! Their weak point is their stomach!"

"Kiaaack!"

The monsters opened their arms and rushed at Halgi at breakneck speeds.

'These guys, they're fast…!’

He thought that he only got hit earlier because it was an ambush, but he was astonished to find that the goblins were extremely fast.

Halgi took a deep breath.

He swung his ax, but he only managed to hit one.

"Get down!"

At the command, Halgi immediately crouched.

Boom!

A javelin struck one of the goblins in the stomach, and the javelin also exploded upon contact. However, that wasn’t the end of it; Nilbas managed to hit the monster’s weak point, causing another explosion that sent it flying toward a wall.

Nilbas created a new javelin and shouted, "I'll support you from the back, so keep it up!"

“Well, that’s reassuring…" Halgi took a breath and charged with his ax.

Whack!

The ax struck the monster’s kneecap, directly severing its leg.

"Huhu, you can't move as fast as you could earlier now, can you?"

Halgi avoided the claws by a hair’s breadth and performed an overhead strike with his ax.

Whack! Whack! Crunch!

"Kiaaack!"

The monster screamed in pain and started haphazardly swinging its claws. However, it seemed that Halgi’s Hidden Armor (A) was stronger than its claws.

Scratch!

The unpleasant high-pitched scratching noise echoed throughout the maze.

"One more!"

A javelin flying from the back struck another monster that was charging at Halgi. The monster’s blood spurted like a fountain.

Seo Jun-Ho clenched his fist right away.

"Red Thorns."

Craaackle!

The remaining two goblins were instantly killed after their blood turned into frozen thorns.

"Hahaha! Our teamwork is better than I thought!" exclaimed Halgi with a red face.

It wasn’t that strange that he was happy. After all, the team didn’t really suffer any damage from the battle just now.

Seo Jun-Ho nodded before staring at the corpses.

‘They’re melting again…

The corpses of the goblins melted faster than the corpse of that monster earlier.

Perhaps the mastermind was trying to make it impossible for him to use Confession of the Dead.

‘In other words, they have a lot to hide…’

Seo Jun-Ho was sure that the mastermind was melting the corpses faster to prevent him from cheesing the maze using the monster’s memories.

“All right, let’s start moving again—what?” Alba Mils’ eyes abruptly widened. She looked in the direction where they had come from and asked, "We definitely came from that road, right?"

"It hasn’t been that long, so how come you’ve already forgotten it?"

‘Really? That’s strange…” Alba held up the map that she had been drawing along the way. "We got ambushed as soon as we turned a corner. Have you already forgotten what happened?”

“…”

Seo Jun-Ho, Halgi, and Nilbas turned to look behind Alba and found a path that led somewhere far away.

Halgi gulped. "In other words…”

"Yes, the left-hand rule has been rendered useless.”

The left-hand rule or the right-hand rule was one of the most common and effective methods to traverse mazes. By keeping one hand on the wall and moving only along that wall, the solvers were guaranteed not to get lost, and they would eventually reach the exit as long as the maze wasn’t enclosed into a square or a circle.

“But the path has changed…”

“It means that we have to change our method of traversing the maze…”

Unfortunately, doing that was only slightly better than doing nothing in a maze with an ever-changing structure.

Seo Jun-Ho looked at the remaining time.

[23:31:07]

They still had enough time because they were quick.

[23:19:06]

[23:07:05]

Blink, blink.

Seo Jun-Ho blinked twice, but the remaining time was reduced by twenty-four minutes.

Seo Jun-Ho’s expression turned ugly.

"Specter, what’s wrong?"

"Is there something wrong?”

“The time…”

The team members exclaimed upon realizing what Seo Jun-Ho was talking about.

"Hmm? We used up that much time to get this far?”

"No. There’s a ten minutes gap between the system timer and the timer on Vita.”

"Ah! It just went down by twelve minutes! Did you guys see it?”

[22:54:53]

This was the third time.

Seo Jun-Ho fell into contemplation.

‘There has to be a reason behind it.’

The time reduction was always twelve minutes.

Since it was a pattern, there had to be a reason behind it.

“Ah!” exclaimed the former detective of Trium, the Frost Queen. She smiled with confidence while staring at Seo Jun-Ho, who was still in the middle of deep contemplation. "Well, it is a cheap trick. It wasn’t that difficult for me.”

"Twelve minutes… twelve minutes…” Seo Jun-Ho muttered to himself, ignoring her.

The Frost Queen stomped and shouted, "Ah, I’m serious this time! I really got it!"

“Yeah? Let’s hear it, then.” Seo Jun-Ho casually said without much expectation.

The Frost Queen’s eyes sparkled. "Are there not a hundred and twenty Players on the 7th Floor?"

Seo Jun-Ho's expression stiffened upon hearing that.

"No, that's... ridiculous."

"Huh? Were my calculations wrong?” The Frost Queen was astonished. She started folding her fingers to calculate once more.

However, Seo Jun-Ho’s expression didn’t stiffen because the Frost Queen had made a mistake.

‘When did she become so smart?’

She couldn’t even multiply and divide, but she was already capable of such a deduction?

‘I-is this the power of a Grade 4 Arch Spirit?’

Seo Jun-Ho was surprised that the Frost Queen managed to beat him this time.

He composed himself for a moment before saying, "No, your calculations were correct."

There were 120 Players on the 7th Floor. The answer was that the remaining time would decrease by twelve minutes every time a Player died.

‘There’s also a monster in disguise in every team.’

Seo Jun-Ho suddenly recalled the system’s advice.

- The goal of this evil maze is to kill intruders by misleading them, so please keep that in mind.

In other words, this maze was basically an execution ground dedicated to killing the Players. It wasn’t a fair stage at all, unlike the Gates or the Dungeons that the Players had entered throughout their lives.

Seo Jun-Ho's expression turned cold. He initially thought that their rate of progress was fast enough, but it turned out that they were ridiculously slow.

"I think I made a mistake,” said Seo Jun-Ho while thinking of the Players who were dying somewhere in the maze even at this moment.