Chapter 57: 57

Freezing cold air greeted the adventurers as they entered the ruin. Sally started to shiver, stuttering, “I-It’s c-cold…!” A spirit was greatly affected by the environment they were in, and a ruin filled with freezing cold air was not an ideal place for a Salamander to be in.

“Stay close to Shaneth,” Kang Yoon-Soo said.

Sally wobbled toward Shaneth’s legs and clung to them. After ranking up into an Ignus Warrior, Shaneth would lose no body heat even if she stood still and did nothing. She smiled and said, “It’s cold, so stay close to me. Okay, Sally?”

“Okay! Mama is warm, so I like mama. If I’m near mama, I can use fire too!” Sally said enthusiastically as she charged herself up using Shaneth’s warmth.

They soon arrived at the depths of the ruin. A group of Ice Skeletons started to rise up from the ground that had been frozen by the cold air, and they numbered around 800.

‘The normal way to fight them would be to shoot fire arrows and fire magic from the back, but I guess we have to use a different method this time,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought to himself. He shouted a command, “Sally and Shaneth, prevent the Ice Skeletons from approaching.”

Shaneth immediately dug her scythe into the ground and called out, “Pyrokinesis!” Several walls of flame shot up from the frozen ground.

Sally, who was behind Shaneth, stretched out both of her hands and cried, “Wrath of the Flames!”

The walls of flame now had multiple layers, and as the intensely burning fire met with the frozen ice, steam rushed out all over the place. The Ice Skeletons seemed to be left at a loss by the sudden event that they had never before experienced.

Once the charge of the Ice Skeletons had been stopped, Kang Yoon-Soo raised his sword high into the air and said, “We’ll take this opportunity and ambush them while they’re confused. It’s more effective to target and shatter the spot in between their scapulae[1] rather than aim to pierce their skull.”

As soon as Kang Yoon-Soo’s command was given, the Martial Blood Clan and Kang Yoon-Soo’s undead legion charged at a frightening speed toward the Ice Skeletons.

“Uwaaah!”

“Clack! Clack!”

Kang Yoon-Soo was, of course, standing on the forefront and leading the charge. He was able to surpass everyone and everything on the battlefield thanks to the elixirs he had consumed beforehand. The bones of the Ice Skeletons shattered whenever he swung his sword. He smashed an Ice Skeleton with the Staff of Lightning in his other hand and muttered, “Release Lightning.”

Numerous Ice Skeletons exploded as soon as the staff in Kang Yoon-Soo’s hand fired off a lightning bolt, and the Martial Blood Clan members capitalized on the opportunity to charge fiercely at the skeletons. Whenever a war cry rang out across the battlefield, the sound of weapons and icy bones clashing reverberated across it too.

Clang! Clang!

However, the Ice Skeletons refused to go down without a fight, and the monsters took a last stand as they bit down on the humans’ arms.

“Ouch! M-my arm!” A clan member who had been bitten by an Ice Skeleton on the arm shouted, his face turning pale. The part bitten by the Ice Skeleton started to turn blue as frostbite set into it.

Kang Yoon-Soo calmly gave out another command. “Use the frost antidote potions you were provided as soon as you’re bitten by an Ice Skeleton. The same applies if you see one of your comrades get bitten by them. Spray the frost antidote on the wound as soon as you can.”

Most of the Martial Blood Clan members had no issues fighting. However, they found it difficult to adjust to the slippery frozen floor, and slipped and fell from time to time. “Damn it! The floor is too slippery!” they exclaimed. Meanwhile, the Ice Skeletons did not miss their chance to charge at the humans who slipped and fell to the ground.

However, a laid-back voice suddenly boomed from the back lines, “You mannerless bones! How can you go after those kids who barely know how to walk?” A group of wooden dolls charged toward the Ice Skeletons and blocked them from attacking the fallen clan members.

Henrick did not fight at the front, but rather, he stayed in the backlines and commanded twenty-four wooden dolls through his mana threads.

After a while, the last Ice Skeleton was struck down by a member of the Martial Blood Clan.

“We won!” the Martial Blood Clan members shouted joyfully. “We didn’t have any fatalities at all!”

Kang Yoon-Soo’s level had increased by six, but he had a look of dissatisfaction on his face. ‘It’s still not enough. I have to grow faster,” he thought to himself.

He had memorized the raid strategy for the Winterkill Ruin through his repeated regressions. He was confident that he could reach the heart of the ruin even though he had brought along a lower-leveled team this time around.

The adventurers took a break, recovering from the wounds they had received from the battle with the healing potions they had been provided.

“We’ll now proceed to the next floor. No one should get ahead of me,” Kang Yoon-Soo warned them as he took point. The group walked for quite a bit before they found a staircase that led to the lower level.

“It seems the ruin goes underground. The heart of the ruin that contains the treasure must be on the lowest floor,” Jiang Ren-Wei explained.

As soon as they began climbing down to the lower floor, they saw some barely-visible writing on a large frozen boulder.

Shaneth furrowed her brow and said, “There’s something written on it… but I can’t see it at all. It seems to have been written quite some time ago.”

“Hmm… Move over for a second,” Henrick said as he took out his sculpting knife and gently carved out the frozen surface of the boulder. As the ice on the boulder started to break down, the words written on its surface became visible.

[I am the adventurer Rekimond; there is not a place on the continent I have not been to. I have wandered around the continent since I was young, immersed in wanderlust. I have been to the magic tower where the colossus resides, and also to the lair of the crazed dragon.

But to think that I, the great adventurer, would end my life trapped in this ruin! I greatly regret touching that nameplate enchanted with hallucination magic! I am overcome by regret that I cannot die peacefully.

I started my last adventure by exploring this ruin, my body slowly becoming frozen. I found the secrets of this ruin just before the ember of my life died out. Who knew the secret to immortality was hidden away in this ruin?!]

The writing on the boulder ended there, leaving the group with looks of surprise.

“The secret to immortality? What does that mean?”

“Do you think it’s related to the treasure at the heart of this ruin?”

It was at that moment that the wrist devices on the Travelers rang, displaying a message.

[Hidden Quest of the Adventurer Rekimond]

The Travelers of the Martial Blood Clan had their eyes wide open in shock as they checked their wrist devices; the Continentals could also see the quest message in front of their eyes through their innate ability to read system messages.

[Ancient Adventurer]

Explore the ruin by following Rekimond’s Mana Golem. Look for the five boulders where Rekimond left behind the records of his exploration. You may enter the secret chamber once you have collected all of his records.

Reward: A meeting with Rekimond the Immortal

“It’s a hidden quest!”

It was only possible for a veteran adventurer to hide quests somewhere, and such hidden quests usually had a chance to give out rare and precious rewards. However, it was not guaranteed that such hidden quests would guide adventurers onto the right path.

Jiang Ren-Wei looked around the basement of the ruin inquisitively and asked, “Rekimond’s Mana Golem? Where is that thing?”

The large boulder the writing had been inscribed on started to move as soon as Jiang Ren-Wei was finished speaking. The frost covering the boulder fell off as arms and legs made out of stone appeared from it. Suddenly, a large blue boulder covered in mana had revealed itself.

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“It’s a golem!” Shaneth exclaimed, surprised.

It was a golem powered by a mana stone. The Mana Golem stared down at the humans with its single eyeball, located quite a distance above them. It said in a rough and deep voice, “I shall follow the commands of the Great Adventurer, Rekimond Aurel, and guide you.”

The Mana Golem did not attack them and just stood in place. The clan members were scared to approach it at first, but they soon gathered the courage to go closer after sensing that it was not hostile toward them.

“Oh!”

“To think such a large golem is going to be our ally!”

“It’s amazing. It seems to be larger and much stronger than the golems made by the alchemists.”

Sally excitedly jumped up and sat on the golem’s shoulder, exclaiming, “Wow! This rock is really big!”

The Mana Golem remained silent before slowly taking steps forward. Kang Yoon-Soo overtook the golem, walking ahead of it.

The golem said, sounding upset, “You. Do not walk in front of me.”

“I don’t want to,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“You, why do you refuse to walk behind me?” the Mana Golem asked.

“You’re slow,” Kang Yoon-Soo responded.

“You, I do not like you,” the golem said.

While still sitting on the shoulder of the Mana Golem, Sally suddenly said in a consoling tone, “Don’t worry, rocky! Papa is always like that!”

“You, why are you on my shoulder? Get down,” the golem ordered Sally.

“Hing. Sally likes it here! The view is nice too!” Sally exclaimed, refusing to move.

“You too, I do not like you,” the golem said.

Henrick could not help but snicker at the sight, remarking, “What a fun bunch.”

The first basement level of the Winterkill Ruin was vast. The group encountered new kinds of monsters wherever Kang Yoon-Soo and the Mana Golem guided them.

Hundreds of Ice Landworms pierced through the frozen ground, charging toward the group in an attempt to swallow them. The adventurers raised their weapons as they prepared for battle, except one. Iris just smiled at the scene and said, “Those appear to have hearts, unlike the skeletons. I think they will be tasty.”

“…Please tell us about your appetite later on!” Shaneth shouted as she swung her Death Scythe mightily.

The Ice Landworms attacked with their teeth just like the normal Landworms, but they also had the tendency to dive down into the ground and suddenly pop up again at random intervals. The Mana Golem stomped through the battlefield and pulled out Ice Landworms with its gigantic hands; they exploded whenever it squeezed them tightly in its hand.

Kwachik!

“Enemy. I will kill,” the Mana Golem declared in a commanding voice. It exuded an immense presence on the battlefield. It was larger and stronger than a normal golem, as its body had originally been a large boulder imbued with mana.

“It’s a relief that a strong golem like that is an ally,” Jiang Ren-Wei sighed with relief.

“It will turn into an enemy later on, so be careful,” Kang Yoon-Soo said.

“What?” Jiang Ren-Wei said in surprise, staring at Kang Yoon-Soo, but Kang Yoon-Soo had already walked away from him.

The exploration of the ruin proceeded smoothly thanks to the Mana Golem massacring all of the monsters that showed up, and they also found all of the records left behind by Rekimond. A strange story formed as they collected all of the records and read them as one.

[I found out after a long investigation that the secret to immortality lay at the heart of the ruin. An Ice Giant lives on the lowest floor of the ruin; I shone a torch in its eyes and snuck into the heart of the ruin. There I found the secret to immortality, which was the biggest treasure this ruin held! The excitement in my body still has not subsided; I kept that treasure in the heart of the ruin. I shall become an immortal after I leave this record.]

The floor vibrated intensely as what the adventurers had originally thought was a wall suddenly cracked open. The Mana Golem stomped its way toward the opening, and the rest of the party followed behind it. The place they entered was a gigantic room, containing an altar made of ice. No one knew what the altar was for, but it was tall and majestic. The clan members commented among themselves.

“What is this place?”

“Look! Someone’s at the top of the altar!”

A middle-aged man in shabby clothes was standing atop the altar; he looked like someone who had traveled for quite a while, as his back was burdened by a huge backpack. The man said in a high-pitched voice, “Amazing! You are the first adventurers to make it to this point.”

“Who are you?” a clan member asked.

“My name is Rekimond Aurel. I lost my way in this ruin just like you guys around 300 years ago,” Rekimond said. The clan members looked shocked, as Rekimond looked unbelievably young for someone who had lived for more than 300 years.

Rekimond, on the other hand, spoke with a gentle look on his face. “I am certain that you, who managed to find my records and make it to this place, are certainly capable adventurers. I am glad to have capable juniors like you. I am sure that all of you found the hidden quest I left behind? Come up here, those of you who wish to receive their reward.”

The first one to climb atop the altar was Kang Yoon-Soo. He was the representative of the raid, and no one had any qualms about him being the first one to receive the rewards for clearing the quest. He slowly climbed up the altar and stood in front of Rekimond.

Rekimond smiled as he extended his hand toward Kang Yoon-Soo and said, “An exciting tale will be spread to the world thanks to brave adventurers like you! Shall we shake hands?”

Kang Yoon-Soo stared at Rekimond, but he did not extend his hand in response. Instead, his hand moved to the sword on his waist.

“What are you doing?” Rekimond asked.

“I was quite surprised when I first met you. Who would have guessed that the reward for clearing your quest was to be a sacrifice on this altar?” Kang Yoon-Soo remarked.

“I do not understand. What are you talking about?” Rekimond asked once again, furrowing his brow.

Kang Yoon-Soo gripped the Sword of the Holy Cross on his waist and said, “I’ve tried countless different ways to deal with you, and I found you were the easiest to deal with if I attacked you while you were pretending to be a human.”

It was at the moment that Rekimond was about to say something that…

Sukeok!

Kang Yoon-Soo stabbed him in the heart with the Sword of the Holy Cross.

1. The scapula is more commonly known as the shoulder blade, but in this instance, Kang Yoon-Soo is telling them to aim for the skeletons’ clavicles instead. ☜

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